New Year's Eve: Latke Board

New Year's Eve 2025 is right at the top of my list of most memorable year-end celebrations. And for all the wrong reasons. Somehow, I picked up a nasty case of food poisoning, and by the time that midnight rolled around, I had all the classic symptoms.

The cautious drive home down the slippery butte in the icy and misting rain-fog-snow mess was excruciating as I fought back wave after wave of gut wrenching nausea. I finally got to sleep around 0300 and when I awoke the next morning, I had strained the ribs on my right side. Fun times.

I should have known something was up earlier; I did not even feel like taking photos which is uncharacteristic.

Small Potato Latkes for NYE Caviar

We made plans with Rob and Dyce to have caviar and Champagne at their house to ring in the new year. All of us really like caviar and I happen to like latkes with my caviar, although the more I think about it, really great potato chips are fantastic and so much easier. In any case, a couple years ago, I came up with an idea for New Year's along the lines of a charcuterie board: a latke board. I had never heard of or seen anyone doing any such thing, but when I typed the phrase into my handy dandy search engine, up popped thousands of photos of people who beat me to the punch.

This reminds me that there is little truly original thought in cooking; dishes are built from a long lineage of precursors. Long ago in my restaurant days, a line cook from another restaurant angrily confronted me outside my restaurant, accusing me of stealing a dish from the menu at his restaurant. As busy as I was, I did not have the time or the energy to look at another restaurant's menu, let alone steal a dish.

I believe that it might have been some kind of beet and goat cheese salad. Because people have been putting beets and goat cheese as long as there have been beets and goat cheese, I am certain that it was not original to either the young cook's restaurant or mine. It was on thousands of menus long before our two.

In any case, my latke board idea reminds me that two people can come up with the same idea independently. My idea was to make several different kinds of latkes, a few pickles, and a few spreads, all of which would work with caviar.

Shallot Pickles and Cucumber Pickles Curing

My Latke Board
Potato, Celery Root, and Sweet Potato Latkes
Cucumber, Shallot, and Cornichon Pickles
Smoked Trout Mousse, Saffron Aïoli, Horseradish-Dill Sour Cream
Smoked Salmon and Caper Mousse

If you can name a root vegetable, I have made latkes from it, and likely fries and chips, or for you Brits, chips and crisps. Of the three vegetables that I picked for this latke board, potatoes will always be the best, but celery root latkes are equally phenomenal. The little sugar in sweet potato latkes is interesting, but makes the latkes want to stick to the pan and want to burn before they are done. Reducing the heat is necessary for making sweet potato latkes.

Latkes with smoked trout mousse was a regular feature of the lunch menu at the restaurant for many years, probably a decade. Ultimately, I believe it was a series of fad diets that did them in. For many years, the ladies who lunch would not order anything fried, no matter how tasty. In any case, apparently I had a reputation for making latkes, as the following cute "diploma" will attest. My oldest daughter, then but a tiny girl, awarded me a "specialty in making potato pancakes." How cute is this!?!

Chef's Diploma with
Specialty in Making Potato Pancakes

For caviar for the restaurant, I always bought from Browne Trading Company in Maine. I still buy from them, but the retail prices are a shock after paying wholesale for decades. Rob bought caviar from a company that is new to me, OM. Their ossetra and Browne's Siberian Supreme malossol were the best of the bunch.

We All Bought Caviar

Potato Chips, Best Vehicle for Caviar

Being the designated driver, I could only but sip a little of the delicious Champagne on offer at Rob and Dyce's. I managed to photograph the two that we bought so that I could remember them. The Gonet-Médeville is a lovely blanc de noirs. The André Clouet "Chalky" looks pretty gimmicky in its white wrap, but it is a fine 100% Chardonnay blanc de blancs. I like it, but I like many others better.

Here's hoping that 2026 proves better than New Year's Eve's inauspicious start.

Christmas Dinner

Ann wanted to have a small Christmas dinner on Christmas Day at our house, despite our being at Rob and Dyce's the evening before for a wonderful fondue, of which I took no photos. After a series of holiday parties with a big New Year's celebration to come within the week, it was almost too much. Next year we need to slow things down.

