Reprise - A Holiday Luncheon

This was my very first January post on my blog -- on January 2, 2009.    I was still a "newbie" at blogging for I had just really started blogging in September of the previous year.     I'm still hosting holiday luncheons for The Lunch Bunch although we all are older and wiser and the breakfast room has changed a bit since 2009!    The menu would make a good luncheon today as it did in 2009.    Some recipes are timeless!


(And thanks to Cass, at That Old House, I know the name of the dishes -- Noritake Christmas Ball!)


I'm joining Chari at Happy to Design for Sunday Favorites.




We love to have company especially for a luncheon and right before the end of 2008, three friends joined me for lunch. The Christmas decorations were still up and so the centerpiece was one of my blue and white bowls filled with golden pinecones. I collect white and gold china and these plates (part of a set of 8) have what looks to me like Christmas balls around the edges so I often use them at Christmas thinking of them as "bonus" Christmas china!
At every place, whenever we entertain, be it for dinner or a luncheon, is always a menu -- since this is a holiday luncheon, the picture is of the ornaments on our tree. The napkins are always in one of our collection of silver napkin rings -- all have names or initials engraved on them.
After a salad of greens, dried cherries, roasted pecans, and sliced apples with a maple vinaigrette, the entree of Christmas pasta with chicken and a roll topped with rosemary, salt and pepper. I love the Christmas pasta because with the red peppers and red onion and green pepper and asparagus it has the colors of the season. With chunks of chicken added, it's a main course.
Dessert was a favorite apple tart -- from Ina Garten and THE BEST -- no cinnamon or nutmeg here -- just apples and sugar and butter baked on a thin crust and then brushed with apricot jam thinned with Calvados. The Lennox Christmas dessert plates are a fitting carrier for the tart.
We love to have luncheons in the breakfast room overlooking the garden although in winter, the garden looks bleak unless it is snow covered. Alas, no snow this Christmas, but a good show by the bird friends of Linderhof kept us entertained through lunch.