Next week’s game plan wraps up my scheduled menus for this year. We’re going to close out 2010 with an afternoon of holiday gifts and feasting with friends — for that party, I’m planning to make some traditional hors d’ouvres for grazing throughout the afternoon and a fabulous southern french beef stew with garlicky rolls for our main course. Then, we’ll have an assortment of desserts in small servings. One of our guests is planning make mulled wine. Then, we’ll have just one weeknight left before we depart for our holiday travels in Italy. For that night, I decided to dust off a concept that is always a crowd pleaser — breakfast for dinner! We’ll try out a new waffle recipe and pear with with some chicken & apple sausage that is the perfect liaison between breakfast and dinner!
Planning these menus is a labor of love for me, but it is nontheless labor, and the notion that this is my last set of weeknight dinners for 2010 is pretty exciting! After this, I’ll take a little hiatus from home cooking for the holidays and concentrate on some spontaneous cooking inspired by foraging in tuscan villages! I cook almost as much when we travel as I do at home. However, it is a different kind of cooking based on daily purchases in local markets and simpler preparations, since I won’t have my full pantry. This cooking is so centered around the process of discovering local ingredients and preparing them as simply as possible that it doesn’t feel like work at all. It is a spontaneity that is quintessentially European, and that is so hard to accomplish in our daily American life, what with jobs and commutes and homework, etc.
So, whereas my typical routine involves far too much time in an automobile and the necessity of planning out our meals to aid in shopping, cooking, and ensuring good nutrition, my holiday routine is focused on avoiding automobiles (in this case, a medieval village with no vehicular traffic) and an absolute lack of meal planning. We will eat what strikes our fancy and live only in the present moment!
