Food has played an important role in my holidays growing up and continues to play an important role in holidays with my own family. When it comes to Christmas, there are the cookies. When I was younger, my mom started them after Thanksgiving and I think I have mentioned how my role evolved over the years until they became my job. Christmas Eve is about the fish which I have never been a huge fan of, although for the sake of teaching my children to try new things, I have tried everything over the years (with the exception of calamari because...that is just gross ;-)) Whether I eat the fish or not, I do it because the traditions are what make the holiday for me. Christmas day has always been gravy with all of the meats and usually manicotti. I started helping my dad make the manicotti shells ....hmmm... a long time ago.... He taught me how to work the old heavy cast iron pans to move the batter around so it doesn't burn and how to make the shells pop right out of the pan. I was his apprentice for many years before the pans were passed as well as the torch. It then became my job and like the battles that I had with cookies when they became my job, there was sometimes un-Christmas like language involved in the process. But as the years went on, I got better and better and I am pretty proud of my manicotti. In recent years, in an effort to downsize some of the food while the kids were little, we substituted ravioli for manicotti. Although we would get the really good ravioli that you need to order ahead of time, I felt guilty for leaving behind a Christmas tradition that I love. So tonight after dinner I decided to first get the meatballs made and frozen for Christmas and then decided why not make the manicotti too while I am at it. I am not gonna lie, I sort of rock at making these. ;-) So 45 meatballs and 46 manicotti shells later....I am ready for Christmas.... (well sort of...there are still tons of other things to do.... :-)
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