Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!

I woke up this morning like a 5 year old on a sugar cookie high!   All my life, christmas eve is a much bigger deal than christmas day.  Following the traditional sicilian meal of the feast of the seven fishes, it's an all on production line in the kitchen today.
First course is Ivan's shrimp cocktail (he's an accomplished cocktailer these days, superb sauce coupled with perfectly prepared shrimp).  I know he's also bringing sausage, which is not traditionally part of the feast of the seven fishes, but how can I, or anyone, for that matter, possibly turn down succulent sausage???
Second course is crab and roasted corn bisque prepared by Miss Coco Dolly.  She's another one getting fairly comfortable in the kitchen lately.  Glad to see something other than my curly hair rubbed off on her.  I picture the future with Coco eventually taking over the brunt of the holiday cooking at the point when her kitchen is bigger than mine. 
Third course is angel hair fra diavlo with clams, mussels and anchovy, served with fried calamari and sweet pomodoro sauce.
Trying to recall the wines Lou and I paired with these courses .....a viognier and petit chablis.....I think.
Fourth course is seared sea scallops with pea puree and sauteed bronzino ( a mediterrean sea fish) with roasted butternut squash.   We have a pinot noir for this course.  So what it's a red....it's very low in tannin so it's just fine to pair with fish, so there!
Dessert is strufoli, christmas cookies and croquembouche, served with spiked eggnog, port, cognac and laced coffee.

I hope anyone who takes the time to read this knows that I appreciate the time you spend here.  Thanks so much for permitting me the opportunity to entertain you.  Merry christmas, be well, travel safely, eat heartily and laugh often.!!!
xxoxxoxo

Christmas Cookies Are A Food Group

9 Inches of snow on the ground and it really looks like christmas now!!  Gotta admit, shelling out a hundred bucks on Monday to the snow blower fix it faiery sucked on Monday.  On Sunday, however, it's a whole other story!   Primed and started in about 15 seconds, it was a piece of snowy cake out there this morning.  It was helpful having Lou around as well.  I don't think I could manage the snow blower on the steps, ya know..?

Three days of work this week and then off off off till January 4th.  It's breaks like that  that make the entire work venture worth while.  So, you suffer a few weeks out of the year, then you get nice breaks in the scenery so often that it makes up for it.   As it appears, however, these three days will be a colossal waste of time.  With the expectation of approximately $400 in sales, it's hardly worth the effort.  I'd just assume stay home and lounge about in flannel sipping coffee with eggnog and rum, nibbling on christmas cookies.

Big Feast of the Seven Fishes for christmas eve.  You can take the religion out of the girl (or, as in my case, the girl can run as fast from it as possible) but you can never take the italian out of her.  So, a big day of dining on the fruiti de mare and then a week of trying to get the house to stop smelling like a fish monger's cunny.  Wish me luck.   I do love this holiday, though.  I always remember my kids' anticipation of things like the cookies, the tree and their special christmas plates, bowls and cups.  I should probably give them those keepsakes now that they are older and have homes of their own...but I cannot bear to part with them.  No, I think I'll keep them a bit longer, and display them with love.   I'll even make them oatmeal and serve it in their bowls if only they'll put those bowls on the window sill later in the day -- in the hopes that santa will do a little recon work and notice they ate all their breakfast.

Thinking of going to Washington Crossing State Park on Christmas day to see a reenactment of Washington crossing the Deleware on christmas eve. prior to his march towards Trenton and those drunken Hessians.  Weather permitting, and flask in hand, that's the plan.

The little train that could.........

Do you remember that story from years of yore??   Some little locomotive, overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of it's tasks sets out to fulfil those tasks....and with the innocence only children and derainged fantasy choo choos can possess, up the side of mt. krimpet (oops, wrong story) up the hill he went, whilst all along sing songing to himself as only maniacle choo choos can "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can....." When he finally reached the precipice, or just a whisp of steam away, he changed his tune to "I know I can, I know I can".  Naturally, everyone lives happily ever after; at least until Choo Choo Charlie came along and forced him back up that track for nothing more than a few measly licorice bits.
The point of this tale??    That's how I feel this christmas on a few levels.   Not being possessed of pointy ears, curly shoes or overly diminutive stature, I have found the cookie baking a bit on the daunting side this year.  No darling daughter to assist with the cutting, rolling, sprinkling.  No suave son to come in stealing the lovelies instead of the uglies.  Just moi and endless reels of Nat King Cole's Christmas Song..   I am happy and pleased to report that all 13 varieties of cookie are present and accounted for.
The tree is a work of art this year.  I leave it each day, taking a mental photograph in the event of the recently acquired possibility that I discover it in a glistening heap on the floor upon my arrival.  Max-i cat, a frightened shitless scairdy cat if ever there was one, had finally agreed the tree means her no harm, nor will it attempt to vacuum the living room while she's taking number 45 of 98 catnaps.  This acceptance of the alien thing that smells like outside means she's quite content to get up close and personl with it.  Last night I was disturbed from yet another inane evening in front of the television by the tinkling and jingling of glass ornaments doing the hustle....Max-i, in all her big belly glory was gently batting at the glass baker snowmen.  Eventually, she tired of that sport and returned to dead mother-in-law's favourite chair (now festooned with a bright pink blanket) to sleep it off.  Exhausting work, this being a cat. 
Here it is, Tuesday evening, 5:30 or so.  I"m still dressed from work, yet all I want is a cup of tea and warm fuzzy pajamas.  I'll get to present wrapping in about an hour.  I'll watch the season finale of Dexter, because serial killers who also work for the blood splatter crime lab are precisely what most people won't be watching as they wrap presents.   I've already watched It's a Wonderful Life (and getting that goddam DVR thing to work is truly going to be the undoing of my sanity, I kid you not), I've seen Miracle on 34th Street.  We watched Elf just the other night.  I'd like to watch A Christmas Story but, as I said, I don't know how to make my DVR work without crying in front of it while it silently mocks my inability to know which button to press or which lever to lift.  Fucker.  So, serial killer it is, all the while I'll be using my very own scissor to make lovely ribbon curls.
As the magi said to the star.....see you soon.