Around the Kitchen Table - Crabmeat, Lobster and Shrimp for your Holiday table.

Hey everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and welcome to Around the Kitchen Table. And brrr, it's wintertime in Florida. We're down to 60 degrees and it's a little overcast and I know nobody's feeling too sorry for me. But anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I am feeling the season. And today we're going to start thinking about Christmas. How's that sound to you, Susan?

Just great. We are right in the middle of it, of the season. And I have to say, I've done some shopping. I've done a good amount of shopping online. I got into the whole Cyber Monday thing and everything, but as we speak, we're getting the house done. This year I want to do cookies, and I have cookie molds, so I really want to get into it. So how was your weekend?

Weekend was good. It was pretty— I think the weather was good. It's a blur remembering that far back. Some days just run into others, but we did spend Thursday at the Magic Kingdom. It was just perfect, and we don't go that often, but we went over there and spent the day. And Friday, I had two shows. I was on the road with Chef Dennis at a Ford F-150 truck demo. That was kind of fun.

My husband's favorite. He had one when he was 16.

Well, let me tell you something. I didn't get to drive it because they got the time wrong. I didn't. And we started an hour late, but they have 360 park assist. They have cameras all the way around the truck that let you see how you're pulling into a spot.

That I have not heard of before.

Yeah, that's new. Like, I got the backup camera and I couldn't live without it now. It's really, especially as you get older, turn around and look and see where you're going.

Oh, I will never get another car without a backup camera.

Well, these have it going all the way around, so if you're trying to get into a parking spot and you're not sure, you can actually see exactly where you are.

So this means that I can park while I'm applying my mascara and I'm sipping my coffee and I'm checking, you know, whatever I have to check and talking to whoever. It'll virtually do itself.

Yeah, if they could just get it to park itself, that would be taking so much out of the problem. It would just make life easier. I've seen some pretty strange things driving. I think the funniest thing I ever saw was someone eating Chinese food with chopsticks while they were driving.

Oh my gosh, that's a— oh wow.

With chopsticks. So that takes— I'm going, yeah, and I've eaten sandwich, hold something in a hand, but they actually had the container and they were like Wow, that's taken it to a whole other level.

I will admit to having sushi beside me in the middle section of the car and taking it up with my fingers. I'll admit to that.

Well, that's okay, but you're not using two hands to really make the whole dining experience.

That's true, that's true.

One is still on the wheel.

Oh my gosh, yeah, so I was in and out this weekend. And I'm now newly obsessed. I ordered a pizza stone. I needed another pizza stone and I ordered a pizza peel. I probably should have gotten wood, but I got, I think, stainless steel. I don't know. But you know, we have to do pizza after the holidays. We need to do pizza because what I did was I got the dough from a local place, and it is so— it is so easy, and it's so fresh and delicious. So I think we need to do a bunch of pizzas after the holidays.

Sounds good. You know, it'll be perfect timing. And I do have a stone, and I have a peel. The peel is more of a synthetic material, though. I got them at Williams-Sonoma, and that's what they had at the time. So, you know, it does its job, but I've been cooking them. I haven't cooked any indoors. I need to try that. Especially I need to do some gluten-free ones so I can go back to eating pizza. I had found doing them on the grill was pretty good. I would crank the stone up. I have a 4-burner, so I would crank it up and then turn the 2 center burners off and then put the pizza on it. It was so nice and hot. It took about 8, 9 minutes to cook the pizza, but there's no direct heat under the center one.

Yes. Cool. Yeah.

It was really nice.

Yeah, good idea. Meanwhile, here we are in the holidays, and I have— I put together a slide slide show of just random ways to dress up the kitchen for the holidays. Random but cool and fun and good ideas. And so I'll be showing a slide show and you have, you know, let's get to what you have.

