The Rosh Hashanah dinner went fairly well Saturday, if anyone's wondering. I
didn't leave anything in the oven until it charred, or forget any major courses,
unless you count ten bucks' worth of fancy cheeses and crackers I never really got
a chance to serve and should have known better than to buy, considering we were
planning to eat not too long after everyone got there. Never mind, I'll eat those.
Eventually. I did forget to put salt and pepper in the chicken soup, but that's at
least fixable at the table. I baked the brisket the night before to have the oven
free, and cooked the kasha varnishkes and roasted veggies a bit ahead of time.
Everything reheated well. The challah turned out to be impressive looking but a
bit heavy. There are some problems to making a complex recipe once every five
years or so. You don't get the chance to fine-tune.
We had less in
the way of leftovers in some things than expected, so I guess everyone liked it.
The table looked nice with candles and the flowers someone brought, and five or
six people are just the right size crowd for my dining room.
T2 and
Egret brought the babies. Amazing how two such tiny people (they weigh less than
my cats) can so totally take over a gathering. Either they're being cute or
they're crying or both. She-Hulk, whose own son is almost college-aged, was dying
to get her hands on them and only handed them over when they were asleep or
hungry. So we didn't get in too much talking about the holiday and its context,
but there was a lot of rowing talk, a lot of catching up, and quite a bit of baby-
admiring. That's about right for an extended-family-by-choice dinner, right?