Bri.. I'll set an invisible place at our table for you this Xmas.. You can marvel in the dysfunctionality of my family while i set there as a girl (that they full well know about!!!Grrrrrrr) in guy clothes playing the fake man for the sake of their sanity.... You can listen to my brohter-in-law attempt adult communication by saying so ahh hfm hfm rick hows tennis going.. (I'll think gee @!?hole its December how do you think its going???)
WaHoooooooooooooooooooooooo You sure you wanna have a place with us? hehe... either way you're in! my puppy can sit between us her first Xmas and you can get your leg slobbered on!
Alas I feel your pain and think its just sad, not right! I hope there is something that comes your way to help!
I said before in a post did not elaborate about my dad dying here home at cancer in hospice i spent most evenings with him in our living room and i think in his end months he (he was an alcoholic too though) fully understood what he missed in life and how much of his kids lives he missed, he cried a lot which was hard for me to sit and see....
anyway Like julie and a lot of others have said somehow we have to turn the misery around, make positives out of negatives, I'm still waiting for a formula for that though!
Xmas culinary help:
side dishes?
Try corn bread casserole, a vegetable style lasagna, maybe a vegetable strata, roasted fruits with vegetables, the old frenches or campbell's do not know which one owns the recipe rights but Green bean casserole is refreshing if you never have it? Especially if you take the time to slice, flour and fry your own onion rings for on top!
Creamed corn pudding! Sweet potato casserole is yummy if you put crunchy cookie/cinnamon topping on it before baking!
I'm getting hungry....
One last thing:........The GOOSE.. well i actually like more exotic game and fowl.. my family 4-getta-bout-it! but funny story..
Years back as a young sous chef i worked in a big resort we did thousands of dinners and buffets and parties for the holidays especially thanskgiving and xmas...Scratch cooking, high end stuff dinners were at the time 26.00-29.95 ala carte, etc..
Anyway we had this group of like 80 reserved a whole strip of condos, reserved a private (dining - conference room that seated 100 people homestyle) room for thier whole family they stayed at the resort for a whole week, well for their thanksgiving dinner they wanted this like 40.00 a person old fashioned theme meal, Roast goose, stuffed with wined fruits, plum pudding, blood pies, you name it the menu was cool and i prepared 80% of it cause it was a rich family and our executive chef wanted it perfect!!!...Anyway i set about prepping and getting the goose into the ovens in the large banquet kitchen i had 18 geese prepped and slow roasting, I go on about other things get involved out of the kitchen into other things; meanwhile hours pass, no one in the kitchen (all very busy) is watching these birds for me.. YIKES I have this epifomy.I go running to the conference areas from another end of the center, fly into the kitchen open the oven and i had these very small shrivelled up things that looked like quail by the time i got to them...They were literally 2lbs instead of 11 or 12 lbs...
I had to put turkeys in, just hours from the dinner for these vip's (i cannot actually say who they were on this post but they were big time VIP's) and i had to go and explain to them what i did... I thought i would get fired and actually in the spirit of the holiday they got a good luagh out of it, actually had me in the room carving their fake gooses (turkeys) and retelling my tory, I ended up with a 250.00 tip from that group and forgiveness when i thought the world would end! Well the facility director was not as forgiving he all but fired me! Gulp.. ah the things I've done as a young chef!'
That's my story and i'm sticking to it!
Bye the way the foods and things you guys speak of for the holidays are all very very interesting!
Thanks
R
