In Christmas in Connecticut, Elizabeth Lane is a professional liar and not-quite-married woman whose uncle Felix owns a restaurant and believes paprika will fix ‘this’: the 1940s rom-com escapades of the movie—the true spirit of Christmas being, of course, a hot sailor who loves reading lifestyle magazines.
Unlike Elizabeth Lane, I’m writing this from my couch, with Gidget loafing against the laptop; and as any reader knows, this newsletter is no lifestyle magazine.
Nonetheless—I’m grateful for everyone who has joined the ride of this odd little squeaky-wheeled operation. Thank you for reading!
In the spirit of squeaky wheels, here’s a last-minute gift guide to send off this year and warn 2023, in advance, to mind its damn business.
Cook or Bake Something
But only if you like doing those things! Do not give yourself misery so as not to appear miserly!
Chutneys
I meant to give a friend a cranberry-date chutney but made it before I realized she would be away for The Holidays (Adrien, I’m sorry!), and I didn’t know how long the chutney would last in the fridge unattended. BUT. If you have not ran into this schedule issue, then you should make chutneys, ideally for other people but most ideally for yourself too.
I like making Padma Lakshmi’s cranberry chutney, using the tempering from this recipe, and with dates added if / because I add too much water.
Biscotti
Traditionally, these Italian twice-baked biscuits are almond flavored, but why stop there when biscotti are a perfect canvas for so much else? Thankfully, nobody has stopped there; any reputable Google search for “biscotti recipe” will slap you in the face with options.
My perennial favorite is Domestic Gothess’ chocolate pistachio biscotti, which are vegan and delicious dunked into hot chocolate (or camel milk tea, if you’re Spencer Strider.)
This year, I made the semolina-cornmeal biscotti from Emma Zimmerman’s The Miller’s Daughter. The cornmeal adds an extra jolt of crisp.
A Pound of Dry Beans, Cooked with Garlic and an Onion (or just water)
Yes, I do believe beans are just better cooked from dry than from a tin. And since this is The Holidays, go the extra mile! Soak the dry beans overnight, then put them in a big pot, cover with plenty of water, bring to a boil, then clamp the lid on, turn down the heat to a simmer, and leave them alone. About an hour in, check the beans for tenderness—your fork should be able to go through a bean but not split it apart; it should remain intact—and, if necessary, keep cooking.
More simply: read (and follow!) Rancho Gordo’s advice about beans.
After the beans have cooled completely, batch them in deli containers or freezable tupperware, label them with the date, and voila.
Bread
Because anything, and I truly mean anything, is better with good bread. Challah is especially fitting as a gift.
Something Your [Friend / Family Member / Gift Recipient] Eats Or Cooks With Often (and can be chucked into the freezer)
Look: I once polled a few people about whether to sell my quarts of vegetable stock for a bake sale. For every person who has a sweet tooth, there’s somebody out there who can’t get enough of old onion scraps cooked in water to mush.
You could also make beans.
Or bread.
Or just refill their ice cube tray!
Offer To Do Errands
In college, during the haze of the post-graduation week, where people packed up first their apartments, then their feelings, into boxes, I cleaned my friend’s fridge. Technically, it was his and three other people’s, but when I offered to clean it, I did so because it was Josh’s fridge first, and theirs as an afterthought. In the process, I learned quite a bit about Fourth Roommate (Dan), who was apparently brilliant and didn’t need to shower—he just sprayed himself with Axe, or was it Lysol? Something toxic was involved. Anyway the fridge, when I was finished with it, had never looked so clean.
Other errand ideas:
Mail packages they’ve been meaning to return
Return their overdue library books (and yours, while you’re at it)
Pick up their groceries (they give you the list and the money; you buy)
Take the pressure off them; improvise an iconic line for them to use on their gravestone (“BLAME RUFUS” is still available, I’ve heard)
Rehome A Book: Give A Favorite Away (Leave Notes!)
One of the best gifts I’ve received was a friend’s copy of a book we both love: Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from The Goon Squad. Jade left annotations and comments scattered across the margins, underlining sentences or passages along the way: “We know him from a time when there was no such thing as normal people dying.”
When I read this copy, I feel like Jade and I are talking to each other. We’re on a train, and she looks up from the book and shouts “AHHHHHHHH” after reading aloud:
“Another minute,” he says. “Thank you, girls. One more. Like this.”
Keep Your Sentimentality To Yourself & Leave Them Alone
Clearly, I am not very good at this.
Ask What They Want
I mean, obviously this is the boring option, but whatever, it’s The Holidays, and a person can only hear “All I Want For Christmas Is You” so many times before losing it, in public, about who the fuck this ‘You’ character is, and why do they never get the memo that the song was clearly WRITTEN ABOUT THEM; and also, why won’t this woman shut up about it? It’s 2022, Mariah, not 1994. One would think, as my college boyfriend once said of me, that she would have gotten over these issues sooner.
Write a Letter / Postcard / Post-It with something like HI I LOVE YOU, SORRY I WON’T TAKE OUT YOUR TRASH!
But you will take the cannoli.
To close out 2022, what’s your small good thing?
Let Me Tell You About Gidget
Oh she’s definitely staying up on New Year’s Eve.
A Continual Note of Gratitude
Like everything I write these days, this was written during sessions of The Writers’ Hour, an online hourly Zoom writing session hosted by the London Writer’s Salon. LWS is an online writing community so lovely and supportive that reminds me why I love writing in the first place.