December 28: Gemisi
The Greek stuffing we make at Christmas, Gemisi, is one of my favorite holiday dishes. It incorporates so many of my favorite things--chestnuts, pine nuts, walnuts, red wine, garlic, dill...and the list goes on. I love making it almost as much as I love eating it--carefully roasting and peeling the chestnuts; sauteing the mushrooms in butter, separate from the onions and garlic, sauted in olive oil; adding just the right amount of rice, chicken broth, herbs. The nuts and wine added at the end, just after the first taste test that renders the dish edible but not spectacular.
My cousin Connie who raised me was an incredible cook and baker. This is her art, her careful nurturing of the food she will serve, her pure delight in feeding others. When I was a teenager and even into my 20s I thought this was so irritating--why couldn't she just be with us, why was cooking the perfect meal so important? But I've come to love the art of making a good meal, especially when I can use that time as meditation or prayer time or as time to bond with others who join me in the kitchen.
What did Mary and Joseph eat on the way to Bethlehem? What about in that first week we are in now, when they likely stayed put in the stable to heal, hold the baby, wait until the trip back was feasible--before they learned they wouldn't be going back?
The wise men would have been better off providing food than gold.
Over the years, I've come also to appreciate the food itself. Connie once told me that she and her siblings--which included the five in my mom's family and Connie and her sister, who were adopted by my grandparents after my aunt died--didn't always have shoes that held together but always ate well. "It is a matter of priority. And eating together mattered most of all," she has reminded me often.
This year for the first time we have an official foster care placement, though we've been caring for vulnerable people for the last three years through our home Petalouda House. We have learned that foster kids make out like bandits on Christmas--we have received four meals (including entire chickens, turkeys, and hams) and huge bags of gifts from three different organizations. We turned away the fourth meal, as we are doing OK financially these days, but didn't have the heart to turn away the gifts. They were chosen especially for a boy with our foster son's interests.
I know we have more than most foster families--we could afford to give him his first great Christmas. But not everyone can. And we always pass on what we don't use, so I took the gifts gratefully and vowed to pay this generosity forward.
I love the word gemisi because it means fullness--and, yes, the rice dish we make at Christmas definitely gets everybody full, no question. But it also suggests a richness, an abundance that we feel most intensely at Christmas, a slow, careful wholeness we nurture.
One Christmas not so long ago I was driving back to Ohio, where my family is from, with my daughter on Christmas Eve. We stayed the night in a hotel about halfway "home," and it wasn't until we'd been on the road for a good two hours that I realized I'd left my credit card--my only credit card--at that hotel. We barely made it back to retrieve the card--we were running on empty when I pulled into the hotel.
And, somehow, I had miscalculated and after filling the gas tank, we were nearly out of money. I wouldn't be paid for another two weeks.
I was terrified. I remember calling my cousin Connie from a pay phone (again, this wasn't that long ago, but I was one of the last to get a cell phone) and telling her I wasn't sure we'd make it, didn't know what to do.
We got to the last toll. By then I had run out of toll cash. I had carefully counted it out, but the return to the hotel meant I was a couple dollars short. I handed the teller my credit card and held my breath.
The card was declined, but I didn't realize it until much later, when I looked at the receipt she had handed me. "Merry Christmas," she had said, and I'd felt a flood of deep relief. We were going to make it for Christmas Eve supper, which thankfully in our family we get around to eating at 7, 8, 9, maybe later.
When I saw the receipt a few days later I wept with gratitude.
I have a similar story about getting home from my dad's funeral. About a time when my card was declined when I was buying my daughter her only big Christmas gift.
I was terrible with money, something I've worked hard on and am doing better on these days. I have paid down most of my debt--and I had a lot--and am working on actually establishing a savings. I didn't really deserve these gifts, because I was careless, too overwhelmed and busy (or so I thought) to figure out how to plan financially.
Somehow, we make it home for Christmas, whatever home ends up being for that year.
I miss my family terribly when I can't be with them, but I never fail to feel intense gratitude, no matter where I end up. Even last year, when an ice storm prevented us from getting together with my spouse's family and she was working, I figured out how to delight in lighting the Advent candles, eating the Gemisi with my daughter (and, that year, her sibling who was visiting, and now lives with us).
But back to what Mary and Joseph ate: we can't know. We only know that somehow, they got the nourishment they needed. The baby grew up healthy and strong. They made it to Egypt before getting killed. Who knows? Maybe at some point they sold the gifts from the Magi to survive (even though, when I suggested this once in Sunday school, I was quickly shot down).
That's the thing, isn't it, that those of us who have made it have plenty to be grateful for.
This year all three biological siblings (my daughter's) are here, and she is staying with us after moving out last August, and we have our foster son, too. The house is full and loud and merry. Everyone is eating a lot, and the food I thought we didn't need is coming in handy between paychecks. I am tired and not getting enough time to myself, but I am so very grateful--so full.
