Drinking In the Holiday Cheer: Four Faves!

During the holiday season my parents would invariably designate one evening before Christmas to invite friends over for an open house. My mom, a dedicated holiday baker, used the occasion to haul out all the fruitcakes she'd made—one packed with whole nuts and citron barely held together with batter, an applesauce bread studded with nuts and raisins, another cakey version that had been wrapped in brandy-soaked cloth—plus cookies filled with jam, pinwheels stuffed with dates, and her signature Nanaimo bars that I'd eat by the dozen, all displayed on holiday-themed platters.

Classic set for a classic holiday cocktail.

My dad made sure the bar was well-stocked, but his main task was to dig out the Tom & Jerry set from the basement and pull out the recipe card from the file, dog-eared, faded and stained from literally decades of Christmas parties past. On the day of the party, as Mom ran around the house in a frenzy, inspecting (and often redoing) my lackadaisical dusting and vacuuming, fussing over the table decorations of carefully arranged boughs studded with shiny glass Christmas ornaments, and my dad would start making the batter for his Tom & Jerrys.

A hot toddy hits the spot on a winter night.

I don't remember any of their friends making this classic holiday drink, but it was a staple at our house growing up. Dad, who in my memory almost never spent time in the kitchen, would carefully separate the egg whites from the yolks, beat the whites into glossy peaks, then gradually fold in the yolks that had been beaten with powdered sugar and whipping cream. I was particularly fascinated with the teensy brown glass bottles of cinnamon and clove oil that had no doubt been around for years, since the batter only required a drop of each to flavor it. He'd dip a toothpick into the little bottle and pull it out, a shimmering drop of oil clinging to it, and ever so carefully let it drip into the batter.

The Bloody Monkey makes the most of winter citrus.

By this point Mom would have vanished upstairs to get dressed and put on lipstick—bright red—to match her holly-trimmed holiday apron, and Dad would be mixing the rum and brandy and putting the kettle on for topping off the cups. It's memories like these that, whenever the holidays roll around and the cold starts to creep in through the cracks around our doors and windows, you'll find me heading down to the basement to dig out our own Tom & Jerry set, start whipping egg whites and inviting the neighbors over.

Cola de Mono is a Chilean holiday fave.

Over the years I've collected a few recipes for holiday cocktails, and now seemed like a good opportunity to share them with you. Enjoy, and start making memories for you and yours!

My Dad’s Tom & Jerrys

For the batter:
6 eggs
Pinch of cream of tartar
1 lb. powdered sugar
1 drop oil of cinnamon*
1 drop oil of clove*
1/2 c. whipping cream

For each drink:
1 jigger (1.5 oz.) brandy
1/2 jigger (.75 oz.) rum
2 Tbsp. batter
Boiling water
Dash of fresh-ground nutmeg

Separate eggs, putting yolks into large mixing bowl and whites into another bowl large enough to whip them in. Add cream of tartar to whites and whip into stiff peaks.

Beat egg yolks to combine and add cinnamon oil, clove oil and whipping cream. Beat, gradually adding powdered sugar till the mixture is thick and smooth. Add whipped egg white and slowly fold them into each other till you have a smooth, light batter.

To make drinks, put brandy, rum and batter into each cup (ours are 6-oz. cups), fill with boiling water and stir. Top with a sprinkle of ground nutmeg. For the kids, make Clyde & Harrys—simply leave out the alcohol and combine the batter and hot water and stir, topping with the nutmeg.

* Oils available at many natural foods stores. Just make sure they're food grade.

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Ann and Chad's Hot Toddies

1 slice lemon, 1/8" thick
1 cinnamon stick
3 whole cloves
Pinch of fresh ground nutmeg
1 1/2 oz. whiskey (your choice)
2 oz. boiling water
1 tsp. honey

Place lemon in bottom of a mug or heat-resistant cup. With a muddler or the back of a spoon, crush the lemon gently to release its juices. Add the remaining ingredients and stir to combine.

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Rodrigo's Cola de Mono (Tail of a Monkey)

This is a traditional Chilean Christmas drink, usually served cold. Best made a couple of days ahead.

