Christmas Dinner

Hi there, hope you all had a great Christmas…

I sure had a good one myself! As some of you already knew, I had given my husband a gift – an all inclusive, paid holiday to be with his mother and family away from Canada. So, that meant I was home alone.. Yeah… sounds scary… ha..ha.. I felt like the “kid” in the movie “Home Alone”…. Sure… at times, felt like wrecking the home too…

One thing for sure, I wasn’t going to spend my Christmas miserable… although we don’t celebrate Christmas, I love the Christmas cheer… it is time to sit back, relax and enjoy. Well, it’s also the only holiday we get here in Canada other than Thanksgiving.. so we might as well enjoy and have great time…

I thought of having a little party… yeah.. I was in the mood to Partay! Partay!! Well, I did not have a lot of stuff at home – I peeped in to the fridge – it wasn’t full – opened the pantry cupboards … not a lot left there too -since I hadn’t done groceries and I am kind of crippled because I cant drive… because I depend on my husband for this.. (O.K. More on this later – lets keep on track right?) But I was determined to have some fun.. so I invited my friend Sumi and her family over for dinner on Christmas Day. They too don’t celebrate Christmas and also like me have no other family. And besides the poor woman had to work on Christmas Day. So I thought it would be a great way for her to unwind, relax and chill.

Boy! That was interesting and challenging…I didn’t have enough of anything to follow a traditional recipe…so I had to be really creative… I added a bit of this and bit of that and was able to make a full meal – of course, at this point I was making meals I had never made before…. May I admit? I had to really pray to the Lord because at one point I was scared whether I would be able to make it. Believe me, I was able to make a really nice complete meal with what I was left with…. I even managed to whip up a really nice dessert – thanks to my husband… I hope he won’t miss it…ooops… yeah.. Emptied his bottle of brandy – threw in some fresh apples and pears, butter, brown sugar, resin-nut bran cereal, vanilla and baked it for half-an-hour… Ah.. It tasted so… good… served it piping hot over crushed chocolate creamsicles… because I did not even have ice cream at home…. But it tasted so…. yummy… that I think was the perfect ending to a no-name menu!

The evening turned out to be wonderful.. We emptied a bottle of wine, relaxed, laughed and talked a lot…my friends were happy with the meal and I received a lot of compliments too. I was happy not because of the complements because I too had a great evening… I am glad I decided to do that because if not I would have just sat in misery thinking of the great Christmases other people were having… And I was happy to share what ever I had… food, home and time with others …isn’t this what Christmas is about?

o.k… you guessed it right!.. there is a point to my sharing this.. this is not about the No-Name dishes I made….sometimes, in life too.. we may not have a full stock in hand… we may lack this or that… but yet we still have to face life… do our best and make something out of what we are left with… Only a very few of us may ever feel like we have a full stock…but many of us don’t… So, lets take a risk here….And if we think creatively, I believe, we certainly can pull-off something pretty good.. something pretty unique too…. Who says we have to serve what everybody else serves.. Lets remember in life – you are the Chef… its up to you to how you whip things up… When in doubt always garnish with lots of love, compassion and kindness – sprinkle it with good humour… it never goes wrong… Be genuine – it will always taste good…