Been Too Busy Eating…
Yep, I know things have been quiet here for a few days, but I have a good excuse. With the Christmas Eve and Day holidays I’ve been way too busy eating and cooking to write too much about food. But now that these holidays are behind me (quite literally), I’ll share what we ate on the Eve. I may have mentioned cookies quite a few times over the past month, but Christmas Eve is all about the seafood. That’s because it’s customary for Italians to have a seafood feast on Christmas Eve. Some people have the feast of 7 fishes; others serve 11 fishes; and there are plenty of variations. I was planning to serve 5 fishes this year, but my mother convinced me to boost the number to 7 for good luck. And who am I to turn down good luck – although we cheated a bit. We ate the first fish at lunchtime by having a lovely tuna salad prepared by Louisa.
Fish number 2 for the day was shrimp cocktail – a course that’s popular with everyone in our family. Louisa prepared the cocktail sauce.
For number 3 we had bacala soup (cod fish), a traditional recipe from Joe’s family. I’ve been eating and cooking this soup since we were first married nearly 25 years ago. I’m still not crazy about it. But I do understand his need for traditional food on a holiday. It will be interesting to see, someday, if my girls associate this soup with Christmas Eve in a positive way, and feel it’s a necessity at their holiday table.
For fishes number 4 and 5 we had spaghetti with white clam sauce. I don’t normally add anchovies to this recipe, but it was a way to add another fish, as well as add extra depth to this recipe. It didn’t hurt that spaghetti with anchovy sauce has always been a tradition in my mother’s family.
Finally, for fishes number 6 and 7 we had baked, breaded flounder and fried crab cakes.
Yep, Christmas Eve is all about the seafood. And making the annual Gingerbread House!
Merry Christmas!
Photo of the Week – 12/23/09 – Italian Bakery Cookies
Food = Love
In my experience, there is nothing like Italian bakery cookies from the Bronx. I’ve tried similar cookies in other places, but they’re merely cheap imitations. That’s why I was delighted when these showed up on my doorstep when my parents visited last week. In the middle of my holiday cookie baking, someone brought me my favorite cookies!
Cookies on My Mind
Made to give, not to eat.
About the only food I’m worrying about these days is cookies. Over our record breaking snowy weekend I made my annual pizzelle recipe which I always give as a holiday gift to my friend Joanne. I have no choice. She gave me a pizzelle maker many years ago so I could make them for her. Please don’t give me any kitchen appliances with strings attached. As you can see, I take my obligations very seriously. But, kidding aside, this pizzelle maker created a tradition in our home and now the girls look forward to these cookies ever year.
In talking with my friends Stacey and Lori last week, they mentioned how they make cookies for the middle school teachers. You know when kids leave grade school, most parents give up the expensive Christmas teacher gifts, and these poor middle school teachers, who have to deal with teens and their raging hormones, get no special thanks for their trouble. My friends told me they make Ina Garten’s Jam Thumbprint cookies for this purpose because they make nice gifts. So I pulled out my Ina book, and lo and behold I found the recipe. So there you have my second cookie recipe of the weekend, a good recommendation.
When the girls were leaving piano lessons last week, Fran, their teacher, gave me a fruit filled cookie made with a cream cheese dough. I had made these cookies many years ago from my aunt’s recipe, and had completely forgotten about them. Louisa immediately demanded that I make these cookies because they were so good. I mixed up the dough yesterday and had planned to bake them today. Didn’t happen with the snow day and the extra travel time required to get around our town. I hope to get to them tomorrow. That way I can move on to my gingerbread cookie recipe…