Christmas — Days 7-12 and Beyond

There's not much to report about days 7-12 of Christmas. We had lobster on New Year's Eve and beef tenderloin on New Year's Day. A $9 bottle of Spanish bubbly accompanied the steak to toast the new year.

I saw the movie "Flight" at the Cabot Street Cinema. It stars Denzel Washington as the alcoholic, cocaine-sniffing pilot who wile drunk manages to pull a plane out of an uncontrolled dive and crash land it with only six lives lost when it seemed that all aboard would be killed. The NTSB investigates. Good movie. Spoiler: he ends up in prison after he admits to being drunk. IMO, if flying drunk is a crime, he deserved it, but if it's for the deaths, he didn't since he saved 90 others who would also have died.

Friday I went to a recital at the Harvard Musical Association. Each year they have a competition for outstanding high school age musicians and the winner gives a recital at the association's "clubhouse." This year there were two winners, a cellist and a fl(a)utist, both of Korean extraction. They both performed very well. I had dinner at Scollay Square beforehand. Wendy the waitress was back — the one who is familiar with classical music. That was nice.

Even though it's after the 12 days, the Catholic Church  is still celebrating Christmas until Sunday. We extend it until the Sunday which falls on January 7-13. (Any excuse for a party: Catholics have all the fun!) So I decided to have some oysters. When my uncle was alive, he always wanted scallopped oysters on Christmas, but I wasn't able to squeeze them in when my brother, who won't eat them, was here. I got a pint and tried to fry half of them in olive oil, lamb fat, and butter on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the coating didn't stay on them and crisp up. Instead it blended with the fat to make a sort of gravy. It tasted okay, but it wasn't what I had been hoping for. And it's a wonder I didn't suffer a myocardial infarction from ingesting the lamb fat. Today, I was more successful with oyster stew. A tablespoon of butter, tablespoon of flour, 1/3 cup of water, 1 cup of milk, 14 oysters, 1/3 cup oyster liquor, 1/3 cup heavy cream in that order on the stovetop. Along the way I added pinches of nutmeg, chervil, pepper, mild paprika, celery seed, onion salt and sea salt. Half was lunch today, and half will be  lunch tomorrow. It's good, though I say it myself.

This has turned into a musical week for me. Wednesday evening I went to the HD movie theater retransmission of "Un Ballo in Maschera" from the Metropolitan Opera. It's got great music, and it was very well sung. Thursday evening, the Boston Symphony was back after their Christmas break. I'll write a bit about that on my music blog when I get around to it. And tonight there's another performance at the HMA — grownups this time, a string quartet. If I'm lucky "Tommy Kirk" will be my waiter at Scollay Square.