Judging by the excellent decor, you can tell that I just spent my third Christmas Eve in an Italian-American household.
Merry Christmas, people. I am currently typing in an effort to burn off the ridiculous amounts of food that I have consumed over the past two days. Really I just want to roll over and sleep for 12 hours, but the need to unpack my luggage and locate my pajamas is preventing me from doing so (I have moved from Boston to the Cape). I really don’t want to unpack, so instead I am typing away in an effort to procrastinate and also prolong mission accomplishment of sleeping off my food hangover. Follow my logic?
So while I am trying to forget about food, I shall attack the problem head on and tell you all about my Christmas eve. No, I didn’t go to watch another sporting event- instead I got myself invited once again to dinner with my brother-in-law’s family. To me, this is an unmissable opportunity that I always feel fortunate to attend, and I’ll go so far as to say that I was quite pleased when I found out that my sister’s (then) fiancé was the son of Italian immigrants. It seems like his entire family has transplanted from Italy, and for me this means that they must cook and eat good food all the time. That’s how the stereotype goes anyway, right?
So a count of twenty (mostly Italian-looking) people showed up last night, all ready to eat lots of fantastic seafood. I’ll say at the outset that I don’t remember much of the meal anymore- but I did leave the house just before midnight with plenty of photographic evidence of the plates being passed around. Here’s my adventures in eating. Again, I am so not hungry at the moment….
Kicking things off after grazing on appetizers of sardines, smelts and mozzarella.
Whenever you are dealing with a series of numbers, names, or culinary creations, you always remember the first and last thing. Here’s the first plate that was passed around.
We’ll call this one pasta dish number two.
This one was my favorite (I do remember that). Baccalà, with tomato sauce. Salty fantastic.
Squid salad. This was pretty awesome too.
Stuffed Shrimp. I am sure the stuffing was healthy, because it was delicious.
Homemade Volpe wine. Also, a hit at the table.
Umm…..food coma is setting in….was this the tilapia?
More fish. I had long since reached the “I am full” segment of the evening…
Fellow Irish-American (and sister) Rory, passing me the salmon
Uncle Enzo, liking the fact that every dish is becoming a Kodak Moment.
I’m losing track. Did I already show you this one? It’s more fish.
Who cooked all of this food? Don’t get me wrong, it was all amazing, but I’m tired just from pasting so many links into this blog entry…
If it looks like I am passing into a coma, it’s because I am. That’s me with my excellent brother-in-law Marc and sister Rory. I’m still not eating until 2011.
Right, that was dinner. I think there was some salad being passed around as well, but you all know what salad looks like. Next up for this eating abbondanza? Dessert.
Homemade struffoli. I believe I was telling people that I could have been born Italian as I kept picking from this plate. Thank God I wasn’t born into one of these families, because I’d be the size of a house.
Homemade tiramisu. I was full, but you have to try this stuff when you know it didn’t come from Stop and Shop.
Of course with desserts come the logical progression of booze- digestifs that either improve or make worse your indigestion. I believe at this stage I had long since transitioned into photojournalist mode. Nothing else was going down my gullet.
An array of hangover-inducing libations to choose from: Centerba, Strega, Campari….
…and here’s a familiar sight. It would appear that this a multi-cultural house after all.
Like I said, I didn’t partake in the post-wine portion of this dinner engagement. I was already at my limit for consumption, and could easily bat away the “How about the sailor try some of this?” taunts when the flaming Sambuca was brought out….
That’s right, I said flaming Sambuca. Alcohol in snifters was set on fire and consumed by Italy’s old guard (and some of the younger generation as well!). I will say that it’s a fun spectator sport.
Okay so that’s the dinner in a nutshell. I guarantee that there was loads of good conversation and people in attendance, but I’m still full and wanting to find my pajamas. I haven’t even talked about Christmas Day here on Cape Cod, which was an equally great day. Maybe I’ll get to that tomorrow after I go take a nice perimeter run around the entire peninsula and try to work my way back to owning a normal stomach. I so don’t need to eat again until I reach my 40s.
Buon Natale!