Some people may not enjoy the holidays, but I really love tradition and what better than the holidays to bring up the best ones? So I do love Christmas and everything that comes with it. The bad family jokes (which are always the same), the crappy movies on TV, the music, the lights, the smell (in this case it's the smell of the palm tree fruit that grows in my yard - lovely), the stories, the get together, opening the presents and more importantly the food. #ha I imagine that Christmas food might be different depending on where in the world you are, so here's my Christmas meal from Christmas eve dinner:
No, we don't usually eat Turkey because, besides being very expensive here, people tend to find the meat too hard, so we cook a big chicken called "Chester", which is modified with hormones for it to be bigger and fatter. My father, who's the cook in the family, made an orange sauce to spice the chicken with. It was gorgeous! We also have this very nice sort of "ball of ham" called "tender", which is pork ham cooked with clover and passion fruit sauce. Probably my favourite Christmas food! We usually say it's no Christmas without it. The "Salpicão de frango" is some sort of chicken salad that has got sliced cooked chicken, chopped potatoes, carrots, ham, corn, and for those who like to mix sweet and salty (I don't) there's apple and raisins. The rice is made with peas, corn, carrots, ham and raisins. Cod salad made with potato, cod fish, "palmito" and parsley leaves. If you ever visit Brazil, you can't miss our "farofa", which is basically manioc flour stir fried with garlic, onions, bacon and anything you feel like putting in it. It's so good! I didn't get to have dessert because I was so full, but there was fruit salad with cream, ice creams to eat with Panettone, chocolate candies, and we usually have all sorts of pavés and pies.
Christmas here is also a good excuse to appreciate all kinds of nuts, and Christmas table won't be complete without them.
So we often have chestnuts, almonds, hazel nuts, Brazil nuts, pistachio and peanuts. Also included in the appetizers are the dried fruits like apricot, raisins and prune. I'm not a big fan, but the apricots were delicious!
On Christmas day I was dying to eat some leftovers (I really love Christmas food) but my father had other plans. He decided he would cook Lobster thermidor. Anything thermidor is topped with a cream made with potato and soft white cheese. Well, shrimp thermidor is my favourite dish ever and if you look at a lobster, it's like a frigging giant shrimp! I was sold!
Aren't they pretty? Well, yeah, they tasted a thousand times better than they looked. So.Fucking.Good.
I can't say I ever felt more stuffed in my whole life. But then, in the late afternoon, while playing cards with my brother, father and mother, we decided to make some more coffee and eat something. This is what I had.
My neighbor and best friend baked her first brownies ever and made them look like Christmas trees. Aren't they cute? Well, they tasted a lot better too. The other stuff is "Panettone", which is a traditional sort of bread made with rum and dried fruits or chocolate that we only eat on holidays. And "Rabanada", a traditional Christmas dessert which is like a french toast. It's french bread soaked in eggs and condensed milk, deep fried, then sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. Scrumptious!
Anyway, these were two lovely full of great and very caloric food days. I topped it off with having a few beers and with very good friends. Now I need to get back on my diet!! haha But I leave you with the good news that today we had our first rays of sunshine in over a week! It's officially Summer and here's the sunshine of my life on Christmas day.
Baby Alice's smile.
