My First Christmas Dinner
Tonight I made a candle-light Christmas dinner for my family.
We had:
My 2-year old nephew also indulged in an assortment of See's chocolate lollypops and Goldfish crackers. To my surprise, however, he gravitated towards the pate and serrano ham. We were worried about feeding him oysters because they're a little slippery and a little creature like him might choke. Performing the Heimlich maneuver on a small child is not something I'm up to date on so we figure it was best to just avoid that scenario entirely. I was also worried I hadn't stored them correctly, so I was monitoring everyone to make sure they didn't suddenly have to make emergency trips to the bathroom every 5 minutes. I'll know tomorrow whether the oysters were a success or not. So far so good. I liked shucking them, though. It was cathartic wiggling the sharp little knife into 'em and twisting it around.
I didn't get around to mulling the wine. By the time we'd finished dessert with coffee and tea it seemed excessive. I like doing it, though, because it makes the house smell like Christmas.
As usual, post-party dishes will have to be run tomorrow morning, because the poor little machine just can't take them all.
Is it just me or do marshmallows seem to strongly resemble some sort of fungus? If I went out in the yard and picked one up, my mother would almost certainly tell me it was some kind of poisonous toadstool.
To keep my nephew sedated I provided an assortment of stuffed animals including tickle-me Elmo and lovely stuffed horse ls56 gave me back in the day. He seemed pleased with them, although mother was frightened by Elmo.
People seemed universally pleased with tonight's dinner. I'm going to tenatively declare this a successful social event. A decisive decision will have to await further updates on how the oysters turned out.
We had:
- Oysters on the half shell with horseradish and Tobasco
- Goose liver pate with truffles and cornishons
- Serrano ham
- Marinated mozzarella
- Stilton and Colby cheese with onions
- Glazed ham
- Green beans
- Sweet potatoes with marshmallows (my mother insisted on it, I was going to do red potatoes)
- Apple pie
My 2-year old nephew also indulged in an assortment of See's chocolate lollypops and Goldfish crackers. To my surprise, however, he gravitated towards the pate and serrano ham. We were worried about feeding him oysters because they're a little slippery and a little creature like him might choke. Performing the Heimlich maneuver on a small child is not something I'm up to date on so we figure it was best to just avoid that scenario entirely. I was also worried I hadn't stored them correctly, so I was monitoring everyone to make sure they didn't suddenly have to make emergency trips to the bathroom every 5 minutes. I'll know tomorrow whether the oysters were a success or not. So far so good. I liked shucking them, though. It was cathartic wiggling the sharp little knife into 'em and twisting it around.
I didn't get around to mulling the wine. By the time we'd finished dessert with coffee and tea it seemed excessive. I like doing it, though, because it makes the house smell like Christmas.
As usual, post-party dishes will have to be run tomorrow morning, because the poor little machine just can't take them all.
Is it just me or do marshmallows seem to strongly resemble some sort of fungus? If I went out in the yard and picked one up, my mother would almost certainly tell me it was some kind of poisonous toadstool.
To keep my nephew sedated I provided an assortment of stuffed animals including tickle-me Elmo and lovely stuffed horse ls56 gave me back in the day. He seemed pleased with them, although mother was frightened by Elmo.
People seemed universally pleased with tonight's dinner. I'm going to tenatively declare this a successful social event. A decisive decision will have to await further updates on how the oysters turned out.