We thought about doing a Feast of the Seven Fishes, but consuming such a vast meal requires a small army that we are not prepared to serve in our home. Moreover, outside of the restaurant trade, finding decent seafood in this food desert is nigh on impossible.

Instead, Ann hit on the theme of three pastas, each in the color of the Italian flag: red, white, and green. In the weeks before Christmas, we set about throwing pasta dishes at the proverbial wall to see what would stick. For me, it was important that we have only one dish made at the last minute, so that I would not be chained to the stove all night. After a couple of days of kicking ideas around, we settled on three dishes.

Cookie Fairy Making Rosemary-Orange-Olive Oil Shortbreads

Ann had already decided she was making shortbreads with rosemary, orange, and olive oil for dessert. That left antipasti to figure out, one with meat and one without. The without came easily enough: a green olive olivada (tapenade less anchovies) served with crackers and a neutral double or triple cream cheese.

Olivada, Crackers, Triple Cream Cheese, Grissini

For meat, somehow we got fixated on vitello tonnato. I decided to keep the meat raw in the form of a tartare and use the tuna sauce for garnish. I thought it was a neat idea; I was alone in this thinking apparently, judging from the amount of leftovers that I turned into burgers the next day. The tonnato sauce was the best I have ever made. I think I scared people with raw meat.

Vitello Tonnato
Veal Tartare on Crostini with Tonnato Sauce and Capers

For the red pasta, I stuffed conchiglioni (large shells) with pulled short rib that I braised a couple of days before in a really intense beef stock. I mixed the short rib with ricotta to lighten it just a little and covered the whole in a quick marinara.

Here's a tip for the shells. I bought really excellent quality shells with a recommended 16- to 18-minute cook time. The day before, I boiled them for four minutes, then chilled them immediately in cold water. After tossing them in a little olive oil to keep them from sticking together, I put them in a seal top bag in the fridge overnight. The next day, they were perfect for stuffing, pliable but holding their shape rather than flopping around and closing up like fully cooked shells.

Baked Conchiglioni Stuffed with Short Rib and Ricotta
Topped with Marinara

Ann insisted on potato gnocchi which we made the day before. I rolled out and cut the gnocchi while Ann boiled them in small batches. Before people arrived, I made a speck and parmigiano cream. While the green pasta was cooking, I browned the refrigerated gnocchi and then poured the sauce over at dinner time. Everybody loved these; they were too rich for my taste.

Potato Gnocchi with Speck and Parmigiano Cream

The green pasta for me was a no-brainer, the word green sending me directly to basil for which Liguria is famous. The Ligurians serve their pesto on their traditional cut of pasta called trofie, hundreds and hundreds of pounds we rolled out at the restaurant. Not wanting to roll out trofie for this dinner, I screwed up and ordered in some dried trofie, which despite being imported from Italy, was crap. I am still kicking myself for not investing the half an hour it would have taken to make fresh trofie. Nobody but Ann and me seemed to notice; still I do not like using second rate ingredients.

Trofie al Pesto with Torn Basil and Toasted Pine Nuts

I think we were all pretty much partied out by the time Christmas Day rolled around. Unlike several prior nights, it was not a late night. I think we were all stuffed too, but fortunately, I was able to send home some of the copious leftovers.

Here's My Plate with All Three Pastas

Buon Natale!

Adiós Brad

Over our time in Bend, we have gravitated to Viaggio, a favorite wine bar, and we have come to know many of the regulars. So it was with Brad, with whom we struck up an easy acquaintance. Sadly for us, he decided to relocate to Florida. He let us know in the Thanksgiving time frame that he would be gone by mid-December. Naturally, we needed to host a farewell dinner to wish him on his way.

A dinner for three people is truly an odd number, both as in not an even number and a slightly bizarre number for a dinner, but three it was. I just so happened to have a package of three beautiful center-cut veal shanks in the freezer waiting for just such a dinner. Three people and three portions of ossobuco, perfect!

As Brad was packing and trying to avoid schlepping a lot of wine across the country, he volunteered to bring the wine. And when he learned the meal was ossobuco milanese, he brought two bottles of Barolo, the quintessential pairing for this classic dish.