Yeah, I have— let me grab the crab meat out of the refrigerator. I had put it in there so it wouldn't get too warm. But mostly, you know, this is really easy things. There's nothing I'm doing that's going to be really difficult. You know, we're talking about working with a little bit more pricey material, and you know, it's something that if you know how to do it and how to— what to look for when you're buying, you know, you can really make yourself an incredible meal that you would have paid twice or three times the price going out. So the first thing I'm going to talk about is crab meat, and this is pasteurized lump., okay? This has happened. I've never seen this brand before, but what I look for in crab meat is I look for where it comes from. Now, you know, a lot of people, if you don't mind the flavor of different crab meats, but you know, I'm kind of an American crab person. I don't like— and not that they're not— but I don't like snow crab or king crab or any of those other ones. I grew up on the Gulf in Texas, and then we moved to New Jersey, so we've always had Blue Claw. Crabs and the regular ones because I've seen a variety of blue claw. I think I was watching a Norwegian or Scandinavian cooking show the other day and I thought of you. They were bringing out these humongous crabs, but they had blue point claws, but the bodies were like twice the size.

It also reminds me when I went to Seattle to— what is that market?

Pike's? Pike's, yeah.

Yeah, you know, the fish stores there, the boots and the crabs, they're huge, and the salmon. It's so—

Well, the West Coast—

I'm sure there's mail order from there as well, probably.

But you know, if you do look for it, and I'm not saying not to buy it, just see where it's coming from. If you can get, you know, American, or this is Mexican, so to me that's the same thing because it's Gulf. Anytime you can get Gulf crabs or East Coast crab meat, that's always going to be the best choice for you. There's nothing wrong with pasteurized crab meat. It holds up a lot better, and it's hard to get fresh crab meat. We're still running in the time where you— it's just towards the end of it. You're very lucky to find it this time of year if you do find it. A lot of it has to do with the storms. This is a lump. You can find claw.. You can find a jumbo lump. Generally, unless the price is really close between jumbo and lump, I won't get the jumbo because it's going to break up. It's not really going to matter in the flavor. It's going to look prettier if I was sautéing a dish and I wanted people to see jumbo lumps on top of it. Then I would do it. This is a nice lump crab meat. Which way am I going? This way. By now I have this down. Nice pieces, nice looking lump, and even claw for stuffing things. Claw is actually a very flavorful crab meat. It's just not that white color that everybody enjoys or likes to see. This was a very tight pack, very low moisture crab meat. Sometimes I get them and they're really wet, and I would have then put the lid on it and pushed some of the liquid out of it just by pressing down on it just to get it—

Tell me something, Chef. What is something like that can? What does that cost?

I think this was about $24. Wow.

Okay. And do you have to pick through it?

Oh, no. No. Pasteurized, you almost— you know, it's crab meat, and you are going to get a shell from time to time. But pasteurized, you almost never have to worry about. It's just one part of the process that they do the way they do it. It's only the hand-picked crab meat that will have the shells in it. It's usually as you get further away from Maryland that they become a little heavier. I always knew Alabama crab meat was all shellier. It was still good crab meat, but it just wasn't picked with the care sometimes. All through Louisiana, you can get crab meat. This is a nice product. It's It's very firm. It's very moist. It smells like crab meat. You can always smell that pasteurized smell. I'm used to it now because I've been cooking with it for so long. There's a little bit of a taste that's associated with the pasteurization. It won't taste exactly like fresh crab meat, although this is really a good-looking crab meat. If it was fresh and I was buying jumbo, I might serve jumbo lump cocktail and let people just eat the jumbo lumps.

It also might cost a fortune. If you're buying it from the fish store or someone's preparing it, it's going to be a bloody fortune.

