[Sca-cooks] Happy Festivus To All, plus Xmas menus for those who do that...

[Christine Seelye-King]

Christmas has oddly become a time of very little cooking for me.  We are
nearing the end of our 13th holiday season as Santa and Mrs. Claus, and will
be doing a record 5 appearances tomorrow, starting at 2PM and going until
midnight.  I never have time to cook before Christmas!  As a result, I have
been lucky enough to be an invited guest at the house of Mistress Aethelwynn
Threadgild, who is a very fine cook herself (not to mention her to-die-for
chocolate truffles) for the past several years.  Now, don't get me wrong,
having a friend like that is a treasure, and I love having someone cook for
me :)  Still and all, it does feel very odd for me not to be cooking on such
a major food holiday.  

This year, the GM at the Viking store made an open invitation to the chefs
at our Christmas party - he was running the smokers all week and if any of
us wanted to bring in meats, he would just as soon run the smokers full than
3/4 full.  I mentioned this to a friend as well, and between myself, the
friend, and Dallas, I walked into the store with 3 turkeys and a boston butt
- one of the turkeys weighing in at 21lbs! (the friends').  I picked them
all up today. YUM.  I carved up my turkey, used the stand mixer with the
dough hook trick to pull the pork meat, and I took both of those meats and
baggied them for the freezer - ready made leftovers for me.  Dallas' turkey
has been left whole.  I took Tiny Tim's monster bird to the friend's house
and proceeded to carve it and plate it for reheating and presentation.  He
was laughing at me and saying I was just having withdrawals, and needed
someone to cook for ;)  
I did lead three gingerbread house classes this year, and made a house that
turned out really cute that is sitting on my table now. I'll take pics of it
and post it to my MySpace page soon.  

So that's my cooking story for now, and I'm sticking to it.  Tomorrow will
be a day from crazy town, and then it is all over with for another year (and
I can start on my holiday celebration - the actual 12 Days of Christmas -
which has turned into my real time off and time to party!)

Many happy returns of the holiday season to all the cooks on this list and
the lucky diners that eat with us!     

Chirstianna MacGrain
aka
Mrs. Claus