Eating up the Hill: Liberal caucus don't call it Christmas party

Last week was the annual office Christmas party. At my last job, each of the managers would bring in dishes they had prepared for an afternoon potluck. However, while I'm sure Marc Garneau's macaroni & cheese is amazing, the caucus leader's office opted to have the Liberal caucus holiday party catered by the Shaw Centre.

This party actually got some press earlier in the day, when a right wing pundit with a deadline and no ideas called the Liberal "holiday party" part of the phony war on Christmas. My friends, if there's a war on Christmas on Parliament Hill, Christmas is winning...

I can report, though, that in his remarks, Prime Minister Trudeau did wish attendees a Joyeux Noel. Hopefully someone can translate this for our friend from the Sun.

But on to the food! Unfortunately, I neglected to snap a photo of the starter: a truly delicious soup. It wasn't potato but was something similar and cream-based. Simple, hearty and warmed the innards. A fine start to the meal.

A fine start unfortunately let down by a disappointing main of airline chicken. Really, that's what it's called. This airline chicken was dry. I will take blame for it not being hotter, as it was served while we were in the line-up for photos. But it was still overcooked. The brown sauce was delicious, but it wasn't plentiful enough to overcome the dryness of the chicken. The asparagus, however, was on point.

Always end on a high note, I say, and the third course did this. The desert was excellent. There was some debate at the table as to just what it was. I say it was ice cream. Others disagreed. I admit the consistency and temperature was a bit off ice cream, but it was darned close, and the fruit compote and sugary faux-cookie complemented it nicely.

So I didn't leave my third caucus holiday party hungry. And unlike my first caucus holiday party way back in 1997, no one did the Macarena. So a winning night all around. And thanks to caucus chair Francis Scarpaleggia and his team for all their hard work organizing the party.

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