Christmas Morning

The most entertaining meal of the year is my family’s Christmas brunch. The best part of the entire meal is the fact that my entire family is there. I come from a family of six, but both of my sisters no longer live in Western New York. So it is rare for all six of us to be together at once. On top of this my father’s siblings and their families are there as well. It ends coming close to 30 people. The food is amazing every year as well. My mom makes a omelet dish that could feed an army! There are also things like pancakes, sausage, bacon, hash browns, but best of all my grand ma’s cinnamon buns. This tradition has been going on ever since I have been around and shows no signs of stopping. It is amazing to see a family so close together and appreciate the little things on such a great holiday!

Comment from Martha:
Don and I each come from families of 6 (oddly, we each have 4 sisters and 1 brother) and are very familiar with the onslaught of the relatives.  But what I find surprising about your post is that they all show up for brunch!  We often had that many by dinner time, or for a dinner the night before on Christmas Eve,  but Christmas morning was always just for the nuclear family.  My mother would have had a nervous breakdown if the relatives showed up before noon.  
 

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is one of the few days a year when instead of taking a plate of food and going to our rooms, my relatives all gather in the living room to eat dinner together. In recent years I create a mock movie theatre in the living room with the help of Netflix. I sit with my siblings and nephews watching stand up comedy while my mother and older sisters prepare dinner. At this point holiday dinners are quite predictable in my household. The typical dinner consists of roasted chicken or turkey, Dominican potato salad (white potatoes, hard boiled eggs, mayonnaise, beats, and carrots), white rice, and platanos maduro (fried ripe plantains). Our ritual is a simple one but I figure its a lasting tradition because of the simplicity.

Passover

The meal during the Passover Seder is, without any doubt, my favorite holiday meal.  I love Passover and whenever I lead the Seder, it usually lasts hours.  The largest group we have had for the first night Seder was 11 people and we had to ask some friends to bring extra chairs.  The Seder started at 6:00 pm and wasn't really finished until 11:30 at night.

Preparation for the Seder and the meal begins a few days ahead.  It starts with my mother making fresh horseradish, which is a day when you don't want to be at our house due to the noxious fumes.  Then I will make charoset, which is a past of apples, nuts, dried fruit, spices and wine.  My father usually acquires a shank bone that we will then roast in a fire along with an egg.  All these things are part of the Seder plate and not the actual meal.  For the meal, which I usually make, I follow strict kosher for Passover guidelines, meaning there is no wheat, besides matzah and matzah meal, spelt, rye, barley, oats, corn, beans, and rice along with the usual kosher guidlines.  

The preparation for the actual meal begins early on the day of and continues until the last minutes before the Seder.  We always have matzah ball soup and a dish with quinoa, everything else usually changes.  There is also a lot of wine.  During the Seder it is commanded to drink four glass and this drinking continues into the meal.  At the end of the meal, it is custom for someone to find the afikomen, a piece of matzah that was set aside at the beginning of the Seder.  The person that finds it usually gets a prize of some sort.  Technically the afikomen is supposed to be dessert, but I don't think that nyone really likes matzah enough to eat it voluntarily for dessert.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving dinner has to be my favorite holiday meal or shall I say feast. It is the only day in my house that everyone gathers together and helps make dinner. I live with my immediate family, my cousins family, and my grandparents so that makes 11 of us. You can imagine it's hard to have the same dinner schedule when there are 11 different people living in your house. As I mentioned before Thanksgiving dinner in my house is more like a feast. We have the traditional turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, veggies, cranberry sauce, and salad. Don't worry it doesn't end there. My mom always makes sure to have at least one or two bengali items usually something like naan and beef kabobs, some sort of italian pasta, and spanish yellow rice and chicken. So it's more like a multicultural thanksgiving where we just feast on our favorite foods. My favorite part is always the turkey with some cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes since it's something that I don't have often. My mom and sister tend to do the major cooking whereas the rest of us (me, my younger brother, and even younger two cousins) are responsible for prep and clean up. Recently I have helped more, its not that I can't cook its just why do the work if there are others to do it? My aunt is a hazard around the kitchen so her job is to stay away until its time for dishes. My dad and uncle pretend to help which usually means they just sit around and talk politics until someone tells them to go to another room. We literally start cooking the moment we wake up and then have dinner around 6/7 pm nibbling on stuff that's being prepared the whole day. By the end of dinner no one can move and there's enough food left over to feed a village which makes for a great turkey leftover sandwich.

