Christmas Day and we had two guests joining us for a prime rib dinner. Accompaniments included Yorkshire pudding made right in the roasting pan while the meat rested, fresh buttered green beans, mashed potatoes and pan gravy. We also had, as we do each year, jellied canned cranberry sauce – the kind that looks like burgundy dog food when you slide it out of the can. I have always loved this and prefer it to those homemade whole berry relishes that people have with their holiday meals nowadays. Maybe this has something to do with my dislike of berries, which might be traced back to my childhood. My parents loved to pick berries, and I hated it. I avoided going on drives with them during the summer unless there was a specific destination in mind, because they would inevitably make a pit stop when they spied wild berry bushes by the side of the road. I would stay in the car and roast in the heat rather than chance being accosted by stinging bugs, which I was terrified of. I certainly don’t mind homemade cranberry sauce as long as it is jellied or aspiced, is served cold and has no whole cranberries in it — but this kind hasn’t shown up with a holiday dinner guest since 1972. I made plenty of Yorkshire pudding, spooning out beef fat from the roasting pan into two loaf pans so I would have two small extra ones in case the large one didn’t suffice.
