The week between Christmas and New Years brings to mind visions of postprandial rest, packages opened and the house strewn with idle family and kids off school.
It is a fabulous time of year to cook, and to eat, and last week I headed out to Naturita, CO to see Galit Korngold at Wild Gal’s Market, wondering what all should we be cooking in this moment of quiet as we await the New Year.
“Wow!” she says, “I know that it’s a period of decadence. People are eating a lot of cookies, a lot of baked goods. That might wind down after Christmas as people eat more leftovers, just like we do after Thanksgiving.”
Wild Gal’s Market is Korngold’s grocery shop, recently relocated from Nucla to a sunny expanded storefront on Naturita’s main drag. Taking me around the shop, Korngold considers all the possibilities in store for a little wintertime cooking.
“A Tuscan Kale Soup with parmesan and maybe little sausage meatballs in it or something like that…A cheese fondue…A seafood stew — so with shellfish and all the good stuff in there. Yes!” says Korngold.
Come the New Year, Korngold adds, her customers will begin looking for a different sort of thing, as the holiday season — and its decadent menus — unleash us.
“It comes a time where people are looking to get more vegetables in their systems after the richness of the holidays. So things like kale and brussel sprouts, and salads. And they have their resolutions for the New Year to be better.”
Holiday delights at the shop.
But, at the heart of holiday cookery Korngold says every family tends to have its own traditions. Korngold, who is Jewish, reflects on her biggest December holiday: Hanukkah.
“So Hanukkah is a feast that celebrates light and the miracle of light: how the oil in the lamp lasted eight days instead of one day, when there was only enough oil for one day,” explains Korngold. “So Hanukkah food is fried in oil. That's the deal. So we have potato latkes.”
Mallory Rice, who helps run Wild Gal’s says Christmas Eve is marked in her family by a huge batch of posole:
“A pork posole with red chiles, and we always have a bunch of tamales too. So that’s behind my husband’s side of the family’s tradition forever. Before Colorado was a state that was their tradition,” says Rice, laughing.
Why is food so essential to the holiday experience? I pose the question to Galit.
“Anything I make — for example — that is a recipe I grew up with from my mother and that I make for my kids, it's love. It's a way of showing love, it's a way of bringing people together under a common delicious theme.”
With such difficulty in the world. Galit suggests the lessons of the holiday table are what we need now.
“More love, more tradition, more joy, more delicious food…healthy. Local!”
From Naturita, with well wishes for a decadent holiday, this is Gavin McGough.