Guess who also came to dinner …

A guest blog by the antipoverty organizer:

Another holiday food story, about the people we loved who couldn’t make it to the table in person, but who got there anyways…

There was my mother’s chopped liver at the Christmas Eve family dinner, a somewhat hurried affair before I headed back to Vancouver. I had always known that my brother and sister loved it, but I was reminded again that my sister out-law did too. My mother would probably have approved of it, even though I used three times as much sherry as she ever did, and a food processor instead of her chopper. I thought of bringing her some, in the nursing home, but I didn’t think, somehow, that it would have gone down very well any more.

Then there were the marzipan pigs that I brought for everyone … my father always brought us marzipan animals when we were children. My sister guessed right away, before we even opened the box.

And there was Grace’s Carrot Pudding, at the lesbian potluck dinner on New Year’s Eve on one of the snow-laden Gulf Islands. A toast to Grace, who died this past year, elicited a toast to all our mothers as we talked about loss in 2008 and hopes for 2009.

Z Rizdvom Khrystovym, Hungry Girl, and Z Novym Rokom.

Steamed Carrot Pudding
* 1/2 cup shortening
* 1 cup sugar
* 1 1/2 cups grated raw carrot
* 1 cup grated raw potato
* 1 cup flour
* 1 tsp. baking soda
* 1 tsp. salt
* 1 tsp. cinnamon
* 1/2 tsp. cloves
* 1 cup seedless raisins
* 1/2 cups chopped citron
* custard sauce for the top

Cream together shortening and sugar. Add carrot and potato. Sift together flour, soda, salt, cinnamon and cloves, add with raisins and citron. Fill greased pudding mold 3/4 full, cover tightly. Steam two hours and 30 minutes. Unmold. Serve hot with custard sauce. Or maple syrup. Or just plain, as we ate it that night.