“Write a column about holiday foods,” my mother prompts. She is Mistress of Holidays, largely responsible for our family celebrations.

I didn’t inherit this gene. I’m a solitary individual. What I appreciate most about holidays is their capacity to effectively gather all the people I know and love someplace besides my house, so I can spend the day blissfully alone.

This doesn’t mean I have no fond memories of food encircled celebrations. Immediately, I think of two.

One winter, living alone, I decided to make myself a holiday meal. A few days before Christmas I headed for the store looking for a turkey breast and side dish possibilities. Whole turkeys are commonly sale priced around Christmas. I was surprised to find that turkey breasts are not. My budget informed me that I needed to select another main dish.

I perused the meat counter. One of the displays featured rabbit. At first it didn’t register. Turning away, I thought, rabbit; white meat; my favorite. I’d never contemplated eating rabbit. Soft, cute little bunnies? Get serious. Being in an initiatory mood, though, I reconsidered. It’s already dead. No chance of it being resurrected in someone’s Easter basket. Lots of people like rabbit. I bought a package.

I looked in my cookbooks for recipes. No luck. This was going to take ingenuity. Rabbit, I’d heard, tastes like chicken. Then, prepare it like chicken, I reasoned. I rubbed it with some of my brother-in-law’s southwestern spice blend and roasted it at 375° until it looked done. I prepared curried rice and steamed broccoli with Hollandaise sauce and uncorked a bottle of dry white wine as accompaniments.

Just as my house began to smell temptingly fragrant, a lonely friend, knowing I’d be conveniently unguested, dropped by. In the spirit of the holiday I invited him to dinner. I warned him he was being treated to a Christmas experiment; I’d never fixed rabbit. That was fine; he’d never eaten rabbit and had nothing better to do.

Both of us relaxed into the trailblazing atmosphere and had a wonderful time. The rabbit was perfect, succulent and flavorful. And, it didn't taste like chicken.

When my friend left he said, “I’ll never forget this Christmas. It’s been one of the best.”

My sentiments exactly.

The second memory is of a family celebration.

My mother taught special education. One year she was voted Guam’s Teacher of the Year. She didn’t accept the award. She reasoned that teachers voted for her and they’d never been taught by her. How did they know she taught well? She felt she’d gotten the nod because so many teachers were grateful to her for providing a classroom into which they could shunt their problem students.

Long before my mother arrived home that day, my sisters and I heard about her award and her rejection. We were deeply touched by her display of integrity and decided to prepare a special dinner for her.

We sliced a round steak into thin strips and marinated it in home-made teriyaki [¹/₄ cup soy sauce (the thick kind, found at Asian food markets), ¹/₄ cup water, 2 Tbl sugar, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1 tsp garlic powder] for a few hours. We started the rice and sliced a variety of fresh vegetables. We threw the steak strips into an oiled skillet with some marinade, piled the vegetables on top, covered it. The vegetables steamed while the meat stewed, about 20 minutes. One of us hunted down a container of lemon sherbet, my mother’s favorite. My dad cut a single red rose and procured two yellow tapered candles; favorite flower, favorite color.

We set the table with our best china, crystal and bronzeware on a tablecloth I’d made from brilliant blue sari material threaded with gold.

As dinner progressed, each of us expressed our admiration for her award, her stand and her character. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

To this day, I cannot sit down to teriyaki steak without remembering our celebration of my mother’s nobility.

These are the ingredients of memorable holiday recipes.

Text, Recipes & Graphics ©1999 by Gail Rae Hudson

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