3 qts. whole milk
4 c. of sugar
Peel of an orange (about 1" wide by 2" long)
4 cloves
A pinch of nutmeg
1 stick of cinnamon
2 Tbsp. freshly ground coffee
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 qt. Aguardiente*, grappa** or pisco

Boil milk with sugar, orange skin, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Once the milk has come to a boil, remove from stove and add the coffee and vanilla extract and stir constantly for about 5 to ten minutes or until the coffee dissolves as much as possible.

Once the mixture is cold, filter it (paper filters work best) or use a really fine colander with a paper towel. Add the spirit and pour into bottles with tight lids. Place in refrigerator and let it sit for a couple of days before serving. It will keep for a couple of weeks in the fridge.

Shake well before opening. Serve cold, over ice if desired (though not traditional). Can be garnished with a cinnamon stick or a sprinkle of cinnamon if desired.

* Aguardiente is a denomination of spirits that can range from vodka to sugar cane based, so the name is given not because of the source, but the alcohol content, which can be upwards of 120 proof alcohol. In Chile, Aguardiente is made from grapes and the alcohol content is usually somewhere between 45-55% (above 55% is illegal). Because aguardiente is a very generic term and the actual product and alcohol content varies from region to region, I suggest using a grape spirit such as grappa or pisco, preferably between 45-50% alcohol.

** Grappa, like champagne, is a spirit produced from grapes and can only be called grappa if it complies with certain requirements, such as being produced in a certain region of Italy. That’s why substituting it with a grape-based spirit like pisco can lower the cost considerably.

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Keith's Bloody Monkey

This variation on a Monkey Gland, but uses fresh winter citrus. Makes one cocktail.

1.5 oz. gin
1.5 oz. blood orange juice, strained of pulp
1 tsp. grenadine
1/2 tsp Pernod

Add all ingredients to cocktail shaker. Add ice till shaker is 3/4 full. Shake vigorously for 20-30 seconds. Strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with slice of blood orange.

Livin' in the Blurbs: Cookbook Social, Gifts for Food-Lovers, & a PDX Food 'Zine

Portland has got to have one of the highest per capita populations of published cookbook writers in the country. For a city its size, we have some of the best-selling chefs and authors to be found anywhere. And—lucky us—we have an annual book sale and fête in their honor, the PCA Cookbook Social, fortuitously timed to coincide with the holiday gift-giving season.

The Portland Culinary Alliance gave birth to this event six years ago, and this year it's hosted by James Beard Award-winning Chef Vitaly Paley of Headwaters restaurant. To make it even more interesting, this year they've added an artisan food component. On Sunday, December 2nd, you'll find nearly 20 of our finest authors ready with pens in hand to personalize a book for you or that special food-lover on your list, with many lying in wait to capture your imagination with treats from the pages of their tomes.

The event, which is free and is open to the public, will run from noon to 2 pm downtown at the Headwaters restaurant in the Heathman Hotel, in their event rooms upstairs at 1001 Southwest Broadway. From sous vide cooking to Russian cuisine, and from a best-selling memoir about butchery to making gourmet camping fare, plus books celebrating our local bounty of wild salmon, pears, wine and Dungeness crab, you're guaranteed to find the perfect pairing for cooks and readers here.

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Holidays are all about food around here, so Eat Oregon Now's slogan, "The Best Gifts Are Delicious!" hits all the right flavor notes for me. Plus, as I've said so often, those gifts that are self-liquidating and don't have to be dusted or take up valuable shelf space are perfect for those of us who are already guilt-ridden over not reading that book about the Japanese art of decluttering (not that I'm admitting anything here).

This festive holiday marketplace, which takes place on December 9th, will be jam-packed with nearly 90 of the state's hottest makers offering food, drink and culinary gift items, as well as ingredients for holiday entertaining and memorable meals with family and friends. Need host and hostess gifts for holiday parties? How about care packages of Oregon's finest to send to faraway friends and family? Want to stash away some goodness for your own holiday gatherings? You'll find all that and more here.

So grab your calendar and put a big red X on Sunday, December 9th, from 10 am to 5 pm, and plan to head to the Leftbank Annex, 101 North Weidler Street.

