I can be an old softie when it comes to holiday traditions. One tradition I like to keep is the sharing of stories. Last year I presented this story Cooking Shirley Balboa's Christmas Goose. I had intended to write another new piece of holiday short fiction for this space this year. But in the end I decided that part of the allure of the Christmas story is the tradition of telling the same stories year after year.

So I am bringing back my personal holiday heroine for another year of Christmas Goose. I hope you will read, enjoy and share this story. Merry Christmas to you. GREG

Cooking Shirley Balboa's Christmas Goose

Go straight to recipe or read the story here:

Shirley Balboa lays on the bright, freshly waxed linoleum floor looking straight up, past the pitted chrome handles of her old gas stove and directly at the ceiling stained with the grease of Christmases long past. She wonders what she should do. The goose she had just placed in the oven is nowhere near done. Normally her thoughts would have gone to the Christmas goose first. But until you can smell it, there is no reason to think about it. She never, ever bastes until she gets that first fatty fragrance. No aroma means Shirley is free to think about the problem at hand. The problem of course being that she has fallen and cannot get up.

Go straight to recipe

Shirley Balboa lays on the bright, freshly waxed linoleum floor looking straight up, past the pitted chrome handles of her old gas stove and directly at the ceiling stained with the grease of Christmases long past. She wonders what she should do. The goose she had just placed in the oven is nowhere near done. Normally her thoughts would have gone to the Christmas goose first. But until you can smell it, there is no reason to think about it. She never, ever bastes until she gets that first fatty fragrance. No aroma means Shirley is free to think about the problem at hand. The problem of course being that she has fallen and cannot get up.

“She is a proud woman”, Shirley thinks to herself. Or did she say it out loud? Shirley has lived alone now going on 40 years and she sometimes blurs the line between spoken words and private thoughts.

Still, she's a woman nearing 80, laying flat on her back on the kitchen floor. Despite her independence, or perhaps because of it, she wonders just how she is going to get up.

There is a very fine distinction between a good stiff belt and a cocktail worthy of that moment of pause. That pause that comes just before you pick up the stem, close your eyes and lift the glass to your lips. That brief, unconscious pause allows for the inhalation of the electric current that floats right above, or sits right on top the surface of a perfectly mixed beauty.

A proper cocktail is not so much about tying one on. Though the quality and content of the alcohol is a vital element in its success. Cocktails are meant to amplify a moment. Either by ritualistically marking the end of the workday, or as a social lubricant designed to loosen your loquaciousness or awaken your appetite.

In my opinion these are the very best sorts of cocktails. They are bracing and bold, but that doesn't mean heavy-handed. Balance and proportion are the elements that elevate.

However, good stiff belts and proper cocktails are not the only liqurious libations to pass my palate. There is room for other sorts of alcoholic beverages too. Many of these are served over rocks, but they can also be shaken, stirred or strained. They can even be served in a proper cocktail glass.