Christmas Dinner

Christmas is by far my favorite family holiday meal. It's the best because of the all the family that is around. Last year there were 12 people in attendance, with all sorts of chairs pulled up to our table that isn't quite big enough. This usually starts a dinner turf war with my brother, but we let it slide because it's Christmas.

As per the dishes that are generally served, it always starts with salad and some homemade bread that my aunt usually will make. From there we move onto the meat and potatoes of the dinner. (Sorry, pun intended.) Ham with pineapple and mashed potatoes. New to this past Christmas' menu was rutabaga and I was very pleasantly surprised. In my opinion, it's a yellow-orange mashed potato dish that tastes way better and is nearly impossible to spell on the first try. 

As per the dishes that are generally served, it is our family's china that we always break out for nice dinners. And then for the glasses of the evening, it's always my family's super-Irish side's Grandmother's Waterford Crystal glasses. I've always hated those glasses because whenever I place it down "too hard" I always get that 'Can you believe this kid?' look from my mom. All I'm saying is, if they're so important why do we even use them?

Lastly, dessert is an interesting democratic process. In the weeks preceding Christmas, we will throw in ideas for dessert and then we will unofficially survey everyone. I say unofficially because two years ago my father suggested 'Canolis', I voted no but we ended up getting them anyway. Disappointed that cinnamon rolls didn't win I asked around to see who voted for the canolis. One other person besides my father voted for the canolis, making that day notoriously known to everyone as 'The Christmas dad committed some serious voter fraud.'

The Pine, Prime Rib and Yuletide Log

Around each of the holidays, my family and I would travel down to Staten Island to go to my Aunt's house. It was at these times where I would get to see them, other than the occasional weekend trips.Christmas has to be one of the best holidays of the year, it usually brings about the largest turnout of the family and with them, comes their specialty dishes. The seating and table arrangement fluctuated from year to year, but a good time was had nonetheless by all.

Cooking usually began the day before and Christmas Eve. I remember my mother would always bake the Raspberry Thumbprint cookies and a Honey Glazed Ham. After these were finished, they would be wrapped and put in the refrigerator, until we made our trip down the next day. We arrived at my Aunt's house and the cooking of the main dishes would usually be done here, a few hours before dinner began.

This year, however, my family went down earlier than we usually do, so we could assist more with the meal. I took a central role in one of the appetizers, the lasagna. More specifically, I had to roll the mini meatballs for it, with some help of course. I am probably overestimating here, but I must have rolled about 700 meatballs. It was painstaking, to say the least. I have now secured my place as the roller, and I have something to look forward to next year.

The meal would always be served in the traditional format, Appetizer Dinner, Desert. The lasagna was a staple in the meal, and way always served. The focaccia, as good as it was, I wish I hadn't had the 3 or 4 pieces of it. I ate in the moment. not looking at the long term effects, but it is a holiday! The Prime Rib was rather delicious, however, I find that it is better broiled than slow roasted. It tends to be juicier and more tender, something I have to see if I can implement the next year. Desert always brought me to the Almond and Lemon Frosted cookies, one of the best desserts that we had.

Viva San Giuseppe!

Ever since I can remember, my extended family has always celebrated St. Joseph's day in March every year. When I was little, my family would rent out a dining hall area with an extremely large kitchen. In the more recent years since the passing of some of my older relatives, we now just get together with a group of roughly 50 people at my uncle Joe's house. 

During this Sicilian holiday, we remember St. Joseph, the carpenter with a lavish feast. We always started every St. Joseph's Day dinner with lighting candles and by toasting. During the toast a prayer was said and at the end of the prayer, the phrase "Viva San Giuseppe" meaning "Happy St. Joseph's Day!" in Italian. We always have the following foods:

Pasta, thick spaghetti with 2 different types of sauces- regular tomato sauce and tomato sauce with sardines. (I wish the sardines weren't present)
Hard Boiled eggs
plenty of bread to share
Bread crumbs to represent St. Joseph's saw dust of being a carpenter 
Cheese, lots and lots of cheese
Breaded cauliflower 
pastrami, salami, and other various meats
sauteed onions and peppers
Fried fish
Egg omelets
Different grilled vegetables


For dessert (my favorite part)


Cannolis
Pizzelles
Double chocolate ricotta cake
sphinges
sfogliatelle pastries
eclaires
and other desserts topped with honey


This huge feast takes hours to eat but it is definitely worth it. Theres also never a dull moment in my family during this dinner especially when the adults get a little tipsy on the Italian home made wine. All in all, I love this holiday because it brings people together by food and its always the time of the year when I get to see all of my extended family and just enjoy laughs with them. Honestly, there never goes a year when I don't look forward to this holiday!