Library Lynn's garden: A Christmas Dinner

OK, so it's not gardening, but it's creative, so I figure talking about our Christmas dinner fits reasonably well here. This is the first year - I think - since we started dating that Joe and I were to have Christmas alone. Before Kendra came along, we were with one side of the family or another, and then of course there were 3 of us. We added James 4 years ago. We've managed to see the kids somewhere in the holiday season the last 3 years, but that was not to be this year. We found ourselves having a hard time getting into the holiday spirit. We decided to do up Christmas dinner big time - really make an occasion out of it. It was going to be just us, but we found out we knew some folks facing their first Christmas without family, too, and so our dinner for 2 became dinner for 5 - an eight course dinner for 5!

Planning is key for anything like this, especially when we were cooks, servers, cleaners AND host and hostess. That latter one makes things particularly tricky - how do you do what needs to be done without neglecting your guests? Well, planning helps, but so does making most of your courses simple and fast. I sent Joe an email with a couple of ideas, and he sent me back a full nine course menu (I cut out the cherry pie - good thing, too). And so we were off. We decided on duck for the main course. We've both had it and liked it, but had never cooked it. If you can't read the bill of fare, here it is:

Stuffed dates, sherry
Squash soup, riesling
Green salad, water
Shrimp with garlic, cucumber juice
Lemon sherbet
Duck, wild rice stuffing and asparagus, Gewurztraminer
Apple and cheddar cheese, water
Christmas cookies, with choice of tea, cordial or cocoa with extras

I sat down over the weekend and mapped out each course. I decided what we'd use for serving it, what utensils we needed for eating it, and what

glass to use for the beverage. I listed out what the food was and what ingredients we'd need, too. Then I made a sketch of the place setting necessary for all this. We shopped both Sunday and Monday, getting the duck and some of the less common items at one of our upscale grocery stores and the more prosaic things at my usual shopping place. Our duckling weighed in at just over 6 pounds. Let me tell you, duck is way more expensive than turkey! I'm glad we didn't need the 25 pounds we had for turkey at Thanksgiving.

Monday night we pulled dishes. We put a card table up in the study and laid the dishes and flatware out course by course, so all we had to do was grab the next thing in line. I couldn't quite set the table yet, as we did need to eat between Monday and Wednesday! Tuesday I started some of the cooking - the stuffing, the cranberry-fig chutney, the salad dressing and such. All things that hold well. As a matter of fact, I'm sure the chutney was all the better for sitting overnight.

We had a lovely relaxing Christmas morning, spending more than 90 minutes on Skype with Kendra and James, going around the "room" opening gifts. Then we had to shovel - fun chore to add at the last minute. After making the last batch of cookies (meringue, so they HAVE to be done last minute), I set the table while Joe got the

duckling ready. The recipe we used said 1.5 to 2 hours - the package said 2.5-3. Darn good thing he looked - it took about 2.5 and that difference would really have messed up our schedule. Yes, schedule, We planned courses to be about 15 minutes apart, except for the main course, which would take as long as it took. I got the desserts all set up, on the dry sink that we just recently got that used to be my grandmother's. I have to say we'd have had a hard time doing this meal before we got our shipment from Washington of stuff from my folk's house- we didn't begin to have all the stemware we needed until then! The china and flatware both came from my maternal grandmother, and the crystal was my parent's wedding present to each other. It's Czech glass, and they got it just before the Iron Curtain came down and it wasn't available in the west for a long time. It's gorgeous stuff, so light and delicate. I'm really kind of afraid to handle it! It makes our wineglasses look so heavy and clunky.

We actually finished all the prep on time and even had a few minutes to sit down before people arrived. And then we were off! All that prep paid off. The dates and sherry were ready, so all we did was serve. Then I finished up the salads whilst Joe ladled soup - 2 more down in short order. We served, sat down, ate and then removed dishes and served again. Another card table - in the kitchen this time - took the dirty dishes, which we did manage to rinse. That sure made washing them easier when we finally got to it. Fortunately, our guests were quite congenial. They hadn't all met, so, while we thought they'd get along, you just never know. But they did, so they weren't left staring at each other while we were in the kitchen. The only course that really took time from both of us was the main one. It does take time to carve a duck and to make the sauce from the drippings! This was the only course besides the cookies we didn't plate - we just let everyone select how much they wanted. The duck came out pretty darn well, even if I do say so myself. And I hadn't realized just how pretty the plate would be!

Not surprisingly, we took a break after this course! We opened our Christmas crackers and told the jokes and read the trivia and even all had our crowns on for a while. Then it was off to the final two courses. We ended up eating for about three and a half hours. It's amazing what you can pack in when it's spread out so far...

And then there was clean up. Oh, boy, was there clean up. Those of you who've been to our house know our kitchen is NOT made for cooking. We have a grand total of about four feet of counter space - if there aren't any dirty dishes. You can just imagine how many dishes a dinner this size makes, especially when almost none of it can go in a dishwasher. That second table in the kitchen really helped, especially given that we don't generally have any table in there! We used a tray on the dishwasher for plating, and the back porch as a refrigerator. For once, being cold helped - it was just about the perfect temp for storing things before we could pack them away. Joe started washing and I dried and moved stuff. As he cleared piles, I brought more in. I'm not sure how many times he changed the water, but I went through three towels. And then ran a load of what could go in the dishwasher the next day! We had a few pots and pans, but not really all that many since so much had been cooked the day before. And somehow our fridge wasn't much emptier after the dinner than before... Hooray for leftovers! Not a huge amount, but enough to pretty much recreate the dinner, only this time on a far less formal scale.

So what does it take to serve an eight course dinner for five? Well, here it is, all stacked up in neat little piles. Joe thought it would take me about 45 minutes to put it all away, and I figured about 30. Turns out it was 15! Organizing as I dried made it surprisingly easy.