Feasts & Fables: A Look Back at 2024
Postmortem on a Hanukkah dinner, favorite foodie adventures from the past year, plus a glimpse of what's on tap for 2025!
Hello and Happy New Year from the beach! (That’s my husband Jeff riling up the gulls on New Year’s Day!)
Are you all celebrated out? As I post this, the eighth and final night of Hanukkah has just passed. It feels very odd that the holiday stretched from Christmas to New Year, a rare though not unprecedented event; it has apparently happened five times since 1900.
My fridge and freezer are still filled with remnants of our Sunday Hanukkah feast, which seemed to work out quite well—except that as usual I overdid it in terms of making too much of everything—from hors d’oeuvres to latkes to brisket to dessert—and I kind of wore myself out in the process. The old bod ain’t what it used to be.
“Did you learn your lesson?” Jeff scolded me as I hobbled about. “Yes,” I lied. “Potluck next year.”
But there were some standout contributions—a noodle kugel and pomegranate mousse, both from my cousin Tina (recipes to come, I hope!), a salad from my mother-in-law Judy, three types of McConnell’s ice cream from my neighbor Susie. Lots of great wine from my guests too!
Everyone went home with some of the leftovers, and the rest is making its way into soup (chicken matzo ball coming up!), chili (brisket, beans and veggies), or future feasts dreamed up from whatever comes to hand.
Unlike others I know, I actually like leftovers. It’s probably a genetic throwback to ancestors who never had enough to eat, so I tend to overbuy, overfeed and overstock my pantry. These days food has gotten more expensive, and food waste is a huge issue in this country, so I think I need to do more work on the frugality front.
Do you like having leftovers or are you careful to budget just enough to feed your assembled guests? I’d love to know.
From the archives
I posted 36 stories on Substack in 2024—not particularly prolific compared to others (but, no, we won’t go down the comparison rabbit hole!). As in my 2023 wrap-up piece, some of the most popular posts came from our travels, including Sicily, Japan, and New Mexico. But there were others on lentil soup and pound cake that seemed to hit the sweet (or savory!) spot as well. In case you missed them, here are a few highlights:
Supping on soup
Even as we’re worrying about a possible La Niña and a dryer-than-usual winter in Southern California, it’s still on the chilly side (okay, it’s relative; the 40s to the 60s may not strike you as chilly, but we’re thin-skinned here!). Anyway, it’s perfect weather for a bowl of soup. In this house, of course, soup is always welcome, even in summer. Served with some crusty bread, it’s a meal. Here’s the post I wrote about lentil soup, a staple in my mother’s kitchen and in mine.
A passion for Palermo
“Sicily is like the key to discover Italy,” Laura, our guide to the food markets of Palermo, told our little group of visitors. “In Sicily you can do everything. You can see beautiful temples and then you can see beautiful cities with amazing churches. You can hike, you can visit the markets. It’s not such a small island.”
And we discovered that she was right as we spent two weeks (definitely not enough time!) traveling around the island. We went in early May, a great time to visit before the arrival of the summer heat and the rush of tourists. Below is a link to my piece on Palermo. You might also check out two other tales from Sicily: my story on Taormina and a visit to a farm near Syracuse.
Nuts over a classic cake
One of the abiding memories of childhood is of my mother peering into the stainless steel bowl of her Harvest Gold KitchenAid mixer at beaters whipping together the butter and sugar to make her signature pound cake. When the mixture turned a creamy, fluffy white, you would start adding the eggs, but not before, she would tell me.
I never forgot Mom’s lesson in creaming butter and still think of her when I taste or make a pound cake. One night last year, I decided to whip one up at midnight as a kind of therapy for what ailed me. I find that baking provides that kind of solace at times. The focus required to measure and mix ingredients and monitor oven temperatures and times makes it difficult to think about anything else. Given the sorry state of the world, it’s clearly time to make another pound cake!
Here’s a link to the story.
A personal favorite
The story closest to my heart was on the artist Georgia O’Keeffe, written just a month ago. We were lucky enough to visit her home and studio in Abiquiú, New Mexico, as well as the excellent museum in Santa Fe that bears her name. There, you can find not only her art but some of her cookbooks and recipes are on display. In case you missed that post, here’s the link:
And now for 2025!
More travels are afoot. My husband’s been tapped to make PhotowalksTV episodes for his YouTube channel on Route 66, which will be celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2026, and I’m taking the ride too. We’ll be starting at the beginning of the “Mother Road” in Chicago sometime in April and following the famous 2,448-mile route to its end at the Santa Monica Pier. Stops along the way will include all the name-check cities in “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,” the song made famous by the Nat King Cole Trio in 1946—St. Louis and Joplin, MO; Oklahoma City; Amarillo, TX; Gallup, NM; Flagstaff, Kingman and Winona, AZ; Barstow and San Bernardino, CA. Some trip, eh?
I’ll be helping with the camera work and looking for opportunities to write about local food and attractions. If you know of any we shouldn’t miss, please let me know!
Other than that, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was another excursion to Japan to visit our son and daughter-in-law, plus a variety of other road trips in the U.S. and possibly elsewhere that have yet to be determined.
Speaking of road trips, Jeff has a piece coming out this Sunday with a story about our very first road trip, which took place in 1979. It’s part of his personal history project. He has urged me to write my version, which would be somewhat different, but his is entertaining and largely true (plus his memory is a lot better than mine!). You’ll be able to read it at Jeff’s Substack site, which you can find here.
Another goal is to come up with some healthy recipes to begin the new year and to help in the effort to shed a few of the extra pounds acquired while baking all those Christmas and Hanukkah goodies. Always open to suggestions!
Thanks so much for reading, liking, sharing, commenting and subscribing. I truly value your input and hope that 2025 will be a good year for us all and that our country will continue to be a beacon of light, liberty and tolerance to the world and to those who live and work here.
President Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday at the age of 100, embodied the best of that American spirit, especially in his long post-presidential life when he and his wife Rosalynn dedicated themselves to the service of others. It would be a better world if more folks followed in their footsteps.
See you soon!
Ruth
Great wrap and love how you ended it on a positive note, with a tribute to Jimmy Carter.
Route 66! Exciting travels coming up! I think my favorite title of your posts from last year was Midnight Cake Therapy. Happy new year Ruth! ✨❣️