The usual celebratory Christmas event that most work places partake in happened here for me, thankfully. As mentioned in the previous post it's been difficult getting in to the Christmas spirit so I was truly looking forward to this event to help discredit this lack of spirit feeling.
Of course, when one is in a new country without the luxury of their own vehicle, taking public transport can be a bit of a trek. Therefore, after 2 separate buses and a bit of a legged jaunt we arrived at the restaurant that was booked for our ISG Christmas party. One of the lovely parts was we continued to meet up with various staff members on each leg of the journey (when buses meet up lol).
I think the biggest treats of all for this Christmas extravaganza were: a) being able to socialize with all our staff in one place outside of work and within a different atmosphere, b) the experience of a new tradition and c) the event was entirely paid for by our school board. A huge thank you goes to them for this! :)
What was our Christmas party? Well, it was a traditional Genovese Christmas supper. (Unfortunately no pictures were taken of the food, foodselfies denied by self, so I'll do my best to describe the event as it unfolded).
When we first arrived at the restaurant we hung up our coats and proceeded to the bar for a special orange beverage. Along our path there we met up with colleagues and the traditional *kiss* *kiss* were given. One sip of this lovely orange beverage and I can say that many of us traded it in for vino biancho. I'd love to tell you what the orange beverage was, but I was not sure. Would definitely like to know though so I can remember to avoid it at future events.
After about 1/2 hr of mingling and visiting we were ushered into the room where dinner would be held.
First we started with appetizers. This was sliced meat (I want to say proscuitto cotto but I'm really not sure - there's such a variety of meat here that I'm still trying to wrap my head around the different varieties) served with breadsticks and cheese. It's quite the thing here to take a slice of meat and wrap it around the end of the bread stick before you start to nibble. However, there are those of use who skip the bread and just nibble on the meat.
The next course was noodles, similar to linguine, in a ragu sauce (aka a meat and pomodoro mixture). Have to admit it wasn't my favourite entree but I still did participate in the consumation of it since I had really no clue how this whole meal service would play out, and what foods were going to be served. Didn't want to omit a dish for fear it may be the only one. I was definitely wrong on that account.
Note: Interesting point is that not everyone gets their own serving of any of the dishes. Rather, we each get a plate and then a multi-portion serving of each dish comes out and 4-6 people will share from one major serving.
The third course was trofie and pesto, a dish that Genova is known for. Let me tell you, they did not disappoint. This has to be my favourite dish here and one usually cannot go wrong when ordering it.
Then came the meats. Yes, it looked just like it sounds. A large plate of various fried, cooked, stewed meats came out. Did I venture? Nope. I am not that risk taking when it comes to foods and considering the variety presented I just wasn't prepared to take that on. I do speculate that there was everything from beef to pork to wildlife (aka duck/goose) Just pour me some more vino and I'm happy ;) Considering the carafe on our table was willingly replenished without asking, this was an easy task for our table.
.
Dessert? Well I'd like to say I stuck around for this final course, but I didn't. Let's just say that supper started at about 8:30/9:00pm (yep, we eat late here in Italy) and by the time the meat course was over it was 11:30pm, so some of us were just too tuckered out to continue the Christmas meal marathon. But what a marathon it was!! I've never had a meal where everything, down to the last course, was so drawn out and the social aspect of dining out was significantly prominent.
All in all I had a great time! Wonderful people, good (albeit interesting) food, and getting a chance to participate in a new, foreign tradition was a treat to experience. Hoping next year I can make it to dessert. ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment