A Family Affair Gangnam Style; Auntie Lana Extraordinaire; The Chrissie Post

OK, so I didn't get to write about the good cheer before the New Year, but now the post is here!

Christmas has always been a family affair- my mom and dad always drive up to the Bay Area, we usually spend Christmas Eve with my mom's friend who she's known since she was 8 (Crazay, right?), and then we sleep at my Auntie Lana and Uncle Ed's place in Danville while Santa sneaks in and drops off some neatly packaged presents by the fireplace. Then we go to San Francisco for a Christmas feast at my grandparent's house.

This past year has been full of changes though, including the passing of my grandfather, the occupancy of his flat by my cousin and myself, and the revealing of another cousin's girlfriend, so it made sense that this Christmas would be a bit different. Instead of having the festivities at my grandfather’s, my Auntie Lana invited everyone to her place, because it’s more spacious, her son’s girlfriend was visiting, and it was just easier for her to make dinner there. I’ve always been amazed by my Auntie Lana’s ability and dedication to making a full Christmas dinner every year. She organizes everything to the T, from the marinating of the meat to the setting of the tables. I never really appreciated it until this year though when her schedule got off kilter and she still plowed through, sacrificing some of her sleep to have everything ready for our giant family of 26 (it keeps growing due to the addition of girlfriends- all of my cousins are guys, so I’m quite excited to have some more estrogen around to balance the copious amounts of testosterone). Auntie Lana is the glue that keeps our family together, whether she’s spreading news and gossip to all of us about each other or she’s slicing 2 juicy, perfectly cooked prime ribs. Even though she sometimes gets a little snappy when things aren't going exactly as planned, her love for the whole family can be felt through her food and her cooking. Her capacity to care about all of us is extraordinary and I love her so much for it.

We all contributed a little to the menu as well. The cousins made a mouth-burning salsa with habanero peppers that was masochistically delicious, my Auntie Helen brought some butter-baked Chex Mix that I found dangerously addicting, Auntie Margaret made the traditional broccoli casserole with a Ritz-cracker topping, and my mom tossed together a scrumptiously crunchy mixture of butternut squash, string beans, and asparagus with browned shallots. As for me, I made a Mascarpone Cheesecake, tweaking a Giada de Laurentis recipe from the Food Network, with the help of yet another cousin’s girlfriend, Karen, whom I may add has her own food blog that’s quite worth checking out. The cheesecake was a hit! It’s so satisfying to take home an empty cake pan. I think the mascarpone really enhanced the creaminess of the normal cheesecake I usually make.

Finally, you may ask, why “A Family Affair Gangnam Style?” Well, during our family portrait photo shoot, the parents decided it’d be a fun idea to break out into Gangnam style horse-riding dance moves. I’d never seen them let loose all together like that. It was, to say the least, a momentous moment in our family’s history (considering all the drama that goes on) and I was savoring every second of it.