What I Learned On My Christmas Vacation 2006

In December 2006 I treated myself to a short week in London — a short week being four days on the ground, and two days in the air. I schmoozed through the British Museum, Stonehenge, St. Martin in the Fields, and other ancient delights. 

Upon my return to Plano, Texas I wanted to extend my British experience both in time and to other people, so I hosted two Christmas parties featuring Mince Pie and Mulled Wine.

The recipe I used for mince pie was from the new Gourmet cookbook, of which editor Ruth Reichl says, “Our goal was to give you a book with every recipe you would ever want.” It is a marvelous cookbook, and every page contains delightful-looking recipes that indeed, I do want to make some day. Their recipe stresses the use of suet, saying “it leaves an earthy flavor that you won’t notice until you leave it out.” I decided to follow their advice at least the first time I made it, and didn’t regret the decision.

I made miniature mince pies for my parties, using a slightly sweet short crust pastry dough from Dorothy Snyder’s Tea Time Entertaining. The photo above left is not mine, but I copied this cook’s idea of placing pastry stars on top of each morsel. It was a very pretty effect. On the side I served Top Hat Cheddar, a tart cheese from England that was the perfect mouth complement to the pies. I found the cheese at Whole Foods in Plano.

The mulled wine was surprisingly delicious. I say ‘surprisingly’ only because I had never tried it before, that I can recall, and wasn’t sure what to expect. (Note: I built two parties around recipes I had no experience with. Typical Cynthia!)

I experimented with two different types of red wine for mulling, Shiraz and Malbec, because they are both somewhat fruity, and found that on the whole I preferred the Shiraz. I used Williams Sonoma’s mulling spices and followed the directions on the label. I added a cinnamon stick and fresh slice of orange to each cup.

I received a ton of compliments from my guests and will definitely make this a Christmas tradition going forward.