So we spent the holiday with friends. Much better that way. I’m kind of glad most of my family spewed to the four winds. I recall those days as being pretty boring, though the summer visits were cool as I learned how to garden from my grandfather.

But back on subject I’ll start with the food:

We had started buying the ingredients for the antipasto and four dozen ravioli. Two dozen were lobster ravioli, the one each of basil and the crab ravioli. We figured we’d stick with a seafood scheme for the eve.

The antipasto consisted of pepperoni, stuffed cherry peppers, roasted green olives, an assortment of olives with things like blue cheese stuffing, etc. along with artichoke hearts. We also had little crostini with bruschetta sauce and Asiago cheese on them. (And it sucks that Firefox’s dictionary doesn’t include Italian terminology but I have rectified that by adding the words to the dictionary!)

For Christmas day it was pastry we’d gotten from LaSalle Bakery. How do I explain this, the bakery has been around forever. It was there when I was in high school thirty years ago, and it’s still there. I had a blueberry muffin from them that was awesome – the muffin wasn’t dry – nice and moist and delicious. Then I tried the cannoli, the filling wasn’t too dense or gritty at all. Nice, smooth and tasty. If you’re in the Providence, RI area I strongly suggest you pay them a visit, they’re at the corner of Academy Ave and Smith St., diagonally across from my alma mater LaSalle Academy.

For dinner we had picked up a nice stuffed beef roast from Venda. In fact we got most of the ingredients of the antipasto from them too. We roasted the beef with carrots, pearl onions, leeks, and fingerling potatoes.

And the wines – before Christmas dinner we had a couple glasses of a nice Italian sparkling wine, then at dinner we had a bottle from our friends daughter and then one we’d picked up at Trader Joe’s up in Foxborough, MA.

I feel I should put an open note to Rhode Island Legislators, make it so supermarkets and stores can carry beer and wine. Kind of ridiculous that in MA you can get your favorite in a supermarket, but not here in RI.

Anyhow – to the gifts. One of my gifts was sort of a gag but appropriate – it’s a Monty Python’s Flying Circus “It’s Only A Flesh Wound” t-shirt from the Holy Grail movie. Another of my gifts is a ice comfy pair of Acorn slippers – that was driven by a picture of me in my robe on Facebook. Also got a three bottle wine rack with the wine to fill it 2/3’s the way. Now that I know about the Trader Joe’s in Foxborough though – you can get good wines really cheap there so I see a wine cellar in my future. Also got a Ralph Lauren overcoat.

So not a bad holiday in casa Truthspew.