BY MARTI KILPATRICK | PHOTOGRAPHY BY JERROD BROWN | STYLED BY ROSE NGUYEN

     Before their holiday seasons were filled with private parties and catering, chesfs spent them just like the rest of us—at home, with family and friends. These memories live on in dishes that they still prepare for gatherings when their professional aprons get thrown in for a few precious days. Read on as five local chefs share the special recipes their families enjoy year after year. Then head over to our food section to get the details on how to make them a part of your holiday fare.

      Brothers Nicky and Jimmy Koikos, owners of The Bright Star restaurant, know a good thing when they taste it. If the 100-year-reign of their restaurant, The Bright Star, isn't proof enough, then all it takes is a bite of the Koikos baked apple crisp, a much-loved fixture at Christmas gatherings for more than a quarter of a century. The holiday season always finds the Koikos brothers at their sister Helen's house, playing basketball and video games with their three nieces. "It can get quite loud and competitive," says Nicky. "It's a great way to blow off steam after working for 30 days without a break."

 

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     Brian Somershield, chef at one of Birmingham's newest eateries, Za Za Trattoria, may make a living off pasta and pizza, but his holidaymemories have a distinct Eastern European aroma. "I come froma good Polish Catholic family," he says, so the holidays often called for kielbasa, horseradish and beets.His favorite meal, however, is one his grandmother prepared: a pork loin, wet roasted with sauerkraut, handmade dumplings and a secret ingredient-applesauce. "Not homemade," he says. "Mott's. Only Mott's. We were doing a natural food pairing and not even knowing it." As he learned more about cooking, he tweaked the recipe bit by bit, starting with the dumplings. "I'm sure they were just flour and water-poor man's stuff," he says.
      After culinary school, Brian moved to Birmingham to work. He now lives with his wife, Bobi, far from family in Cleveland and Pennsylvania, but the pork recipe lives on. "It's one of those things," he says. "My mother tries to cook it, my sister tries to cook it, I try to cook it, but it's never as good."

 

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HOT AND HOT FISH CLUB

     Chef Chris Hastings and wife Idie, co-owners of Hot and Hot Fish Club, know the importance of tradition in the kitchen. Their brand-new cookbook, The Hot and Hot Fish Club Cookbook, A Celebration of Food, Family & Traditions, is both a history of past meals and a guide for future gatherings. In it, they share many of their favorite family recipes, including Italian cookies with a silky lemon glaze.
     These cookies were a specialty of Idie's Grandma Morano, who hailed from Calabria in southern Italy. They would appear during the holidays, when Italian-American cousins, grandparents, nephews and nieces convened around the table. "There was always a hustle and bustle of aunts and cousins cooking at Grandma's house," Idie says. "The kitchen was filled with people cooking, starting at least two weeks before Christmas." To this day, it doesn't feel like the holidays for the Hastings without these cookies-so much so that they have an honored place at Hot and Hot. "Today we serve the cookies in our restaurant in the wintertime, alongside a hot cup of coffee," she says.

  

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 SOL Y LUNA

     For Guillermo Castro, chef and owner of Sol Y Luna, family rules during the holidays.When he was a child, his relatives would make a yearly pilgrimage to congregate in his hometown of Guadalajara, Mexico. "The tradition in our family was to go to work for the holidays at our dad's store," says Guillermo. "The family organized a big gathering at grandfather's house on the evening of the 24th of December." The fact that family members have scattered across the continent doesn't stop the annual holiday gathering. "Because of growth of the family and the immigration to this country, traditions are different," Guillermo says. "We still get together on the evening of the 24th, but the menu changes from time to time." However, this roast pork tenderloin with chipotle chilies remains a perennial favorite. The dish is rich with peppercorns, chipotle chilies, and cascabel powder, a round, smoky flavored pepper that grows wild on the Pacific coast of Mexico. Guillermo says anchos or pasillas make a good substitute if needed.

 

  

 

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     It's no surprise that Thanksgiving is Chef Frank Stitt's favorite holiday. For him, food is inextricably linked to memories, and one of his best is the huge feast his mother would prepare for the entire family. "She was probably the best cook in Cullman," says Frank. Apalachicola oysters, at their most delicious in the cooler winter waters, were always a featured menu item. "As I began to help with the cooking, we collaborated on this version of baked oysters," he says.
     The oysters live on as a menu item at both Bottega and Highlands, often dressed up with greens and caramelized onions and studded with country ham. The communal spirit of the dish is alive as well. "We often have a few so-called ´homeless´ staff members who are in Birmingham without any family close by, so we will invite them to our table and splurge with magnums of really good wine and tons of wonderful food," Frank says. "In the past when we had too many people to fit at our home, we convened on the patio at Bottega and pulled all the tables together for a feast of oysters, autumn vegetables, cornbread dressing and slow-roasted natural turkey."