ellen_datlow | Xmas dinner

Xmas dinner

Ugh. Too much food and too much drink. Party of 12 in the east village:

Lots of champagne. Several appetizers: chicken liver and hazelnut terrine, Pork rillette, ham and Roquefort loaf; scallop, red pepper, and basil mousse like bread-shaped thingie; cheese (mixed with something) on toast put in the oven (very nice grilled cheese); chopped clam and mushrooms (I think) on toast.

More champagne.

Caesar Salad, Goose, Brussel sprouts, rutabaga, cranberry sauce, bulgar rice stuffing, wine wine wine. And the most amazing home made duck sausage.

Sweet potato (homemade) pie and Pecan pie (bought) home made whipped cream, Italian cookies, home made brownies, and after dinner liqueurs, coffee.

Home and tums and lots of water.

Edited slightly in the morning...

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You *must* have had a lot of champagne, if you guys were eating live chicken!

(I know, it was a typo. But a funny one.) ;-)

M

Oops...Now that I've sobered up I fixed the typo and made a few other corrections, and one addition. :-)

I performed this for John. He said, "It's poetry."

Merry Christmas! Eileen

I hope you corrected the live chicken for him :-)

Let's hear everyone else's menus!!!!

For the record, I had a lousy night's sleep....even after drinking water.

Which one? ;) Last night my husband grilled pork ribs and made applesauce, and we watched Hogfather. I haven't decided if that's perfectly appropriate, or just twisted. ;)

The Family Feast: Ham, Roast Beast (AKA prime rib) broccoli casserole, homemade applesauce, rolls (my grandma's recipe), cranberry bread, potatoes, peas, Brussels sprouts with noodles and cheese, Copper Penny Carrots, green bean casserole, Asian slaw, ambrosia and several kinds of pie.

Mmm. Sounds good.

We had watermelon and feta salad, a selection of cold meats, fruits and cheeses, potato salad, and ciabatta, and melktert for dessert.

Hoorays for summer Christmases.

Melktert? Is that "milk tart" in US English? (I'm assuming your spelling is Africaaner?) What kind of tart is it? Mmmm Watermelon.

I'm afraid a summery Xmas would just feel so wrong to me.

Sorry yeah milktart.

Hahah I'm pretty used to a summery xmas by this stage. We've done the whole big traditional feast in the past but all that stodgy food in the heat is just too much.

I love reading what other people eat on Christmas though - it all sounds so wonderfully decadent. I'm going to have to make a plan to enjoy a winter Christmas one day.

No no no--but what IS a milk tart? (even in US English I don't know)...

Yes indeed. You'll have to come to the colder climes to celebrate Xmas one of these days. I agree that eating this very heavy stuff in the heat would be impossible. (it's barely possible in winter--the appetizers are always so good it's hard to not eat them)...I forgot, there was also a sardine appetizer with garlic that I wasn't particularly fond of, which is why I forgot to mention it before.

Ew sardine appetizer. I think I'll pass.

Milk tart is a fairly bland milk custard tart with a sweet pastry and a cinnamon sprinkle topping. I dunno, i like it.

here's a recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/South-African-Melktert-Milk-Tart/Detail.aspx

I like sardines on a sandwich when they're boneless, but picking out little bones while eating is not my idea of fun :-)

I enjoy egg custard tarts (I get them in Chinese restaurants)but am not familiar with "milk custard" --I don't think). It looks nice in the photo.

Sardines are just too fishy for me.

Milktart still has eggs, just has more milk than other custard tarts, so it ends up with a very milky flavour. I guess it's Dutch or Malay in origin - I've never really thought about it.

Isle of Mull cheese, Irish whiskey cheddar (NOT Cahill's, which is better, but still damned good), sundried tomato Allouette, aged sharp white cheddar, havarti w/ dill, proscuitto, sorpresato, all natural smoked ham, many kinds of crackers, home-made vodka cranberry sauce, Rogue single-source Hispanola criollo-bean chocolate, clementines, pomegranite, Walker's Shortbread fingers, & hot buttered rum.

