Instead of turkey, mashed potatoes, etc., stuffed grape leaves (along with shish-kabob and pilaf) is the traditional centerpiece of our Christmas dinner.
Disclaimer: Every script I’ve ever written is overly descriptive and too long, so no doubt this recipe will be, too. Apologies in advance.
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Legend has it that in 1670, the choirmaster at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany handed out sugar sticks among his young singers to keep them quiet during the long Living Creche ceremony. In honor of the occasion, he had the candies bent into shepherds' crooks. In 1847, a German-Swedish immigrant named August Imgard of Wooster, Ohio, decorated a small blue spruce with paper ornaments and candy canes. It wasn't until the turn of the century that the red and white stripes and peppermint flavors became the norm. In the 1920s, Bob McCormack began making candy canes as special Christmas treats for his children, friends and local shopkeepers in Albany, Georgia. It was a laborious process – pulling, twisting, cutting and bending the candy by hand. It could only be done on a local scale. In the 1950s, Bob's brother-in-law, Gregory Keller, a Catholic priest, invented a machine to automate candy cane production. Packaging innovations by the younger McCormacks made it possible to transport the delicate canes on a large scale. Although modern technology has made candy canes accessible and plentiful, they've not lost their purity and simplicity as a traditional holiday food. |
It’s not easy being Jewish during the Christmas season, especially if
you’re a kid. Chanukah is great, don’t get me wrong. Presents for eight
nights in a row. Lighting the candles and watching them flicker in the
menorah until they gradually fade away. And I’m a big fan of the latke.
But compared to Christmas? Really?
Imagine, then, what my son Luke had to contend with, growing up Jewish
and having an older brother who got to celebrate Chanukah and Christmas
while he celebrated only the Festival of Lights. And it was all my
fault. I married a non-Jew, had a son with him and got divorced. Then I
met my true love (Luke’s father) and created our modern nuclear family.
Three Jews and a mixed-breed (sorry, Craig), who marched in a Christmas
pageant at his father’s church wearing the robe of a king – the same
year he was deep in preparation for his bar mitzvah. Holiday time in
our household was always a bit fraught.
When I was growing up, my favorite grown-up restaurant was SCANDIA in
Hollywood. Run by Ken Hanson, this award-winning Scandinavian eatery
was the place my family flocked to for holidays, not just birthday
dinners and Sweet 16 luncheons, but also un-Hallmark events—like when I
cut my head and all I wanted was Scandia’s Swedish meatballs so my dad
got them on his way home from the set of “The Untouchables” episode he
wrote.
At the time, there wasn’t a big L.A. take-out scene, but Scandia accommodated because it was elegant enough to be casual. Scandia was the treat I always chose when my mom and I collectively took the day off from life (for me, high school; for her, writing/editing and house stuff) to hang out together. And a few years after my mom died, I chose Scandia to go to the night a movie I wrote opened.
There's no better time of year to bless the ties that bind. Holidays are about traditions, and the very definition of tradition is "an inherited or customary pattern of thought, belief or action" --- those ideas and rituals, large and small, passed on from generation to generation.
For me, it just isn't Christmas without one good carol singing (in Atlanta, I like to go to jazz vespers at First Congregational Church downtown in early December), without my pink rabbit's foot dangling from a lower branch on my tree and without Mammaw's peanut butter fudge.
