Christmas means different things to different people.
To some, it’s all about stress. To others, a time to get together with family. Sometimes, these two coincide.
Christmas when I was growing up was all about the city where I lived: New York. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, decorations would go up: the Rock Center tree would be lit, the windows at Macy’s filled with new things to peer at while being hustled and pushed by hundreds of other people in fur coats and heavy boots. I didn’t mind, although I hated going inside and suddenly sweating in all of my layers, only to go back outside and freeze.
For a little while, Christmas coincided with panic… go figure, as pretty much everything else in my life, at one time or another, has coincided with panic. I remember panicking because I was growing up, panicking because suddenly things that seemed so easy to believe were difficult to fathom. I panicked because I wasn’t ready to have to deal with being an adult, and for some reason, at Christmas, growing up seemed much closer and much more difficult than anything else.
I’m still not quite sure how I got from where I was then to where I am now, but somehow it happened, and I like Christmas again, although it’s not nearly as magical as when my father would take me by the hand and bring me to the huge department stores to pick out a gift for my mother and look at the windows, finishing up with lunch at Fred’s (in Barney’s New York), where I would undoubtedly order risotto, which at the time seemed like a magical transformation of rice, which I didn’t like (still don’t), into a silky, savory pudding I wished would never end.
I’ve learned the magic behind risotto and that behind Christmas, and perhaps that’s why I don’t get the anxious flutter in the pit of my stomach when I buy my Advent calendar or start shopping for Christmas presents. I still get it when we sing Oh come, oh come Emmanuel, but since I don’t go to Catholic school anymore and Advent masses are typically in French, not English, the times when I sing that song are few and far between.
Sometimes, I wonder about what Christmas means to other people: after all, Christmas means something different to everyone, even to the people in my house, who were all raised with the same Christmas and finished by growing up with distinctly different views of the holiday. I always wanted the Christmas of Italian feast of fishes: staying up all night on Christmas Eve to go to midnight mass and eating our huge meal to break the fast instead of after a morning of opening presents.
This year's windows at the Bon Marché in Paris.
Instead, I have a strange mix of my old Christmas, when I slip back into my childhood bedroom and pretend that I never left, and my new Parisian Christmas, where I let the windows of Le Bon Marché stand in for those of Macy’s and make myself a mini fish feast, with two instead of seven in a spicy tomato sauce that reminds me of home.
Pasta Fra Diavolo
2 cups pasta, cooked
2 tsp. olive oil
1 onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. chili flakes
1/2 cup white wine
2 cups tomato coulis
250 g. shrimp, heads and tails removed
250 g. calamari rings
salt and pepper
Heat the olive oil in a wide, heavy saucepan over low heat. Add the onion and a pinch of salt, and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and translucent, about 10 minutes.
Add the garlic and chili flakes, and cook until fragrant, 1-2 minutes. Add the wine and stir to encorporate. Add the tomato coulis and stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper.
Cook the pasta according to the directions. When it is nearly ready, bring the tomato sauce to a simmer and add the shrimp and calamari. Cook for 2 minutes, until cooked through. Add a ladleful of sauce to the pasta to keep it from sticking, and then serve the rest of the sauce on top of the spaghetti. For a true, traditional experience, do not serve this pasta with cheese.
