summary: Happy Christmas; feasting; what to do on Boxing Day

In spite of an ice storm, a limb from our giant silver maple cracking and laying itself down to rest on our roof, power outages across the city and province, plunging sub-zero temperatures, snowy icy roads, fear of power outage because of another even larger tree limb hanging precariously on the electrical wires that feed our whole street, we have had a blessed and happy Christmas. I hope you have too! (Remarkably, the second branch is a low priority branch, with still over 50,000 Toronto homes without power because of tree branches that have broken the lines. I don’t expect that the workers, who have been working 24 hours a day since early Sunday morning, will get to it until at least next week.)

For Christmas Eve, I made Clark’s molasses fennel raisin rye and two round loaves based on “Acme’s Rustic Baguettes” in Maggie Glezer’s Artisan Baking Across America and “baguettes” in The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum.

The boules were not as wonderful as I’d hoped – could it be that it was because I didn’t make the starter until 2am on the day I was baking the bread? Or was it that I didn’t quite knead it enough? Or was it that I baked it at 10pm even though it hadn’t risen quite enough because I really just wanted to go to bed?

Or am I just too demanding? Clearly, it was still pretty good. Our guests kept going back for more to mop up the Mediterranean style fish stew.

But. The molasses rye was stellar!! It was especially good with T’s equally stellar chicken liver pate.

We had enough of both left over to have as snacks to fortify us before dinner on Christmas Day. Then we had the best (it’s always the best, isn’t it?) roasted chicken stuffed with Mum’s dressing, oven roasted parsnips, green beans, cranberry sauce, gravy and mashed potatoes galore.

And cookies and cakes – of course. My favourites were the cheese cookies I made into triangular shape. No, the ginger shortbread. No, no, T’s traditional shortbread. No, wait, I’ve changed my mind again, the ginger cookies made with powdered, fresh AND candied ginger. No, wait again, the cherry snowballs. No, wait once more, the vinarterta….

I was really looking forward to having the last couple of slices for our Boxing Day leftovers day of loafing and feasting. But last night, just as we were finishing dessert, T caught that furry black fiend on the kitchen counter, LICKING the two pieces of bread left in the basket.

WHAT gives? Does this creature think he’s a dog?! I mean, really! Or does he think he is not getting enough to eat?

Or perhaps he thinks he is a pig.

Along with the wonderful food, we got lots of really lovely presents this year. It wasn’t an overwhelming number and I didn’t feel as though people were being overly extravagant. One of the loveliest gifts we received was two pigs from Gifts of Hope.

Hmmmm, what do you think? Is this where we should all start when going on our Boxing Day spending sprees?

Shopping (illustration by Hyde)

(If you have something to add or say about stopping world hunger, please remember to post your thoughts and ideas on your blog, facebook, at work, etc. etc.)
 

Related Posts:

• Yay!! It’s Boxing Day!
• What are your plans for Boxing Day?
• Let the Feasting Begin
• Wordless: Giving and receiving…
• Merry Christmas to all!
• Happy Boxing Day! (2005)