Easter Sunday lunch

After years of my mom making holiday dinners and having both sides of the family over, we finally convinced her to do things differently. This year I made her promise that if we had Easter at our house, Dave and I would cook and she would relax and enjoy everyone's company. I give her credit, she kept her end of the deal…somewhat. She did try to change my menu more than twice, and she did make too many “helpful suggestions” and she did get on my nerves just a bit. Things kind of got pretty intense over the last week, I'm not going to lie, and we had a moment last night that resulted in tears on both sides. But we worked through it and she apologized and all is well. Anyway, just like the last time we made lunch, the actual planning and preparation of the meal was more fun than the cooking. Now I like to plan things a bit in advance (especially when it comes to feeding the masses) and Dave is more of a “let it happen” kind of guy so we sort of drove each other nuts. In the end it all worked out – he took care of ordering the lamb, I went grocery shopping – but there were a few heated discussions about what to make and how to make it; I think we changed the lamb dish about 5 times, including a last minute potential alteration early this morning. Good thing I’m stubborn and set in my ways, otherwise it could have gotten messy. Despite our differences we do work really well together in the kitchen and all the time we spent preparing things in advance meant we were never rushing around last minute to get things ready and we even had time to watch a bit of TV before everyone arrived.

I got up early this morning (despite the late night of galactic bowling, shopping cart races, and David Bowie dance offs, and Benny Lava) to wash a mountain of veggies and set the table. Note to self, it takes way too much lemon juice and bleach gets the smell of garlic off your hands. I ate my zeppole, drank my Tim Horton’s coffee, and debated one last time about how to cook the lamb. My mom’s (final) piece of advice to put the meat in sooner than planned meant that we had all the food ready to go and no one to serve it to. Luckily everyone showed up shortly after and we sat down to feast. Now, I only had a glass of wine so I know I wasn’t drunk, but I don’t remember much of the meal. The whole thing went by in one big blur and by the time we had served all the main dishes I think I ended up sitting down to a somewhat warm plate of food. It was still delicious and I’m not complaining and it was worth it to know that my mom got to sit and not lift a finger in the kitchen for once.

So not to brag or anything, but the meal was AMAZING!!! Dishes that I’ve prepared dozens of times before (like the pepper soup) were the best I’ve ever made…my dad had seconds of lamb, and he never eats lamb…Nunzio ate the soup and chicken and he only eats rapini and French fries…all the grandparents were impressed and they are the toughest critics in the world. Maybe Mike and Vicentina Meats was right, maybe Dave and I are chefs…

Since I know you all are dying to find out, here is what we ate:

• Pepper soup with crostini
• Asparagus on the BBQ with lemon juice and parmesan cheese
• Chicken thighs marinated with fennel seeds, thyme, bay leaves, garlic, olive oil and cooked on the BBQ
• Barese sausage on the BBQ (because Nunzio won't eat lamb or chicken)
• Leg of lamb marinated in yogurt, chickpeas, mint, cilantro, garlic, lemon juice
• Roasted carrots, turnips, potatoes, onions, garlic with the drippings from the lamb
• Grape tomatoes, all kinds of olives, spring onions, torn up chunks of buffalo mozzarella, salt, olive oil
• Watercress, arugala, bosch pears, walnuts, shaved parmesan cheese, lemon juice, olive oil
• Fresh bread and homemade wine
• Mixed berries, honeydew, cantaloupe, pineapple
• German layer cake, lemon cheesecake, Bacio panettone, forget-me-not cookies, and espresso for dessert

And for the visual learners in the bunch:

Don't you wish your monitor was a "scratch and sniff" right now?