I always make enough gemisi to ensure I have it for a late night snack every night of the Christmas season--which means I am eating some now, as I type this in an empty room, with the Christmas tree lit, the fire going, and everybody in their own rooms and quiet for once.
Life is good.
My cousin Connie who raised me was an incredible cook and baker. This is her art, her careful nurturing of the food she will serve, her pure delight in feeding others. When I was a teenager and even into my 20s I thought this was so irritating--why couldn't she just be with us, why was cooking the perfect meal so important? But I've come to love the art of making a good meal, especially when I can use that time as meditation or prayer time or as time to bond with others who join me in the kitchen.
What did Mary and Joseph eat on the way to Bethlehem? What about in that first week we are in now, when they likely stayed put in the stable to heal, hold the baby, wait until the trip back was feasible--before they learned they wouldn't be going back?
The wise men would have been better off providing food than gold.
Over the years, I've come also to appreciate the food itself. Connie once told me that she and her siblings--which included the five in my mom's family and Connie and her sister, who were adopted by my grandparents after my aunt died--didn't always have shoes that held together but always ate well. "It is a matter of priority. And eating together mattered most of all," she has reminded me often.
This year for the first time we have an official foster care placement, though we've been caring for vulnerable people for the last three years through our home Petalouda House. We have learned that foster kids make out like bandits on Christmas--we have received four meals (including entire chickens, turkeys, and hams) and huge bags of gifts from three different organizations. We turned away the fourth meal, as we are doing OK financially these days, but didn't have the heart to turn away the gifts. They were chosen especially for a boy with our foster son's interests.
I know we have more than most foster families--we could afford to give him his first great Christmas. But not everyone can. And we always pass on what we don't use, so I took the gifts gratefully and vowed to pay this generosity forward.
I love the word gemisi because it means fullness--and, yes, the rice dish we make at Christmas definitely gets everybody full, no question. But it also suggests a richness, an abundance that we feel most intensely at Christmas, a slow, careful wholeness we nurture.
One Christmas not so long ago I was driving back to Ohio, where my family is from, with my daughter on Christmas Eve. We stayed the night in a hotel about halfway "home," and it wasn't until we'd been on the road for a good two hours that I realized I'd left my credit card--my only credit card--at that hotel. We barely made it back to retrieve the card--we were running on empty when I pulled into the hotel.
And, somehow, I had miscalculated and after filling the gas tank, we were nearly out of money. I wouldn't be paid for another two weeks.
I was terrified. I remember calling my cousin Connie from a pay phone (again, this wasn't that long ago, but I was one of the last to get a cell phone) and telling her I wasn't sure we'd make it, didn't know what to do.
We got to the last toll. By then I had run out of toll cash. I had carefully counted it out, but the return to the hotel meant I was a couple dollars short. I handed the teller my credit card and held my breath.
The card was declined, but I didn't realize it until much later, when I looked at the receipt she had handed me. "Merry Christmas," she had said, and I'd felt a flood of deep relief. We were going to make it for Christmas Eve supper, which thankfully in our family we get around to eating at 7, 8, 9, maybe later.
When I saw the receipt a few days later I wept with gratitude.
I have a similar story about getting home from my dad's funeral. About a time when my card was declined when I was buying my daughter her only big Christmas gift.
I was terrible with money, something I've worked hard on and am doing better on these days. I have paid down most of my debt--and I had a lot--and am working on actually establishing a savings. I didn't really deserve these gifts, because I was careless, too overwhelmed and busy (or so I thought) to figure out how to plan financially.
Somehow, we make it home for Christmas, whatever home ends up being for that year.
I miss my family terribly when I can't be with them, but I never fail to feel intense gratitude, no matter where I end up. Even last year, when an ice storm prevented us from getting together with my spouse's family and she was working, I figured out how to delight in lighting the Advent candles, eating the Gemisi with my daughter (and, that year, her sibling who was visiting, and now lives with us).
But back to what Mary and Joseph ate: we can't know. We only know that somehow, they got the nourishment they needed. The baby grew up healthy and strong. They made it to Egypt before getting killed. Who knows? Maybe at some point they sold the gifts from the Magi to survive (even though, when I suggested this once in Sunday school, I was quickly shot down).
That's the thing, isn't it, that those of us who have made it have plenty to be grateful for.
This year all three biological siblings (my daughter's) are here, and she is staying with us after moving out last August, and we have our foster son, too. The house is full and loud and merry. Everyone is eating a lot, and the food I thought we didn't need is coming in handy between paychecks. I am tired and not getting enough time to myself, but I am so very grateful--so full.
I always make enough gemisi to ensure I have it for a late night snack every night of the Christmas season--which means I am eating some now, as I type this in an empty room, with the Christmas tree lit, the fire going, and everybody in their own rooms and quiet for once.
Life is good.
Comments