Sally G's Sunday Lunch

Today was my mom’s 56th birthday and I made a tasty lunch. When I told her that Dave and I were taking care of everything, her response was “just make something simple and easy and that won’t be too much work for you two”. I had to laugh in her face – it’s not like this is amateur hour or anything, we have made lunch before. And like every other time we’ve made lunch, I turned to Jamie Oliver for inspiration and I was not disappointed. I’ll get to the menu soon, but there are a few things about my nutty family that I want to share with you first.

Straight off the bat, my dad is a goof. He rarely drinks because “it makes his face red and itchy”, but today he had ½ a bottle of Sangria. After lunch we went outside to take pictures, as per his suggestion, and we stood around waiting for 10 minutes wondering where he was. Big Mike finally stuck his head out the front door and said, “Oh! I didn’t know you were out here, I was waiting in the family room.” Classic I tell you. At dinner Dave kept saying “this tastes so familiar, it’s the basil leaves and the tomatoes”. The birthday girl is my biggest fan when it comes to cooking and she cracks me up to no end and can do no harm in my eyes. Plus, she actually stayed out of the kitchen and kept her mouth shut in terms of dishing out culinary advice.

As for the grandparents, my nonna is a photo creeper and she moves in with ninja-like skills whenever there is a camera around. She gets you in this old lady headlock and there is no escaping her grasp. My nonno is my favourite person in the whole world and he is a gem. God bless him, he tried to scoop up the tomato/basil leaf/garlic goodness without nonna seeing but no such luck; she is a ninja. I’m glad Claudia was there to witness all this and verfiy that I’m not making it up.

And there you have it. My nutty family in, well, a nutshell. Now that I’ve got that taken care of let’s get to the good stuff:

Fall-off-the bone chicken drumsticks, roasted plum tomatoes, potatoes, and garlic, diced chilli peppers, basil leaves, herbs de Provence
Greek salad with too many peppers for Big Mike, feta cheese, kalamata olives, and red onions
Watercress, arugala, bosch pears, walnuts, shaved parmesean cheese, lemon juice, olive oil
Fresh bread
Pimms and Ginger Ale, Sangria and homemade wine
Crème Brulee with real vanilla bean, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries.

Now it’s late, I’m tired, and it’s past my bedtime. See you next Sunday!