Sunday, during a break in the Pats lurching over Buffalo, Christmas Eve dinner came up.

We're not Italian. I didn't even know about the Feast of the Seven Fishes till I was middle-aged. The closest we ever came to a Christmas Eve feast was sauteed lobster meat once, a sinful nod at the "no meat on Friday" tradition that extended to "fasting" on the eve of Church holy days.

When all that went the way of Mass in Latin, Christmas Eve became the occasion for my mother's annual attempt at Swedish meatballs -- hamburg golfballs in cans of Franco-American beef gravy, congealing in a square electric frying pan my brother still lives with. A pot of boiled egg noodles waited.

We hated the tough meatballs in brown slurry, but she didn't seem to remember this from year to year. Even mentioning them now made my brother nervous.

"Grilled cheese sandwiches!" he growled. "I'm not here for the food, I come for the good company."

My daughter got nostalgic over that square electric frying pan on four sturday legs. We asked him to bring it.

And now I think I've found what to do with it: The Wednesday Chef: Celia Barbour's Finnish Meatballs.

I couldn't imagine eating a whole plate of these with noodles unless I was, well, an alcoholic Finn soaking up his bacchic transgressions with saturated fat. But pierced with a toothpick and eaten one at a time while leaning against the stove with my friends, they were absolute perfection.

This from Luisa Weiss, who was putting out recipes from her 2006 birthday party. The previous one caught my eye, too -- more stand-up food, and a perfect foil for the meat: Florence Fabricant's Leek, Mushroom and Goat Cheese Tart.

First of all, it's just so pretty. But then, it's also just so easy. Well, for a tart. And most importantly? It's fantastically delicious. Crisp, buttery pastry encasing a sweet and mellow filling of sauteed vegetables, topped with tangy, crumbled goat cheese - I mean, it really is as good as it sounds.

Better even.

The hardest thing about this was contemplating the frozen puff pastry.

More cookies, too. (55 warm cookies vanished among six people Sunday, all gone.)

Bonus:
Cheese Thins
Vermont Cheese Crackers
Anne Willan's Parmesan Balls

You wouldn't know if from the entries lately, but I'm not normally a food blogger. Pop quantum physics, art and music and the Net run constantly in my background, but my time is full with Web-shopping tales I can't write about yet, so I'm defaulting to seasonal food ideas I can spread without shattering someone's surprise.