Mums arrival and departure to the girls

Hi All,

It’s now Friday and 2 days before Christmas. Mum got here last night and I am typing this post on the Sunday before she did, so I may just have to add some bits and bobs to the post before I post it. I am getting quite excited about Christmas day and the ceremony and procession involved with creating the atmosphere and food for the day. The atmosphere does depend somewhat on the weather as we are having a bbq Christmas lunch. We decided to thumb our noses at a hot cooked dinner and at a commercialised need to sell turkeys, hams and various other cold climate foods aimed at Northern Christmases. We might be somewhat cold in our winters and we might not have the hot days that some areas of Australia get for their Christmas days (I know, I have previously lived in some of them and sweltered in the kitchen to try to replicate a European Christmas meal) but we are a far cry from snow covered England and even further away from the North Pole. Steve feels a bit surreal at Christmas time here. We are used to it but he feels completely upside down when attempting to eat Christmas lunch in the heat. As exotic as prawns, bbq’s and lobster can be at Christmas time, it’s not the same as a hot Christmas dinner. We know, we got to share one a few years ago when we all went over to the U.K. and it’s a lovely thing to experience (thankyou Pat and Margaret :o). It just doesn’t fit, however, here on a 40C day. No one should be subjected to cooking a hot Christmas dinner when no one feels like eating because the tarmac is melting outside and the kitchen is radiating like the sun. A bbq is the perfect foil for a hot Christmas day and cooking outside keeps the house cooler and the smells outside. I know that people in the Northern Hemisphere long for hot summer days but the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence and hot days wear thin pretty soon I can tell you!

This is the horrifying result of letting your husband loose in the kitchen when you are making rumballs. Take this as a warning girls!

Remember Pingu? Well she is the second from the left. She hasn’t quite been integrated with the other chickens yet, but as soon as she gets a little bit bigger we will let her free range. We don’t want her to get eaten by cats because she thinks that she is human

Steve is taking mum to the girls place today. I don’t know if they told her, but they are taking her out to lunch in town and I didn’t want to put this in the blog till she knew about it in case it was a surprise. Steve has to pick up our Christmas vegetable order and a few cupboard staples as today is our usual shopping day for the fortnight and we don’t want to be running out of silly things like salt and pepper. We will be making canapés today including mini quiches made with bacon and our own free range eggs. We bought some prawns but have no idea what we are making with them (if anything) so they might get used for a bowl of home-made laksa later on in the week. We found a fantastic recipe for tiny pork pies that we are going to attempt and a spanakopita for me. We are also making 2 types of mini Scotch eggs and that should suffice with drinks before the bbq food is cooked. We bought a large whole rump so that everyone can choose how thick they want their steak for the bbq and how they want it cooked. The remainder of the rump is going to form the basis of a full roast beef meal later on in the week with duck fat potatoes, Yorkshire puddings (cooked in some of the duck fat drippings), veggies and gravy. We have sausages (most probably the dogs will eat most of these) and lots of chicken thigh fillets that we are going to make all sorts of marinated chicken sticks for the bbq with. We are having a Caesar salad, some roasted marinated vegetables, antipasto vegetables, potato salad German style and a small coleslaw for my daughter Madeline who loves it. Our daughters are making a tuna and bean salad apparently which should be lovely. Steve is making his “trifecta” desert that he has invented for the occasion that consists of a trifle base with home-made egg custard covered with a rich chocolate mousse and topped with a variation of Eton mess. Our daughters are bringing their classic Gordon Ramsey tiramisu that is an exotic taste of heaven and that is a must have at every special occasion. I don’t know what mum is going to want to cook at the girls but we will most probably end up with some delicious rum balls etc. We didn’t want mum to cook anything this year. Not because she isn’t a good cook, but because she is the guest of honour. Mum is a quintessential cook, however, and we would have to put her in a hessian sack and hang her (thrashing about no doubt) from the clothes line to get her to put down her wooden spoon anywhere near a cooking event, especially one as ceremonious as Christmas. We don’t want stress this Christmas, just happy chat and good company accompanied by great food prepared well and enjoyed to the max. If it’s raining we will eat it inside, if it’s fine we will be out on the deck quaffing our wine spritzers and enjoying the scenery. Whatever the day is, we have planned for it. I think I will finish this post here as I have 2 more to rattle off today and time is fleeting… see you all tomorrow when we get to share Christmas Eve together :o)