The Cooks Round Table

Even the earliest editions of the Better Homes and Gardens included an article dedicated to sharing recipes, one homemaker to another.  While I’m refraining from sharing the recipe for batter fried celery from December 1925, let us ponder this instead.

What happens when you plan a menu?  I have shared before that our Christmas party menu is egregious in its excess.  There is Always way too much food.  Unnecessarily so.  Honestly, there really isn’t a good reason to be so over the top with it, but we are.  Kathleen had remarked recently that she had been asked if we go overboard on our party menu in order to “keep up with the Joneses?”  The truth is, there are no Joneses.  I don’t believe other people have parties like ours.  At least not ones that aren’t catered.  Or maybe they do, but we just don’t get invited to them?

This week is party prep week, and as Kathleen and I sat down to make the menu, her father asked what we were up to.  Kat said we were planning the menu, and I shared the oft repeated memory of when the boys were still in elementary school, saw the planned menu list, and added foods they thought we should have.  Paul added ham, because everyone loves ham, and Matthew added mozzarella, tomato, and basil appetizers because his gramma still had fresh basil growing on her basil plant.  Not the usual suggestions you would expect from children.

Then as Kathleen and I began making the list, her father was right there, making suggestions.  Have we ever served tortilla espanola at a Christmas party? No, not at a Christmas party, but plenty of other parties.  When was the last time we had little smokies?  Good question, it’s been a few years.  Deviled eggs were discussed.  When we got to the sweets, he was as eager as the boys had been, offering suggestions and alternatives.  He even tried to recall the secret family fudge recipe from memory to see if he could.  

He wasn’t the only one adding new things to the menu.  I managed to get a dirty martini dip on the list, and a marinated charcuterie I have been trying to get on the menu for a year or two.  Kathleen made some serious restrictions on the candy making, but, and also, yet, still… we will have to see if she can maintain her self control when she is actually in the kitchen making the candy.  

Kathleen has shared before that it never feels like Christmas to her, until we are in the middle of party preparation.  That for her, and for the rest of our family, this is our way of sharing our love with our friends and extended family.  So yes, the menu is too much, way, way too much, but it brings us holiday joy.