Chefs offer suggestions on treats for Santa

Poor Santa Claus. Year after year, house after house, he makes his way down dusty, drafty chimneys to drop off his toys (for the good little girls and boys), only to find that his reward is a plate of sugary cookies and a glass of lukewarm milk.

What's a Santa to do?

Well, Santa doesn't have much choice -- he gets what he gets -- so we at Review-Journal Christmas Central decided to ask local chefs what they would like to find at the bottom end of the chimney if they were Santa, in hopes that Southern Nevada parents and children might take the hint and give the jolly old elf a break.

One chef considered it from a healthful aspect.

"I would probably want something that was nice and light," said Drew Terp, executive chef of Bar Masa at Aria. "Cookies and milk tend to make me want to go to sleep." Terp said he'd prefer "something along the lines of a bowl of fruit."

He comes by his nutritious choices honestly.

"Our family didn't eat cookies, so we would put out vegetables -- carrots and raisins," he said. "My parents were health nuts. I'm sure we probably put out a glass of Metamucil from time to time."

James Boyer, executive chef of the Canyon Ranch SpaClubs at The Venetian and Palazzo, said he'd like to find "something different in everyone's house, because one thing would be boring over and over. I'd have to go with something like chicken and waffles and Green River soda, and a mix of the regular Oreo and the vanilla Oreo cookies -- one of each."

He's not the only one who welcomed variety.

"While I understand that if I were Santa Claus I would have some magical abilities, riding around all night loading gifts up and down chimneys sounds like hard work -- work that would require more sustenance than cookies and milk would provide," said David Spero, executive chef of Tableau at Wynn Las Vegas. "For starters, a nice hard cider would help fight the chill as well as add to my jolliness.

"Secondly, since I only have the workshop once a year, I would like to make the most of it. Instead of cookies, perhaps a nice cassoulet over Provence, some carbonara in Rome, kung pao in China, a bowl of cioppino with that famous sourdough in San Francisco. You get the picture."

Other chefs embraced the idea of cookies, cookies and more cookies.

"My favorite cookie is the Mexican wedding cookie," said Michael Jordan, chef/co-owner of Rosemary's Restaurant. "I would want a cookie. And I would want hot cocoa -- with Grand Marnier in it."

"I'm a traditional guy," said Todd Clore, chef/owner of Todd's Unique Dining. "I would like to find a huge plethora of lots of different varieties of cookies and pastries and anything sweet."

"I would want them to leave Executive Pastry Chef Kimberly Valdez's white chocolate-cranberry cookies with a nice glass of Basil Hayden's bourbon," said David Walzog, executive chef of SW Steakhouse and the Lakeside Grill at Wynn Las Vegas. (The recipe follows -- for the cookies, not the bourbon.)

One combined the health aspect and the cookies.

"You're going around, and every kid's giving you cookies -- sugar, fat, all that kind of stuff," said Sean Griffin, executive chef of Prime at Bellagio. "I think I might want a break, so it might be nice if somebody left us low-fat sugar cookies with a Slim-Fast eggnog shake, to keep me trim a little bit."

But Griffin wasn't done there.

"He's up all night delivering presents and stuff like that," he said. "I don't know if I have that energy. I'd like something like Red Bull to give me wings.

"And you know Santa Claus goes around one night a year. What does he do the rest of the time? I'd want a gift card for the Cookie of the Month club, so each month I could have some cookies and milk delivered to the North Pole."

Some went the traditional route. Gino Ferraro, owner of Ferraro's Italian Restaurant & Wine Bar, would like to find the specialty lobster sauce that he makes each year for family and friends.

John Arena, co-owner of Metro Pizza, would like to find a fresh-baked panettone.

"I would love to have a little Austrian, European cold cuts," said Gustav Mauler, chef/owner of Spiedini at JW Marriott.

"I would love peanut butter, apple jam and potato bread," said Matt Piekarsk, executive chef of Beso at CityCenter. "I grew up with fresh potato bread and have never been able to find it since I left Wisconsin. I'd love to eat that at every home I stopped at."

"I'm from Argentina and I would love meat or chicken empanadas," said Jose Luis Pawelek, chef/co-owner of Elements Kitchen & Martini Bar. "And matambre, I love matambre. If somebody put out a plate with a couple of empanadas and a couple of slices of matambre and some homemade bread, I'd love it. I'd move in there."

"I'd want it to be chestnuts," said Giovanni Mauro, owner of Nora's Wine Bar & Osteria. "The chestnuts like you get in New York on the streets, with the salt around them, warm and ready for me to snack on."

Joe Romano, corporate executive chef of Golden Gaming, would like to find an ice-cold beer and some filet sliders.

Rick Moonen, executive chef of RM Seafood at Mandalay Bay, feels Santa's pain.

"He's traveling globally, freezing his tail off, getting dragged around by a bunch of reindeer," he said. "And all you're getting is carrots for the reindeer and cookies and milk. You're tired of eating sugar. You need something that's going to give you some sustenance.

"Nothing is better than some homemade reindeer jerky."

Uh, but wouldn't the reindeer sort of mind?

"The reindeer aren't going to eat it," Moonen said. "Reindeer like carrots. You can give them the cookies.

"You need something savory and salty to counter all the sugar. And to help you digest all this, a little snifter of armagnac is always nice."

Kim Canteenwalla, executive chef of Society Cafe Encore, sounds as though he's tired of the treats that are all over the place at Christmastime. What would Canteenwalla like to find on the snack tray when he came down the chimney?

"Super Bowl tickets."

WHITE CHOCOLATE CRANBERRY COOKIES

8 ounces butter

7/8 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

3 tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

6 ounces white chocolate chips

6 ounces dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Using a mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugars. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add honey and vanilla. Sift together flour, baking soda and salt and add to other mixture. Fold chocolate chips and cranberries into batter.

Drop onto parchment-lined baking sheets and bake 10 to 12 minutes.

-- Recipe from Kimberly Valdez, Wynn Las Vegas

Contact reporter Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0474.