Later we had some not-too-bad frozen/hot appetisers (potstickers, spinach puffs, etc) & B&J icecream. We try to keep the cooking & dishes to a minimum on Xmas.

Yum. Especially the Isle of Mull cheese, as you know :-).

There's another brand of shortbread that I like better than Walker's, from "the Shortbread house of Edinburgh"--I buy it a few blocks away at the Chelsea Market from an English specialty store (there's another English shop around the corner from me but they don't have this brand of shortbread). It's got a different texture than Walker's--not as solid. I searched for it in the UK, thinking it would be cheaper, and not only was it not cheaper, it's only available in fancy tin boxes. And I discovered the tinned shortbread is not as fresh as in the clear cellophane, which is how I buy it here.

check that out, thanks. Hope somebody here carries it.

Here's a website (not that it's helpful) it only shows the tins. I have no idea how my local store gets the good stuff ;-)
http://www.shortbreadhouse.com/

thanks! We have a local shortbread baker who does an orange-chocolate chip & a rose shortbread among others- VERY dense & buttery. Mmmmmm....

the stem ginger is my favorite--but you may not like these as they're slightly less dense than the usual.

I like shortbread you can build a house out of. Ah well, just means I need to stock a few kinds if you ever come to visit.

I can mail you a sample to see if you like it !!!

I'm trying to think if there's a time in my life I've ever said "no" to shortbread. Nope, not that I can recall.

Yes, please! ;-) & if I get back to Surdyk's I'll pick you up a bar of Rogue. Do you like your chocolate pretty dark?

I'm not that wild about chocolate...save it for yourself :-)--I'll try to get over to the shop later this week--I'll warn you when it's coming !!

Many thanks. I'd ship you some cheese but not sure how well it would travel. ;-)

Cougar cheese from Washington State U is mailed all over the country --but it's in a tight can--they won't mail them to Florida or other hot climes in the summer). But regularly packed cheese? Dunno if I'd take a chance. Please don't worry about it.

Sounds delicious, and yes, poetic! My family traditions are slowly dissipating and my husband's family are not foodies (they even serve store-bought garlic bread). I plan to host Xmas eve next year. On the 23rd I visited Mom and went over old recipes (many on deposit slips, envelopes, scraps of paper) for a book I'm collecting of hers and Dad's recipes. Reminded me of the rich food traditions I come from, much of it bound up in the holidays.

I love your custom of an adult cocktail party for the holiday! (in the East Village no less). We're having an open house on January 3rd.

My friend Claire has been doing this for at least a decade...and in the different places she's lived (two lofts, now an apt) and most of the same people have been attending all this time. Her friend Sid makes the most amazing sausages: sometimes venison, this year duck.

There have been the occasional lapses. Claire once made the Brussels sprouts so bouncy you couldn't cut them and because I complained that they were TOOO UNDERDONE, didn't make them again for another year or two. This year they were perfect (but she thinks they were overdone). One person doesn't eat meat or fowl so bring his own fish to cook (at Thanksgiving, the old pyrex pan his fish was in exploded in the oven--so he was carefully picking glass out of his soon to be dinner).

The rutabaga this year did not impress me.
Claire is a wonderful cook except for pastry--she cannot make pie to save her life. Luckily she's given that up and leaves it for someone else to do (or we buy them).

But it is indeed a wonderful tradition. (sit down dinner, after munching appetizers for a couple of hours). The adult son of one of our crew now joins us, which is nice, too.

Hope you have recovered and managed to pick all of those feathers out of your teeth. LOL!

LOL--now that I fixed the entry no one will know what you're talking about mwhahhhhh hahaaha.

So...they will be confused! :)

Or they'll figure it out :-)

This is making me hungry for Christmas dinner all over again. Our food wasn't as diverse as this list (standard ham, rolls, etc.), but yum.

Sounds like it was a wonderful time! Hope your New Year is great too!

Happy 2009 :)

It was.
I'm going to Brooklyn for a New Year's eve-birthday dinner so I expect it to be lovely.

Have a great time!

Thanks. And I will not overeat and over drink. I will not...

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