Someone once said this always made them think of me.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

The Rich People's Christmas Lists

Eater did the thing again, poking fun at gratuitous potential holiday spends while discreetly providing affiliate links. 

Clever, yes. Mildly to moderately underhanded? Also yes.

But I had to look, just to see for myself what they were talking about. Their tagline was:

"The Fanciest Food, Kitchen, and Cookware Gifts Imaginable

Is it even a kitchen without a $200 pepper grinder and a $400 pineapple? (I’ll sip from my $1,200 bedazzled travel mug while you answer.)"

As soon as I read that I went AHA, because there's only one $200 pepper grinder on the market that I know about and I already own it! 

They took what's essentially a legacy item on par with your grandmother's Kitchenaid (the one from the era of machined internal parts rather than plastic ones) and used that to frame the notion of other things on their list being halfway reasonable.

Utter rubbish.

A 400 dollar pineapple.

A 230 dollar, fifty gram chocolate bar. 

A 140 dollar 'Gucci' pannetone?!

And that's just some of the edible stuff.

There's a candle that smells of cucumber for ~250. Why? You can probably get that at Yankee Candle for a tenth of that. 

Or the thousand dollar ice press, for when you absolutely have to have those perfect 2" spheres of crystal clear ice for your drink. 

Who on earth is reading this and thinking "Huh. I could use one of those!"?

Eater's audience is not the people who buy stuff like this. Never was, never will be. I honestly don't know why they bothered beyond curiosity clicks. It's a SkyMall Christmas list. A pile of gratuitously expensive mostly-junk masquerading as haute couture journalism.

Bah, humbug.

Christmas Humor

 

You know why Christmas is so popular in Japan?

Because it's exactly like Japan.

It's a bunch of customs and miscellany pilfered from other places and times that did it first, and then tweaked harder than a Ph.D's bibliography page.

Anyway- Merry Christmas, everyone.
Here's one of my favorite instrumentals, first introduced to me by an old friend.

Post-Holiday Uses For Holiday Spice Blends

    Much and more has been made of holiday spices in the winter. Mulled wine and cider, spiced cocoa, trifles, custards, and pies, pies, pies- Chess, Pecan, Pudding, Apple, Sweet Potato, Pumpkin, the list goes on. But what happens when the time for a jolly wassail and a pile of pies feels past? All the warm satisfying spices often just sit there untouched in the pantry for another year, and that's no fun at all!

    Those spices are quite versatile and useful- most of them all year round. Sweet or savory, there's always a place to tuck them to make a little magic. Why don't we go down the likely list?

Ginger, Nutmeg, Cardamom, Coriander, Mace, Cinnamon, Allspice, and Star Anise are the most probable, but there's also the blends. 

(If you have the premixed "pie spice" blends, you can still comfortably use them as components elsewhere- though be sure to check if they have sugar added, because that could cause a lot of flavor adjustments! The most common brand in my part of the world is McCormick, who offers blends for both Apple and Pumpkin pies. Deceptively simple, the Pumpkin Pie mixture consists of Cinnamon, Ginger, Nutmeg, and Allspice, in decending order of quantity. The Apple variant simply omits the ginger.)

    You're most likely to see many of the individual spices in other mass market blends too! Things like Garam Masala, Chili Powder, Five Spice Powder, Ras El Hanout, Jerk Spice, or Curry Powder. Each of these uses some of the spices I've mentioned to create completely disparate flavor profiles in dishes from completely different parts of the world.

-Add some coriander and star anise to pumpkin pie spice and you have a decent interpretation of five-spice powder, a foundation for plenty of Asian cooking

-Add some cumin and chili to either of the blends and you have a passable American Southwest spice blend. Add star anise and toasted nuts to that, and you're leaning into Mole territory.

-Add chili peppers, cilantro, garlic, and scallion, bump up the allspice, and you have the start of a Jamaican Jerk paste.

What if you don't even want to fiddle with the blends? Just swap them for where you'd normally find one of the components therein.

-Cinnamon rolls made with 'Pumpkin Pie Spice'? Hell yes. In the filling, the icing, either or both!

-Stir them into softened butter with a little honey or maple to make a sweet and spicy compound butter- wonderful on waffles, pancakes, french toast, and many other things!

-Shake them into oatmeal, porridge, or cream of wheat- a much more vigorous start to the morning!

And so, something that at first seems simplistic and singular in use can be seen all around the world.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Awoo^^