Italians celebrate Christmas Eve with a seafood dinner, the traditional Feast of the Seven Fishes. HG/BSK, daughter Lesley R., son-in-law Massimo and granddaughters Arianna and Sofia, do a Jewish/Japanese version courtesy of New York’s Russ & Daughters. The R & D carton arrived in timely fashion at the R. home in Rhode Island. These were the fishes: Sable, Whitefish salad; varieties of smoked salmon; herring; Alaskan red salmon caviar. Missing was Tobiko, the Japanese fish roe. This was remedied by a quick trip to Miko, the Japanese restaurant in nearby Barrington, R.I. The feast was lavish. The hungry folk gathered around Lesley’s skillets as she made perfect blini and crepes. Topped with the salmon caviar (or a mix with Tobiko) and topped with creme fraiche or sour cream they were the perfect first course. (HG made inroads on a large glass of icy vodka followed by a Sam Adams Lager chaser). French rye bread and good local bagels were on the table plus big containers of R & G’s scallion cream cheese and horseradish cream cheese. BSK made a lovely dill/mustard sauce for the gravlax. The smoked salmon and sable slices were consumed with the cream cheeses. There were capers, lemon, onion slices on the table. Arianna and Sofia demolished the whitefish salad. HG paid special attention to HG’s Russian combination of vodka and herring. Semi-sober and joyous was HG during the traditional festivities. In Tokyo, son Jeremy and family did the Japanese version of the feast and consumed Snow Crab (from Hokaido), salmon roe, tobiko, lumpfish caviar, a particularly delicious plate of tuna sashimi, clam possilipo and locally smoked salmon. Ah, the delights of the holiday.
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