A lot of times what I'll do with stuffing, like when I make crab cakes or if I'm using just a lump, you can throw a can of claw in there. Like I said, claw is actually pretty tasty meat. If you're using it as a stuffing and you're not— I mean, not as crab imperial plain, it's not going to be that bad, especially like if you're stuffing mushrooms. If you want a really nice appetizer for your holiday party, crab meat stuffed mushrooms, perfect. And claw, it almost doesn't matter where you get it from, it's still going to taste like claw, as the body meat tends to taste a little bit different if we're doing Indonesian waters or some of the different waters where the crabs are just a little bit different. So there's just a little different flavor. But this is a really nice crab meat, it's Mexican.. That's what you want to look for. You want to look for wild-caught anytime you're buying seafood. That is the key word. This is the crab meat, and very simply, all we're going to do with this crab meat— put that aside— is we're going to take a little bit of mayonnaise. We're going to— let me change the camera so you can see— a bit of mayonnaise. We're going to take some whipped beaten egg. I'm going to take a little bit of sugar. Now you can add whatever you like into this. This is just a very simple variation. Some Old Bay seasoning. I'm going to mix this up. This is an imperial sauce. This is what you would use to make crab imperial or to make any kind of crab meat stuffing. There's no bread involved. It's just a very nice— and mayonnaise is— and this is one time you don't want to skimp on mayonnaise. You need a really good mayonnaise and I always go to Hellmann's. Just because it's something you can trust and it heats well. A lot of times, the problem you have is that the mayonnaise just does not heat real well and will break on you. That's why we use that. I have the Imperial sauce. I've got my crab meat. Then I'm going to put this in here.

Mmm, that looks good.

Oh, yeah.

I almost always order crab cakes when I go out. I love it.

This recipe, the only real difference in crab cakes that I do is that I will put some chopped onion in them and I will put a little bit of breadcrumbs in them. Not a lot, about a half a cup or so. I'm going to add some chopped parsley because we want to see some color. People eat with their eyes. This is an expensive dish. You want it to look vibrant. Now I'm going to put in some roasted red peppers, some chopped roasted peppers. I didn't get all the liquid. I don't want to get any extra liquid in there if I don't have to. Right now, what I'm going to do is gently mix it. You want to be a little careful because you do have some lump in here. It's not jumbo, but you don't want to break it all up. You don't want to come in here and stir it real heavy and get everything all mixed up. Now, what you might want to do— this is just a little bit of extra sauce, it's not going to make a lot of difference. Because it is going to be stuffing. But if this was a crab meat, you would definitely— I mean, a crab cake, you would definitely want a little bit of breadcrumb just to tighten it up a little bit.

Mm-hmm.

Fine the way they are. Now these will make— you could do crab cakes pretty much out of these. They won't form a cake as well because they are— it is a little moister than you would— that's why you need the breadcrumbs in so you can form them.. But you wouldn't need to bread them if you were doing crab cakes. I'm just going to let that sit for a minute. Then we're going to go on to what we're stuffing. We have some shrimp. These again are Gulf shrimp. These are wild-caught Mexican shrimp. That's what you want to look for. I'm going to slice it down. These I'm going to cut a little bit more than I would normally cut them for sauté. I'm taking them down and I'm getting rid of all the little insides that we don't need to eat.

That's the job everyone hates, the peeling and deveining. It seems to take forever. I don't know.

You're not doing as many. Basically here at this point though, what I'm going to do is I'm going to flatten my shrimp out a little bit. All right, very simple. And you'll notice I left the tails on them. Yeah, I want them because we want— it's visual. All right, it's a— this is a visual thing. Let me grab a spoon. I mean, the tail really isn't going to play into it in any way, shape, or form other than— it's going to make it look a little prettier.

It does.

You can turn them different ways. You can fan them out depending on how much tail there is there. Here's the shrimp. Now, of course, I would do this on a serving platter— not a serving platter, on a cookie sheet or something that I'm going to bake it on. I'm going to take a spoonful of crab meat. Shrimp cook really, really quick. You don't really need to do a whole lot else. I'm covering the top of it with a nice, wet mixture of crab meat. The egg is going to bind it, so it's going to stay in place. I want to cover it really nicely. That's going to keep the shrimp protected to a degree.