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Keeping secrets is not my strong suit, and I'm relieved as all get out to share news that I've been holding onto for several months now: Portland is about to get a brand new food magazine. After the demise of so many publications, from Edible Portland (in two incarnations) to the late, lamented Northwest Palate and MIX magazines—not to mention the disgrace that is the Oregonian's current Food Day section—a fellow named Brett Warnock is about to throw his hat in the ring with a (gasp) print magazine that he's calling Kitchen Table.

Warnock and his son, Carter.

I first heard about it when he contacted me to ask if, in the first issue, he could feature a story that I'd written about my mother's recipe for Spanish rice. "Our moms sound almost identical in their ability to straddle two worlds to make great food from scratch," he wrote, "But also be early adopters of the convenience of, well, convenience food. The taco seasoning and other packets of spices; and Kraft Mac & Cheese with hotdogs sliced into it with a splash of ketchup."

On the magazine's website Warnock describes his vision of "a new print and digital publication that connects adventurous souls, curious cooks and enthusiastic eaters with talented writers, artists, cartoonists and photographers who explore not only the how-to’s of cooking, but the why’s of eating."

Warnock himself is a native Oregonian with a resumé that includes twenty years publishing comics and graphic novels, with titles like "March" about Congressman John Lewis; Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's "From Hell"; and "Blankets," a memoir from Craig Thompson, to his credit. He's just launched a Kickstarter to finance the first issue, scheduled for February, with plans to publish three issues in 2019, then move to a quarterly schedule thereafter.

Myself? I've pledged, and I'm wishing him the best.

Read more in my series Touching Up My Roots about reinventing childhood classics.

Great Gifting: Gifts of the Last Minute

It's Christmas Eve and I still have one gift to figure out, so I'm assuming that some of you might be in the same awkward spot. I won't suggest that you take the route of one friend of mine whose aunt was a vociferous supporter of the current president-elect, so is giving a donation in her name to Planned Parenthood as her Christmas present, for which she will receive a thank-you note. [Side note: as of early December, more than 82,000 donations have been made to Planned Parenthood in Mike Pence's name. That's alotta thank-yous.]

So I'll make a short suggestion list below in a few categories for your delectation. Do with them what you will. Feel free to add your suggestions in the comments below. And happy holidays!

Organizations

• Friends of Family Farmers Great folks working to bring together farmers and citizens to shape and support socially and environmentally responsible family-scale agriculture in Oregon.
• Organic Seed Alliance Helping farmers, plant researchers and seed advocates work together to ensure that our organic food supply is healthy, resilient, and adaptable.
• The Portland Kitchen Changing the lives of underserved youth through food and cooking, helping them create healthy lifestyles, get meaningful employment and become great citizens of our community.
• The Pongo Fund Providing quality food and vital veterinary care for the family pets of anyone in honest need, keeping them safe, healthy and out of the shelters.
• Zenger Farm A working urban farm that models, promotes and educates the community about sustainable food systems, environmental stewardship, community development and access to good food for all.

Good Stuff

• Providore Gift certificates from this store will be the bomb. Choose from Rubinette Produce, The Meat Monger, Flying Fish or Pastaworks. All delicious, all the time.
• Old Salt Marketplace* Meat lovers will celebrate with a gift certificate for anything in their butcher case and the foodies will love their lunch, brunch and dinner offerings. Plus they've got charcuterie packs for stocking stuffers and classes galore!
• Hopworks Urban Brewery* More gift certificate goodness. Beer, pizza, lotsa merch, with three locations (helloooo Vancouver!)—and it's all organic and BCorp certified. Good guys.
• Portland's Culinary Workshop Cooking classes for all ages, all skill levels, all cuisines. Just browsing their class offerings is inspiring. Gift certificates for any amount, never expire!
• Turnip the Heat Cooking School Kids will love Joanna Sooper (an elementary school teacher is her regular gig) who's committed to helping kids learn about—and love—fresh, delicious food. I know from personal experience! Gift certs available.

* Old Salt Marketplace and Hopworks are sponsors of Good Stuff NW. And fantastic, local, ethical businesses, at that.

Green Tips for Holiday Recycling

My friends Christine and Mike at Green Dog Pet Supply, purveyors of environmentally friendly pet supplies and gifts in the Beaumont neighborhood of Northeast Portland, recently shared the following information on their blog. Some of it was news to me, so I'm hoping you'll be able to make use of these handy holiday tips, too!

