Friday, December 25, 2009. Christmas began slowly and quietly at the Cool Water Ranch. Jude made some noise yesterday about going to nine o'clock Mass, but neither he nor Mary Leigh were awake until about nine-thirty. They had little reason to be. Jude's gift haul consisted of assorted men's produits de toilette. Mary Leigh received an assortment of fingernail polishes and such. Mary Ann doesn't like getting presents, and didn't get any.
The lion's share of the packages under the tree were for me. That is a first in my entire life. The most interesting item was a Flip video camera, which Jude feels I need to shoot videos for the website. Interesting gizmo! Surprisingly good pictures! Just what I need: another medium in which to be creative. Well, this is the matter of my college degree, after all. The rest of my packages held a half-dozen ties, chosen by the Marys to suit what they feel should be my taste. They were surprisingly like the ones they bought me last year. But I am one of the few fellows I know who actually likes getting ties as gifts.
We went to Mass in the gym at Our Lady of the Lake in Mandeville. Why they still have it there, I have no idea. The main church is not in use at that time--although, ten years ago, three Masses in various buildings ran concurrently at ten-thirty on Christmas. But so many people now go to the two Christmas Eve services that the crowds on Christmas itself are, if anything, smaller than on a regular Sunday. I never liked going to Mass in a gym. The music never sounds right.
In past years, we headed directly from the church across the lake for the big family dinner at Sylvia and Lloyd's house in Kenner. But last year Lloyd was very ill, and that gathering was canceled. He passed away this year, and Sylvia is still not up to the big deal. Last year and this year, we're cooking our own Chirstmas dinner. A few others joined us last year, but everyone had other plans this time. It would be just the four of us.
That was just fine with Mary Ann. She planned a lavish menu, and informed me of it this way: "So, what do you want to cook for Christmas dinner? How about that filet, with mashed potatoes, spinach, and cauliflower?" Nothing left for me but to nod and get to work.
The centerpiece of the dinner is a Christmas tradition that just landed on us one year and keeps coming back. A friend sends us a peppered, smoked beef tenderloin from a steakhouse outside of Abilene, Texas every year. The instructions say to slice and serve it as is, cold. I'm sure it's good that way. But because it's very rare, it also works to cook it by our house method: seared in butter on top of the stove, then finished in the oven. While stage two is going on, I deglaze the searing pan with some Kentucky Bourbon (did I mention anywhere that I'm now officially a Kentucky Colonel?) and build a sauce with green peppercorns, mushrooms, cream, and a few herbs. It was, if I say so myself, magnificent.
The cauliflower I had to work with was from the most beautiful head of that vegetable I've ever seen. Mary Ann bought it a week ago, when she and Mary Leigh were in Plaquemines Parish to pick oranges for the Second Harvesters Food Bank. I used only about half of the head for the gratin. I wasn't sure whether the kids would go for it. I mixed the florets into a bechamel made with an unidentifiable white cheese I found in the refrigerator. And I sprinkled the top with a mixture of two parts bread crumbs and one part grated Grana Padano cheese. The kids did eat it.
This feast was grand enough to deserve a serious wine: Chateau Troplong-Mondot 1981, a St. Emilion of which I bought a case in my free-spending single years. I think this was my last bottle. The label was silverfish-eaten in a lacy pattern. The glue used in Bordeaux at that time was full of starch and much liked by insects, who would chew through the paper (I guess that was the fiber part of their meal) to get to the glue. The wine surprised me with its freshness. It had a robe of brown and a fine old Bordeaux bouquet, but the body of the wine was holding up beautifully. Given that my storage conditions are just okay, that says something about the excellence of this mostly-Merlot wine.
It's a good thing it was sunny outside, or we would have eaten by the light of the Christmas tree only. Enough of this darkness! My Christmas gift to the family will be a new chandelier over the dining room table, and it will happen this weekend. Our present chandelier looks cool, but hasn't worked for several years. The things we put up with that should be intolerable!
Last night, the kids made some Christmas cookies, from scratch. As usual, Mary Leigh's were like something you'd buy at a fancy bakeshop. Jude's were more along ht elines of personal expression. For example, he made a cookie whose design was the white-and-blue logo of his BMW.
After dinner, we crossed the lake for Sylvia's supper party. It was nice: just about everybody who attended her Christmas dinners was there, snacking away on spaghetti and meatballs and a bunch of desserts. Milestone of the year: Christina and Katie Connell, Mary Ann's nieces, moved their dance academy's performance of The Nutcracker this year to a big hall at Loyola University. That is a long way from the little performances they used to hold on the North Shore. And a light-year from the day when both then-little girls stood in our wedding. Now they're stunningly lovely young women with a good business. Christina is such an accomplished choreographer that she was invited to join a company in New York some years ago. Good for them!
When we left the party, Mary Ann made a suggestion that we head over to City Park to look at the lights. The kids responded to this with such strident whines--that she gave up the idea immediately. They have their own lives now, and only a limited tolerance from plans from outside their own heads.
