Aw Nuts!

Do you remember nuts at Christmas back when we grew up?

These days there are bowls of nuts all over at Christmas gatherings.  You can get nuts of all kinds with all types of flavorings.  You can get pre-packaged sets of 6 or 8 sampler cans… flavors range from sweet to sour, from spicy to cheesy.  Nuts range from just peanuts to all mixed nuts to macadamia to other exotic nuts.

Wasn’t so when I grew up.  Not only did we not have many nuts or much variety, they were expensive so we didn’t seem to have a lot of them.  The one thing I remember that we had a lot of that you just don’t see as much today is unshelled nuts.  We had a big wood bowl that looked like a hollowed out piece of wood that would be filled with nuts.  It is exactly like the picture of this one here.  They must have been popular!  There was a little metal nutcracker that we would use to crack the nuts.  There were also little metal pick things to get the meat of the nut out of the shell.  I remember that it was a real challenge to squeeze tight enough to break the shell without destroying the nut inside.  It also wasn't uncommon to pinch your fingers in them a few times.

You don't see many of these around today - it certainly made you appreciate the nuts when you had to really work for them.

Any of you have the same nutty experiences growing up?

Christmas Memories - The Food!

Where would a discussion of Christmas be without bringing up the food?

There’s so. much. food. When I was young, we had a bunch of family… including Grandmothers, aunts, uncles cousins, etc… there was about 20 of us that gathered every year. We celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve so my mom drew the line at dinner, and we would actually go out for dinner. Before you think that we were rich, I need to let you know that we would go to the Royal Fork – which was a family buffet restaurant. Everyone could eat whatever they wanted for the same low price. This was especially helpful when we started having a fair amount of teens in the mix.

So – we’d go out and pig out and then come home to a huge layout of Christmas treats. Tons of sweets, different salads, sausages, little dogs in bbq sauce, candy, rolls, pies, cookies, etc, etc, etc.

There are a few dishes that were always the standouts. My mom’s fudge is still – to date – the best fudge I’ve ever tasted, homemade or store bought. Smooth as silk, never grainy and so chocolatey! And – my mom’s shortbread was also the best I’ve ever tasted. There were so many incredible things there – and many of them we only got once a year – so we HAD to eat at least some of everything.

We’d spend the next few hours just snacking and snacking and snacking. As always, we started opening Christmas presents at midnight – that’s right – midnight. And each person opened their present’s one at a time. We wouldn’t finish until like 3am. We’ve changed this in the last few years so now we finish up by midnight.

But – we’d spend the next few days eating all the great leftovers What great Christmas food/treat tradition memories do you have?