Dept. of Existential Seasonal Angst

[kaffy_r]

Just Call Me a Yule-ish Capitalist

I have done all my Christmas and holiday shopping. Two days of research, an hour of checking with my Best Beloved for agreement on choices, one text, one frenzied 20-minute stretch online. 

Oh, and weeks of guilt over abandoning brick and mortar stores and the living they grant their employees. 

Go, me. 

How do the rest of you handle it?

Comments

[maruad]

Some people put a type of icing on theirs even if we don't.


We call it prunes but if plum paste works for him, go for it. If he won't eat prunes, would he eat apricots? A lot of people have begun to use substitute fillings.

The difficult part is that you need to cook so many separate layers (7 to 12 depending on how you roll out your dough) and each layer is the size of a pie plate. I know some people who have switched to using the bottoms of cake pans, which, depending on the shape of the pan, can lead to square or rectangular vinatarta. These squared off pieces make sense as the cake is cut into rectangles, with the edge being either discarded or eaten by immediate family while guests and others would get the properly sliced bits.

I just found a website that will ship "vinarterta" to folks. It is expensive. They also sell "Plum Jam" which is vinatarta filling (I often have way too much "jam" leftover so I am not surprised they do as well). The site will let you see what it should look like (though they use a lot of icing).

Vinatarta is awesome with coffee or tea (or even milk).