Are you thinking of these as an entrée? Because I can certainly see them as an appetizer.

Either way you want to go. These can be an entrée. These can be an appetizer.

Oh, nice.

Buffet line.

And look how easy and fast that was. Wow.

And the shrimp can be cleaned ahead of time. You can do these all on a cookie sheet. Like I said, get yourself a cookie sheet lined. You don't even really need to line it with foil. I probably wouldn't because then it might stick to the foil. And then you just want to put these on the pan.. And when you put them on the pan, you just want to make sure you add a little bit of water. Now, if you really want to take these just a little bit, like if you do these ahead of time, let them sit and they firm up real well, they'll be cold, they'll be really nice. And then you just take just a little bit of butter.

Oh yeah, I mean, you need butter, top it off.

And if you want to sprinkle a little bit more Old Bay on top, Okay, so this is, this is really it. Now, this is a really nice— this would be an elegant dinner. If you want to serve like a surf and turf, here's your turf. All right, the shrimp aren't as expensive as lobster, and you're going to get a lot of shrimp out of 1 pound of crab meat.

You know, and I was just going to say that before, that looked like a lot of crab meat, especially once you mix it up. I mean, what, you know, when I asked you, you said it was $24. That seems that it will feed a whole lot of people.

Oh yeah, if you're having a party and say you wanted to get— shrimp generally run 16 to 20 count, or if you want to go just a little smaller and go 20 to 30 count. If you got a pound of 20 to 30, so you got about 25 shrimp, a pound of crab meat will stuff them all. Now, if you've got 10 people coming over, you got 2 to 3 shrimp a person, 2.5 shrimp a person. It's not going to be all they're going to eat, But you've just raised the bar on your buffet.

You know what, I'm planning a bridal shower for my daughter-in-law in January, and this will definitely be on the menu. There's no doubt. Look how fast it took and look how elegant. It's so elegant.

And like I said, you can do these ahead of time. You could do these, you could make the Crab Imperial the day before, let it sit. You know, I wouldn't make it too far ahead of time because it's got that egg in it.. The night before, clean your shrimp, put them on a cookie sheet, have them all ready to go, have them covered, maybe moisten them just a little bit so they don't dry out, and then just stuff them, let them sit a little bit longer, and pop them in the oven. Boy, you've got it done. Serve them. Like I said, this is something people are going to talk about. It's really a nice way to serve your guests something different. Now, if you got a few more dollars, Everybody, every supermarket has lobster tails in them now. They all have these little 4-ounce tails. They generally run about $5 apiece, $6 apiece depending on what they are. Lobster will go for about $20 to $22 a pound for me to buy. That's not really a bad price. Depending on— this would be for an extra special dinner. I would not serve these really in a buffet line unless you want to and have a lot of money to do it.

That's a little more substantial, I would think.

At this point, if I was going to do that, I would split them in half. I would season them really well with some spices and colorful herbs and grill them and then put them out on the buffet line that way, if that's what you wanted to serve. Then I would leave them in the shell. For this, though, what I'm going to do is I'm going to cut into the shell. You don't want to cut all the way. I want to cut the shell through all the way, but I do not want to cut the meat. Then I'm going to open it up. I just want to get a little split on the meat. I don't want to go all the way through because I need that.

Does it matter to you if they are previously frozen?

They're all previously frozen.

Okay.

If you see them thawed, even with shrimp, shrimp are always frozen. You're never going to get fresh unless you happen to be where they're catching them. Lobster, I have never seen fresh. One thing you want to think about with lobster is you want cold. Now watch this real quick. As I'm pulling the tail out, I'm fanning the tail. Now I'm going to push right at the base to try and keep it out. Now I've tucked the shell together. And then I'm going to take the lobster and put the lobster on top of the shell. Okay, and this is split maybe just a little bit too much, but we're going to stuff it so it won't matter.

