Chrimbo - a cooking post

The run-up to Christmas has been fairly non-existent. So much so that my present shopping this year consisted of the Boy sending me the link for the gift he wanted and me plugging in my bank details. (My FIL is celebrating with us and we got him an experiential gift so again, not much gift wrapping going on there).

Unsurprisingly, we did go all-out on the food and booze. $150 on wines and spirits, including some delicious boozy eggnog, and another $50 on beer later, we were well-stocked for Christmas.

Food-wise, I went down the American route and brined my turkey. This involves sitting your turkey in a salt/sugar solution for up to 24 hours. Our brining mixture was filled with aromatic orange peel, rosemary, apple cider/juice, bay leaves and peppercorms, which was promptly plonked into three bin liners. It was a big-arse turkey.

Apart from the final 45 minutes, it was a pretty stress-free cooking experience. I pretty much pottered in the kitchen for 14 hours over two days, concocting the following:
- bread sauce
- cranberry sauce
- chestnut and apricot stuffing
- sage and onion stuffing
- roast potatoes
- creamed spinach
- mashed sweet potatoes
- roasted parsnips and carrots
- roast potatoes
- anchovy and hazelnut brussel sprouts
- Fifteen's Christmas Salad
- eggs royale (with the most delicious pastrami-smoked smoked salmon)

The most eventful part was the exploding chestnut stuffing, or rather, the exploding dish, which was screaming hot and didn't take kindly to being placed on a small puddle of cold water. Our guests still gallantly tried some in spite of the threat of micro lacerations to the oesophagus - I'm waiting in fear for a call about this or food poisoning.

My thoughts on the brined turkey are that it was indeed moist but tasted like brined meat. Think turkey-textured ham. The timings were pretty good (if I do say so myself), so I think the bird would have been moist enough without the brining. The verdict is that it was an interesting experiment, but one to be left to the Americans.

Second-day turkey in 36 minutes' time.

Finally! Acceptance!

Aside from my beloved Punk Rope, I also go a martial arts school. It is full of hardcore mofos, who are rock solid; super sweaty; and take four hour-long classes in a row. The women are all incredibly unfriendly, as they want to show that they are even harder mofos than the blokes.

Last week, the instructor told us to pair up to do drills. I approached one girl, who I will call Boss-Eyed. She quickly pointed at someone else so I sloped off and tried to find another partner. I ended up partnerless (unless you count the bag) but then she decided that she didn't have a partner after all. I got super mad that she clearly didn't want to  be my partner because, well, because I'm crap, basically. I spent each drill pretending I was kicking or punching her face. I know, I know, not very charitable during this festive period.

Yesterday, I met a new girl, who was taking part in her second class. She was a stunt woman! How cool is that? She also had low opinions of the friendliness of the women in the class.

In today's Muay Thai class, I got battered whilst sparring this woman who I've seen fight the blokes. The whole time, the instructor was tell her to go lighter, and after the first three women, none of the other women were too keen to fight her. I came out with a blistered lip and fully dazed.

However, my three minutes in the ring led to Boss-Eyed actually coming up to talk to me. We had a whole conversation. Until now, I thought that she couldn't really speak English, to be honest. Rather than snubbing her, I fully engaged with her, and cracked my funniest jokes. And at the end, she asked me what my name was!

"I'm Boss-Eyed.' She said. OK, maybe she didn't.

But she's accepted me. Huzzah. I'm one of the mean Muay Thai women now. I'm so not talking to any newbies tomorrow.

Three Bands, One Week

OK, so two of the bands played the same night but that still counts.

The Boy got us guest tickets to see the Hives play at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. This is equivalent to the O2 in London and is part owned by Jay-Z. There's also an interesting story around a basketball team being from New Jersey to become the Brooklyn team but I'm not sure I could do it justice (though that's pretty much it).

We had fancy-dan seats to the right of the stage, meaning that it was one of those infrequent gigs where I got to see everything that was going on. And they are some performers. Extremely energetic, passionate, and cocky, it's hard not to like them.

What I haven't mentioned is that they were supporting Pink. Can you imagine a worse gig? Playing to a arena full of people who are here for a pop queen when you're a Swedish rock band. There were a lot of confused, pink-clad teenagers in the crowd, I can tell you.

