My mom picked me up from the train station at 10 am Christmas Eve. We went to the mall and spent a few hours finishing our Christmas shopping together. At 2:30 we met up with my dad at Valentino's, a little bar that my family likes to go to. My mom and I happened across their Christmas Eve celebration last year. The first round is on the house, they have a complimentary buffet and a packed house. It was nice to get a few relaxed moments alone with my parents. Mr. Valentino, who is at least 85, played the accordion to our delight. He stubbornly played marching tunes with a twinkle in his eye while his daughters begged him to play Christmas songs. Bethany and Stephen joined us for the tail end of our time there, which was a pleasant surprise.
Back at the house, my mom put a ham in the oven and sequestered herself and my dad in a spare bedroom to wrap presents. Ben, Kara and the kids arrived and everyone worked on dinner together. I had started to make an apple crisp and my brother said that I was trying to cramp his style since he had previously announced that he was making the dessert. His dessert would be made with duck-fat (a separate blog entry would be required to properly document Ben's relationship with duck-fat), and how could I compete...what was I using...butter? A dessert-off was declared and much shit was talked to everyone's amusement/irritation.
Fearing the crisp would not be big enough for everyone (and realizing after the crisp was in the oven that I forgot to add flour and it would probably taste like sugar and oatmeal and that was not an option since I was in a dessert-off), I also made molasses cookies. Ursa, three months shy of three, announced that she wanted to help me and I let her crack the first egg to humor her. Standing on her highchair, she tapped the egg once and neatly delivered a shell-free egg into the bowl with her tiny fingers. No big deal. When I commented, Kara said that she has been letting Ursa make her own eggs in the morning. Supervised, she added after Ben's surprised/proud/delighted/scared/high-pitched "WHATTT!!!"
Naftali, six at the end of February, had been observing and helping quietly and at one point we looked over and he had used the chopper to chop a cup or two of walnuts and combined it with a cup or two of sugar in a bowl. Rolling with it, Kara said that he was going to make cinnamon rolls. Naftali, busily stirring the sugar/walnuts with a spoon, agreed as if that had been his plan all along. Ben welcomed him into the dessert-off and explained to him that everyone would vote after they tasted all the desserts and a winner would be named.
Bethany made the brussel sprouts. Ben made the fingerling potatoes. My mother emerged to check the ham. Orla and Steve were playing records and scoping out the growing pile of presents under the tree and by the fireplace. I announced that I had started Christmas crafts a month ago and they were still not done yet so only the kids were getting actual presents from me. Lauren called...Christmas was not quite perfect with her and Skyler in North Carolina. Kara sliced the bread and made an antipasti tray that did not quite make it to dinner. We were hungry.
After dinner, the presents.
After presents, the dessert-off.
The apple crisp was ok but not great due to the missing flour. The molasses cookies were really good but not amazing by Christmas cookie standards. The dessert Ben made...in the words of Orla, "tastes like cheeseburger and fries." Ben took one bite and declared it to be terrible. Perhaps the beloved duck-fat should be saved for savory dishes. The cinnamon rolls were amazing. The pastry was buttery and flaky, melting in the mouth. Bethany and I asked Kara how she did it, but then we saw Naftali. He was silent, watching everyone's reactions to the desserts. It was official and we let him know: Naftali and the cinnamon rolls were the official winner of the 2012 dessert-off. He took the news in stride with a pleased closed-mouth crooked smile.
