Joyeux Noel

**On Saturday, I made a tortiere. A tortiere is the traditional French-Canadian Christmas Eve meat pie. The filling is made with ground beef, onions, water, bread crumbs, oregano, cinnamon (yes!) and allspice. Some make their tortieres with ground pork or half pork/half beef. The tradition of the tortiere originates from Quebec. When I was a child, the family would go to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, go home and eat tortieres. (The adults would drink beer with it). After that, we went to bed and opened presents the next morning. I have been making them all my life.
Every single woman in my family knew how to make them. 15 aunts, two grandmothers and a mother!

When I was a kid, if it was a "lean" year, they would add a little mashed potato to stretch the meat. If it was a prosperous year, all meat!
And it MUST be served with ketchup. The smell of the cinnamon, oregano and onions is a comfort smell from childhood Christmases. I don’t even use a recipe anymore. I know by sight and taste when the filling is just right.

 

** I just saw a news story about the gift of “health cards.” It seems that one can now place a medical procedure under the tree. The story featured a woman who is giving each of her parents a colonoscopy for Christmas this year. I don’t even know what to say about that, except to say to my children, “Don’t even think about it.”

 

** I am relieved to report that all Christmas packages sent to Brooklyn, Minneapolis, Woonsocket and Newport, have been received. Every year at this time I experience Postal Anxiety, a condition exacerbated by previous experiences with lost packages and late packages. Last year, my Christmas package to my daughter took only three days to reach Minneapolis…where it then sat on a Minneapolis Post Office shelf for two weeks. She was never notified of its existence. In desperation (and probably in exasperation of hearing, “Did you get it yet? Did you get it yet?”) she went to the post office to check. And there it was. Now, my daughter calls immediately upon receiving notice that her package has arrived. She knows that I have inherited her grandmother’s postal paranoia. It is true though, that I am not as neurotic about it as my mother. She thinks that the post office has it out for her personally. I have to admit that I have never known anyone who has had so many cards, letters and packages lost in the mail. One year, many years ago, she sent banana bread to my son when he was in college. Three weeks later, he received a moldy, inedible thing in the mail. Keep in mind the banana bread had only to travel from Rhode Island to Massachusetts.

 

** Here’s wishing everyone who celebrates it, a Merry Christmas.

And if you’re thinking about giving a loved one a colonoscopy, think again.