Christmas Eve Feast of Fishes

One of the great perks of my niece C's (G's mom) job is that she gets a lot of time off at Christmas time. She is a great party planner too so we spent days searching for some great fish recipes for our Christmas Eve Feast of Fishes. Notice that I don't call it Feast of Seven Fishes…because I am never good at doing just seven. One year we ended up with eleven fish dishes…not a good idea…just way to much food. Usually we do less then seven and that works the best for us.

Now where do you go to get great fresh fish?
Wholey's in the Strip District.

So the day before Christmas Eve we headed to the strip. First stop Biscotti Yum! If you are going to the strip you have to get some Biscotti. Next is Penn Mac (Pennsylvania Macaroni Company)

Get all your Italian goods here, from olive oils to imported San Marzano tomatoes, but prepare to stand in line, especially at the cheese counter where you will find a super cheese section and Carol will be sure to call you "dearheart". C braved that line and the deli line while G and I explored the rest of the store. Now for Wholey's and yes more long lines…so we go in and hang out by the shrimp while we plan our strategy to get all the fish we need. So there is this guy with an apron on and we start asking him about the shrimp, he told us about all the shrimp and which one was his favorite. So then he asks if we need anything else and we tell him what we need as we look over at the crowd of people at the fish counter. He says "Would you like me to go over and get what you need" and we are all "OMG yes that would be so wonderful" and off he goes behind the counter and gets everything we need. He comes back and we try to give him a tip because he just saved us so much time. He says oh no thats alright and we say no please take it and he says no really no and we say please you saved us so much time and he says "no, I'm Mr. Wholey"!!! Then we were even more thankful and thrilled to meet him. He was so nice.

So here are the results of our planning, shopping, and cooking

Fried meatballs

A nap before dinner

My pasta sauce (family recipe) yum

Shrimp

Johnny Cake

Halibut

Scallops

Salmon

Lobster Bisque

Italian Cream Soda

Love, Laugh, and Always know where the nearest bathroom is