2143 Bark Bite

Every holiday season we get assaulted on all sides with the temptations of food. The sugarplum fairies turn into gluttony goblins and doom our waistlines to extra inches to work off in the new year. It's as if the health clubs are in cahoots with the cookie makers.

But I do like that we get to appreciate food in different shapes and configurations as well. What holiday would be complete without a nut-encrusted cheese log? Or festive cheese balls? As I've written more than once, there's nothing that says holiday like balls and logs.

But let's not forget loafs either. A lovely pimento olive loaf is a great accompaniment to the holiday dinner. Not to mention as an appetizer alongside the aforementioned balls and logs. 

A great way to present leftovers too. After the turkey sandwiches, and the turkey casserole, and the turkey pot pie, and the turkey soup, a good homemaker knows how to squeeze out every last turkey drop with a steaming turkey loaf.

I saw a couple of new cooking item words in a circular recently. You can now buy a Himalayan salt "plank" upon which to grill your food. The picture showed shrimp on a skewer resting on an inch thick 8-by-10 plank of salt. I'd like to use it for a flank steak. Flank on a plank sounds fun.

The circular also had a picture of something called "bark" in holiday tins. Peppermint bark, dark cherry caramel bark, and dark caramel and sea salt bark. Dark bark looks like the bark of choice. Yum. Who doesn't want to eat something named after the hard prickly outer surface of a tree? 

The epicurean joys of the season. Logs, loaves, bark, and balls for your holiday fling, these are few of my favorite things.

America, ya gotta love it.