Each Christmas Eve we—my wife, my son, and I—host an Open House. It was a tradition in my wife's family, a fling-wide-the-doors-and-welcome-all kind of cocktail party. And we've gladly taken up the cause.
We've introduced smoked turkey from Greenberg's in Tyler, Texas to the mix. And Blair has, over the past few years, won a reputation for serving trashy sausage and cheese balls made with Bisquick as well as comparatively haute gruyere-rich gougeres.
What we've lacked, until this year, is an all-purpose gift to buy by the dozen, wrap, stash under the tree, and give those kind souls who, unexpectedly, show at our door with generous presents.
That's where Lemony Snickett's The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming: A Christmas Story, a tongue-in-cheek fairytale for latke lovers and Christmas celebrants, comes in.
We'll give a copy to Ron Shapiro, who never arrives at our home empty-handed. (We'll give copies to gentiles too.) Heck, if I could find more—they're scarce—I would stop nice people on the street and give them copies. After all, who wouldn't want a book that includes this sentence:
"Nearly everything in this world is born screaming, and the latke was no exception, even though the latke wasn't conceived and born the way you and I were conceived and born, but instead was fashioned from grated potatoes, chopped onion, beaten eggs, and a dash or two of salt."
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