A Christmas alone. Not how you want to spend it. You know what I missed most? Maybe waking up to a sackful of presents from Santa at the bottom of the bed. Maybe playing cards with all the family, particularly Grandpa who played with such amusing reckless abandon. But no, I think it's the food I missed - and miss - the most. I think the Christmas Day meal was, and is, my favorite meal of the year - something that Mum slaved over for hours with so little appreciation. Well I appreciate it now! Exactly like Thanksgiving, I wasn't prepared to cook a massive meal with all the trimmings just for myself. Unlike Thanksgiving, there are a lot less places here that offer take out Christmas dinners. In the end, I picked up a pre-cooked dinner from a local Irish bar/restaurant a few days ago - so all I needed to do was heat it up today. It was perfectly nice, but it doesn't compare to Mum's home cooking! As with a lot of American meals, it came with a side salad that was almost a meal in itself - so much so, that I had the salad for lunch and the main meal for dinner. I doubt it was a real Irish Christmas meal, here is what it consisted of (verbatim from the website):
- Hand Cut Holiday Glazed Ham
- Au Gratin Smashed Potatoes
- Broccolini with Bacon
- Cider Spiced Braised Cabbage
- Emerald Salad with Fruit and Candied Nuts
- O'Donnell's Soda Bread
Make of that what you will. They don't do Christmas Pudding in America. So I also ordered some Bread Pudding, which is about as close as I can get. I'm feeling pleasantly stuffed now, but of course a Skype call today can't make up for the lack of company. I'm going to try to ensure that doesn't happen again for any future Christmases.
No comments:
Post a Comment