Fleur De Sel Caramels

Sure, it's a bit overexposed in this day and age. Carelessly cavorting around town with shallow but ultra-famous celebs like Big Mac and Dorito. Getting mixed up in embarrassing tabloid-cover scandals involving high blood pressure and making people really thirsty. But all salt really wants to do is make things taste great. Salt is an artist at heart. It's the ultimate collaborator. The trouble comes when other foods take advantage of this kindness, riding its proverbial coattails to fame, fortune, and deliciousness, without contributing much in terms of taste and personality (I'm looking at you, bad Chinese takeout). But the things salt can do when it's shown due respect are utterly astonishing. For starters, check out our recent post on salt's collaboration with vegetables and time that resulted in one of the all-time masterpieces of gastronomy: the pickle. Now, via the currently booming world of artisanal salts, this brave little rock is starting to get the respect it deserves. We're seeing black, pink, smoked, and many other distinguished prefixes proudly joining the now-common sea and kosher on America's spice racks. The only problem is finding a dish deserving of such a rarefied mineral. After all, we can't be simply tossing that expensive Sel Gris de Guérande into a pot of boiling pasta water, now, can we? Well, for those with a bit of a sweet tooth, one particularly scrumptious way to showcase that fine salt, and one which makes for excellent holiday gift-giving, is this recipe for Fleur De Sel Caramel from Epicurious.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
  
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 1/4 cup water
• Special equipment: parchment paper; a deep-fat thermometer

Line bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper, then lightly oil parchment.

Bring cream, butter, and fleur de sel to a boil in a small saucepan, then remove from heat and set aside.

Boil sugar, corn syrup, and water in a 3- to 4-quart heavy saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Boil, without stirring but gently swirling pan, until mixture is a light golden caramel.

Carefully stir in cream mixture (mixture will bubble up) and simmer, stirring frequently, until caramel registers 248°F on thermometer, 10 to 15 minutes. Pour into baking pan and cool 2 hours. Cut into 1-inch pieces, then wrap each piece in a 4-inch square of wax paper, twisting 2 ends to close.

Hot Holiday Music: The Yule Logs!

Holiday music can be divisive, to say the least. For some, a fear of those opening strains of sleigh bells preceding the first winter's many unplanned Jingle Bells encounters is enough to keep them from leaving the house the day after Thanksgiving. For others, it just isn't Christmas until Nat King Cole wishes you a merry one. Of course, there'll always be those brave and enterprising artists hoping to pen a new classic for people to dread in the late Novembers of years to come, or to just give a little spit-shine to a well-worn favorite and make it look new again.

To kick off the beginning of Hanukkah, and the two-weeks-till-Christmas countdown, we'll be digging up a couple fresh holiday jams that the carolers can add to their collections and that the bah-humbuggers can, well, maybe at least find more tolerable than Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime."

First off, we proudly present The Yule Logs: a merry little band out of Chico, CA that's made Christmas cheer a year-round commitment. The self-proclaimed "Hardest Working Band in Snow Business," these joyous young fellows deliver the goods. In addition to some tasteful re-imaginings of the classics, they boast a sleighfull of catchy original tunes that strike a perfect balance between tongue-in-cheek humor and genuine sincerity. Mixing slinky surf-guitar, doo-wop harmonies, Beatlesesque melodies, and plenty of straight up rock-n-roll, these tunes sound great anytime of the year, but definitely come in handy when trying find something everyone can agree on for that big holiday dance party you've been planning.

Maria Bamford's One Hour Homemade Christmas Stand-Up Special!

Times are tough right now. But don't worry about comedian, actor, and nice lady Maria Bamford. She's doing just fine. You see, Maria sold her soul to The Man this holiday season (appearing in a series of ads for Target). And so, to rectify her perceived integrity-dampening decision, Bamford recorded a cozy little one-hour comedy special whilst sitting beside side her two adorable pugs on a couch in her living room. A sort of a penance/Christmas gift to her fans, it's available as a totally free download. In fact, she encourages you to "Enjoy it. Flip it. Gibber it. Put it in a toaster." Not sure what this means.

To say she has a unique comedic voice would be understating it. What she has is a whole Hands Across America of unique comedic voices. But, remarkably, the steady stream of characters speaking through her like some hilarious demonic possession isn't nearly as unsettling as it could be. In fact, the degree to which she commits to these characters, ranging from her own family members to Sid the Schizophrenic Squid, matched with her excess of genuine warmth and sincerity (and the occasional snoring sounds of a sleeping pug), makes for one of the most endearing and lovable comedy specials in memory. Not to mention one of the funniest.

P.S. She's very much the type of comic that grows on you, so if you are at all intrigued, I'd highly recommend checking out the full special. Enjoy!

Maria Bamford's One-Hour Homemade Christmas Special! from Maria Bamford on Vimeo.

Thanksgiving Day Parade 1932

During a recent Holiday inspired roadtrip across this highway of information, I happened upon these really great photographs of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on the blog Swapatorium, which is a wonderful collection of vintage photography, found art, and other assorted ephemera. It's now defunct as a blog, but still exists a fully operational Flickr page. Based on the theater marquee in the second photo, showing Divorce in the Family, these pictures were most likely taken in 1932. Based on the fact that it's the Thanksgiving Day Parade, they were almost certainly taken on Thanksgiving.