jamesdeluxe
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2020
I returned yesterday from 2.5 days with my family in CNY and it was a big snooze. No snow so we couldn't x-c ski or skate on the nearby pond and Song Mountain looked hideous from 81, so I assumed that GP couldn't have been much better.
Growing up there in the 1970s, Xmas Eve would always be spent in Cortland with the Italian side of the family, which came over from Calabria in the early 1900s. About 20 of us would gather at my grandparents house on Delaware Street, just down the road from the SUNY campus, and eat the traditional seven-fish meal, including baccala (codfish)/fennel soup, calamari in tomato sauce, baked eel (they ripped off the skin by putting the head on a nail attached to a 2x4 and pulling it off with pliers), fresh linguine with anchovies, shrimp cocktail, along with cavatelli, spaghettini (for those who couldn't stomach the linguine with anchovies), ricotta cheesecake, and a few other things that I'm forgetting. Maybe I'm idealizing things, but there <b>always</b> seemed to be a foot or more of snow on the ground back then on December 24.
The paisanos are no longer around and neither is the big Xmas Eve dinner. It sucks when great traditions like that cease, but we always make a point of stopping in at the Cortland Beer Company on Court Street to fill up our growlers and get a draft for the road before heading back to NJ. They have a great selection of interesting brews and it's a pleasant, unpretentious place. Highly recommended!
Growing up there in the 1970s, Xmas Eve would always be spent in Cortland with the Italian side of the family, which came over from Calabria in the early 1900s. About 20 of us would gather at my grandparents house on Delaware Street, just down the road from the SUNY campus, and eat the traditional seven-fish meal, including baccala (codfish)/fennel soup, calamari in tomato sauce, baked eel (they ripped off the skin by putting the head on a nail attached to a 2x4 and pulling it off with pliers), fresh linguine with anchovies, shrimp cocktail, along with cavatelli, spaghettini (for those who couldn't stomach the linguine with anchovies), ricotta cheesecake, and a few other things that I'm forgetting. Maybe I'm idealizing things, but there <b>always</b> seemed to be a foot or more of snow on the ground back then on December 24.
The paisanos are no longer around and neither is the big Xmas Eve dinner. It sucks when great traditions like that cease, but we always make a point of stopping in at the Cortland Beer Company on Court Street to fill up our growlers and get a draft for the road before heading back to NJ. They have a great selection of interesting brews and it's a pleasant, unpretentious place. Highly recommended!
