FLASHBACK Wigilia, 2013 - I ate, I read, I watched #9
Serving soup is one of my favourite activities
I started my series, “I eat, I read, I watch,” to highlight my solo dinners and my reading or Netflix accompaniments.
Today’s post is a twist - this time I’m reflecting back on Christmas 2013, when I wasn’t solo. Instead, I hosted Christmas Eve dinner for my Polish husband, Jack, and 10 of his relatives.
I ate: Wigilia
Very soon in my relationship with Jack, I learned of the great importance of the Christmas Eve meal, Wigilia. My first taste of it was the 2nd Christmas in our courtship when I attended Wigilia at his relative’s house. You can read the religious significance of this here. A long-lapsed Catholic, Jack nonetheless followed the tradition closely. So when we got a house together, we decided to host it ourselves.
In our early relationship, I tried to make a few Polish dishes but it became clear I was never going to achieve the cooking heights of Jack’s mother, a woman who irritated him in every way other than what she put on the table. Jack knew that if we were hosting Wigilia, it would be Polish-inspired and would satisfy the basic criteria— 12 meatless dishes, emphasizing fish and mushrooms.
I love making soup! (Click here to read about one from last Christmas.) We began Wigilia 2023 with three: first Borscht, provided by his aunt; then my Moroccan Tomato, a standard of my repertoire; and then a fish soup. All served in separate dishes - that means three tureens and 36 soup bowls. (Meals like this led to the over-abundance of stuff in my house resulting in the culling of 2021) Then I pulled out the stops with caramelized garlic tart from my favourite chef, Ottolenghi, followed by some pirogi brought by Jack’s sister. We moved into the mushroom course then with portobellos with shrimps and hollandaise and mushroom parcels (also from Ottolenghi). Then some vegetables - a salad with pickled fish and a patter of roasted vegetables, and homemade bread. And we topped it off with dessert from his aunt - what they called “apple pie” which was most definitely cake to a non-Pole.
This was the third and I believe last time we did Wigilia at our house. The focus on mushrooms and fish is firmly in my bailiwick as a cook and the faffing about with work-back schedules in the days leading up to the day satisfies my need to have a project. But it’s exhausting. To all the Polish women (yeah, it’s the women) out there who are recovering today, I salute you. I hope you’ve got today off from your duties!
Prep Time: days and days and days
Cost: lots, but because it’s meat-free, less costly than a traditional meal
Tell me about your holiday food. In the Comments below please!
I read:
Full disclosure - during the decade or so when I was with Jack I really didn’t read much. But one series we both got into was Stieg Larsson’s trilogy beginning with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. We first rented the Swedish movies from the local convenience store - a simpler time. We moved then to the US version of the same movies, and then we couldn’t resist reading the books to see how much the films deviated. As good as the films were (with the Swedish being MUCH better than the US), the books were so much better. As usual. (I was proud that Jack read books in English, despite not speaking it all until he was in his mid-30s.)
The series is 20 years old now, but check them out if you haven’t read them.
Got a reading recommendation old or new? Add it to the Comments below.
I watched:
When Jack and I first got together, it was pre-Netflix so it wasn’t easy to binge-watch a show. We figured it out though. We rented Breaking Bad from the convenience store, borrowed The Wire from friends and Six Feet Under from my niece. The latter we blew through in record speed, cementing (a) our relationship and (b) my preoccupation with death. Occasionally, we’d get hooked on something on TV and have to buy the series new or from Facebook Marketplace. That’s how I ended up with every season of Weeds on DVD.
Jack was an early adopter of Netflix. We’d already had it for at least a year when Orange is the New Black was released in 2013, for example. We gobbled it up and then landed on Wentworth, the vastly superior Australian version. And that led us to a whole bunch of other great Australian shows like Offspring and Rake. At the same time, we veered geographically to Northern Europe for dark Scandi dramas, including Trapped from Iceland and The Bridge, a Norwergian/Swedish production. I still gravitate towards Australian and European productions on Netflix now - less glamour, more drama, darker sensibility.
What’re you watching? In the Comments below please!
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