I guess it has to be Christmas dinner. When I lived in Rutherglen dads brothers and sisters would invite us to their house and mom and dad would invite them to our house. Our cousins would be there too so it was pretty much the same gang but at different homes. It was pretty normal to have three or four Christmas dinners every year. The normal places too eat where our house , Aunt Joe and Uncle Jake’s house on Fisher Street in North Bay, Hazel and Chester’s farm next door and Edna and Cliff’s place on Lake Talon . As the years went by the gatherings became less frequent . When we moved to Timmins they became very different. They turned into crazy drives through snow storms between Timmins and North Bay .
The meals were similar but different. Like Uncle cliff would make Swedish meat balls at Edna’s. The turkey was pretty much the same at all homes but the desserts , pickles , vegetables where all different. I don’t remeber them all but Rita makes a version of my mom’s Christmas dinner mixed with her mom’s Christmas dinner even now. The turkey is the same, the pineapple Velveeta cheese salad is like my moms, mashed potatoes , gravy, carrots, turnips, cranberry sauce, stuffing, meat pie (tourtiere Rita’s moms), butter tarts, short bread, sugar cookies, ginger snaps, , . My mom used to make steam pudding (carrot pudding),pumpkin pie and apple pie . Rita’s mom would sometimes have dinner rolls with hamburger in them or sugar pie. Rita still uses Aunt Joes trick of grating the carrots for the beef barley soup so her barley soup is part her moms and part Aunt Joe’s but mostly Rita’s . Aunt Edna used to make this brown bread that was awesome. Aunt Hazel had home made mayonnaise with was awesome too.
Besides Christmas dinner Rita makes home made beans just like my mom’s which I love (we had to get mom to make them while we watched and made notes). Rita’s corn chowder started out like my moms but she changed it so its better than my moms. I love it.
Rita’s peas soup is awesome and she made up with her own recipe. I wrote down all these soup recipes for Joey, Darren and Amy. Joey also wanted Rita’s Sicilian Meat Roll recipe. Rita’s cabbage rolls are really good too . Rita’s baked spaghetti is loved by the kids because its like what they used to have at the Granada in Powell River.
When we have turkey there is a whole series of meals that follow the turkey dinner. Day 2 is hot turkey sandwiches . Day 3 is turkey fried rice (like Rita’s moms). Day 4 is turkey/rice soup.
I guess my very favorite meal is meat loaf .
I will also drive a long way to get an Arby’s burger .
My mom used to cook for the threshing gang every year which was a big production . You had to feed 20 men with big appetites.
I can remember helping her by adding hot chilly peppers to the stew . There was a lot of men coughing and clearing their throats before mom figured out what was going on.
The prize for best home made pickles goes to Doris Rose and her icicle pickles. I made her recipe once and boy was it a lot of work.
So meat loaf with icicle pickles would make my day.