Monday morning, I was watching mom workout at her final physical therapy appointment when my phone dinged. A message. Taking a quick peek, I was stunned. There was no way I was going to share the information with her during rehab as I know it would take her concentration away from her work. My mind went into overdrive. I texted a quick note to Michael.
For Christmas every year, we make food from different countries and this year, Lenny and his mom from Samoa were coming to feed us traditional food, dance traditional dances and sing to us. A really unique Christmas. It also was going to be very easy for me. No work. The message on Monday? Lenny's mom in Samoa was in heart failure and he was flying home. I sent him my very best wishes for her recovery and told him not to worry about us.
We will be having nine people here for Christmas lunch, appetizers, dinner and breakfast on the 26th. Time to kick my creative juices into overdrive. Mom was shocked when I told her that Lenny and his mom were not coming, we ran to her university hospital to return the portable device for her pacemaker while trying to find a theme for the food. Over lunch of a bowl of the delicious Russian Cabbage Soup at Max's, which is a restaurant featuring NYC Jewish Deli foods, it hit me!!! What not serve Jewish food as our Christmas food theme? We all LOVE it.
Michael phoned later that day. I presented the idea to him. He LOVED my suggested menu. I phoned Lee and Jeff and they LOVED the menu. All in all, it worked out. Now the work! Here is the menu:
Breakfast: cinnamon rolls, deviled eggs
Lunch: mini-bagels, cream cheese, tomatoes, red onion, capers with a choice of roast beef, turkey or smoked salmon. Also, a melon salad.
Appetizers: herring, tiny new potatoes with caviar, pate with tiny gherkins, crab mold, hummus with red and green peppers with pita, kosher pickles
Dinner: Brisket, latkas, homemade applesauce and sour cream
Dessert: Cheesecake and Jewish cookies - macaroons, palmiers, rugelash
What is so great is that the melon salad and the cinnamon rolls are the only things that need to be made on Christmas Day. So much is actually purchased and presented. Simple. The brisket is better made the day before, the latkas will be made this weekend and frozen, the tiny potatoes will be boiled the day before as will the applesauce and cheesecake. So easy.
I met Michael at work about an hour early yesterday and we wove our way to the mall for an evening of Christmas shopping. We are mostly finished, except for a few gift cards. On the ride home, our road through the pass was CLOSED due to flooding. We sat at the top of the pass for over 30-minutes until it opened. We were lucky it wasn't longer and we had enough gas! Did I mention it was still pouring?
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