December 24, 2021 Toast spread with Boursin and with a slice of Salami. lunch - Posole Dinner - Posole with beans and Tamales

December 24, 2021 Toast spread with Boursin and with a slice of Salami. lunch - Posole  Dinner - Posole with beans and Tamales 

Christmas Eve is special in the Neighborhood. Everyone lights luminarias and people walk the neighborhood and drop in at neighbors’s houses.

We usually have an open house with lots of wonderful food but this year it was just the basics, Posole, tamales, and mulled red wine and no open house.

I started around 10:00 a.m. after buying a second can of hominy at Southwest Distributors.

For breakfast I spread Boursin on four dried slices of toast left from our Wednesday lunch and lay a slice of salami on each.

Then I rinsed the Posole and put it in a large pot and covered it with water and turned on the heat so the Posole would simmer.  I added oregano, about 1 1/2 lb. of boneless pork sirloin diced inn1/2 inch cubes, a head of garlic, 1 1/2 onions, a generous amount of cumin seeds, and ground coriander.

After about 6 hours, the Posole and pork started to soften.  I kept adding 2 cups of water every two hours as water vapor gassed off. 

At 3:00 we went out and set up about 150 luminarias on the edge of the sidewalks around our house.  Most houses sit on one city block. Our house sits on four lots, three facing Park and one facing 15th Street, so it takes at least 150 luminarias to wrap the sidewalks.  Some years in the past when there was more child labor we would put a double row, a luminaria on each side of the sidewalk for a total of 300 luminarias. 

We then showered and dressed for the evening.  

Willy had mentioned hot mulled wine so I went to the basement and fetched the liter bottle of German Glugwein and a magnum of Block Parcel, a French Pinot Noir, and heated those in a three quart pot with a stick of cinnamon, a crushed piece of nutmeg, the zest and juice of one lemon, six or seven cloves and 3 T. of sugar.  Suzette tasted it and added some honey to sweeten the wine a bit more.

When Willy returned around 5:00 he and Suzette lit the candles in each luminaria with propane wands and then he gave us one of our gifts, a new Chefman tea kettle that has a clear glass container and blue lights that allow you to watch the boiling action. A really cool design.  We decided to make tea with one of the bags from the box of Ahmed Earl Grey tea I gave Willy and eat some Christmas cookies with our tea,  That led us to decide to exchange gifts in the living room. So we celebrated our Christmas gift exchange. I gave Suzette the bag of Peet’s ground coffee and we gave Willy a bag of red chili flavored pistachios, and Willy gave us a lovely bottle of premium olive oil, and I opened my 2022 calendar given to me by the proprietress of 2000 Vietnam.

After the gifts were exchanged I enjoyed a bowl of Posole with a tamale and some avocado Suzette chopped and a dab of sour cream with a mug of mulled wine.

At about 7:00 we asked Willy to take pictures of Suzette and me in front of our Christmas tree on the front porch and then we walked to Janice and Tom’s house and Barry and Kylene’s house on Los Alamos, which turned out to be an adventure because Los Alamos is on the City bus tour.

It was a beautiful evening.  The rain and wind had stopped and the temperature warmed to be very comfortable. 

Willy walked to the corner of 16th when he got a call from friends and decided to return home to await any friends who might come over and we continued the additional block to Los Alamos, which was a more lively scene because it was on the City Luminaria bus tour route.

Not long after I sat down at the brazier with a fire blazing in Janice and Tom’s driveway at around 7:30 a stream of police motorcycles came by and then a stream of about ten city buses filled with tour participants and then a stream of cars.  There were also lots of folks walking along Los Alamos, which is a more narrow street than Park, so it was a dense throng of vehicles and people compared to the quiet scene on our street.

Janice brought me a glass of a lovely white wine that tasted like a good Pinot Grigio and I talked to her children while Suzette went inside and was doing shots of tequila.

After about 30 minutes we said goodnight and walked past the next house to Kylene and Barry’s house. Again this was mostly a family affair but Josh and Ann were there, so a few neighbors among mostly family.  I had two insights at Kylene and Barry’s house. The first was that the scare of Covid did not prevent family and friends from gathering on Christmas Eve, especially in our Country Club area that is so festively decorated with Christmas Lights and luminarias. Second, that there is a minimalist method of fixing Posole and a maximalist method.

Kylene’s posole was a wonderful explication of the minimalist method.  She put a pork shoulder in a big pot with some Posole and a few red chili pod and cooked it until the pork shoulder and Posole cooked into a mass of shredded meat with flavored Posole.

I fear I am in the maximalist camp.  I carefully cut boneless pork sirloin into 1/2 cubes and add it to the pot of Posole and water plus garlic, diced onions, oregano, cumin seeds, coriander, and a bit of salt and tend it all day to create a Posole stew.  Perhaps my method was more tedious because I did not use a large enough pot.

Both methods work great.

Besides Posole, Kylene and Barry cooked a pot of beans with a ham hock that were delicious and smaller pot of red chili.  The also had a bunch of hand made pork tamales.  It was the perfect combination of New Mexico Christmas food, so Suzette and I shared a bowl full of a tamale, beans, Posole and a drop of hot red chili and talked to Barry on the back porch where Josh and a relative named Saul were sitting.

Barry told us about the recent kitchen remodel at their house in Taos and then Suzette and he talked about social security spousal benefits until we left about 1/2 hour later.  I learned that Barry’s first wife died and he may be able to claim 1/2 of her social security under a new regulation.  Suzette is going to try to get some of Harold’s benefit because they were married over ten years.

It’s appears to be the season to claim government benefits. I guess Joe Manchin is correct when he says he fears that America is becoming a government handout driven country. That does not seem so sarcastic when you are the one receiving the benefit.  It makes sense to me that if you were married in a community property state that 1/2 of the benefit belongs to you.

That is the same standard applied to pensions.

At 9:00 we said good night and told Barry we would stay in touch on the social security issues and walked home.

I was sore and tired and went to bed by 10:00.

Suzette followed shortly thereafter after she put the Posole in the garage and the mulled wine on the back patio, even though she feared a wild animal might drink it and die.  I told her, “if they do they will die in inebriated ecstasy.”

Bon Appetit