Four Days, Four Celebrations

Friday, December 27, 2013 – Four Days, Four Celebrations

This week of celebration started off with a birthday lunch for my mother.  Katie, who turned 88 on Monday, has always been easy to please.  All she wanted was a good hamburger, so we took her over to Johnny Rocket’s.  Fortunately for me, they also had Boca burgers on the menu – and sweet potato fries.  After lunch, we all went to see Anchorman 2, which was mildly funny, but about 90 minutes too long.  

with my mother on her 88th birthday

Elliott enjoyed the burger and a milkshake.

On Tuesday, Matt met us at China Star and helped us observe the Thompson tradition of Chinese food on Christmas Eve.  The restaurant was busy, and we recognized a few other families that belong to our synagogue.  It was a frosty cold night, and we were glad to stay home for the rest of the evening.  I stayed up late to finish another 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle.  This one was titled Travel Dreams.  Elliott says my puzzle mania is getting a bit out of control. 

Four generations on the Thompson side of the family gathered on Christmas Day at the home of Marie-Claude and Peter outside of Baltimore.  Marie-Claude had been baking and cooking for weeks in preparation for the holiday feast.  Highlights from her traditional menu included a velvety smooth parsnip and potato soup, a perfectly roasted turkey (white and dark meat cooked separately), stuffing made with homemade sausage, and for dessert, a genuine figgy pudding.  This was my first-ever taste of the English treat.  Actually, it’s not a pudding in the American sense of the word.  It’s what we would call a cake.  It was tasty, not too sweet, and the figs came from trees in Marie-Claude and Peter’s garden.  Marie-Claude also gave us a basket to bring home with homemade gingerbread cookies and fruitcake.  Bonus – I brought along four of my jigsaw puzzles and traded with my grandson Darren.  Now I have four new ones to tackle.  

The figgy pudding

Thursday was Boxing Day.  I’ve seen this holiday marked on calendars, but I really didn’t know the significance of the day until I did a little research a few minutes ago.  It’s a national holiday in the UK and Ireland, and supposedly has something to do with Christmas presents (known as boxes) for servants, who would have the day off on December 26.  Nowadays, it’s a relaxed time to visit and eat leftovers.  In our case, the Reynolds family, longtime friends, came over for dinner, which did not include any leftovers.  In fact, our Boxing Day menu had a somewhat Scandinavian theme, in honor of Elliott’s Norwegian heritage and my longtime association with Denmark, where I went to school during my junior year in college.  There were several cheeses (Jarlsberg – the Norwegian version of Swiss; Castello – a very creamy Danish blue; and Havarti with dill) and thin slices of black pumpernickel bread.  Of course, there was herring, in a sweet and sour mustard sauce.  Beer would have been a more authentic beverage choice, but we opted for a good Australian Shiraz. 

Next, we warmed up with green split pea soup, studded with meaty chunks of portabella mushrooms.  After that, we sampled the thin Norwegian pancakes called lefse, which I had purchased recently at the Norwegian bazaar.  They’re like giant crepes, but the batter is potato-based.  I served them filled with smoked salmon and softened goat cheese.  Along with the lefse, we had several cold dishes:  pickled cucumber salad with dill (which I learned to love in Denmark), roasted beets with a raspberry-orange vinaigrette, and celery root remoulade.  This last salad is technically French, but since it’s a root vegetable, I figured it would be at home on a Scandinavian table. 

We were pretty stuffed after all that, but no one could resist homemade applesauce topped with vanilla Greek yogurt and toasted almonds.  After the healthy dessert, it was time for the rest of the dessert course.   My original menu included julekake, the Norwegian Christmas cake.  However, I put the julekake aside when Marshall showed up with a beautifully wrapped panettone (the Milanese Christmas cake).  The only solution was to grant Italy temporary Scandinavian status for the day.  Coffee and some Lindt chocolates rounded out the meal.  Sorry there are no photos.  I was too busy cooking, eating and socializing. 

After four straight days of celebrating, i.e. over-indulgence, it was good to get to the gym this morning.