Particular kudos goes to the sound ninjas who ran around after the guitarist and lead singer as they pranced and bounded around the stage. If it weren't for the ninjas (clad head to toe in black with even their faces covered) there would have been a number of fatalities, strangled or clothes-lined by the microphone leads.

Moving onto Pink. Wow. I am a new fan. She can sing OK, but what's incredible is the show that she puts on. The show opens to a acrobatic performance with her bouncing on a bungee cord, up and down, up and down. Incredible. The last interesting bit was the spinning cage, throughout which she carried on singing like a trooper. She's a veritable role model and as the Boy's boss exclaimed next to me, 'I liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike.'

Last night, we went to see the pretentious sounding !!! (Chk Chk Chk). We've been caning their record so pretty up to speed, but as we've only been listening to their newer stuff, I had tried to listen to one of their older tracks on Youtube. Oh my God, I had to stop the live gig in Sydney as my ears were hurting so much. The lead singer has a ropey voice.

Nonetheless, it was an amazing gig. The lead singer, whilst he is lacking in the tunefulness department, he is a natural performer. Who else can pull off a performance in the East Village in a pair of boxers and camp dance with everyone in the crowd. We were in the middle of the room and he was dancing right in front of me for ages. Surreal.

Gig going is very different here. It's a way more chilled affair. It's almost like people aren't as all-or-nothing about it as Brits. It's just another night out to them. As I approach my mid-thirties, I'm truly digging the laid-back gig expeditions complete with a three-minute walk home. Nice!

Wee Observations

Not much has happened since L left us on Tuesday. We've been keeping a low profile, trying to save some cash and prepare ourselves for the Christmas and New Year festivities.

So, as I have nothing to report apart from the fact I'm been feel uggggghhh and exercising too much, I'll share my observations of New York over the holidays. I have may have mentioned this already, but Thanksgiving finished and very the next day, Christmas kicked in. There are Christmas tree vendors on every corner. Right opposite our building there's a wee vendor (outside the obligatory church) with a wooden shed with lights and everything.

The 'holiday' market in Union Square is great and full of cool gifts and of course cider and mulled wine. Except the cider isn't hard cider, as the Americans call alcoholic cider and the mulled wine isn't alcoholic. Pah! Where's the fun in that? Markets are good usually, but what makes them is the gratuitous outdoor drinking.

Next, isn't really about New York but remote working. There is no embarrassing Christmas party! My boss kindly offered to Skype me into the office quiz and to watch them do the office Secret Santa, but I in my best Scrooge voice declined. Who wants to watch other people having fun from their hallway? Uck.

Anyway, that's all. Oh, and the streets of New York smell way more like weed than London's.

Thanksgivikkah and a British Invasion

Last week, an old housemate stopped by with his fiancee. They were greeted with -6 Celsius weather not counting the bitingly cold wind chill factor. We warmed up their extremities with potent cocktails, again at PDT and some yakiniku at Gyukaku. I just need another 220 points to hit the 500 point target and a free voucher of $25. (I'll telling you, it's a lorra meat I've eaten to get to 280 points).

Thursday was Thanksgiving Day and for the first time for many, many years (the next will be in 2070-something), it was also the first day of Hanukkah, hence the Thanksgivikkah tag that has been rife on FB. 16 of us piled into our Brit friends' apartment where we proceeded to eat our body weight in anything we could lay our hands on. It's definitely good practice for Christmas.

The vibe in the run-up was also Christmas-like. There was definitely the holiday spirit and the roads have been calm. Yesterday, we walked along Brooklyn Heights promenade towards Brooklyn Bridge. There was a definite family air to the place, which I've not felt there on previous visits.

Strangely, the consensus amongst the group of Thanksgiving orphans was that Christmas was still the bigger holiday in America, which contradicts what I had thought all along. I had always thought that Thanksgiving was the Big Holiday. Having said this, as the Boy rightly pointed out, that's just one group of folks, so it would be interesting to do a straw poll.

Friday saw the arrival of Mr Hangover and another good friend from Blightly. We have played skeeball and arcade games, gone to a cocktail bar in Midtown East and then for a delicious curry with three other Brits so this week has been a veritable British Invasion. Off for the quintessential NY brunch now...