RMDM Kitchen: What’s on your holiday table?

“Twas the day before Christmas, when all through my kitchen,
Not a spoon was stirring, since I was on a mission,
The pans were all hung over the cooktop with care,
With hopes that the Christmas roast will be nice and rare.”

Tomorrow the Christmas holiday is upon us and I am taking the unusual back seat with respect to my family’s gastronomical needs. Just a few weeks removed from seven and a half hours of cooking our Thanksgiving dinner I have made the decision to surrender the Santoku for this year. Instead I proposed a pot luck style dinner where everyone that would be at my mother’s house for the holiday would bring a dish – main, side or otherwise – so we all had a chance to relax and enjoy the holiday.

As this is my son’s first Christmas I am actually excited about the holiday for the first time in a long time. Over the past few days our little man has become quite interested in the tree and has been doing his little army crawl towards it all day long. I realize that at eight and a half months old the whole concept of Christmas and unwrapping presents is foreign to him, but I am fascinated by even the simplest things when it comes to him.

Growing older and now having a family has made me realize the importance of time and how precious a commodity it can be. These past few months have flown by and seeing him develop into this curious little man has made it all the more important for me to cherish these moments that will be gone faster than I could have ever imagined.

My request was met with a great deal of enthusiasm and I of course will still be contributing in no small way. Yesterday I picked up the rib eye roast from my local butcher that I had ordered a few weeks ago and will be in charge of transforming that dry aged goodness into a medium rare (favoring rare ) masterpiece.

As the conversation about what people would be bringing, the idea of a pot luck dinner transformed itself into an all day event. We would forgo a more traditional sit down dinner and would instead put out different items throughout the day giving us plenty of time to enjoy each others company.

How ever you plan on spending your holiday, and whatever you plan on putting on your table this year, I wish you all the best for a happy and healthy holiday season.