I Don’t Know Nothin’ ‘Bout Roasting No Chestnuts, Miss Scarlett

When you work in the restaurant industry, the holidays are your busy season. 

We work while you play. 

Every year at EVERY company party buyout, we see the inevitable dumbass who takes a “too-liberal” advantage of the open bar and will likely be making a trip to the Human Resources Department on Monday morning.

And every holiday season, some young hostess making $8 an hour is not allowed even TWO days off to fly home to see her family because she has to work your stupid company party. 

As she’s watching the couple from sales (who everyone in the office party suspects are having an affair) do a dirty dance to the same Christmas Mambo on the SAME 45 minutes worth of looped Christmas music she’s been forced to listen to for the past five weeks, and she finds herself being nice to the Ecuadorian cook who tried to grab her boobs last month just so she can get two pieces of leftover shrimp cocktail because she’s on a double and she’s starving, and then the owner of the company’s wife tosses a mink coat in her face and warns with her collagen lips, “Don’t try it on, sweetheart.  Just hang it up.” 

It’s right around this time that this young woman will break down sobbing in a pile of cigarette-scented winter coats (because she can't even leave until the last drunk person at your party gets their coat from coat check) and she'll sadly cry out, “But where’s MY Christmas?  Why don’t I get a Christmas?”

Note to older restaurant employees----this is NOT a good time to mention seniority.  The idea of still being trapped in your long-running production of Glengarry, Glen Ross for the next twenty years just to get off work Christmas Eve is only going to depress her even more. 

I know this because I was that girl. 

I’ve since realized that you have to MAKE your holiday happen!  You just have to do whatever you can to make it special. 

For YOU! 

Because no matter how much you’re feeling that it’s all about THEM, you have to be your own advocate during the Christmas Season.

MAKE CHRISTMAS HAPPEN!

Even in the smallest way possible.

Find that little thing that makes you happy and do it.

JUST DO IT!!!!!!

So whatever that mini-pocket vibrator of Christmas is for you---I want you to find it, and I want you to go into that handicapped bathroom of your own Private Idaho, and I want you to yell out, “I’m mad as hell and I can't take it anymore!!!”

And that’s your Christmas.

In the restaurant business. 

It’s not so bad, really.

MY mini-vibrator is chestnuts.

Perhaps partly because of the evocative opening lyrics, “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire….”

And if you’ve never had freshly roasted chestnuts, they really are “The Rabbit” of the tree nut world.   

Every year this time I become entranced by the heaping piles of maroon-colored tree nuts on the corner that look like a pile of Nazi-confiscated antiques for sale by the pound.

But unlike those ghetto antiques, you don’t have to worry about where your chestnuts come from.  Most of the chestnuts you buy in the market are “organic”--- even without that faux-FDA labeling. 

It’s a higher likelihood that you’ll get old nuts.

And isn’t that a pleasant sentence?

The best way to test chestnuts for freshness is to toss them to the ground like a tennis ball.  If they bounce, they’re good. 

You can store them for a week or two in an attractive basket that looks quite fetching in your kitchen. 

But if you’re only using them as décor till you FINALLY get a boyfriend to spend a romantic evening roasting them with….

Um, depending on your personality---they might not keep that long. 

I’m just saying.

If he doesn’t call you after two weeks, put them in the fridge.  Chestnuts have a shorter shelf life than other unshelled nuts.  That’s why squirrels bury them under the snow.

And right about now, you’re realizing that a squirrel knows something you don’t know.

But roasting them is EASY! 

One big rule----make SURE to cut an X on the flattest part of the chestnut.  This will prevent them from exploding in your face and giving you third-degree burns.

I’m serious.  Do NOT skip this step!!!

  

 I’ve never roasted them over an open fire.  I live in a NYC apartment.  I think “open fire” needs a permit or something.  But if you pay the annual $2000 fee to the FDNY, rest assured that a hunky fireman will turn up at your door twice a year to inspect your permit. 

You CAN roast them in the oven.  Easy peasy.  Cut your little “x”s into the nuts (I put them on a tea towel so I don’t stab myself with my dull, discount paring knife), put them on a baking sheet, and pop them in the oven at about 400-425 degrees depending on your oven. 

As for cooking time----size matters.  I’d give it 10-15 minutes depending on the size of your nuts. 

And I’m sorry this is sounding so smutty, but when I’m forced to write a post about nuts…  There’s a tiny Beavis and Butthead part of me that just goes there. 

But I waited tables in comedy clubs for too many years to make a dick joke my closer.. 

Now----here’s where it gets tricky. 

While I fall slave to these babies EVERY single year-----it’s only upon taking them out of the oven that I suddenly regret my purchase.  Like a natural childbirth mom on the delivery belt to hell, I start screaming in pain as I attempt to peel the steaming nuts away from their tricky inner-shell. 

“This is YOUR fault!  You’re the one who wanted chestnuts!  Why did you do this to me!?!?”

But eventually the nut comes out of its shell and everyone is happy and the world is a wonderful place again.

I’ve heard that there’s a hormone in women that actually knocks out the memory of the pain of childbirth so women will be willing to do it all over again.

Well, that’s me with chestnuts.

My Midwife Tips for getting them out of the shell:

The “X” helps to pull everything away.  The shell will start to peel away from the nut after about 5 or 6 minutes, but give it a little more time to get that roasty smell in your apartment that’s going to make the next hellish 20 minutes of your life worthwhile. 

Because within minutes of coming out of the oven, you need to stop everything you’re doing and peel them as quickly as possible.  I suggest having a friend or two around depending on how many chestnuts you roasted. 

If they cool too much, you’ll NEVER get them out of the shell.

NEVER!!!!!

If that horror happens upon you, just stick them back in the oven or (I hate to say this...) a microwave....

Okay, I’m NOT a fan of microwaves.  But I own one.  Who amongst us doesn’t?

If they get too cold to peel, pop them in the microwave for 5 seconds. 

SECONDS!.

Any longer, they will burn inside and be completely useless in a matter of…like two seconds.

I’ve avoided some of this nonsense by simply picking up a sharp knife, hacking them in half, and quickly scooping out the innards with an espresso spoon like it was an avocado.

I’m guessing that right about now, this isn’t sounding like a relaxing and romantic night with your boyfriend.

I forget what a pain in the ass these colicky babies are every damn year.

But oh gosh, they do make a great soup.  Or pesto.  Or pastry filling.  Or stuffing.  Or just plain and hot right out of the oven.  

And that’s my Modest Proposal. 

Eat those babies.