My Family Fare

After reading Garrison Keillor's "A Wobegon Holiday Dinner," I find it hard to even fathom the conversation of food. Oh well, here it goes...


My family used to have large gatherings for the Holidays, but much has changed since I was a child. We would have Easter egg hunts and ham dinner, Thanksgiving Day with the traditional turkey dinner and Christmas presents and a ham/turkey dinner (since no one could ever decide on the main course) followed by a week of leftovers at my Grandparent's house. Our family has grown apart and many have moved away. I have been told that the holidays I remember were not all they cracked up to be, but I still long for those days where there were so many people that my grandpa and dad had to make an extra table out of a sheet of plywood.

I am an only child and I married an only child. Our holidays are small, yet I still cook like there were thirty of us. My grandma has passed the cooking torch down to me and I enjoy having the Holiday dinners at my house. It usually consists of about ten of us, depending on the year. I always make everything from scratch, like I was taught. My family never really recorded recipes, we just add a little bit of this and a little bit of that until it tastes good. My grandma always says I need to write down my recipes, but I never measure, so I don't really know how to start.

One thing that I can always make and MUST be at any dinner for my family is deviled eggs. I, for one, think deviled eggs are the easiest thing to make, but my whole family insists that I make them better than anyone else. As a matter of fact, this last weekend was my dad's birthday dinner and we had it at my grandparent's house. It was really nothing big, just my mom and dad, grandparents and my husband and I. The second I walked in the door my grandma said she had a project for me. I was already mortified because I walked in and she had her Christmas tree up...on November 7th! Anyway, I complied as I usually did and walked into the kitchen. What else did I see but a bowl full of hard boiled eggs. Nothing had to be said. I got out the egg plate and made my deviled eggs. Its funny how my eggs have become a staple of any meal...our cholesterol must be off the charts!