(April 3, 2013)
We hosted our first major family holiday this weekend. The fiancé and I had opera rehearsal the day before and after Easter, so somehow I thought hosting 12 people for the day would be easier than driving back and forth to Connecticut. My parents, future in-laws and cousins all went for the idea and in fact, seemed excited. For one thing, my cousins are local and have a one year old who hates being in the car, so they thought forty minutes of screaming preferable to two and a half hours to Connecticut. There was a big part of me that felt the whole thing was sort of silly; like B and I were just playing house and that it was sort of laughable; the formality of such a holiday, not to mention the fact that we are actually adults.
I had this desire to do something different for an entrée over our usual ham, so I took a note from the Jews and made brisket… only I wrapped it in bacon. I woke up at 8am on a Sunday. If you know me, you know that the only thing that usually wakes me before 11am on a weekend morning is the occasional church singing gig, so to have woken up to prep and slow cook a piece of meat was a feat unto itself. I was moving at a pretty good clip, inspired by the smells of the red wine and bay leaf marinade roasting in the oven. It was only at about 10am that the tearing of the ends of green beans became zombie-like. A friend texted to wish me a happy Easter and I told her: “Wish me luck that I don’t burn myself, burn dinner, or give everyone food poisoning.” Two out of three ain’t bad.
I should preface this by saying that I had already burned myself the morning before. I have a new and magical curling iron that makes me feel super glamorous and I had been periodically just slightly burning the tip of my forehead which was mostly covered by my hair. Saturday morning, however, while absentmindedly reaching for something mid-curl, I burned my neck something awful. And it probably wouldn’t even be that bad if I didn’t have the kind of neck skin that turns bright red when touched. (I have a special kind of paleness ancient aristocrats would have coveted.) So I was not only in pain, but it was the first real day of a long-awaited spring and I was off to a rehearsal where my fiancé had already been for an hour, with a giant red mark strongly resembling a hickey. But don’t worry, I’m not the kind of classy person who can be discreet about such a thing. If anyone got close to my right side I had to loudly exclaim that that mark on my neck was a burn and NOT A HICKEY. My hair looked fabulous though.
So Sunday progressed and I managed to not burn the brisket. Everyone contributed something from beautiful flowers to delicious food, (Pysansky eggs, pierogies, kielbasa, and sauerkraut included, what kind of Ukrainians do you think we are?) To the best of my knowledge, no one suffered any food poisoning. I managed to only burn myself once out of the many times I pulled the brisket from the oven, (which would have been fine if my dad hadn’t absentmindedly grabbed my arm for story-telling emphasis more than once.) All in all, it was a good day. The baby, (and her family) recovered from a harrowing scream-fest of a drive across town, we improvised with seating, took a walk, and as with most Easter holidays before it, my five year old cousin and I ate our weight in candy.
With the exception of not having a meat platter yet, we found that we are more like real adults than we thought.
We hosted our first major family holiday this weekend. The fiancé and I had opera rehearsal the day before and after Easter, so somehow I thought hosting 12 people for the day would be easier than driving back and forth to Connecticut. My parents, future in-laws and cousins all went for the idea and in fact, seemed excited. For one thing, my cousins are local and have a one year old who hates being in the car, so they thought forty minutes of screaming preferable to two and a half hours to Connecticut. There was a big part of me that felt the whole thing was sort of silly; like B and I were just playing house and that it was sort of laughable; the formality of such a holiday, not to mention the fact that we are actually adults.
I had this desire to do something different for an entrée over our usual ham, so I took a note from the Jews and made brisket… only I wrapped it in bacon. I woke up at 8am on a Sunday. If you know me, you know that the only thing that usually wakes me before 11am on a weekend morning is the occasional church singing gig, so to have woken up to prep and slow cook a piece of meat was a feat unto itself. I was moving at a pretty good clip, inspired by the smells of the red wine and bay leaf marinade roasting in the oven. It was only at about 10am that the tearing of the ends of green beans became zombie-like. A friend texted to wish me a happy Easter and I told her: “Wish me luck that I don’t burn myself, burn dinner, or give everyone food poisoning.” Two out of three ain’t bad.
I should preface this by saying that I had already burned myself the morning before. I have a new and magical curling iron that makes me feel super glamorous and I had been periodically just slightly burning the tip of my forehead which was mostly covered by my hair. Saturday morning, however, while absentmindedly reaching for something mid-curl, I burned my neck something awful. And it probably wouldn’t even be that bad if I didn’t have the kind of neck skin that turns bright red when touched. (I have a special kind of paleness ancient aristocrats would have coveted.) So I was not only in pain, but it was the first real day of a long-awaited spring and I was off to a rehearsal where my fiancé had already been for an hour, with a giant red mark strongly resembling a hickey. But don’t worry, I’m not the kind of classy person who can be discreet about such a thing. If anyone got close to my right side I had to loudly exclaim that that mark on my neck was a burn and NOT A HICKEY. My hair looked fabulous though.
So Sunday progressed and I managed to not burn the brisket. Everyone contributed something from beautiful flowers to delicious food, (Pysansky eggs, pierogies, kielbasa, and sauerkraut included, what kind of Ukrainians do you think we are?) To the best of my knowledge, no one suffered any food poisoning. I managed to only burn myself once out of the many times I pulled the brisket from the oven, (which would have been fine if my dad hadn’t absentmindedly grabbed my arm for story-telling emphasis more than once.) All in all, it was a good day. The baby, (and her family) recovered from a harrowing scream-fest of a drive across town, we improvised with seating, took a walk, and as with most Easter holidays before it, my five year old cousin and I ate our weight in candy.
With the exception of not having a meat platter yet, we found that we are more like real adults than we thought.
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