sur­viv­ing the holidays

It’s that time of year, as I note every year, when the pages start to fly off the cal­en­dar and the hours on a clock spin around, just like in a car­toon.  In the three weeks before we head “home” for Christ­mas in Con­necti­cut, we have two plays to see, a car­ol con­cert to attend, two din­ner par­ties to go to and at least as many to host, a vis­it to the ortho­don­tist, a trip for us grownups to a land­mark house in West Sus­sex and a school trip to St Peters­burg for Avery.  It makes me tired just to write it all down, but the way I get around that is by remind­ing myself that all these things will be great fun indi­vid­u­al­ly; it’s just look­ing at the cal­en­dar that’s daunting.

Thanks­giv­ing has come and gone.  I think every sin­gle flat sur­face in my kitchen, that evening, was cov­ered with some­thing to eat.  And eat we did, with lots of blaz­ing can­dles and lit­tle fairy lights I’ve obses­sive­ly ordered from a real­ly cheap light­ing com­pa­ny, Lights4Fun.  Our gar­den is full of them, our kitchen is draped all over.  Of course, John reminds me that all the mon­ey I save buy­ing them dis­count­ed, I will more than make up for in bat­ter­ies.  But it’s worth it, look and see.

The best part of the whole Thanks­giv­ing din­ner was, every­one agreed — even lit­tle chil­dren who took sec­ond and third help­ings! — the cheesy spinach.  After many years of offer­ing you seem­ing­ly end­less vari­eties of recipes for this dish, I have hit upon the per­fect ver­sion.  It’s sim­ply to die for: creamy, salty, bright green, gar­licky, cheesy.  You will be shocked at how much every­one can eat.

The Ulti­mate Cheesy Spinach

(serves 4 easily)

500 grams (about 8 loose­ly packed cups, or 2 large pack­ages in the UK) fresh baby spinach

3 tbsps butter

2 tsps flour

5 cloves gar­lic, minced

1/3 cup light cream

1 1/2 cups sharp Ched­dar cheese, grated

cel­ery salt to taste, per­haps 2–3 tsps

sprin­kle grat­ed Parme­san cheese

Sim­ply chop the spinach in your food proces­sor, a large hand­ful at a time, puls­ing so the leaves are incor­po­rat­ed from the top and the bot­tom leaves don’t turn to mush.  You want the con­sis­ten­cy of chopped onions.  As you go through the hand­fuls, place the chopped spinach in a large bowl.

Now melt the but­ter in a large, heavy-bot­tomed fry­ing pan or saucepan.  Stir in the flour and cook, bub­bling, for about a minute, not let­ting the mix­ture brown.  Add the gar­lic and stir for a moment.

Add all the oth­er ingre­di­ents but the Parme­san, and stir patient­ly over a low heat.  At first it may seem that the ingre­di­ents will nev­er come togeth­er, but they do, after 4–5 min­utes.  Taste for cel­ery salt: don’t add too much at first because it is quite salty.  When the cheese is melt­ed and the spinach creamy, pour the whole lot into a bak­ing dish, about 9x9 inch­es, and sprin­kle the grat­ed Parme­san on top.  Bake at 350F/180C for about 25 min­utes or until nice­ly gold­en and bubbly.

Let’s hope that all the good­ness of this dish: the iron, the cal­ci­um, and let’s face it, the GAR­LIC, will give us all the strength to get through our Christ­mas prep, and maybe even enjoy it at the same time.