听A plate of food from my niece's wedding buffet.
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All it took was a little organizing and, yes, my sister acknowledged, many, many hours of work.
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The result was a wonderful do-it-yourself wedding reception this past weekend, with food cooked by my sister and her mother-in-law, and wedding cake baked by the groom's sister-in-law.
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And, by the way, my sister's daughter was the bride.
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My sister loves to cook, so it seemed only natural that when her daughter got married, she would be the one whipping up the wedding supper for 120 guests.
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She and her mother-in-law spent a week doing the prep work 鈥� the chopping, slicing and par-cooking. They made some of the items in advance 鈥� the Danish meatballs and the cabbage rolls, for example 鈥� and froze them.
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On wedding day afternoon, my sister looked her usual calm self. But it turned out that she'd been cooking all morning (as in 4 a.m. morning), followed by a brief nap.
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I had no inkling that they'd decided,听 in the spirit of their rural southern Alberta community, to tackle so many things on their own.
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The supper reception was at a service club hall. A team of friends and relatives, with help from a church group, had decorated the hall, set cut flowers on the tables, assembled dishes of little pre-supper snacks (shrimp chips, pretzels, cubes of moon cake, candies).
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Just before it was time to eat, the MC revealed who had prepared the meal. The guests made a sort a wow sound and applauded.
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Then we headed for the buffet table, but the MC made us do it in an orderly fashion. Before each table could eat, a question about the bride and groom had to be answered. We were also instructed to not back-track. To avoid messy collisions, traffic had to flow one way.
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The food was listed on a handcrafted menu that was at each table 鈥� 15 items in all: Asian hot and sour coleslaw, warm potato salad, almond Mandarin salad, Chinese beef steak, BBQ pork, cabbage rolls, Danish meatballs (frikadeller), fried herring, ginger beef, seafood stir fry with curry, fried rice, chop suey in black bean sauce, red cabbage, browned sugared potatoes and roasted herb potatoes.
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All of it was delicious. And there was an amazing amount of food. Huge platters of meatballs, what looked like a couple hundred cabbage rolls, and on and on.
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Once you get things set out and rolling on the cabbage rolls, things go fast, my sister said.
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The food reflected the heritage of the bride; they were dishes my sister had made many times. She didn't think was a good idea to be experimenting too much, so she stuck with family favourites.
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One of my brothers made special note of the cabbage rolls. They're meaty, he said, not half-filled with rice the way grocery stores sell it.
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And one of my nephews was especially impressed with the wedding cake. "Delicious," he declared to our table, and he followed up later by offering direct praise to the baker.
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I arrived in town the day before the wedding, quite late. My brothers went out for a meal at a Chinese restaurant, and brought back leftovers, which I appreciated. But the hotel room didn't have a microwave. Cold fried rice isn't all that tasty.
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Some of us had breakfast at Humpty's 鈥� a chain that has a big presence in Alberta 鈥� and then at Smitty's. On separate mornings is what I mean.听
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At Humpty's: You can get cheddar perogies as a side, instead of hash browns; one of my brothers had them with his eggs Benedict and gave them a thumbs up. An omelette arrived cold for one of us, but was quickly replaced. I had the "traditional" eggs Benedict; it was good, but the ham slices weren't hot. My nephew was disappointed by the "hash browns". These aren't hash browns, he said, pointing to the cubed, deep fried potato chunks.
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At Smitty's: We were given the option of cubed or shredded hash browns. This pleased my nephew; he picked the shredded. I had the $6.99 breakfast special, only available until 11 a.m. for that price; after that, it soars to $7.99. You get a drink, plus two eggs, two slices of bacon, two sausages and your choice of (I think I'm getting this straight, but it was a little unclear on the menu because of how the commas were placed)听 hash browns and toast, or two pancakes. The shredded hashbrowns were an improvement on the cubed kind. I asked for poached eggs, but was offered "coddled" 鈥� fried with a cover. I'm unclear on how the eggs Benedicts are made if Smitty's doesn't poach. Unfortunately, I didn't have the presence of mind to explore this further, being distracted by the arrival of the orange juice.
