Dec 26 2008
Christmas Eve 2008…
Merry Christmas!
Italian style:
at my uncles, lots of people, lots of drinks, lots of incredible food!
I write about my uncle, his house, and style in the book The Road Letters.
This is the one time of year I actually get to relive and recapture the sensation of the dinner rush so-to-speak. It’s usually crazy, out of control, and under pressure. And anyone who has been on the line knows exactly what I mean.
The night is filled with people shouting, laughing, loving. Smells of great food wafting. Drinks free flowing. Family, different generations all over the place.
Tradition, familia, food and wine… Yes, Virginia, this is what Christmas is all about…
The Menu:
- Cold Seafood Salad: Shrimp celery, calamari, scungili, red onion finely sliced, light olive oil and lemon dressing.
- Hot mussels marinara: beautifully cooked mussels is a perfectly seasoned spicy hot marinara sauce.
Sweet mussels marinara: beautifully cooked mussels is a perfectly seasoned marinara sauce. - Bakala: salt cod in a tomato, olive, and mushroom sauce.
- Stuffed fillet of sole: baked golden with a luscious bread and cheese filling.
- Linguini with clam sauce—my uncle’s specialty: garlicy, clammy, tilt the bowl to catch the last drop..
- Alaskan King Crab legs: (cut down the middle by me—the most dangerous and my least favorite job!) steamed to perfection and served with lemon butter.
- Garlic Croutons: for sopping up all the unbelievably flavorful sauces
- Homemade cookies including petit fours, cakes, chocolates, and coffee.
Midnight ends the sacrifice of not eating meat. So the cooking starts up again at about 11:30 pm.
- Sausage (mix of sweet and hot Italian—sliced), with Sam’s special salad and crusty bread at midnight. Ice cold beer!
- Drinks of the night included Tanqueray and (diet—I don’t need to get filled up on soda!) Tonic, Pinot Grigio, Assorted beer, Gin and cranberry,
- Oreo cookies at 2 am.
Important pieces missing: my brother who is with his girlfriend and her family and my fiancee and her children who are spending it across the country with her family.
Food and beverage missing: stuffed calimari—my grandmothers recipe. Louis XIV, like gentlemen after all is said and done… We needed to get to bed.
You would think that the preparation, cooking, and execution for this party would be enough for a while, but not for my uncle. The aftermath that was still around in the am, needed to be cleared, so that the preparation could start for Christmas—sit down dinner for 25 that will include: stuffed artichokes, filet mignon, baked stuffed mushrooms, sweet potatoes, on and on.
We won’t be with them for this dinner, but the dish I will miss most of all comes before we even sit down(not that sitting down happens for the cooks until everyone is already eating—the hot antipasto that his mother-in-law makes—thin lean beef rolled with layers of salami, mortadella, prosciutto, ham, parmesan and provolone chheses; slowly simmered in tomato sauce for hours until it literally falls apart and melts in your mouth. The crusty Italian bread for dipping—OMG!
Bon Apetito and Bon Natale…
—Irascible Chef
