"What foods taste better as leftovers?"
Finding ourselves uninspired, we turned to Plinky for help, and this is what we founnd.
Sigh.
For those of you who don't know, the traditional Jewish yuletide feast consists of Chinese take-out. Nothing says Christmas like General Tso's chicken and won ton soup.
When we lived in New York, a short-lived but enjoyable Christmas tradition consisted of a movie and then a trip to our former boss's Christmas party. It never ceased to impress us how packed the movie theaters were on December 25. Yesterday, FOS indulged in the tradition by taking in "Avatar." We are sufficiently jealous.
We're not sure how easy it would be to replicate the tradition in northern California. Plenty of movie theaters, of course, but not quite so many Chinese take-out joints--and none in the New York City mold. You need to get the food just right: dripping in grease, served in leaky cardboard containers, inedible fortune cookies (OK, that's a redundancy). Out here, all the Chinese restaurants are basically. . . restaurants--sure you can GET take-out, but the quality level is slightly higher than one desires.
The closest thing we have to the New York style greasy wok is Panda Express--kind of the McDonald's of Chinese food. Their oily eggrolls do provide us with somewhat Proustian moments, but it's not quite Christmas of old.
Did we answer the question? No?
OK, macaroni and cheese.
Dude, it's not the LOCATION of the Chinese food, but its mere presence and edibility (?) on Christmas that makes it a Jewish tradition. Eating in a restaurant is a totally kosher (ha!) and acceptable way to continue the yuletide practice. So go out and grab yourself some Chow Mein, Wontons and whatever else you need to have yourself a merry little Hebrew Christmas next year. And GO see Avatar!
ReplyDeleteI remain,
FOS
There is a movie NO ONE has heard of, but should see, called "Parents". It's about a family of cannibals living in suburbia. The son (of the family) has not been told that they ARE, in fact cannibals. As he begins to become aware that something is wrong, he asks the marvelous question: "Every night we ONLY have left-overs! Left Over from WHAT!?!?!?"
ReplyDelete