Norman Rockwell’s Family Dinner

T’was the season to make merry and to feast on the best (and the beasts, if you’re a carnivore like me), to spend the warm and soft hours with your loved ones and to be content and at peace. T’was the season for family dinners, joyous reunions not very unlike a Norman Rockwell painting. A piece of picture-perfect perfection.

That is, of course, if you had a normal family to sup with. My normal family is back home in Malacca. I’m here in the big city, all alone. Well, almost all alone. I’ve a family here too, of misfits and miscreants, of lonely hearts and single friends, all of us far away from our flesh and our blood.

The Family. (I believe I may have mentioned our ragamuffin crew once or twice before. Ahem.)

Anyway, Nisa got it in her head that we would all sit down to a family dinner on Christmas Eve and she would cook it. Now this is alarming, not because she is a bad cook (far from it, she’s a genius in the kitchen) but simply because The Family doesn’t exactly have the best track record in organising dinners and parties. To put it kindly, to even suggest having one is to court Disaster. And O how we trembled!

But we are nothing if not staunchly loyal to fellow Family members, and so we are all behind her. Of course, the ‘all’ in this case kept shifting numbers. Firstly, it was just gonna be the usual suspects — Nisa, Henny, Jason and me. Except Jason wasn’t sure if he’d make it. Then we added Josh (cos Henny wanted to go for mass at his church after the dinner) and his giddy gal pal Marina (who just so happens to be my oldest friend of the entire bunch). Ellyne was unavailable. (Darn.) Then we added Alfred and Mun Wai. And then Mun Wai pulled out. Jason was still an unknown factor. Last minute, Nisa decided Alvin would entertain us with his witty repartee…

Confused yet? Me, I’m unsure of the final tally of the guestlist even now.

Then comes the actual preparation. Naturally, we offered to help but Nisa insisted she had it all under control. Besides, we were working while she was already on leave for the rest of the year. (Lucky, lucky lass.) Completely under control. Which meant, come Christmas Eve morn, she called me up to get the roast chicken. For if she got it, it’d be too early. Then Henny emailed me and asked me to get my favourite snacks. Alfred was gonna make mashed potatoes so I figured I’ll get this while shopping with him. And then a text message for lemons. Another one a few minutes later, this time for french loaves. Butter came next. And just as we were about to exit the hypermart: “Get me parsley. Or everything’s ruined.”

(The Family is nothing if not very drama.)

Any guess what happened next? Yup. Every hypermart within the vicinity ran out of damn parsley.

Arriving at Henny’s house later, with the rain accompanying us, I realised we weren’t a moment too soon. Nisa was now a near-complete wreck. (Not getting your parsley will do this to you.) The lamb stew was more of a lamb soup. There wasn’t any cutlery in sight. Alfred’s potatoes were taking forever to boil. Jason (who was coming after all, hooray!) was nowhere in sight and he was in charge of all the drinks and ice. And Henny, uhm, Henny was all dressed up and wondering why we haven’t signed the guestbook. Uhm, priorities, people.

Comes Damage Control Kenny to the rescue. (Yes, it’s my less-than-secret identity.)

Lamb soup turns to stew if one adds milk leftover from the mashed potatoes. Of which we set aside a portion of milk-free mash just in time, remembering somehow that Jason was lactose-intolerant. (Of course, this now meant he couldn’t have the stew, but surely you can’t expect me to keep track of where all the dairy products went, right?)

I got the plates out (seven in total, five in different designs and sizes from the other two, but we’re crazy this way) and found some cutlery (seven spoons, two forks and three knives; do the math yourself, folks).

At this point, I had Nisa calling “Kenny! I think the lamb stew is burning!” and Henny going “Kenny! Is the bruschetta ready?” and then Alfred went “Kenny! —” and I turned and went, “WHAT?”, to which he answered, “Nothing, just joining in.”

(Breathe, Kenny, breathe.)

Yes, dear readers, it was that sort of night. Family dinner fiddlesticks. Why couldn’t we have gone to McDonald’s instead?

Marina and Josh arrived after going on a fruitless parsley hunt (mixed metaphors much, no?) but loaded with good wine and good cheer. Jason miraculously appeared, with plenty of ice and drinks (and Nisa forced him to wash the dishes after, something I normally resigned myself to doing cos everyone else was too lazy to do it — it really was Christmas! for me!)

The food was perfect — crisp bruschetta with a garlic/tomato/onion salsa, the creamiest mushroom-and-ham mashed potatoes this side of Dublin, a verdant and well-marinated pasta salad, replacement roast chicken (turkeys are so last Christmas), an OJ-and-vodka punch for everyone, and what else did I miss?

Oh yeah. The lamb stew. I saved it. I burned it too. But most of the guests graciously confessed it was merely smokey and ladled it generously over their mash.

See, friends are those who not only ignore your mistakes, but celebrate it too. That and a strong dose of personal denial can cure anything. Even our Family dinner. It was almost a disaster. But not quite. Instead, it was the best fun we’ve had in ages, the imperfections making the night quite simply perfect.

Family dinners. Maybe they ain’t so bad after all.