Take a breath, Take a Deep Deep Breath**

How long it has been! I just wanted to come and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, if you celebrate and a general Happy Holiday if you do not. Life has been ramped up to 11 around here lately and I barely have time to cook dinner every night never mind take any pictures. the immersion circulator has been AMAZING, and I have been having a great time trying out different things. Duck breast, I can assure you will never be the same cooked any other way. In fact I have gone loco enough to have ordered this and it will be arriving on my doorstep Friday just in time for my dinner party on Sunday.

I'm excited to cook for friends, but I have one no pork, no beef and one no duck, no venison, nothing exotic.  SIGH.  I think duck will win and I will just have to make something separate for the no duck guest. 

I hope wherever you are tonight you are with friends and family, eating well, drinking and cheering in the spirit of the season.  Husband and I are off to my cousin's for La vigilia and I am looking forward to the stuffed calamari as I do every year.  There will be about 50 screaming Italians wildly gesticulating, 20 kids running around hopped up on sugar and the promise of Santa yet to come, there will be swearing and singing and Elvis, there is always Elvis where my cousin Johnny is concerned, he has never left the building. The photo on the top is my cousin Fuzzy's son and a future Elvis lover as you can see.

Cousin Johnny (8 days older than me and not about to allow me to forget it), who is also head cook tonight, has always sung and more importantly he has always been an enormous fan of Elvis. Years of family gatherings always, ALWAYS, included a Karaoke segment long, l-o-n-g, before anyone stateside knew what karaoke even was. One of his teachers was one of the guys in a local group called Boston Rockabilly.  He finally went in the studio with them and made a CD called "ode to a king".  This is my crazy Elvis lovin cousin Johnny doing my favourite track on the CD, Little Sister.

So as I leave to celebrate Christmas with my crazy family, I'd like to wish the best to you and yours. 

Buon Natale!

**Lyrics in the tilte are David Gilmour from On an Island.  They have been swimming around my head the past week.

Comments

[Janet]

I always wished I was part of a big Italian family! Have fun, and Merry Christmas to you and yours :-)

[Blue Witch]

Have a great day.
I'm glad to hear you're getting a day off from cooking!

[Foodista]

Just dropping by to wish you a Merry Christmas! Have fun!

[KT]

Merry Christmas and I hope Husband's birthday was a good one! I have a big crazy Lebanese family on one side and a big crazy Jewish family on the other. Crazy but the food is great! (Oh and I'm adopted and look nothing like any of them! Family reunions are a hoot) I miss kibbe when we used to prepare it raw, with lamb not beef. Sigh. Merry Christmas!

[margaret]

Hope you had a Happy Christmas, and that all festivities were perfection! Happy New Year, too, in advance!