Portland allows us to recycle a lot of things at curbside, including plastic plant nursery pots, empty spray oil cans, motor oil (next to bins in a clear milk jug) and food waste. In fact, in five years of curbside composting, the city has been able to turn food waste into over 400,000 tons of finished compost, which is enough compost to cover 2,400 acres of farmland, about 4 square miles. That alone is a lot of volume kept out of our landfills!

Unfortunately, it’s easy to contaminate our curbside recycling bins with well-intentioned attempts to recycle things we wish they would take, or with little things that we don’t realize can ruin the ability to recycle the rest of the material.

For example, lids are almost always made of a different plastic than the bottle or tub they’re sold with. It’s too work-intensive for workers to remove them—recyclers have too few people, too much recycling to pick through quickly, and everything still needs to get washed and processed or packed up to be processed elsewhere. Since the plastic in the lid is a very different plastic, with a higher melting point than bottles, they need to be processed an entirely different way.

Plastic bags and caps can also jam machinery when they get into the mix accidentally, which can cause damage and increases the likelihood that recyclers will toss “contaminated” recycling instead of sorting through it. A light bulb might be made of glass, but their different melting points and chemical compositions will ruin new glass bottles. If a buyer of glass sees a light bulb at the top of a load, the entire load could be rejected for recycling. This can mean that all of our good intentions are foiled, so when in doubt, leave it out!

Here’s a list of some common things that are mistakenly added to recycling, but could in fact be recycled elsewhere:

• Soft plastic bags can’t go into your curbside recycling bin, but can be recycled at both Whole Foods and New Seasons (just not hard and crinkly bags like chip bags—those need go in the trash).
• Plastic “clamshell” containers like spinach or to-go boxes can’t be recycled curbside, but can be recycled at both New Seasons and Whole Foods, as well as plastic things like yogurt/deli lids and coffee lids. (The coffee cups need to go in the garbage, because they contain waterproofing additives).
• Any paper made to contain frozen foods or takeout containers must go in the garbage. It also contains additives to make them waterproof and these additives make it non-recyclable.
• Any paper with decorative foil has to go in the garbage (though all other wrapping paper, tissue paper, cards and envelopes can go in, minus the ribbons). When it's time to unwrap gifts, you can set up two collection bags ahead of time, one for wrapping paper, tissue and cards, and the other for ribbons and foil. It can be fun for kids to be in charge of things, so have one little elf in charge of bringing presents to people to unwrap, and another little elf in charge of grabbing that wrapping paper and getting it into the right bag. You’ll be amazed at how much tidier the living room looks after present opening! And don’t forget: Those foil-covered papers and ribbons are great for kids’ craft projects.
• Packaging peanuts and styrofoam cannot go in your curbside bin, but check for places will reuse them. The UPS and Fedex stores are often happy to take your clean, bagged styrofoam peanuts—call your local store and ask. Excess cardboard boxes and packing peanuts can be posted on Craigslist or Next Door. People who are moving might appreciate them, or small businesses in the neighborhood might be able to use them for shipping and might even come take them off your hands!
• Styrofoam blocks are a challenge at the time of this writing. Check out this link for your options.
• When you take a toy out of a formed plastic insert, take it to Whole Foods. They have a bin labeled “non-curbside plastic” which is good for caps, lids and other misc hard plastics.
• Corks can’t go in curbside, but Whole Foods has a natural cork recycling bin inside the store. Just make sure it's natural cork, not a plastic cork.

More information on interesting things from your holiday dinners that you can include in the compost bin, plus resource links and helpful suggestions to reduce the amount of waste your household produces.

Great Gifting: Booking It for the Holidays

Several years ago, so long ago, in fact, that the internet was in its infancy—if the browser names Mosaic and Netscape Navigator ring any bells, you're in the right era—where carrying a powerful computer around in your hip pocket, one that could answer virtually any question within seconds, was a concept left to science fiction fantasists, and people at dinner parties had to scour actual books to settle arguments about the name of the guy who was in that movie or else argue for hours over the name of the dog that was sent into orbit by the Russians (Laika, for those who care).

A well-loved (and well-marked) book.

