what's cooking?

Christmas this year was fantastic. Manic, action packed and way too fast, but wonderful none the less (or perhaps because of it!).

In many ways, we did the usual -

Bought a tree that was too big for our living room: (It may not be obvious, but we had to bend the top to fit the star on. And rearrange most of our furniture.)


I went all Martha on amphetimines and made WAY too many cookies, candied nuts, mint brownies, ginger snaps, etc.



This was the first year we stayed home, planning to spend the holiday with the in-laws, after spending Thanksgiving with my side of the family.

My sister did a fabulous job rallying the troops and convinced my parents to drive up the Saturday before Christmas. Patrick's mom joined us for a fancy little dinner I whipped up (any excuse to use all the linens/glasses/get fancy):

The menu started with a fig, candied walnut, goats cheese and arugula salad, dressed with a homemade balsamic vinagrette. The main course was a delish beef tenderloin with shallots and port. And bacon. Because really, can you get any better than bacon AND beef AND alcohol in one dish? In case you aren't sure, the answer is NO.

After dinner we did a pre-Christmas, since my parents would be heading back down to Richmond on Christmas Eve. I was totally spoiled (this trend continued over the next couple of days...) and my sister gave us some fabulous handmade gifts. Which deserve their own post.

Far too many bottles of wine later, we finally went to sleep on Christmas Eve Eve.

The next night, Christmas Eve, we spent with my sister-in-law's family, which was tons of fun. We aren't technically related to these people at all, and yet couldn't have felt more welcome. Lots of kids (the youngest only a couple weeks old) and homemade Italian food made for a family-centered night.

We spent Christmas morning with our crazy niece and nephew who quite possibly now own more toys than the kid in The Toy. Hopefully they won't ask for Richard Pryor next year.

After breakfast, we all shuffled to Patrick's mom's house, to spend Christmas with the rest of the family.

This was the first Christmas day I'd spent without my family. Or, shall I say, my original family. Patrick and I are now our own tiny family of two (plus the crazy canine). And although I missed waking up at my parents house, all that really mattered was that our newly official family was intact.

What we really realized, waking up just the two of us on Christmas Day, is that we like chaos. We like big families. And big family gatherings. We love the noise, the generations mixing, the whole shebang. When we were little, each of us spent Christmas at our grandparents houses, with cousins and great-grandparents and perhaps even a friend of the family.

Hopefully one day we'll be able to re-create that magic.

So, I realize it's been about 10 days since Thanksgiving, (or at least it was when I started writing this novel of an entry...) but whatever. Here's the recap:

We went down to Richmond to spend Thanksgiving with my family. Since it's only my parents and one sister, holidays can be a little quiet. Our extended family (many of whom made the trip for the wedding) is spread all over - Hawaii, a huge California contingent, Michigan (yay Camp Gull Lake!), Arizona, Maryland, Washington State, Oregon, you get the idea. Not content to just have a quiet little gathering of five when we cook enough for 20, we love to invite people over.

In a way, Thanksgiving is a perfect holiday. No presents to stress over, four days off work, good food, lots of vino and some family fun. Plus there's football for when the menfolk get bored...

In years past, my family has joined with other families to celebrate. One of the most memorable Thanksgiving dinners was held at my parents neighbors house. The dad was a big hunter and tended to have a Jeffrey Dahmer (only with deer, instead of, you know, humans) thing going in the garage most of the time. Knowing that we would not be ok with venison, he traded some deer meat with another buddy for a turkey. A real wild turkey. Until it got shot at least. Only unbeknownst to us, the guy had shot it with buckshot. In case you aren't familiar with buckshot, it's basically a plastic bullet casing filled with little BBs. Or at least thats what I think it is, because I don't actually shoot guns.

Every couple of minutes, someone would bite into a piece of turkey and make a "I think I just cracked a tooth" face. Sure enough, it was another piece of buckshot. At some point, we decided to make a little pile by each of our plates and the person who had the most by the end of dinner was the winner. Cool, I know.

This year, no one was poisoned with lead animal bullets, but it was fun nonetheless. My mother invited a German family who just relocated to the area over for their first Thanksgiving. Their hilarious 18 month old kept us entertained, when my dad didn't.... My parents own a McDonalds highchair. They like to say they stole it, but it actually came from some friends of my grandparents when I was a baby (they owned a bunch of McDonalds). Over the years, we lost the seat belt part and someone sawed the front cross bar off, but while dangerous, it still functioned as it's name suggests, a high chair. That is, until this year, when my Dad decided to demonstrate that he could sit in it, turning his hips and sitting down, then landing promptly on his ass, after the chair blew apart.

I think wine might have come out of my nose.

Off he went to the garage, and an hour later, post wood glue and clamps, the danger-chair was back in business.

If you are wondering what we had to eat, I made this butternut squash soup as a starter (it's delish - I make it all the time).

Mom did the turkey and stuffing, and my sister made a ton of dishes from the Barefoot Contessa Parties!, all of which were rather delish.

For dessert, I brought down a pumpkin pie and a wonderful chocolate pie. For the chocolate pie, I made a Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafer crust (looks like black dirt, yum yum) using this recipe. The wafers can be a bit of a pain to find in stores, but thankfully, my local Safeway even had them.

Once cooled, I used the chocolate filling from this recipe. Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo before we cut into it and it was promptly DEVOURED. It turns out, my mom used to make something very similar when I was a child, and my craving for a chocolate/chocolate pie was some sort of repressed memory. A wonderful combination. Try it!

The rest of our time in Richmond was fairly uneventful and involved us being big idiots as usual - demonstrating our skills in trivia and lack of skills in all sporting activities.

However, just when we thought we'd gotten on the road for an uneventful ride home, about a dozen cop cars come flying by, in a high speed chase. They tapped the driver, the car spun out of control, slamming into the side rails and then the police dragged the driver out of the car, at gunpoint. All about 50 feet in front of us. Crazy, I know. You can read about it here.

Further evidence I need to be mounted with a head cam.