King of the Road

I grew up in Miami. A hot tropical place with palm trees and beaches and bugs and very high humidity. Christmas in Miami is a bit odd and surreal. I say this because when you look at all the Christmas storybooks and images there is always snow and cold and reindeer and coats and furry hats, none of which you will find in Miami. The Christmas trees go up with their twinkling lights and fake snow skirts and look completely out of place, so does Santa Claus with his red fur lined coat and hat, the man must be suffocating to death. As a child I would get up on Christmas morning and put on a sweater and wool hat and scarf (yes, I had them) and since the air conditioning was blaring I felt like those storybook Christmases, then I would go outside to play with my new toys and run back in to change into shorts and a t-shirt. Reality check. When we were married we moved up North to New Jersey and have spent every Christmas here ever since. Not because we didn't want to go home for Christmas, it was because where I worked which was a very small firm my boss would take the week off and I had to hold down the fort so I could never have Christmas week. I no longer work there so this year we decided it was time to go home for Christmas and spend it with the family and since Max is a part of the family he would come along which meant driving from South Orange, New Jersey to Miami, Florida: 1280.64 miles or 19 hours or so  on I-95 if everything goes perfectly well. We left on Friday evening at around 7:00 PM, stopped in Richmond, Virginia somewhere around midnight and found a pet friendly Comfort Inn, got up at 6:00 AM on Saturday morning and arrived at my brother's house in Miami close to midnight thanks to a bumper to bumper traffic jam through two thirds of South Carolina's 198 miles and a massive accident that closed the Palmetto expressway in Miami and stuck us there for 40 minutes when we thought we had finally hit home. Thankfully my brother had had the where withal to go buy Cuban sandwiches for us at La Carreta

and just like that we were home for the holidays. Miami, better known as Cuba North! Here's a little triptych.

Max eyeing the pool at my brother's house.

The stunningly gorgeous Perez Art Museum! Finally!

The stunningly gorgeous views of Biscayne Bay from the Perez Art Museum.

Cielito Lindo. The building where Cubans were processed when we arrived during the freedom flights.

Lunch at PAMM!

EL MAGO DE LAS FRITAS!!!!! Worth the trip alone!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Wine! A converted gas station selling wine and serving tapas, yes it's true.

Christmas Eve at my BFF's from childhood. (This is an absolute terrible picture of me but the humidity was high, my hair yucky, a strange pose but who cares, it's Christmas and she looks awesome!)

Christmas morning with my brother, sister-in law, niece and nephew!

Christmas Day ducky face selfies with the cousins and Frank having a Cuban!

Dinner at "El Carajo" with the cousins, yet another converted gas station! I'm not even going to get into trying to explain the name!

And then, just like that, we're home! Happy New Year!

Christmas in this crazy house!

Our tree is much smaller this year

and my pictures came out awful except for this one I took with my phone. When I look at it it reminds me of the Grinch, with it's very long neck and big round star that looks like his big head, but for some reason I couldn't bring myself to chop off the top, so here it is.  Speaking of the grinch, I didn't know his dog's name was Max

which is quite the coincidence because I always thought there was a resemblance,

don't you, except for the antlers or course!

Anyway, I am hastily writing this post because I don't want to diss Jane's party invite. 

Merry Christmas to all!

Turkey turkey...duck

Our Thanksgiving forecast went something like this: Cold, snow, cold, snow, etc, etc. Temperatures were due to plummet on Tuesday night, going from a balmy fifty something to 30F. Wednesday morning would greet us with freezing rain which would then turn to snow as the temperatures dropped sometime in the afternoon. Depending on where you were the accumulations varied greatly: New York City, a slushy 1 to 3 inches; Northwestern New Jersey 6 to 12; everybody else, somewhere in between. We fall in the somewhere in between category. Regardless, a white Thanksgiving was on it's way. Luckily Frank works remotely from home every Wednesday and my office was closing at 2:00 PM. I imagined, correctly, that most people would work remotely that day but since I'm only 15 miles away I was going in. Our Thanksgiving this year would be just the two  three of us, we had planned on maybe going away and then changed our minds so all I needed to do was go out and get the turkey because we wouldn't be making the customary 40 side dishes and appetizers followed by 12 pies just for us. On Monday after work I hightailed it off to Trader Joe's where last year I got a beautiful fresh organic turkey and at a great price to boot. I ran to the back and stared at these giant lumps sitting in the case, and no matter how much I stared they never got smaller, the smallest turkey they had was 16 pounds, that's a large baby and to much for us. I went home dejected, and clueless. When I told Frank my very sad story (which by the way is pretty dramatic of me, there are other markets!) he said "who needs a turkey, let's have duck!" Ooooh duck! Our Thanksgiving was saved!

Our Thanksgiving morning looked like this:

and Max and I went walking in our snow gear,

and since we had no place to go, read the newspaper until it was time to move into the kitchen, to prepare our lovely little duckling.

Roast Duck

1 whole duck, about 5 lbs (this one is a biggy-7)
1 duck neck
1 lb carrots, peeled and cut in large pieces
1 lb of beets, cut in large pieces
2 large leeks, cut in two inch pieces, well washed
1 large red onion cut in slivers
6 garlic cloves, unpeeled
Salt, pepper, fresh thyme sprigs

Preheat oven to 500F

Rinse duck inside and out and dry. Season liberally inside and out with salt and pepper. Place 2 garlic cloves, a couple of thyme sprigs, piece of carrot and leek inside the cavity and truss the duck.

Place the duck in a shallow roasting pan and scatter the remaining vegetables around it. Cover loosely with aluminum foil. 

Place in oven for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, reduce oven temperature to 300F and roast the duck for 3:30 to 4 hours. 

Remove the foil and roast one more hour. 

Remove the duck to a platter, place vegetables around it. Simmer the liquid until thickened a bit and pour into a gravy tureen.

Carve, serve with vegetables and rice with sauteed leeks and onions.

Start off with Black Bean and pumpkin soup from Smitten Kitchen

because once you've had that you'll never go back! For dessert I made chocolate panna cotta which I neglected to photograph.

Friday morning we decided to go to Newton New Jersey for some antiquing because I will not step foot inside a store on Black Friday. Didn't find anything I particularly liked except for the beautiful calm of our first winter storm.

Oh to have four seasons! I am very thankful.

The Greatest Show on Earth...

...is almost over