Girl’s Third Annual Holiday Dinner

In years past, I have staggered the preparation of this Holiday Dinner as such:
- evening one: grocery shopping
- evening two: preparation of all which can be made one day ahead of time
- evening three: the actual Holiday Dinner, when the cooking is done

This year, I could not stagger anything because of circumstance and so was forced – truly, with all of my pleasure - to do everything in one day.

3:00 am: laying awake in bed considering how I would present dinner in terms of table décor and platter décor. Also considering which fresh spices I could add in order to better bring out the flavour of certain items.

8:30 am: rolled out of bed and had my first coffee.

9:00 am: was in my first grocery store. Queue foreshadowing.

9:38 am: wasted much too much time choosing just the proper candles and flowers (lily, one of my favourites) and when asked “buying these for someone special”, I responded with “absolutely! ME!” was met with disdain by seller of said flowers.

Because I was most definitely not in my element, I became a little flustered and offered “I am having a dinner party for the most important women in my life, who live in Ottawa, but the others can’t make it because they are strewn about the world. And I can’t find Waldo still. So because of this, you see, I’ve decided to buy myself flowers for the dinner table it will be really quite pretty all white.”
“Like a wedding?”
“What?”
“These are wedding flowers.”
“Are not.”
“Yes, quite usually they are wedding flowers.”
“O.”
“No one will buy them for you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, if it makes you feel better.”
“Actually. It does.”
“Hm.”
“F*ck off you and your flowers, then. I’d like the clear plastic, please, and I’ll take two bundles. And four white candles, two large and two small, and those two large glass candle hurricane holders.”
“Ok.”
“What are you doing tonight?”
“Uhm. Not much, I don’t know.”
“You should consider buying yourself some flowers. It is Saturday night, after all.”





10:12 am: stood momentarily mesmerized by the amount and variety of breads in the bread section.

10:47 am: was discombobulated more so than normal as I had become lost somewhere between the pecans and butterscotch sauce.

11:03 am: was in tears standing before the butcher as he said “my meat didn’t come in today so I only have three beef tenderloin steaks.”
“But I need a total of eight.”
“Do they have to be beef tenderloin?”
“YES!”
“Ok, wow.”
“Sorry.”
“That’s okay. I see you’ve bought yourself some flowers.”
“Yes. Aren’t they lovely?”
“Yes. Lo-ve-lee.”
“So, what must I do, then?”
“You’ll have to go to (insert name of other grocery store, which I had previously boycotted).”
“Oh my God, really?”
“Yeah, I’m really sorry.”
“It’s ok.”
“Good bye and may you be guided by…the stars in the sky…”
“But it’s morning?”
“I don’t know why I said that.”
“Because I wrote you that way?”
“Yes.”

11:27 am: paid and rolled my sad cart of food and flowers out of first grocery store, in search of beef tenderloin.

11:37 am: made it to second grocery store and purchased eight steaks of beef tenderloin from a lovely man who was kind enough to save me the trouble and slit ‘pockets’ into each tenderloin for me. Also purchased bananas.

11:53 am: purchased second coffee.

12:00 pm: was in kitchen.

I prepped and chopped, chopped some more, and then some more, and then some more. I baked and cuisine’d and chopped and chopped and chopped. I listened to belly dance music, danced around quite a bit and then: chopped some more. I had more coffee and chatted on the phone and chopped.

I was in the kitchen being a culinary goddess until 5:00 pm when I had no choice but to shower as the girls were coming in at 7:00 pm and I was no where near done chopping or cuisine’ing.

Out of shower, dressed and back in kitchen by 5:25 pm. More chopping and preparing and lighting of vanilla and champagne scented candles to ease my beginning-to-throb head as by this point, I had been on my feet for nine hours.

I had decided that no plates would be put on the table, except with food on them. And so, between each course, there was nothing on the table but the candles, the flowers and the drinks.

All of the beautiful women showed up on queue at 7 pm, each of whom had to sport something gold this year.

Mama


C


D


E


L


O


T


First course of Parisian bread with homemade tzaziki & bruschetta (with much coriander) was served at 7:30 pm. Please note the strawberry on the plate and the menu I’d written out for the girls (it really is the little details that make such an evening…):


Second course of sweet potato soup with a dollop of sour cream and buttered pecans was served at 8:15 pm:


Third course of beef tenderloin stuffed with morel mushrooms, shallots and garlic, with a side of sweet potato, tiny baking potato, onions, garlic, fresh thyme, rosemary and sage was served at 9:15 pm:


Fourth course of arugula greens with asiago cheese, pear and roasted walnuts served at 10:30 pm:


By 11 pm I was utterly exhausted because although I was sitting in between each course, I was also in the kitchen for the better part of the evening finishing each course, decorating it and cooking forward the next one. At 11 pm, when I brought out dessert and sat down for the night, I was quite literally a little hysterical because I was just so exhausted. I think that in total, I would have perhaps sat for maybe one hour over the course of 14 hours. I also couldn’t move my right wrist because of all of the work and chopping chopping chopping of the day. Chopping. I chop, we chop, they chop.

The funniest thing was that with all of the food we had already devoured, dessert came and it was as though none of us had eaten a thing.

Behold the lovely fifth course comprised of pound cake (I strongly encourage you to never, ever, look up the ingredients of this cake) with blackberrys to cut the sweetness:


& milk chocolate fondue served with marshmallows, lychee, pineapple, strawberries, more pieces of poundcake, pear, apple, blackberries, bananas & peaches:






Because of above mentioned hysteria, exhaustion, and total happiness that the evening and the meal had gone off without one hitch, I spent between 11 pm and 1:30 am laughing hysterically to the point of crying. Also felt a little like crying because the girls were so happy and completely satiated by the evening (which is the point, more so than anything else).



Involved in this portion of the evening was a moment where beautiful T dunked a complete marshmallow in the chocolate and decided to place the entire item in her mouth, only to have it (naturally) ooze out.



War stories of all our first-time yoga experiences and Trish’s originally incomprehensible “I won’t do yoga because I’ll fart” comment, which we all understood post first yoga class when surrounded by farting yoga-doers.



L’s ample breasts.
Ghost stories and property (e.g. “If your house is haunted and on sale, must you tell potential buyers of friendly ghost?”).
T’s eating habits.
O’s “Listen: I’m the crazy one in this relationship. If there’s a spotlight on ‘Crazy’, it’s mine, not yours” retort to ex boyfriend when he mentioned he’d seen a ghost. (O was on ‘happy’ meds at the time.)
C’s unique ability to mention T’s eating habits at the most inopportune times.



At 1:30 am, the last of the girls slipped out and I crawled into bed with tiger balm on the nape of my neck, the small of my back, my temples, right chopping wrist and heels.

3:30 am: began considering menu for 4th annual holiday dinner…considered baking bread from scratch...