Also, Consider Making a Roux

My God, how I love the 26th of December! I love the absence of any pressing engagements! I love the normal store hours! I love the decompression from the previous month of unconscious build up to the Big Day!

Yesterday, by all accounts, was a very mellow, enjoyable Christmas. If it had been some random Monday in January, I would have considered it a day well spent. But with all the pressure of the holiday, it ended up feeling a little ramshackle, like the one B- on a transcript full of As.

But we traded some excellent gifts--am I the last person alive to find out about this Amy Sedaris book about entertaining? Oh man, what a great read!--and watched some football, and made some dinner.

The two big challenges of dinner were:

A. How do you tie a roast together when you've forgotten to buy twine?

B. How do you serve four different dishes whose recipes all end with the sentence "Serve immediately."? Especially if your kitchen isn't big enough for two people to stand in at the same time?

Some problemsolving went into Issue A. Some internet searches into the possible toxicity of sisal, which we keep in stock for the cats' scratching post, generated no definitive information. A run to 7-11 and a conversation with a man who did not know the English word "string" was likewise fruitless. But in the end, I was able to slip the pre-tied roast apart without breaking the butcher-tied string, brown it, then slip it back together. Although the experience was not unlike trying to pull control top pantyhose over the torso of a Sumo wrestler.

Issue B was also successfully negotiated, with the help of Michael and his brother Jack and no help at all from frickin' Cooks' Illustrated. Guys, you're supposed to be johnny-on-the-spot with the useful cookery advice, yet no one noticed that your "Dickens Christmas Menu" consisted of four dishes with significant last minute work? Bah!

In the end, the big nailbiter was: Will the yorkshire pudding rise, despite our oven's lack of a reliable thermostat? And the answer is: Yes, they did rise, and subsequently brown, and there was much pumping of fists in the air. Followed by the eating of yorkshire pudding, and roast, and mashed potatoes, and spinach salad and a spectacular gravy. Michael is under orders, should I die before him, to specify in my eulogy that I had a gift for gravy. And indeed, I don't think I overstep the bounds of modesty when I say I make some kickass gravy. I make gravy that could bring civilization to its knees, if civilization as we knew it teetered on the availability of high-quality gravy.

(My secret: Deglaze the pan with wine, then reduce. Also, consider making a roux. Neither are really *my* secrets, as much as they are the secrets of all trained chefs everywhere. But I've come through more than one holiday gathering where gravy prowess was in short supply, and so I carry deep within me a few key tips for producing a delicious meat sauce in under 20 minutes. Literally, it's a file saved on my PDA, along with a recipe for creme brulee and three domestic sparkling white wines that are almost as good as Veuve Clicqot.)