New Year’s Eve marked the end of the Christmas season for Italian-American families in the 1960s. Christmas was a time of constant eating as you visited one relative after another, each of whom put out massive feasts to welcome you to their homes.
New Year’s Eve was perhaps the biggest feast of all because it was not unusual to have several meals over the course of the party, the first before midnight, a second after midnight and a third in the wee hours of the morning. Food was more than sustenance, it was the almost sacred element to bind the family together. No matter how many fights broke out over the course of an evening, everyone came together around the food.
Those days seem so long ago now, I sometimes wonder if I imagined them. So few people are left in my family now who remember them. So I have tried to capture that magic again in New Year’s Eve at Grandma’s House. You’ll hear all about Italian dishes that were common during the holiday season.
We wish we could serve you some of those dishes in the theater but of course that’s not possible. But you can try some after the show at Dave’s New Italian Kitchen, a long-time Evanston favorite that I personally recruited as our first sponsor back in 2013 and who has remained with us these past five years.
If you’d like to hear more about Italians and the family bond that food brings, check out this video I found on YouTube. This person is not affiliate with the show in any way but he is definitely a kindred spirit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG0qdsQMBgE
Tickets are now on sale for the 2nd Act Players’ fall show, New Year’s Eve at Grandma’s House which will have performances Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons from Nov. 3 through Nov. 18 at Northminster Church’s theater in Evanston. Buy tickets in advance to secure the online $5 per ticket discount. Tickets are $17 in advance, $22 at the door. Simply click here to buy yours today.