Snow Fox

Scotty the nature photographer is hard at work on Volume II.

?

I finally saw Blue Jasmine a few weeks ago, ready to be all rocked by Cate Blanchett's performance.

Huh? The movie was... fine. Cate Blanchett was... fine. She was playing the exact same character she did in The Talented Mr. Ripley back in 1999. I think Cate B. is one of the best actresses alive, but can we go back in time and give her an Oscar for Elizabeth, or Notes on a Scandal, and not this okay movie in which she just acted really nervous all the time?

Anyway. Were I an Academy voter, I'd be all in on Sandra Bullock, who carried a space epic BY HERSELF. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

As is tradition, we celebrated with dinner, dessert, and political sabotage.

Christmas

A little December recap, two months later.

Things started with the company Christmas party, which was pretty ****ing incredible. Roseland Ballroom was transformed into a straight-up winter wonderland, complete with matching DJs and an open sushi ice bar!

I already mentioned Cookie Day, which turned out well. Maybe not the painted cookies. But the glitter cookies were great, and they all TASTED delicious, which is the important part.

Cookie Day was also a Snow Day, so we took a well-deserved hot tub break in the storm.

Christmas itself felt like a twelve-day extravaganza. It kind of was - we went to my parents' house the weekend before, with a special guest appearance form my Peru-dwelling sister and a new addition to the family Christmas card... 

Hi, Santa.

We had such a great time that I forgot to take pictures. Oops. But one of the highlights was putting on National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, muted, as we made dinner. We slowly migrated to the TV and, with the sound still off, began quoting every line. After about a half hour of this, Alex, my brother's girlfriend, finally piped up: "Um... guys? Can we maybe... put the sound on? For those of us who don't know every word?" 

Alex is very patient.

We also hung out with my high school friends that weekend, including the bebbies. They've grown up some. 

Finally, Dan and I went to Chicago for the holiday. His mom knocked herself out making a thirteen-course Christmas Eve feast, followed by Christmas Day brunch at his aunt and uncle's, featuring made-to-order omelettes and a metric ton of crab legs.

Lobster tails up top, scallops on the right, and a pile of desiccated beets in the center (they'd given all they had to the borscht).

Uszka! (say it OOSH-ki).

The new addition to the family already has her priorities straight.

AND THAT'S IT!!!

I need a vacation.

Bonus pictures of Rockefeller Center, which actually wasn't as horribly crowded as I'd feared it would be for the month of December.

Game Time = Dip Time

Listen, I don't care about the Super Bowl. The best part of the first Sunday in February is the Kitten Halftime Show on Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl. The second best part is gorging yourself on dip. OH MY GOD I LOVE DIP. You knew that (proof), but it bears repeating. So I'm making nacho cheese dip for tomorrow.

How do you make nacho cheese dip? I know the easy way - you buy a jar of medium-spicy Tostitos Con Queso - but there are nine-million-and-one nacho cheese dip recipes out there and none of them are similar to each other. Everyone agrees that you can't just melt a block of cheddar cheese (it will be a grainy mess), but the amity ends there. So I cobbled together aspects of a few recipes and made the cheese dip below. It turned out well, so here you go: yet another method for non-Velveeta-based nacho cheese, because where the F am I going to find Ro-Tel tomatoes.

Inspiration picture. The dip should be orange and smooth, with a little bit of heat. 

However, the attached recipe includes a paltry joke amount of cheese - 2 ounces - and heavy cream, which is overkill. But it did give me the idea of using buttermilk, which is high in acid. A high-acid liquid helps break down cheese curds for a smooth texture, and I happened to have two cups of the stuff in the freezer. So that was my jumping-off point.

First, soften a few tablespoons of onion and a sliced garlic clove in some butter.

Add a few pinches of turmeric, paprika, and cayenne, a heaping teaspoon of tomato paste, and a minced jalapeno (leave the seeds, for God's sake). Then add the world's best ingredient:

GRATED CHEESE IS SO DELICIOUS. I tossed four ounces each of cheddar and jack with cornstarch - I got this trick from a Melissa Clark fondue recipe - and added it to the pan. As that melted, I stirred in the buttermilk, about a quarter cup at a time.

This buttermilk is the real deal, leftover from when I made butter last month. I can't believe I never bragged about that here. No time like the present - guess what!? I made my own butter last month! Anyway, I recommend freezing leftover buttermilk, as no recipe ever calls for much of it, and it's only sold in quarts.

Stirring in the buttermilk -

The cornstarch, while helping with the texture, muted the cheese and jalapeno a bit, so I threw in another minced jalapeno, another tablespoon of rinsed n' minced white onion, and... er... a tablespoon of prepared salsa (it's winter. Who has tomatoes?).

AND VOILA.

Passed the taste test.

So, there you have it. The internet's nine-million-and-second method for making nacho cheese.