Christmas supper

My daughter made Rachel’s Trifle and cucumber sandwiches for supper. Rachel’s Trifle was a new meal to me; cucumber sandwiches constitute a movie and TV joke, something containing no food at all, and served by rich women at tea lunches.

Rachel’s Trifle, I am told, came from an episode of Friends, when Rachel Green decided to make a Thanksgiving dessert, but did not realize two pages of her cook book had stuck together, and she combined a dessert and a meat pie.

Kathleen’s version was okay, pretty good, in fact. Custard topped by banana slices, then a bunch of lady fingers, raspberry preserves, browned hamburger, peas and onion. She made the custard, which pleased her three dogs and our two. The six egg yolks not used made a good addition to dry dog food.

Cucumber sandwiches I had never had before. I thought of them as sliced cucumbers on bread. No nutritional value, or taste. I was wrong. It seems there is a spread of chopped green onions, horseradish, and some things I don’t remember, on the bread before adding cucumber slices. The sandwiches were not bad. My apologies to TV and movie comedies.

So, out with turkey and goose and standing rib roast or whatever your family tradition is. For at least one meal, anyway. Turkey dressing with gravy is still the best.