Birds, Fish, and Frogs

I am just unwinding from the annual company Christmas party. I am happy to say it was another success, especially with respect to the food. The hotel cooked up an awesome banquet, which we had served buffet-style. There were more salads than you could shake a stick at, veggies and dip, cold cuts - and that was just on the first very long table! Once we got past that table, it was to discover an equally long table with buttermilk mashed potatoes (yum!), mashed sweet potatoes, roasted winter vegetables, vast quantities of turkey (hence the birds reference in the title), salmon in dill sauce (the fish reference), dressing, and gravy that was to die for.

I had a bit of Caesar Salad, a bit of Waldorf Salad, potatoes, turkey, dressing, and spiced cranberry sauce. Oh, and gravy, of course! I'd never had Waldorf Salad before, and I have to say it was VERY good. I found it rather amusing to note that the sweet potatoes did not go over well - there was barely a dent in them! I can't stand them, so I was curious to see if anyone else would tuck into them.

After that mass of food was done with (I shudder to think how much was left over!), it was on to dessert. The dessert table was just as loaded down with food as the dinner tables were. There were shortbread cookies, gingerbread cookies, some awesome looking cakes, eggnog mousse, various bits of Christmas baking, and an awesome bread pudding, with Saskatoon berries, white chocolate, and truffle sauce. I stuck to a small bit of bread pudding and a shortbread cookie, both of which were awesome. I've been wanting to taste something with truffles for ages, and I got my opportunity with the sauce for the bread pudding. I would never have thought of using truffles in a sauce for dessert, but it certainly worked very well.

I made sure to keep my portions quite small, as I didn't want to be stuffed like the poor turkeys, but even at that I was still quite full by the time we were done. I was amazed to see how much other people were eating - I have no idea where the heck they put it all! One of the ladies and I were discussing how we just could not eat as much as we used to be able to, and it got me to thinking about a conversation my sister and I have had on that subject a few times.

We talked about how we could eat a lot more in our younger years. Christmas dinner was our prime example. We'd get up Christmas morning, and have coffee and open presents. Then we'd have breakfast - not just toast and jam, but the whole bacon and eggs type of breakfast. For the rest of the day we would be constantly munching on Christmas goodies - sugar cookies, shortbread cookies, butter tarts, mince tarts, nuts, chocolates, mandarin oranges, and whatever else might be around. Then there would be the big Christmas dinner. We would usually have a couple of helpings of dinner, and then finish it off with a little bit more mashed potatoes and gravy. Then dessert, which was more of the Christmas baking. Later in the evening, it would not be unusual to find us munching on a bit of cold turkey, or even having a turkey sandwich. Of course there were also the Christmas baking and goodies that were still being munched on.

To even try to imagine myself eating like that now is enough to make me ill. Of course, we didn't eat like that on a daily basis, but these days Christmas eating is a whole lot different. We still get up and have coffee and open presents, then have breakfast. It's usually something along the lines of bacon and eggs still. After that, no one even wants to THINK about eating any food, so there is rarely any munching going on through the day. By the time the big Christmas dinner is ready, I often find that I'm just barely recovered from the big breakfast. One helping of Christmas dinner is more than enough - I find myself quite stuffed, and I certainly don't have any room or desire for second helpings. We'll usually have coffee and dessert afterwards, although we tend to have to wait a bit to let supper settle. Dessert consists of Christmas baking, and I usually find that a couple of cookies is all I can manage to get down. There is definitely no munching on anything in the evening, except perhaps for the odd chocolate if we have any around. There are certainly no turkey sandwiches being made!

What gets me is that when I was able to eat those large amounts of food in my younger days, I was a heck of a lot less rotund. Now I can only manage to eat a small fraction of all that, and there's a lot more of me! Go figure, huh? In light of that, it's just as well that I can't eat anywhere near that much anymore!

I bet you've been wondering where the frogs from the title were coming into play. If any of you were thinking we had frogs' legs at the dinner, you're way off the mark. I was playing about with the digital camera again, and decided to see how it would do when faced with the aquarium. The cheap freebie digital I had didn't work well at all. This one, on the other hand, is awesome! I managed to get a couple of great pictures of two of the boys, so here they are!


This is Tad, my eldest wee froggy. Okay, so it's not ALL of Tad - he was hiding behind some of the plants. But still, there is his back and his hind leg!


I believe this is Tom Thumb - kind of hard to tell when he and Tiny Tim aren't out together, and Tiny Tim was hiding very successfully. I'm pretty sure this is Tom because Tom's always been the more curious of the two, while Tim tends to be shy. When I started snapping pictures, this guy wandered out front and centre to see what was going on!

I love the picture of Tom. I took a few pictures in the macro mode, and a few in regular mode. The regular ones turned out, but I couldn't really see much other than that it was a frog. However, these shots in macro mode amazed me - I couldn't believe the detail! I told one of the girls at work that they remind me of the stuff you see in National Geographic, with all the detail and colour. Unfortunately, the pictures don't show nearly as much detail once they are uploaded to the blog - the originals look a lot better. However, they still look pretty good here. I have to say, the more I fiddle with this camera, the more impressed I am with it. It's encouraged me to take some similar shots with my Canon 35mm SLR, using my macro lenses. I'll be interested to see how they turn out.

Well, that's enough babble from me tonight! I have wound down from the party, and am now feeling quite sleepy. So I shall toddle off to Dreamland and wish you all sweet dreams!