Martha's Holidays 2005 (The Holiday Collection)
Martha's Holidaysis a very pleasant and warmly entertaining, three-disc set bursting with ideas for celebratory meals, decorating, partying, handmade gifts, and thoughtful gift-wrapping to get one through a busy Thanksgiving through New Year's Day. Start withMartha's Classic Thanksgivingfor great ideas about traditional and novel ways to cook a turkey, including a "black-lacquered" recipe that might shock guests when the bird exits the oven (it has a coal-black exterior) but proves undamaged and delicious. Stewart's stuffing recipes can make one weak in the knees, especially a dish that starts with cornbread and fruit, and another that commences with apricots and prunes soaking in bourbon. (The latter could be the only stuffing recipe in history involving macadamia nuts.) There's good stuff on side dishes and desserts, too (be prepared for the cranberry-pistachio biscotti), and there are imaginative chapters on settings, centerpieces, and kids' crafts.Martha's Homemade Holidaysbegin with four amazing possibilities for Christmas dinner, including one for standing rib roast and Yorkshire pudding (the segment welcomes renowned chef Anne Willan), another for seafood salad (with calamari, mussels, and lobster), the third a baccala ravioli dish that could be too good to be true (both the seafood salad and ravioli come courtesy of chef Mario Batali), and the last a duck-and-pomegranate meal (by chef Dan Silverman) that thoughtfully reduces the fowl's typical fattiness. Desserts include the basics on making chocolate truffles and gingerbread people, while decorating hints accentuate the simple and colorful. A section on Hanukkah is devoted to making embossed bags full of candy, and a dish called zalabia that has its origins in 165 B.C.Martha's New Year Celebrationhas loads of fun with appetizers, including a shrimp cocktail made simply and with good ingredients, and an antipasto platter that could feed a small army. The grilled curried shrimp looks irresistible, and there's a helpful chapter on bar snacks, including how to make fabulous-looking pretzel sticks with varied toppings. The "Party Drinks and Cocktails" section includes essential info on chilling champagne, but Martha also delights in concocting White Cosmopolitans (white cranberry juice and ice-cold vodka), Passion Fruit Champagne (pour the bubbly right over a spoonful of the fruit's pulp), and Snakebites (hard cider and ale). Lots of party fun for the whole family, including a confetti trick sure to delight, newspaper party hats, kids' bubble-jumping (a likely hit), and balloon decorating.--Tom Keogh