Our house was pretty handy for situations requiring reference material, so much so that one visitor dubbed it "the house of books" for the piles that were—and still are—a major part of our living room decor. So when the holidays roll around it's no surprise that books will fill many slots on our gift lists, both for receiving and giving. In no particular order, here are a few of my favorite food-centric tomes ideal for the bookish on your list. And feel free to add your own pick by clicking on the comments link below!

Buck Buck Moose by Hank Shaw. The third book by this self-described "hunter, angler, gardener, cook"—who is a superb writer on those topics as well as a good friend of mine—is a thorough compendium of hunting, cooking and eating "antlered things." Perfect for hunters, it's also a thoughtful treatise on how these animals are deeply intertwined with our history as a species. Carnivorous cooks will appreciate it, too, since his meticulously tested recipes are great even if you can't easily obtain venison—simply substitute beef, lamb or pork.

Life Without a Recipe by Diana Abu Jaber. Memoirs are slippery beasts, the good ones treading the fine lines between tell-all and tight-lipped, between my-life-is-so-fabulous and Blanche Dubois, cringe-inducing drama. Abu Jaber, a professor of writing and literature who splits her time between Portland and Florida, writes with skill about growing up the daughter of an American mother, a Jordanian father and a powerhouse of a German grandmother. In this, her second, memoir, she continues the journey she began in The Language Of Baklava, weaving "a book of love, death and cake."

Better from Scratch and Crackers & Dips by Ivy Manning. Prolific writer and author of cookbooks on subjects ranging from how to cook for a mixed-diet family to fixing easy weeknight vegetarian meals to one of the best farmers' market cookbooks around, these two slim volumes are packed with recipes so good they're already as well-thumbed as my grandmother's Joy of Cooking. Better from Scratch will stun you with how easy it is to make things you usually buy from the store—often for a premium price—like granola, beef jerky, graham crackers and kimchi. Ditto for Crackers and Dips, where you'll have fun, spend less and enjoy crunchy, sweet and savory treats made from whole grains, real butter, cheese, fresh spices and no preservatives.

Oysters and Crab by Cynthia Nims. Seattle writer and cookbook author Nims is passionate about the bounty of the Pacific Northwest, especially the creatures pulled from the depths of the waters off our own West Coast. In Oysters she describes in detail the biology of these amazing shellfish and how they help purify the waters they live in. She then moves on to suggest the best methods of buying, cooking (or not!) and eating them, with more than 30 recipes. Our West Coast Dungeness is the star of Crab, but she also covers its Atlantic and Gulf Coast cousins, delving into the history and importance of the commercial fishing industry, then quickly moving on to how to buy, clean and—with more than 50 recipes—how to cook these beauties.

My Beer Year by Lucy Burningham. This book by Portland beer writer Burningham has a long but delightful descriptor: "Adventures with hop farmers, craft brewers, chefs, beer sommeliers, and fanatical drinkers as a Beer Master in training." With wit (as well as Wit), it describes how this young writer and mom fell in love with beer to the point where she decided to become a Certified Ciccerone, going through the rigorous and arcane training and testing regimen to become a beer expert. (And you just thought knowing an IPA from a Porter made you that, right?) Full of character and plenty of characters, its a great book for the beer fanatic in your life.

Pure Beef by Lynne Curry. The current dietary advice, as Michael Pollan famously said, is to "eat food, not too much, mostly plants." But if we are going to eat protein, its important to eat animals raised humanely, with their feet on the earth and the sun on their backs. In other words, pasture-raised animals rather than those raised in crowded, confined conditions requiring daily doses of antibiotics to survive. To that end, I heartily recommend Joseph, Oregon, writer Lynne Curry's book on buying, cooking and eating grass-fed beef, an incredibly well-researched and thoroughly recipe-tested primer on how to get the most delicious results possible from these tasty beasts.

Virgin Territory by Nancy Harmon Jenkins. Dividing her time between a home on the coast of Maine and an olive farm in Tuscany, Jenkins shares her contagious passion for the flavors of the Mediterranean, a diet she is convinced is one of the most healthful and flavorful on the planet. I've tried several recipes from this book, and I can't argue with that premise.

Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson. If you have a bread baker in your life, or someone who's interested in learning to make bread, I can't recommend this book highly enough. My husband worked for two years to make what he considered the perfect artisan loaf, and was frustrated with what he felt were mediocre results until friends got him this book. It was a game-changer, and it apparently has some pretty good recipes for other good things to eat, though those pages remain remarkably unthumbed around here.

James Beard: A Biography by Robert Clark. As a fifth-generation Oregonian, I thought I knew plenty about native son James Beard. That is, until I read this biography of this world-famous cook, eater and bon vivant. A truly fascinating character in his own right, it follows Beard's upbringing in Portland in the late 1800s, his escape from his controlling-yet-supportive mother to New York and Europe and his lifelong love affair with the flavors and ingredients of the Northwest. In addition, it follows the evolution of the American palate with discussions that add depth and nuance to Beard's at times tragic yet joyful journey.

Guest Essay: A Lesson in Grace

My friend Daphne Bramham is a columnist at the Vancouver Sun in Vancouver, British Columbia. On a recent reporting trip to Cambodia she learned a simple lesson about want and need from a little Cambodian boy and his pencil.

A tiny boy with nothing would seem an unlikely teacher, just as Cambodia with its history of genocide and pain would be an odd place to learn a lesson in grace.

But four years ago, I did learn a lesson from a boy in a remote Cambodian village, where only days earlier flooding had washed out the dirt track that is known locally as a road.

Pencils and notebooks are precious things in subsistence farming communities. They cost money, and money is scarce. But without pencils and notebooks, children are hobbled in their learning. So, I’d spent the equivalent of a few dollars to buy a big bucket of pencils, a pencil sharpener for the school, and an armful of notebooks.

As I passed them out, children smiled shyly and said quiet thank yous in Khmer. I was sure that the tiny boy had been passed over. I tried to give him a pencil, but he shook his head. No.

Why not? Why wouldn’t he take one? My guide and translator from Plan International stepped up to help.

“I already have one,” the little boy said, pulling his new pencil from his pocket to show me. He was happy with one. It was his fair share.

I thought of him this Christmas season as I flipped through flyers, websites and magazines looking for gift suggestions and fretting about what to buy, whom to buy for (building manager, caretaker, newspaper delivery guy, the nephew’s girlfriend who I’ve never met?), and how much to spend.

It wasn’t solely altruistic either. I’ve been asked a few times what I want for Christmas, and I draw a blank. I don’t need anything, really. The few things that I really want (like less time at the computer and more time with people) are not things that anyone can buy.

But it is the season of giving. So, I keep flipping pages, searching websites and marching up and down crowded store aisles searching for that perfect something for the ones on my list.

In a culture of plenty, the recommended gift lists suggest that there is no limit to how much we should spend. Even stocking stuffers on many of the lists are no longer limited to things like oranges, nuts, candy, socks and dollar-store puzzles.

There are, of course, lists of “useful” gifts for those who have everything. Among those I’ve seen are: a $130 brass pen described as “super compact and sleek;” $200 pruners for that special gardener; a $1,000 stand-up mixer when the same version in a different colour is half the price; a $30 box of “vintage-style” fireplace matches; and a $50 box of popcorn with truffle salt.

I do pity harried parents searching frantically and often futilely for the must-have toy of the season that tops their children’s lists. But I pity more the parent who must explain why sometimes even if a child is very, very good, Santa can’t bring them what’s on their list.

Does anybody really need/want this stuff, or even some of the things that we buy?

Read the rest of Daphne's column.

Great Gifting: The Gift of Class(es)

Making lists, checking them twice…and don't get me started on the whole naughty or nice thing. It’s all too much to keep track of!

So I say opt out, walk away, leave it at the door. No one I know needs more stuff, and the idea of the holidays—and, come to think of it, life in general—is to share joy, spread peace and love and generally try to make the planet a better place, right?

Jessica Hansen's couples date night classes at Middleground Farms.

I've sworn off the kinds of gifts that require displaying or dusting, preferring instead to give items that are 1) consumable or 2) useful in some way. That means no tchotchkes or gewgaws allowed. And though I could never convince my mother of this, gift certificates, especially for learning experiences, are the gift that keeps on giving.

