- April 29, 2024
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Lakewood Ranch and east Bradenton residents' recipes mix tradition and love to make the holiday season special.
Oatmeal cranberry chocolate chunk cookies
For River Club's Mark Sinclair, it's just not Christmas without a mince pie.
Rather than baking cookies for Santa, Sinclair makes mince pies, a traditional British sweet pie.
The mince pies are nestled next to a shot of brandy, sherry or "whatever Santa fancies" and a carrot or apple slice for the reindeer, Sinclair said.
"In the morning, a carrot would be half gone," he said. "I used to get a pairing knife out and used it to cut teeth marks out of it. There would be half the mince pie and all the drink was gone."
To make the morning extra special, Sinclair also would put flour on the floor and use his boots to make Santa's footprints.
Sinclair and his wife, Jane Ebury, said having mince pies every Christmas reminds them of home. Both Sinclair and Ebury are from England.
Sinclair said the mince pies pair nice with brandy butter.
As he made the brandy butter Dec. 15, Sinclair was cautious at first, only adding four tablespoons of brandy to the butter, sugar and vanilla mixture.
After a taste, Sinclair decided to add two more tablespoons of brandy.
"Oh, that's naughty," Sinclair said with a laugh.
Sinclair, along with other East County residents, shared their favorite recipes that make their holidays a little sweeter.
Every year, Rebecca Kelly's family gets competitive about gingerbread houses.
The Kelly family members, plus some friends, choose one night each December for everyone to decorate his or her gingerbread house. Frosting, candy, fruit, mints, marshmallows — everything is fair game when it comes to decorating. Once the pixie dust settles, the family posts photos of each house on Facebook for people to vote on a winner.
But all this competition makes people hungry, and not just for sweets, but for something hearty, something communal. That's why Kelly makes Italian beef sandwiches in her slow cooker every year on this night.
"I have made these sandwiches for so long that I don’t remember when I didn’t make them," Kelly said. "Some people want to eat quick and get to work (on the gingerbread houses). Some will want to take a break and eat slower. Some will come back and have a second helping. It goes well with all the sugar you are eating that night."
The phrase "Go Blue" means something in the Hollway household.
Rob Hollway, the football coach at The Out-of-Door Academy, was indoctrinated with University of Michigan football fandom when he was young. His father, Bob Hollway, played defensive end for the Wolverines, and his grandfather, also named Bob Hollway, both played for and coached the Wolverines. Though Rob Hollway played at the University of Wyoming, he's kept up the family tradition, and both of his sons, Bode and Louis, root for the Wolverines.
Each year, when the Wolverines play a big bowl game or playoff game during the holiday season, the family makes ham sliders on Hawaiian rolls.
"They are good to eat all day, and the kids love them," Hollway said. "They are also good to reheat if there's NFL action the next day."
Sandya Rukmal Wickramanayake moved to the United States from Sri Lanka 40 years ago and now lives in Country Club East. Along the way she shortened her name to Sandy Wick to “make it easier.”
She created a Christmas tradition for her family that both celebrates their American lifestyle and pays homage to her homeland.
Every year, the family opens presents in the morning and eats kiribath for lunch. Kiribath is milk rice and is the national dish of Sri Lanka.
“It’s a tradition that milk rice is something we make for special occasions like a wedding or the new year that’s celebrated in mid-April,” Wick said. “The one I make for my kids is a savory one.”
Her children Nilesh and Shenali, now in their 30s with their own children, still love and look forward to the meal.
“My granddaughter is 6 months old, and she’ll get to taste this for the first time,” Wick said. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Marie Rizzi has been decorating gingerbread houses since she was a child. As a mother and teacher, she used to bake them for her children and students. Now, as a grandmother and retiree, she baked gingerbread houses for her grandchildren and students at Robert E. Willis Elementary School.
“The smell when you unwrap that box with all of those spices, it just knocks you over,” Rizzi said.
The recipe she uses was printed about 75 years ago. They’re called “gingies” cookies. The recipe came from the Girard College of Philadelphia, where serving gingies became a holiday tradition.
Holidays in Italy are all about eating.
“Christmas brings the whole family together, like 40 or 50 of us, and we eat all day,” said Andrea De Dominicis, co-owner of Osteria 500 in Waterside Place. “We stop, then eat again, then stop. We eat four times a day, all day.”
Because of religious reasons, most Italians don’t eat meat on Christmas Eve, but every type of fish is served. On Christmas Day, meat accompanies the pasta. De Dominicis said pasta is a staple of every holiday.
His Osteria 500 partner and brother-in-law, Giuseppe Del Sole, brings the Neapolitan ragu, which is also on the restaurant’s menu.
Every holiday season, River Club's Maureen Rosin has a go-to cookie recipe that will ensure stomaches are filled and not a crumb will be left.
Rosin, who used to teach cooking at King's Cooking Studio in New Jersey and has assisted famous chefs, said she's been using this recipe for chewy oatmeal cranberry chocolate chunk cookies for a decade.
"This recipe hits a couple different notes," she said. "It's the sweetness of the cranberries, the orange zest and the texture of the oatmeal."
While some people only bake cookies to give to friends and family, East County's Ana Dougherty bakes treats for her furry friends as well.
Dougherty's dog Logan used to bark at the oven, drooling as he waited for his peanut butter or bacon flavored cookies. She now spends time every holiday season baking the peanut butter cookies and bacon flavored cookies with her daughter, Autumn.
They use a mold of a dog bone or a gingerbread person to shape the cookies.
