The holidays may be the only time of year when my family’s food obsession seems normal–after all, who *isn’t* constantly cooking around Christmas? Ben and I headed out to Oregon on the Sunday before Christmas and stayed a week.

Christmas Eve we always cook at the home of wonderful family friends, the Davidsons. The menu always varies: One year it was Chinese food (I think that was my favorite) and this year there was an enormous beef tenderloin. We started with lovely salads with cheese, roasted pears, and walnuts. Along with the beef we had broccoli two ways: spicy roasted and pureed; squash, beans, roasted potatoes and sweet potato fries. (Sadly all my photos of the food were horrible!) We pulled crackers and wore the paper crowns while we ate and played out miniature plastic instruments, or read fortunes with those little cellophane fish.

After dinner all the “kids” went for a little walk in the misty, cold night:

Christmas morning we slept in a bit, and then started to open our stockings while Tom made popovers and 40-minute eggs. There was also bacon. Soooo good:

Not long after:

I played around with a very cool new present, a portable photo studio with light diffusing panels and little lights. Maybe I’ll be able to use it for finally-well-lit food shots? Here’s a test with the awesome Polish crêche I grew up with:

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Side note
The little hippie grocery store near my house has great produce. Non-Pacific Northwesterners, writhe in envy at the mushroom bounty:

(Note the “Mushroom Mountain” sign)

Doesn’t Romanesco Broccoli look like an alien world or an enchanted forest if you get up close?

More to come…