Ben Meyers' sausage-making is perfect for a budding charcutiere.

One that's been particularly well-received, and that I've found personally rewarding even if it's given to someone else, is a gift certificate for a cooking class. Learn basic kitchen skills like how to use a knife more effectively. Create an ethnic feast of the classic flavors of Asia, Europe or India. Has someone in your family decided to become a vegan? Or developed an intolerance or (heaven forfend) an allergy? You can find classes for all of these, from your youngest giftee to great-grandma. Contact any of those at the links listed below for gift certificates.

• Portland's Culinary Workshop (top photo) offers classes for all ages (plus camps for kids) and an astonishing and wide-ranging roster of learning experiences too long to list here, but all are excellent and taught by professional culinary instructors. Seriously, you can't go wrong.
• Old Salt Marketplace offers butchery, sausage-making and seasonal cooking classes to adults of all skill levels. I've given these classes as gifts and have heard nothing but raves about owner Ben Meyer's ability to make these skills accessible (and fun) for the home cook.
• The Kitchen at Middleground Farms in Wilsonville has a wide range of cooking classes for individuals and couples (think date night), all taught in a state-of-the-art kitchen by self-described "accidental farmer" and terrific teacher and chef Jessica Hansen. I've experienced her in action and she's awesome.
• Cook With What You Have offers individualized instruction with chef and local foods maven Katherine Deumling who makes it a joy to cook with fresh and seasonal ingredients. She also has an online recipe collection available for simple, quick and family-oriented meals that would make an awesome (and ongoing) gift.
• Turnip the Heat Cooking School has kids classes that can't be beat and that are perfect for the aspiring chef in the household. Owner Joanna Sooper also teaches classes for teens and adults, and makes it tasty, too, since most classes include a shared meal. I would have loved taking one of these when I was young!

Others offering cooking classes include Proletariat Butchery, Elder Hall, the Portland Meat Collective and, occasionally, Zenger Farm. If you've taken great cooking classes at other places, please feel free to share them in the comments at the link below!

Livin' in the Blurbs: Holidays in the 'Hood

Like many people in Portland, I love my neighborhood and the small businesses that help it, and the city as a whole, thrive. My favorite shops and the people who work in them are always ready to hear the latest news or share some neighborhood gossip. The Beaumont Neighborhood Holiday Festival is scheduled this Friday, Dec. 5th, from 3-7 pm, to help ring in this important season for most small businesses. Photos with kids and Santa may take on a Hawaiian flavor at Noho's Hawaiian Café (e-mail to get on Santa's picture list), or if your pet is the star of your holiday cards, Santa Paws will be available for photos at Beaumont Hardware to benefit the Oregon Humane Society (reserve a spot by e-mail). There'll also be holiday crafts at Umpqua Bank, free soup at Alameda Cafe and two cocoa and snack booths on the street. Is your neighborhood hosting a holiday festival? Tell us all about it in the comments!

Details: Beaumont Neighborhood Holiday Festival on NE Fremont Street above 42nd Ave. Dec. 5, 3-7 pm. E-mail for reservations to get photos taken with Santa or Santa Paws.

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Speaking of my 'hood, one of my favorite shops in the neighborhood is Green Dog Pet Supply. Not only have Mike and Christine been big neighborhood boosters and hosts of innumerable events celebrating the people and pets of the area—the pet parade during Fremont Fest in August is a must-do—they also donate hundreds of pounds of pet food throughout the year to programs like Meals on Wheels for seniors to feed their pets and to tiny rescues in need of support. In December they do a big drive for The Pongo Fund, a Portland food bank for pets. Donations to the fund help to keep pets out of shelters and families together during hard times, and they do incredible work year-round. To donate, you simply buy a 33-lb. bag of the economical First Mate Classic Chicken dog food at Green Dog's wholesale cost of $30, and they'll donate another bag to match it. And try this on for size: You could even buy a bag in the name of a pet lover on your list and give them a card telling them they've just helped a homeless family feed their pet!

Details: Green Dog Pet Supply's Pet Food Drive benefitting the Pongo Fund. Dec. 1-31; if you can't get to the shop to buy a bag to donate, they can also be purchased by e-mailing the store. Green Dog Pet Supply, 4327 NE Fremont St. 503-528-1800.

