Hello!

I hope everyone is having a most excellent beginning of the new year and that the holidays and new year’s festivities treated everybody well.  Me?  I enjoyed an excellent visit with lots of family, friend and mostly food in my stomach.

My family, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, is all about the food.  From the moment you set foot into my Grandmother’s house to the second you get back in the car to leave life revolves around food.  Let’s take a look at how my holiday fooding went.

The night we got into my Grandma’s, a plethora of food was quickly broken out of the fridge…

I’m not sure if there’s anything better in the entire world than cold kielbasa (kolbasy, kalby, etc) straight from the fridge.  For Easter last year I attempted to make my Grandma’s awesome kolbasy (boiled in apricot nectar – delicious!) but I just can’t get it just right.  Suffice to say, I always get as much as I can when I’m visiting.

Don’t know what braunschweiger is?  Er, maybe I shouldn’t tell you.  It’s one of those foods that when you try it, you say “holy crap, this is delicious!”  And then when someone tells you what it is you say “oh…that’s too bad”…and then continue to eat it anyway.  Braunschweiger (IE, liver puddin’) is definitely a food I feel kind of gross eating, but since I only get when I visit Grandma I definitely get my fill of when I’m there.

But if cookies, kalby and braunschweiger weren’t enough yet (heck, it was only the first night!), my brother baked about a dozen loaves of bread, something he’s very adept at (I told him I’d stick with cakes if he’d keep churning out bread).  He made everything from pretzel rolls to cheese-laced baguettes.  So, that’s always awesome.

The next day all the family who was in town made our way to the 2nd annual visit to The Strip.  We spent all morning munching on tasty food (pierogies, pepperoni-stuffed rolls, scones, coffee) and buying tasty food (sausage, olives, cheese) for our planned feast that evening.

First stop: Pennsylvania Macaroni Company.  This awesome ode to Italian food is always (well, the two times I’ve been there) a nuthouse and chock full of cheese, meat, olives, and all sorts of other Italian fare.  My Aunt had snagged an ticket as early as she could in order to be called up to make her cheese order.  Even then we were standing in line with her for awhile!

Note the amazing cheese list and olive selection. I never knew I liked olives until now.  Really, what is better (in terms of taste, not calories) than a goat cheese-filled kalamata?  Mmm…

PennMac also apparently has their own home made wine ready and free for tasting, sitting somewhat sketchily in the back behind the food.  Nothing says classy like wine in tiny plastic cups at 10am!  Here my brother and I act super classy (when in doubt, pinkies out).

We also had the opportunity to nab some tasty cheese pierogies from Gosia’s Pierogies (“The best pierogies in the world!”, I think the sign said).  They know how to do things right in Pennsylvania, friends.

That afternoon and evening we spent making magic with our goods and devouring said magic.  Just take a quick look…

 

Good times were had by all.  Also, stomach aches.

Intermission: the tackiest house ever.  We love it.

The next night – Christmas Eve – we had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner.  What was especially notable this year was that for the first time in a very long time my entire extended family was in town for the holidays.  That meant that 13 of us crammed into my Grandma’s basement, all dressed up for midnight mass, to eat sauerkraut soup, fried fish, and potatoes.  There were probably some vegetables there too.

   

One of my Aunts brought party poppers this year.  They were a lot of fun (we have a picture of most everybody wearing ridiculous paper crowns), but they also had a lot of confetti.  Needless to say, there was lots of confetti in our food.

Before dinner we also ate oplatki, or “Christmas wafers“.  These are basically stamped pieces of cardboard-tasting wafers that Catholics share on Christmas Eve to wish peace and blessings on each other.  Typically my Grandmother (previously, my Grandfather) blesses each person in the family with honey wishing that they stay “as pure as this honey all year long”.  Then after everyone is blessed you put a great giant gob of honey onto your rectangular wafer and go from person to person at the table breaking off a piece of the wafer, dipping it the honey, and exchanging it with someone wishing them a Merry Christmas.  It’s a pretty neat tradition.

Somehow I don’t seem to have pictures of Christmas dinner, but it inevitably ended up being much more low key than the other meals.  Suffice to say it was also delicious and full of turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes, just like any feel-good meal should.  Oh, and cookies.  Many, many cookies.

And how were YOUR holidays?  Did you eat lots of food?  I certainly hope so. ^_^