Wow, that— I mean, that is beautiful.

So now see how I'm cutting? I start, I start here, and I'm starting with the heel of the knife, putting the heel of the knife in here, and I'm going to get it started. I'm just going to work my way down and just try and split it open a little bit. Then we spread the shell apart. This is a nice one. Pull the meat out. I can always cut the meat a little bit more. Now I tuck the shell together underneath to try and make it a little bit smaller.

Okay.

Meat goes on top of the shell. This didn't cut at all, so I get to cut that I'll show you that again. Wow. Turn, let's fan the tail, crack it up just a little bit so it stays there. I just want to cut this.

Fancy.

Alright, so now I'm just going to cut just enough to get it to come out. These are cold water tails. What you want to look for in lobster is you want to look for Canadian or Maine. You want to stay away from warm water tails. They'll be okay, especially in this size. They're not as flavorful, they're not as sweet. They should be cheaper though, so that is the one good thing about cold water— warm water tails. But a cold water tail in our area will be Canadian or Maine. Anything else down further is going to pretty much be a warm water tail. They do have some Florida lobster, and that's a warm water tail. It'll be fine, it just isn't quite as sweet and tasty. Alright, so now I've got these, and if you look on my blog, I did, I think it was like a 12-ounce tail I stuffed with this for New Year's a few years back. This blew Lisa away, she'd never seen one. I had never done one before. But now, what I— alright, so this is the difference with the lobster. If it's a really big lobster, now these aren't too bad, and I'm going to cook this for probably about 20 to 25 minutes in the oven.. But if this was really meaty, say it was one you got at this grocery store like Sam's has these really big tails and they're not that expensive, you want to cook it just a little bit first. You want to give it about 10 minutes in the oven to let the top cook. I'm going to cover it and if I don't do that, there's a chance this part would be raw when I took it out of the oven, or not quite cooked enough. It wouldn't be raw. So what I'm going to do in this case, since I am going to stuff it, is I'm just going to put a little bit of butter on it. I'm going to season this a little since it is a thicker meat. And of course, you can leave this off if you're opposed to the extra fat. I'm going to season the meat up just a little bit with a little Old Bay.

I think the month of December, you can kind of forget about the extra fat. I don't think it counts. I think it's like expected.

It's expected. I'm going to put some crab meat on here, and I'm going to form it with my hand.

Wow.

This has got just a little bit of too much juice in it, but I can squeeze a little bit of it out. Just so I can get a good form. Now, if you wanted to serve— again, here's a really good surf and turf, or if you want to serve 2 of these to someone, that would be more than a meal by itself. Or if you just want this to be part of the meal.

Would you do this a day ahead? Because it looks like there would be pressure to make it perfect like that, and— or earlier in the day.

I would do it earlier in the day. I would not stuff these. Shrimp would be a little bit better. What's going to happen with these is they get jostled around because this is still— there's a lot of crab meat. I'm forming them. It's always good to put them back in the refrigerator for a while because they'll firm up a little bit more. But if you do these too far ahead of time, you're liable to cause more damage with them and go back in and work on them a little bit more again.

I would just Wow, oh my gosh, that is— wow, that's impressive.

You see the little bit, you don't see them as well, but you see the little red and the green in it. So when these bake and they get a nice golden yellow from the egg that's in here, you're going to have these little speckles of green and red that are going to be— you're going to see around. So that's going to make it really visually appealing. As much as it is, you know, a really amazing kind of dinner with lobster and crab.

I mean, that is terrific. I mean, that you have to serve it in your dining room. I would want to put on my pearls and my high heels and my best, you know, tied apron and present it.