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Since this edition of blurbage is all about my favorite places in the 'hood, let's throw in one more: Garden Fever, the exquisite garden store that I've loved since it opened, made my heart pitter-pat even faster when they declared themselves a neonicotinoid-free zone last year. They're kicking off a Holiday Shindig the weekend of December 13 and 14 with two workshops on Saturday—DIY wreaths, door hangings and chandeliers, then holiday moss balls, pot-o-greens and boutonnieres—followed by a booksigning on Sunday with Ted Mahar, husband of the late PDX garden goddess Dulcy Mahar, editor of a collection of her writings called "Through the Seasons with Dulcy." All weekend you can also get a Holiday Benefit Grab Bag in amounts of $5, $10 and $20 that will benefit Growing Gardens, a local organization that builds organic gardens in urban backyards and schools to, as they say, "get at the root of hunger" in our community. I'll buy that!

Details: Holiday Shindig at Garden Fever. Dec. 13-14; hours Sat., 9-7; Sun. 9-6. Reservations required for workshops. Garden Fever, 3433 NE 24th Ave. 503-287-3200.

Cup of Holiday Cheer

Growing up, Christmas meant helping my mother bake what seemed to be endless batches of fruit cakes, cookies and treats like her famous Nanaimo bars and sour cream sugar twists. My favorites were the date-filled pinwheels that had to be carefully cut out and folded so the filling wouldn't leak out while baking, especially when they were warm from the oven, the dough crisp around the dark, oozing filling.

My folks would usually have a holiday party or two featuring some of the prodigious output from the oven and, to us, exotic treats like chips and dips made with onion soup and canned clams, staples in the appetizer pantheon of the early 60s. And because they and most of their friends were Episcopalians, drinking was considered a socially acceptable activity. As a matter of fact, I still remember the cheer that went up when the Surgeon General at the time declared red wine to be good for you.

My father's contribution to the festivities was to make a holiday beverage called Tom & Jerrys, warm, egg batter-based drinks containing copious amounts of rum and brandy that were way too easy to drink. According to Wikipedia, it was created by a sportswriter named Pierce Egan in the 1820s and was "a reference to Egan's book, 'Life in London, or The Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn Esq. and his Elegant Friend Corinthian Tom' (1821), and the subsequent stage play 'Tom and Jerry, or Life in London' (also 1821)."

The recipe was apparently popular enough that special dishware was created for serving the drinks, usually consisting of a bowl or covered tureen, a ladle and cups all labeled "Tom & Jerry" in a Gothic script. The set we have (above) is a deco version from the 1930s or 40s with a bubble-shaped lidded tureen with round cups, each with a stamp on the bottom that reads "KB Japan" (left).

My father would make a non-alcoholic version called Clyde & Harrys for the kids, and we'd sip them, gorging on the assorted snacks as the adults got steadily happier and more boisterous, enjoying those happy little drinks immensely.

So if you're looking for a beverage to warm up your next holiday party (can you say New Year's?), this might be one to throw into the mix. And lift a cup to my dad. He'd love it.

John Bauer's Tom & Jerrys

For the batter:
6 eggs
Pinch of cream of tartar
1 lb. powdered sugar
1 drop oil of cinnamon*
1 drop oil of clove*
1/2 c. whipping cream

For each drink:
1 jigger (1.5 oz.) brandy
1/2 jigger (.75 oz.) rum
2 Tbsp. batter
Boiling water
Dash of nutmeg

Separate eggs, putting yolks into large mixing bowl and whites into another bowl large enough to whip them in. Add cream of tartar to whites and whip into stiff peaks.

Beat egg yolks to combine and add cinnamon oil, clove oil and whipping cream. Beat, gradually adding powdered sugar till the mixture is thick and smooth. Add whipped egg white and slowly fold them into each other till you have a smooth, light batter.

To make drinks, put brandy, rum and batter into each cup (ours are 6-oz. cups), fill with boiling water and stir. Top with a sprinkle of ground nutmeg. For the Clyde & Harrys, simply leave out the alcohol and just combine the batter and hot water and stir, topping with the nutmeg.

* Oils available at many natural foods stores. Just make sure they're food grade.