Around the Kitchen Table: Holiday Brunch--Our Favorite Meals for Holiday Eves

 

LESLIE KARST: Plenty is written each year about our favorite meals for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Years—and for that matter, Festivus. But my question today is: What is your traditional meal for the night before the holidays you celebrate? Is it something light and simple, as a way to prepare for all the eating to come, or a grand banquet to commence the festivities with a bang?

In our family, Christmas Eve was a big deal growing up. We’d all pile into the station wagon and drive over to Pasadena to my grandparents’ house, where Deedee would have prepared two enormous pots of soup: clam chowder for the grownups, and corn chowder for the kids. Clams? Ewwwww! (I now adore the delectable mollusks, of course.) I’m sure there was also a big green salad—a must in pretty much all Karst family dinners back then—as well as bread or biscuits or what-have-you. But what I remember best besides the soup is the enormous tray of “Deedee (aka spritz) cookies” we kids would stuff ourselves with after dinner. And I still adore these buttery delicacies pressed out of a cookie press. Here’s a recipe (with cream cheese—yum!) from the MLK archives by Krista Davis. 

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PEG COCHRAN/MARGARET LOUDON: When my paternal grandfather was alive, we would go to their house on Christmas Eve and he would make pasta with lobster sauce, which, as a kid, I didn't appreciate! One year we were invited to a cousin's house for Christmas Eve and the Italian feast of the seven fishes. I was a grown-up by then so I really enjoyed it but I'm not so sure my kids did! In honor of my grandfather, I have continued the tradition of pasta on Christmas Eve (although not with lobster alas) and usually make some sort of baked pasta dish. I use our Christmas placemats (found in Target years ago) and our red and white toile plates (snapped up from Home Goods.) One year I did deviate from the norm and made two different pots of soup, including caldo verde, a Portuguese soup and New Jersey Sloppy Joes (3 layers of rye bread, deli meat, Cole slaw and Russian dressing) for a more casual meal. This year the Christmas Eve menu is still under consideration!

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MAYA CORRIGAN: A grand banquet is what my family always had on Christmas Eve. It started with a variety of appetizers, including shrimp, pickled herring, and smoked salmon. Then we had the main dish, usually a roast. The desserts always included cookies plus pies and/or cakes. Why am I using the past tense? Though our numbers have dwindled, and those of us who are left live 1,000+ miles apart, we still have the seafood appetizer, the roast, and the desserts, just not as much food for the group of five that have spent the holiday together since Covid. 

Holiday Eve Appetizer Platter

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LESLIE BUDEWITZ:  Mr. Right and I are typically home alone on Christmas Eve, and we enjoy continuing my parents' tradition of what we call "fun foods," aka appetizers or nibbles, and a special cocktail. (You'll get a taste of last year's cocktail treats in my post on Tuesday -- we haven't decided on this year's yet.) Baked brie, often in puff pastry with fig or cranberry jam. Marinated artichokes and asparagus. Salami. Shrimp. Mini crab cakes? Maybe! Spiced nuts, definitely -- maybe this Spiced Glazed Nuts and Pretzels Mix, from Assault & Pepper. Bruschetta, possibly, or a baguette or a favorite cracker. My hunny makes a fabulous baked artichoke dip, from the recipe he stole from me and made better, and I shared here a few years ago! And lots of leftovers, to dip into over the lazy days after Christmas.

However and whatever you celebrate, I wish you a season filled with love, joy, and good food!

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MADDIE DAY: I don't have a particular food tradition for Christmas Eve. For most of the last twenty years, my sons alternated every other year between Christmas Eve with me or with their father. On either the Eve or the day, we started a post-divorce tradition of making sushi. 

This year my older son and his wife will be with us for the whole holiday (yay!), and we'll spend Christmas Eve with our close friends sipping eggnog and watching the little kids go crazy on cookies. Sushi will be on the menu for Christmas Day, I expect, although without fish for the visitors. I might make a French onion tart, too. What's important is being together.

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LUCY BURDETTE: I can't remember a Christmas Eve food tradition except for lots of cookies--the emphasis was on Christmas day, with a big feast something like Thanksgiving. In my hub's family, kielbasa and shrimp were absolutely necessary. These days as we're usually in Key West, we continue that with a shrimp dish using Key West pinks--the best ever! I love the idea of the feast of the seven fishes, but I also love the all-appetizer idea. Hmmm, I wonder what we'll come up with? Here's the seafood pie I made a couple of years ago...

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CLEO COYLE: Because our beloved parents and grandparents are gone now, both Marc and I are sentimental about our holiday traditions. I grew up in a big, food-loving Italian-American family, where Italian foods (from wedding soup and gnocchi to pizzelle and biscotti) were served right along with American treats. And every Christmas eve, we ate the famous "Feast of the Seven Fishes." So did Marc's family. In fact, one of his most memorable meals took place on a Christmas eve. "As the oldest grandson," he told me, "I sat at the adult’s table for the first time, beside my cousin Loretta. We listened to their conversation—some of it in Italian—and shared a wee bit of wine and a drop of after-dinner anisette."

As for the menu, Marc’s grandmother was a poor orphan from Naples, but (as he put it) "she could have been a master chef." The seven seafood dishes she served that night were: (1) shrimp cocktails with white garlic sauce, (2) savory fritters with anchovies; (3) smelts; (4) baccàla (dried and salted cod) in red sauce; (5) calamari, coated with seasoned flour and fried "to perfection." (Marc remembered the tentacles resembling "dried flower blossoms" though his cousin Loretta was "thoroughly grossed out by them!") The main course included (6) a whole fresh cod, stuffed with crabmeat, and finally (7) fried shrimp coated with a breading with Italian herbs and parmesan cheese. Every year, Marc and I still make and enjoy that wonderful "Italian-fried shrimp." We love it so much that we shared our version of the recipe with a fun twist for our Coffeehouse Mystery readers. (CLICK HERE TO SEE THE RECIPE.) Whatever your traditions, may your own holidays season be delicious!

Click for Cleo Coyle's
"Feast of the Seven Fishes" Recipe,
narrated by a popular character from her series.

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MOLLY MacRAE: Christmas Eve! In my family we've always had the feast the night before Christmas - succulent, brown, roasted turkey, savory stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes swimming in gravy, vegetables (obviously not the noteworthy part of the meal because I can't name them), black and green olives, watermelon pickles, spicy mango chutney, pies, and plum pudding with hard sauce. And always plenty of leftovers so that mom could relax and enjoy the mayhem of six children opening presents on Christmas day. That's the tradition I've carried over with my own family. These days we also burn a bayberry candle (always sent to us by a dear friend) for good luck. May you all have health, happiness, and good luck in the new year! 

 

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TINA KASHIAN: We always visit my in-laws in the Poconos for Christmas Eve. A gingerbread house is ready for all the grandkids to decorate. My two girls love this tradition. Of course, they end up eating just as much candy as they use to decorate the gingerbread house. It’s a fun, family event. Here’s a picture of my girls with their grandparents.

 

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Join us in the comments...

What are your traditions for the night

before the holidays you celebrate?