Almonds and Olives to Start

Barolo. What Else to Pair with Ossobuco?

Ossobuco Milanese

The Guest of Honor

1989 Trockenbeerenauslese

After dinner, in lieu of dessert, I opened a 1989 trockenbeerenauslese that I bought in Germany at Kloster Eberbach in Eltville just up the Rhine from Wiesbaden and Mainz. The once-amber Riesling had turned the color of raisins, oxidizing heavily over the years. The nose was of Madeira, Sherry, and raisins, but the acid was still screaming.

Brad, best wishes on a new life in Florida!

Thanksgiving 2025

Yet another Thanksgiving is in the books, a quiet one involving just us and Rob and Dyce, an affair that ran from just after noon until well after dark, not that dark comes particularly late at this time of year. We had thought that we would celebrate at our house this year, but the guys just finished renovating the kitchen in their new house. They wanted us to come over for Thanksgiving to christen the kitchen, and so we did.

Post-Thanksgiving Scrabble with Willamette Pinot
Ed and Dyce Getting Killed by the Pros

I had already made plans to make my Thanksgiving Lasagne yet again this year (for details and recipes, click through the link). By this, I mean that Ann asked me to make it again as Thanksgiving is her show. As a perfectly portable dish, the pan of lasagne was easy to assemble in our kitchen (over 5 days) and bake in their kitchen. Turkey neck rillettes are always a happy by-product of making the lasagne, so we brought those along too as well as a container of cranberry-orange relish.

Rob and Dyce contributed a green bean casserole, deviled eggs, a warm artichoke dip, and a delightful charcuterie board. It seems hard to believe that Ann made it this far in life without ever having green bean casserole, de rigueur at every potluck! I also have to mention that they opened their final bottle of 2015 Cristom Pinot Noir Hirschy Vineyard, a spectacular wine that is drinking so phenomenally right now.

Way Too Many Appetizers

Rob's Spinach-Artichoke Dip

Turkey Rillettes with Cranberry Relish

You Had Me at Speck!

Dyce's Deviled Eggs

Tukey Lasagna and Green Bean Casserole Finished Baking

Tukey Lasagna, Cranberry Relish, Green Bean Casserole

One Food Porn Shot: Roasted Turkey Thighs for the Lasagna

Fall on the DRT, Dillon to Benham

Each fall, I love to go out to the section of river just upstream from our house to photograph the fall colors, such as they are here in Central Oregon. Today, I walked upstream on the Deschutes River Trail from Dillon Falls to Benham Falls and back, with a plan to continue walking downstream to Lava Island or below. I was not feeling well once I had returned to Dillon Falls where my truck awaited me, so I packed it in for the day.

There is no rhyme or reason to the order of the photos below.

Broadleaf Cattail, Typha latifolia
Lodgepole Pine, Pinus contorta

Early Snow on Mt. Bachelor

Woods' Rose Leaf Cluster, Rosa woodsii

Grouse Whortleberry, Vaccinium scoparium
Short Blueberry, Turning Red

Love the Layers in Front of and Behind the
Red Osier Dogwood, Cornus sericea

Terribly Late Bloom on Rubber Rabbitbrush, Ericameria nauseosa

Kinnikinnick, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, Green
Woods' Rose, Yellow, and Grouse Whortleberry, Red

Male Hairy Woodpecker Against Quaking Aspen, Populus tremuloides
Second Most Common Woodpecker After Northern Flicker

Aspen Doing What It Does Best

Fireweed Seedpods, Chamaenerion angustifolium

Sun Spotlighting Bracken, Pteridium aquilinum

Another Male Hairy Woodpecker

Thimbleberry, Rubus parviflorus, Highlighted Against Red Osier Dogwood

Aspen Colony

Common Snowberry, Symphoricarpos albus

"Eye" of Aspen

Woods' Rose Hips

Highly Prickly Lodgepole Pine Cone

Rubber Rabbitbrush Against Dillon Falls

Sticky Cinquefoil, Drymocallis glandulosa

Golden Pholiota, Pholiota sp.

Dusky Horkelia, Potentilla douglasii