Now I do find when I put on my high heels, I stumble a little. I'm not as practiced in This is— alright, so say, let's say, alright, I like the people that are coming over. I don't like them that much, but I want to serve them something nice. So let's do some stuffed mushrooms. Or if you just want to add something else to your— I'm not saying you don't like the people— if you want to add something else nice to the dinner table, are you going to take— now I've gotten Baby Bellas because the white mushrooms didn't look as good today. I've gotten these, I pull the center out. If it stays in there, get a little spoon and kind of dig it out a little bit. The only thing you want to do— and again, it's not a deal breaker if you don't— is just cut a little bit off the back so it doesn't wobble. That's all. Now they're going to sit flat. Now this would be a good time for you to use claw crab meat too instead of lump. Save the lump for your shrimp or your crab cakes. Then just put a nice amount in here.

Nice. Very nice.

You can do a lot of mushrooms with 1 pound of crab meat. This would be, again, a wonderful appetizer.

I mean, that's, you know, so many different times and events. And, you know, it's easy. It's quick and easy. So just when you have an open house or for, you know, New Year's Eve. New Year's Eve, my husband and I, we usually just stay home, but we use it as an excuse to really get a lot of special foods.

Oh yeah.

And that's just easy.

Really simple.

Very nice.

It's easier. I didn't have anything really to put these in. Last time I made crab imperial, I made them in these. It was a really healthy portion of crab imperial, but we had no problem finishing it. The only other tip I'd like to give you when you're doing something like this is that I like to add a little Marsala because it's got some flavor. You could use a little wine. Put it in the bottom of the dish. So when these mushrooms cook, those mushrooms are going to soak up some liquid, and you want them to soak up that Marsala instead of nothing or water. They'll have a little more flavor to them. So you just want to put that in the bottom like that and bake them.

Now, what about— what do you think about a little touch of cayenne? Oh yeah, I like that idea.

Absolutely. If you like cayenne, oh, for sure.

Wow, what an assortment, and you did it— I can't believe it.

Again, yeah, I mean, this is nothing, and this is restaurant food. This is nothing that's going to take you that long, but this is restaurant food. So if you ordered stuffed tails, we'd have them split already and ready, and then we just stuff them real quick. We'd have the crab meat stuffing made.. And so we're either stuffing shrimp or stuffing lobster, we're stuffing mushrooms, whatever we're stuffing, we're, you know, it's already done. It's quick, it goes into the oven and bakes.

It looks, it looks fantastic. Now to, to finish the whole, you know, the whole holiday and or the whole event, you know, let's take a look at a few kitchens.

Sounds good.

