merry foodie x-mas

Let's just talk about my family's christmas eve party this year.

Menu:

• Cocktails - apple cider, ginger beer, and gin with muddled cranberries and lemon juice

• Appetizer - Assorted bruschetta, provided by my lovely cousin Margaret, which included this bacon-butternut squash concoction...

(She also prepared a classic tomato-basil-balsamic topping and a white bean puree, none of which lasted very long)

• First Course - Mixed green salad with gorgonzola, candied pecans, and balsamic vinaigrette with poached pear prepared by Uncle Terry and Aunt Judy in tandem with their daughter, my cousin Annie

• Main Course - 'Surf n Turf'; warm salad with polenta cake; cousin Dena's famous green beans with mushroom and roasted slivered almonds

For the surf n turf, my mother made filet mignon and baked sea scallops marinated in a roasted tomato pesto over sliced coppa. Baking sea scallops is an ingenious way to prepare them for a large group, and the marinade! and the ham! My mom made her mixed-mushroom gravy to top the filet, which is super low-fat and delicious and is such a christmas institution in our family that Annie remarked, "Mushroom gravy just tastes like christmas to me."

I guess the story is that Linda J felt pressured to provide gravy when first hosting christmas eve for the Conways, but ever health-conscious, she invented a mushroom gravy with reduced beef stock, garlic, chopped portobello and cremini mushrooms, plenty of black pepper, and thickened with a touch of corn starch that was still full-flavor but low in fat. Vegans--use veggie stock instead!

I prepared the warm salad with polenta cake; the warm salad consisted of swiss chard sauteed with crispy pancetta and chopped walnuts, I then arranged it over individual grilled polenta cakes and topped those with grated gruyere and heated them in the oven to melt the cheese. It was way festive in terms of color scheme...here's an action shot: polenta cakes about to go in the oven, cousin Annie slicing her poached pears...

• Dessert - by this time I guess I was too drunk to get a photo, but my sister Kate made mini molten chocolate cakes with mascarpone cream and brandied cherries. O...M...F...G...

Here's a shot of the "bad manners table" aka the younger generation's table...you can see that we've moved on from bad table manners to an inappropriate volume of wine consumption. In the words of Tiny Tim, and what has become a family joke, "I want some more!" [in cockney accent]