Small Concerns

Yesterday's recipe for blue corn quesadillas with pear salsa was in the front of  "South Bay Gourmet, a collection of Sandpiper Members' Recipes," and I kept plowing along to the end.  It wasn't until I finished the book that the something that had nagged at me all the way to the end became apparent.  The women up on The Hill are rampant, incipient alcoholics! 

To give you a sampling of recipes requiring alcohol, these were picked at random:  prime rib of beef with cabernet pan sauce; roast prime rib of beef with herbed crust and madeira sauce, steaks with green peppercorn, horseradish and cognac sauce, Irish cream macadamia nut pie,  champagne-poached pears,  Kahlua chocolate mousse... you get the picture - and it isn't a pretty one of the Sandpipers "testing the sauce" and, hey, long as the bottle is out, why not take a swig to make sure it hasn't gone off...

I wonder how many times the Hill paramedics have been called to fish a Sandpiper chef out of the oven??? Or off of the floor. 

Be that as it may - not our concern.  Moving along ...

ACORN SQUASH WITH CRANBERRIES AND PORT
3/4 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 12-oz. bag of  cranberries, picked over and rinsed
1/4 cup Tawny Port
1 large acorn squash about 1 1/2 lbs. halved, then quartered, seeds and strings discarded.

Mix the water and sugar together, bring it to a boil for 10 minutes to make a syrup; add the cranberries - set aside a cup of them for the topping add the Port and keep stirring.

Place the squash chunks skin-side down, on a rack over boiling water and steam them until done.
Put them on a platter, drizzle half of the cranberry sauce over them and put the leftover cranberry sauce in a pitcher and use with the turkey.   A double shot of port, if you will. 

MY MOTHER'S BAKED SQUASH
Cut an acorn squash in half, scrape out seeds and strings, place squash cut-side down on a baking sheet and bake until easily pierced with a fork.  To serve, cut the pointy end off, flip it over, and put a pat of butter in the resulting "cup" of squash.  Serve. 

I can assure you she wasn't sitting looped at the kitchen able pounding down the port while the squash baked.