And so what I have put together are some random ideas on how you can make the kitchen look, you know, more special for entertaining, because this is really what we're talking about, entertaining. So I'm gonna run right through them and go over here and select my screen share. And yep, I think— let me see. Okay, and are we there? We are there. Okay, good. So first, you know, look at lighting. Look at lighting and, and think about how things are, how accessories are grouped. If you group a bunch of things together like the wine bottles there, it just looks, it looks more substantial. It looks visually interesting. The lighting, think about oversized lights and look at the texture of the basket. Bring in textures. Think about textures. Here is an idea. Now this is an alternative. It's not a regular. These are oysters and shrimp. This is an event I went to, a Kohler event I went to in New Orleans. And there's some kind of boats. There's some kind of boats. So get, you know, think of other types of receptacles for food that are fun and interesting. Here we have big oversized big oversized candles. I mean, you know, maybe the mess is in another part of the kitchen, who knows, but think of big oversized accessories. The island can come in handy, and when everything is orderly on the island, it is a wonderful buffet, wonderful buffet. And here is the— here's an Eden kitchen, again, piled for the full of foods and all the same color dishes and, you know, it's just ready. Again, big lighting, oversized lighting. Here you have some big lights in the kitchen. And what happens when you do things like that is that it makes the kitchen feel a little more living room-like. So, don't be afraid of doing things like this. Here's a kitchen, same kitchen I designed. And this has art, real artwork in it. Your living room paintings, bring in your living room paintings into the kitchen. And, and how wonderful it is, especially if you have an eat-in kitchen or everyone ends up in the kitchen. Don't be afraid to bring in your living room artwork. Another thing, these pendant lights, they're kind of substantial and they're hanging fairly low. And that's because you'll see there are no wall cabinets. But it gives a cozy feeling, too. So I really love that look. Murals are wonderful. I'm crazy about murals in the kitchen. Something like this. Here's a kitchen I designed. Murals are great. My friend and colleague Lori Lazer from Customized Walls, she does printing of murals. And again, and here I put an oil painting on top of the mural, and what it does, it will transform the space again to another, you know, a whole other level. Now, you know, not everyone will have this type of kitchen I'm showing here, but I'm showing it because of two things. I'm showing it because of the color of the walls, rich, and, you know, I don't know, it's sort of like a tasty food-like color. And of course, a rug. Bring in your good rugs into the kitchen or at least into the eating area. Lighting can be fun, it can be exciting, it can be different, and again, it's more highly stylized, highly designed, and it's easy to do. And you can do it anywhere. These are shelves that have light behind them, and light, of course, gives us such— so many exciting effects, really lots of different effects. And here, now this is really fun to do, where you put together more fancy things and then you could put together kind of plain. Here they have, there's some cans and then there's some fancy dishes and there's some herbs. You know, mix it all together and it really looks great. This is one of my favorite photos. I don't think we all have, many of us have a black kitchen, but even if we have a white kitchen, you know, arranging plates like something like this makes it art. It just makes it art and it's inexpensive to do and easy to do on any wall. And again, here's another example of arrangements which are both herbs and bottles and art, framed prints. And I love when there's that mix of things together that are both useful and decorative. That is a lot of fun. And getting different plates, getting different dishes. Like here's a black dish and mixing up your dishes on the table. Here's a different type of shape, which is a dark gray, you know, very elemental kind of feeling. Lights. String up the lights anywhere. String up the lights across the dining room, across the kitchen. Use different types of chairs. You know, you see that look and vary your chairs, especially if have to serve a lot of people, you know, then don't put all the same chairs in the same spots. Mix them up and you'll have a lot. Now here, this is— I swear I'm going to do this. I'm going to go in the woods and get some type of branches, put the lights up, and make a light fixture out of it. So I can't tell you electrical codes, that's up to you to figure out, but I like the look. I like the look and I think it's doable. This is a kitchen I designed where this piece here is a— it holds all of the small appliances. So it will hold the coffee maker and the toaster and the mixer and, you know, and you have some room around to breathe. And you open it up and the doors retract. And then rather than a wall cabinet, there's lots of counter space all to the left. It's a cabinet that sits on the counter and where you reach for your dishes every day. So there are alternative ways to make your kitchen look a little more furniture-like. Here's the kitchen in the house I just left, which is a kitchen I inherited, and I did a few things for the holidays. I put some utensils up and around, and I got this big wreath and I just thought, well, let me put wooden spoons together. How do you like that, Chef?

That's really cool.

Pretty cool, right?

Although I thought your refrigerator was the Swiss flag at first.

Yeah, I know, right?

I know.

So you can see how big this wreath is. And you know what, again, oversized, go to oversized anything, and it just looks exciting. Here are a couple of, you know, bells. Here, over here we have against the wall there hanging decorations. Hanging decorations, an interesting way to do wine, you know, wine bottles. Just drill a hole, drill a bunch of holes. I mean, easy DIY. Again, oversized. Go oversized, whether it's lighting, whether it's decorative objects. Here you can see something oversized in context, and I'm showing you this because, Chef, you know, in the holidays, if you have different sauces or whatever, I mean, you know, like you said, food is visual, so put some kind of garnishment and make it artistic on the plate. Would you agree?

Yeah, and that's not really that difficult to do. What they did was they put a line in and turned a fork over and drug it through whatever sauce they put on to make those little marks in at the tines. So I mean, this is something you can put them in little squeeze bottles, very simple to do to dress up a plate just with a few different colors and sauces. Or just to take a spoon and drizzle it around. Just, you know, if you kick it up that little bit extra to make it more than just ordinary. I mean, because people do eat with their eyes. It's very visual.

