It was an accident, I swear. It started with a conversation with my mom about streamlining and editing the Christmas Eve menu. Before I knew what had happened it seemed I had hijacked the menu and was put in charge of executing it. Clearly, my mom was ready to pass the torch. Plus, she’d rather play with her grandson than cook and, if I’m honest, I’d rather cook than play with her grandson.
I’ve always loved how my family celebrates Christmas. First of all, we celebrate on Christmas Eve. Second, we make a meal of appetizers. Third, when I was growing up the menu revolved around fish and seafood. A sample menu from 1987, according to notes Santa left in my stocking:
- cashews
- veggie pizza
- veggie dip
- brie en croute
- muffins
- shrimp
- smoked salmon
- eclairs and cookies
Does not that sound delightful? I have no memory of the “muffins” and can’t imagine how that would have fit with the rest of the menu, but I imagine it’s code for something. Somehow that morphed into this collection from 2006:
- nuts
- whitefish
- smoked sturgeon
- nova salmon
- chicken wings
- ribs
- marinated veggie salad
- veggie pizza
- paté
- cheese and fig spread
- crackers, rye crisp, pumpernickel
- roasted veggies
- black bean and corn salad
- brie en croute
- olives
- cheese plate
Hum. Kind of random, right? Three kinds of cured fish plus shrimp plus ribs plus wings? Everything on that menu was tasty, but it was a lot of food (if memory serves, it didn’t all fit on the table).
So we pulled it back a bit this year and returned the menu to its roots.
- smoked whitefish
- shrimp (U.S. wild-caught white shrimp lightly steamed)
- crackers & rye bread
- gougeres (cheese puffs)
- garlic-stuffed mushrooms
- crudité platter with spicy yogurt dip
- sheep-milk cheese plate
- celery, date, & walnut salad
- cookies
It was still too much food, but that wasn’t entirely my fault. My uncle sent salmon he had caught and smoked himself. How do you not serve that? Also, the cheese went essentially untouched. Why eat cheese, we all clearly agreed, when an entire whitefish lay before you?
Maris | 03-Jan-09 at 9:20 am | Permalink
yum! we have appetizers for Christmas eve too and these are some great ideas for next year!