A New Member of the Family; A Loved Labor of Love
Happy New Year! I’ve been busy making merry, which means fewer hours staring at a computer screen. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been cooking, eating, and even photographing food over the holidays so I could bring back a few souvenirs to share with all of you.
First, let me start out by introducing the newest member of our family, the big banana.
A big banana was on Louisa’s Christmas list this year (of course it had to be something that involved food, right?), but nobody sells a big plush banana. You can find small, little baby plush bananas, but if you know my daughter, you know that a bitty baby plush banana isn’t going to make much of an impression on Christmas morning. So what does every lunatic mom with absolutely no extra time do the week before Christmas? She spends a day making a big plush banana. Let me just say it was worth it for her reaction, and big banana even traveled to Nana and Grandpa’s house on Christmas Day. Fortunately this extra guest didn’t mess up the head count for the delicious Christmas feast we all enjoyed that included antipasto; mom’s traditional marinated roast beef; roast pork; mashed white potatoes; mashed sweet potatoes; green beans Italian style; and arugula salad.
Then there was dessert, including enough wonderful Christmas cookies – gingerbread cookies, butter cookies, and my mom’s almond crescents – that would satisfy any sweet tooth. But one of the most anticipated of all the cookies made its annual appearance – my aunt’s honeycakes, a recipe she only makes at Christmas time. Ever since I was little, and probably before then, my aunt has labored for days before Christmas making this time consuming recipe for honeycakes. She makes the dough, rolls it out, cuts the strips, fries them up, bathes them in honey and prepares packages as gifts for friends and family. Clearly, this isn’t your ordinary Christmas cookie. Each year she swears it will be her last one because they require so much time and effort, and the next year she doesn’t disappoint the hungry hoards as somehow she finds the time and strength to make another batch. Thank you Aunt Eileen!
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4 Responses to “A New Member of the Family; A Loved Labor of Love”
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I would have went with an inflatable banana and your Aunt Eileen’s Christmas cookies seems like honey coated fried wanton.
Hmmmmm…I wonder if bananas would be good in Ambrosia…..
An inflatable banana would not have been the same. It’s not cuddly or pillow-like. The honeycakes may seem like a fried wanton, but the dough is sweeter and much lighter than a wanton.
Doubtful…