A Greek Dinner for Christmas | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: Please join me in welcoming our newest contributor to BCN, Kathy Manos Penn, a native of the "Big Apple", by way of the "Peach City" - Atlanta. Kathy, a former English teacher, authors The Ink Penn blog and is now happily retired from a corporate career in communications.

Originally published December 2013

    Visions of sugarplums? Not me, instead I'm having visions of a Greek dinner for Christmas. There was never one special meal we always had for Christmas when I was a child. We lived in New York City until I was thirteen, and we celebrated Christmas with my father's family in Queens unless we drove south to see my mom's family in Georgia and Alabama.

    When in the north, we might have roast pork or roast beef with mashed potatoes and gravy and other sides, or even a meal of baked ziti instead. My Greek aunt was married to an Italian, so very often the meal was prepared by my Uncle Graz's sisters, and we would have homemade pasta among other delights. Dessert was often a good ol' New York cheesecake. I recall dinners with the NYC crowd as being much more boisterous than those with my mother's more sedate Southern relatives.

    When we traveled south, we enjoyed turkey, dressing, ham, and the usual array of sweet potato casseroles, butter beans, and peas along with congealed salads. Dessert always included several seven-layer cakes-German chocolate, coconut, lemon cheese-and pound cake and pecan pie.

    Daddy never cooked Greek food other than occasionally his mother's Greek meatballs as an appetizer, but we always had a Greek salad. This year, I'm planning pastitsio and Greek salad. I'll pick up feta cheese and Kalamata olives at the grocery store, and visit the local Greek bakery for olive bread, spanakopita, and Greek pastries. My youngest sister, who's always in charge of the pound cake and pecan pie for dessert, is happy to forgo that assignment this year.

    Times were I'd have plenty of home-baked cookies on hand, but I just don't do that much baking these days. I do love kourabiedes, what I call the Greek wedding cookies, but if I bake them, I'll eat them nonstop, so the only ones in the house will be those that come on the pastry tray from the Greek bakery.

    I'm the same way about the sugared peanuts I make annually to give to friends. I try to make just the right amount to fill the gift tins, with not too many left for us. It's a terrible thing to have next to zero willpower. For me, willpower is keeping the temptation out of the house.

    My sister and brother-in-law from New Orleans will arrive Christmas Day with their dog and spend Christmas night, so I'll have cheese, hummus, crackers, and other nibbles on hand to keep us going through the afternoon until the evening festivities begin.

    We'll have the wood-burning stove going all of Christmas week and into the New Year, making the atmosphere just right for conversation and a bit of dozing and reading on the couch. And, then before you know it, it will be January 2, and I'll be back at work, trying to adjust after a restful ten days of good food and good cheer.

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    Kathy Manos Penn is a Sandy Springs resident now happily retired from a corporate career in communications. Find her book, "The Ink Penn: Celebrating the Magic in the Everyday," on her website at www.theinkpenn.com. Contact her at inkpenn119@gmail.com.