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Will you be eating or cooking anything different on this year’s unseasonably cold Christmas Eve? —Tom S., St. Louis
For forever and a day, a Christmas Eve menu staple at the Mahe house has been oyster stew, which sounds all hale and hearty, until one knows the ingredients: fresh oysters, butter, shallots, garlic, parsley, minimal spicing, and either milk, half and half, or sometimes a bit of heavy cream. Brothy, simple, and maybe even a bit elegant, it hardly fits anyone’s definition of a stew. So this year, with temperatures in the single digits, a traditional beef stew seems more in order, a rendition we'll make with top sirloin, homemade stock, and root vegetables aplenty, including parsnips and turnips.
We also asked SLM’s dining team what’s on their front burner this weekend.
Lynn Venhaus: "This year, I'm opting for comfort food over fancy, the recipes I fondly recall my mom clipping from women's magazines and community cookbooks...finger foods–like cocktail weenies, spinach dip in the bread bowl, and my mom's beloved cheese spread. Plus, shrimp. Always shrimp. Like a '70s or '80s throwback...everything but the Jello salad."
Pat Eby: "Christmas eve this year will be a cozy two-person, one-dog, and one-cat affair at home. We will have a creamy homemade red kuri squash soup, a squash we hadn’t met before this November, then a salad and wine. For a post-dinner nosh while watching a Christmas movie, we’ll make a charcuterie plate with special cheeses, meats, and 'company' crackers, rounded out with dates, apricots, nuts, and Christmas cookies, plus a snifter of Habondia peach brandy from [local distiller] Big O. The dog will have a Kong filled with peanut butter, then frozen. The cat will have special liver treats. All will probably end up snoozing on the couch, then settling in for a long winter’s night."
Holly Fann: "Alas, Schnucks closed earlier than I thought, so I missed out on buying groceries before the impending storm. My fridge was painfully bare, sans the 300 types of mustard I keep on hand, so I had to purchase something, or my holiday dining companion and I would not eat. So I headed to the grocery section of Walgreens and planned a holiday menu of small plates and seasonal specialties. The meal will start with an amuse of a pro-biotic gummy followed with a bread service of Andy Capp Hot Fries and a Honeybun. The first course of Nice! brand pizza rolls are all about comfort, familiarity, and approachability. I will be pairing them with a lukewarm AriZona Iced Tea. Next comes a more esoteric offering, a degustation of Doritos: Cool Ranch, Sweet Chili, and Nacho Cheese play off of each other's unique flavor profiles. A palate cleanser of an Andes Mint resets and readies for the next dish, a beloved seasonal specialty: the festive holiday tin of popcorn. Cheese, butter, and caramel corn are a nod to the nostalgia of the season. To complement, I will be pouring a barrel-aged A&W root beer. Dessert will take on a more relaxed approach and include a variety of aggressively firm Haribo gummies and a tin of Danish butter cookies. Lastly, a toast of zero-calorie Ice brand sparkling water, containing both natural and artificial flavors, caps off a most unique meal... OK, this is only half satire. It's true my snorty brown Boston terrier and I are having a quiet holiday at home this year, and I didn't make it to Schnucks before they closed, but I had already planned and shopped to make a collard green and sausage lasagna, because it's gonna be all about carbs and comfort over here this Christmas."
Cheryl Baehr: "Nothing unusual this Christmas Eve, for the cold means that the outrageously decadent food my partner prepares will actually be appropriate. He smokes a brisket so marbled with fat, you could butter a biscuit with it. He then pairs it with au gratin potatoes that are so indulgent, we are only allowed to eat them once a year. These babies are widow/widower makers, but what a way to go."
Collin Preciado: "My family always gets together on Christmas Eve, but typically there's no sit-down meal. Usually everyone brings an appetizer to keep things festive and casual. My wife is the chef of the house, and she usually makes something fairly thoughtful, but the big difference for us this year is that she'll be working at the hospital and won't have the time. This leaves my toddler and I in charge of our household's dish, which likely means a very classy Velveeta chili cheese dip. If we get stuck at home, we'll add candy and cookies to the dinner menu. Maybe a pizza. Anything goes on Christmas."
Bill Burge: "My in-laws don't deviate from tradition. They honeymooned in Switzerland, and their Christmas Eve has always been huddling around two pots of homemade fondue: one cheese, one chocolate. The family is bigger. The pots are bigger. The room, however, is the same size and getting tighter."
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