Happy Chanukah!

Last night the choir had its annual Chanukah party at Harriett Walther's house. Harriett often has festivities at her beautiful home in Tustin. Actually, technically it is Santa Ana, but it is on the Tustin side, off 17th St.
Anyway, the party was a blast, the best ever! The choir is full of an assorted bunch of oddballs, like myself. We have grown comfortable with each other over the years, and can say almost anything to each other.
Everyone counts on me to bring food for these parties. I worked yesterday, as usual, and was too busy in the weekend to make the food then. Plus, it wasn't the kind of food one could make ahead of time.
As usual, I got ambitious and determined that I would make Japanese curry croquettes, a variation on the latkes (potato pancakes) I usually make. Technically, as long as they are fried, they are Chanukah food. So I spent all afternoon after class messing up every single dish in the kitchen. There was oil spattered everywhere, on the floor, the walls, and the two cast iron frying pans were full of used up dirty oil. I didn't have time to clean most of it up, so predictably, R was really pissed off at me. I did manage to do one or two loads of dishes before I had to flee out the door, but all he saw was what was left, which was bad enough.
To make the croquettes, I first had to fry up a huge batch of onions in melted butter, while the potatoes (golden, peeled and quartered) were boiling in a pot of water. Then I mashed the drained potatoes and the carmelized onions together, adding salt and pepper and Japanese curry powder to taste. It's strong stuff, so I didn't need much. Then the hard part! I had to form the potato mixture into golf-ball size patties and flatten them, letting them cool. After that, I rolled them in flour, beaten egg, and panko crumbs and fried them in oil. They were lovely and very tasty. I didn't have time to make the Tonkatsu sauce, and 99 didn't have any, but Zion market did! Every morsel was eaten!