Easter feaster

EASTER LUNCH: TOO MANY THINGS ON ONE PLATE  

Easter lunch with the family yesterday was the usual ­­– a mix of dishes with no connection to one another. They were Indian, Chinese, Malay and Western, as well as a Moroccan-inspired one (my roast chicken dish).

I don't think we really eat a lot of meat on a daily basis ­­– I certainly don't ­­– but when Christmas and Easter roll by, we become Americans (they are one-fifteenth of the world's population, but eat one-third of the world's meat, according to Harold McGee). Just take a look at this:

The meat...

And that wasn't all. There were also beef satay, beef meat balls and liver with ginger (a favourite of one of my brothers). Even the dishes that don't need to include meat had some variant of it, like the mac 'n cheese and sausage-stuffed onions. My mother made garlic rice, which I don't think went with any of the dishes here because none of them really had a gravy. And yet, I had some rice anyway and moistened it with a scoop of peanut sauce from the satay. The food combinations certainly need some rethinking.

...and other dishes (meat was included in many of them as well *sigh*)

Having said that, we still wolfed down a lot of the food like it was our last meal. At the end we had the chocolate éclairs I made, the same kind I featured in April's Don't Call Me Chef column.

Potato-egg-apple salad is our traditional side dish on Christmas, but I felt like having some yesterday, so my sister made a huge amount of it and I took home half of it. It could probably feed four, but I am quite sure I will finish it all by myself. Hey, the next we have it is at Christmas!