Yes, that's exactly what I wanted to showcase. And here again, decorative items that are both useful, decorative herbs. Here's a way, you know, you know what I would, you know what I love and what's very exciting is when you bring if you have room in your kitchen. Even small receptacles that you have in the garden, let's call them garden pots, bring them indoors. I like to do that in the winter because I feel that there's so much beautiful texture to it. So imagine if this was an aged sort of garden pot from the garden and then you put herbs in it. And then of course you may want to shine a light on it for it to work. Here is a really cozy some skins on the table. And again, eat-in kitchen, fancy lighting, big oversized lighting, you know, a spot to feature both decorative and useful items here. And then here we go. So, just a few ideas for, you know, making your kitchen nice and festive.

Very nice. We've got a lot of really good comments too. Cheryl Deuce is loving it, saying that she needs to go with the oversized— go oversized, need to follow that. Candy— oops, there's Candy. Candy is saying, what a nice wine cellar, very compact. That's a great idea for the wine bottles. And Adam was saying too, maybe it's a Swiss Army fridge. Great, Adam. Elena loves the light. Dave Williams is here. Kathleen DeCosmo is saying she thinks she'll use her lavender bush for that light fixture. Great idea, Susan.

So yeah, don't be afraid. You know, sometimes we need to freshen things up a little bit, freshen, you know, and, and, and then it's, it's just, you know what, we deserve to enjoy our surroundings too. We should do it for us. As well as for our guests. So that's, that's really my message to help you and really enjoy the preparation time during the holidays.

Absolutely. You know, we deserve, you know, we don't want to do— it's funny, getting ready for Thanksgiving, we finished about 6 things in the house that we've been waiting to finish. You know, it's always when people are coming over that you rush to get things done so you can impress them. Well, you know, it should be for us too, because we live here, we work hard, hard. We should want to impress ourselves a little bit too. So, you know, don't always think you have to do it just for other people. You know, it's a nice way to serve your family a delicious meal, you know, rather than— like I said, rather than going out, you know, you can make this at home, get a bottle of wine, rent a couple movies, and still have money left over that you would have spent going out.

It's true. But you know what, I give everyone permission to Use the holidays as an excuse to freshen up and upgrade and whatever you want to do, go ahead, use it as an excuse and do it for yourself.

Absolutely, absolutely. I know I got to go drag in some of the Christmas decorations right after this as we speak because we're going to be a little busy. I think I mentioned I'm going to Fort Lauderdale for a Christmas boat parade this Thursday night.

That's great.

Yeah, so it is the season. It's the holiday season.

Yep, that'll be fun. In fact, I'm going to an event tonight in New York City for a Christmas party for Cosentino, who is the parent company for Silestone.

Oh, great.

You know, Silestone countertops. So I'll be eating good food tonight. We're going to the Daily Kitchen. Is it the Daily Kitchen?

I'm not sure.

Daily Kitchen's kitchen. I don't know. I think that's a, I don't know, some kind of website.

Yeah, it is. Yeah, but I'm, I've heard of it, but I'm not real sure. There's the kitchen, then there's the Daily Kitchen.

Yes, the Daily Kitchen.

Have a good time no matter what you do. Thank you.

And thank you for your beautiful, I mean, these are beautiful dishes. I'm putting my pearls on. When I serve this? Absolutely. They deserve nothing less.

Very good. Yeah, you know, and again, that will impress your guests even more. The fact that you're dressed up and you're putting, you know, you're really putting on the ritz for this will make everything taste a little better too. So thanks for coming today. I hope you enjoyed the show. And you know, it's Christmas and New Year's just around the corner, or any holiday you wish to celebrate during this wonderful wintertime. So live a little and enjoy life, and we'll see you around our kitchen table next week.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye.