“What do you mean?” asked my mother, equally confounded by his query. “It’s dinner.”
“Still?!” He gawped. “I mean, well, what was that, that we just ate?”
“That was just the first course,” said my father, grinning devilishly.
“Oh my God! I thought—”
“You thought that was it, didn’t you?” I asked.
“Well, yeah. I mean, I had three helpings!”
“I had a feeling you thought that was the main course!”
“Are you kidding?! You can’t have just that. Especially on a Sunday!” chastised my mother.
Needless to say, we dug into the chicken and vegetables with gusto.
Two courses. It’s just the way it has always been, and on holidays both courses just get bigger. A lasagna, a bowl of pasta, or a soup as a first course is perfectly acceptable, but as I say, timpano can cause issues both culinary and marital. How many over-or undercooked, not inexpensive pieces of meat were angrily eaten by Kate due to her inability to time them appropriately because of the timpano, I cannot say. Not only were those legs or hocks lovingly prepared by her but also, they were what she was looking forward to eating, because she didn’t even like timpano. （It’s sort of like cilantro; you either like it or you don’t. I happen to love it.） But even if the meal miraculously ended up being timed perfectly, the timpano was so rich and heavy that the meat course could not be enjoyed to the fullest. At any rate, somehow we ate our way through just about everything most Christmases, but not without a lingering resentment deep in Kate’s soul.
I am of course being a bit harsh when I make it seem as though Christmases were ruined completely by an inanimate drum of pasta-filled pastry, but sometimes it came close. As I said, usually a ham or leg of lamb was served. The ham would be a large bone-in shank, studded with cloves and a few pineapple rings and basted with a brown-sugar glaze. It was then left to rest and served with potatoes, either roasted or au gratin, and string beans. If we were serving lamb, it was salted and drizzled with olive oil, and incisions were made with a small knife, into which garlic and rosemary were inserted. A little white wine mixed with the meat juices made a light and savory gravy. The sweet smell of a leg of lamb roasting in the oven still brings back so many happy holiday memories for me. Throughout most of the world lamb is eaten a great deal but it seems to have fallen out of favor in America, and I am not sure why, as it is delicious and can be cooked so many ways.IV
After dinner, espresso, digestivi, fruit, nuts, dates, dried figs, biscotti, and Lazzaroni amaretti cookies were served. These little almond-flavored rounds came wrapped in a delicate, crinkly, opaque paper. My father’s favorite party trick was to roll the paper into a tube, stand it upright on the dinner table, and light the top of it on fire. If done properly it would burn down evenly, and, while somehow maintaining its cylindrical shape, just before the flame reached the bottom and singed the tablecloth, the now-blackened paper would float high up into the air and almost, but never, touch the ceiling. What properties cause it to become aerodynamic when ignited are a mystery, but I know of no other paper in the world that has this ability. As kids we begged my dad to do it over and over again, and he was more than willing to oblige, often to my mother’s dismay. The reason being that there were a few instances when there was a “failure to launch” and certain precious tablecloths still bear the scars.
After dinner, dessert, and semi-drunken conversations about politics or something vaguely serious were attempted, the furniture was cleared to the edges of the living room, and the “Ring Game” was played. This is a game of deception in which lying and cheating are encouraged. There are no teams and there is no winner. A ring is threaded onto a long piece of string, which is then tied together at the ends. A circle is formed by the players, who hold the circle of string in both fists at waist height. One person is placed in the middle of the circle, whose goal it is to find out which player is hiding the ring. The person who has been found to have the ring then takes their place in the center. As soon as the game commences, all players begin sliding their hands in both directions, either pretending to pass the ring or actually passing the ring to the players on either side of them, shouting wildly things like, “Here, you take it! I don’t want it!” etc., etc. Needless to say, the poor person in the middle is slowly driven mad. The better you were at slipping the ring into the fist of the person next to you, and they are caught with it by the person in the middle, the less likely you were to end up in the middle. It is a cruel but brilliantly funny game, and as soon as you understand that cheating is not only necessary but fair, as it sometimes is in life, you will enjoy it.