TURKEY WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS

Phew Christmas day is over and what a day it was. Turkey with all the trimmings at my sister's house in Palmers Green. I arrived around 2pm with the boyfriend to the house where my frazzled sister greeted us with the statement that lunch was running late! No problem - since I wasn't cooking, I wasn't stressed.

The table looked stunning, so festive with the silverware, crackers and the sauces laid out in crystal glass like jewels - Cranberry sauce, Apple sauce and of course Mint sauce. All those sauces I hear you ask, why so many? Well have a bit of patience and I will get around to telling you what proceeded to appear from the magic kitchen.

On arrival to the house, hugs, kisses and exchange of greetings were followed by a nice refreshing glass of buck's fizz. Crisps and nibbles followed, good conversation with my niece and nephew and then more family arrives ready to relieve my sister of a mountain of food.

Starter of filo pastry prawns with a sweet chilli dip was enthusiastically welcomed. This was quickly followed by.... wait for it.... Turkey, Pork, Lamb (hence the three sauces), pigs in blankets (or sausages wrapped in bacon), various types of stuffing including my favourite chestnut stuffing. Then came...roast potatoes, roast parsnips, brussel sprouts, carrots, swede, peas, yorkshire puddings (that's a bit weird - no in my family we eat these with everything!) and finally the gravy.

Every year I tell myself I will not over eat and every year I end up fit to burst. This year is no different from any other and this morning I am paying for not sticking to my decision. After absolutely obliterating everything on my plate, include second helpings of my favourite items (parsnips, yorkshire puddings and potatoes) I sat stroking my expanding waistline and telling myself what an idiot I had been (again)! Half an hour later I still managed to pack away a portion of Christmas pudding with cream (argh!!!)

Christmas crackers were pulled, hats put on heads, jokes read out and enough food consumed to feed a small army. A good time was had by all.

Well if I get peckish, there is always the half leg of lamb and leftover potatoes and parsnips my sister gave me - I could fry them up with some onion and garlic and make a nice concoction.........

Oh gosh here I go again.

Happy Christmas and happy eating to you all.

Jo xx

A FESTIVE RETURN TO LIFE

I am tentatively dipping my big toe back into the world of blogging. After an absence of approximately two years, brought on by a major creative block - caused by a combination of a middle age crisis, a couple of illnesses in the family and some kind of low level depression (self-pity) - I now feel able to at least put my fingers to the keyboard and try to write something if only "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!".

As previous followers of my blog know, my major passion in life apart from my children and family is food. At present it is becoming a bit of an obessesion and all I seem to think of is what I can eat next.

My passion for food has recently been fuelled by the completion of a brand new kitchen, complete with a large five ring cooker, which has multiple ovens, acres of stainless steel and gas rings that actually work! I also am the proud owner of an all singing all dancing american style fridge freezer. This has so much room to put food into it that I am obliged to keep shopping every time a space becomes apparent. This is costing me a fortune! Luckily my sons who are still living at home with me are now able to contribute financially, both of them having decently paid work. So the monetary pressure is somewhat relieved.

I visited Waitrose in Brent Cross this morning to stock up on a few goodies. I had a £20.00 gift voucher to spend - gift from a friend for my birthday. I bought two boxes of cocoa dusted truffles (scrummy!), some smoked salmon pate, Cadbury's chocolate fingers, a moussaka for two (but in my case for one), some turkish delight for the boyfriend (yes he is still around) and some coronation chicken sandwich filler (reduced from £1.20 to 49p!). This lot probably won't last long, but I am certainly going to enjoy at least some of it today.

Happy eating, happy Christmas and Happy New Year.

Only eat what makes you happy.

Jo xx

LIFE UPDATE

I don’t know why I haven’t written for ages, specifically I couldn’t tell you. A general feeling of malaise has descended upon me and my creative juices have evaporated.

Ok, so today I felt a little inspired to put fingers to keyboard and write something, but now I have started, where should I go?

I don’t really browse the blogs as much as I used to, but still stop in now and again to see what my family has been up to. LondonCabby, So this is Paradise and Agnostic Joe, have all tapered off with their postings - now and again a little gem appears to entertain me. Paradise Driver is always dependable and incredibly prolific with his postings and beautiful photographs of Maui – I would like to meet him some day – Lord knows how he finds the inspiration every day!

I have had a quick look at New York Cabby’s blog and it seems, since she has been involved with her book she has become somewhat obsessed with it and has forgotten that which made her popular in the first place. The quirky eccentricities of the native New Yorkers made for great reading, it kept people from around the world amused and gave us all a little insight into another type of life – good or bad – didn’t come in to it. All Melissa Plaut’s postings since she received the book offer have been pale imitations of her once meaty stories. Just looking at the number of comments she now receives to the hundreds she received in her heyday an indication of her waning popularity ’15 minutes of fame’, well and truly gone.

I have been trying to read more lately and have managed in the past two months to read a variety of decent and half-decent books.

Antibodies by David J. Skal

Heavy Time by C.J.Cherryh

Wideacre by Philippa Gregory

The Almond Picker by Simonetta Agnello Hornby

Here There Be Dragons by James A. Owen

Angel Blood by John Singleton

Stranger in a Strange Land (re-read) by Robert Heinlein

Lord of the Rings (re-reading) by J.R.R.Tolkien


Work has been incredibly stressful, with one colleague who has been taking advantage of my good nature – coming in late, off sick all the time and has managed to upset most of the other girls she works with at one point or another – she has a rather abrasive manner and constantly bosses people around, including me!!

Another one of my staff has been asked to resign – she had only worked with us for 3 weeks. She is very young, very sweet, but unfortunately a little crazy! She has tried to commit suicide twice, during her three weeks with us, so has in fact only worked two weeks, with the rest of the time off in hospital or at home getting counselling. The sad thing is that she was a good little worker and the kids really liked her, so I feel a bit bad that she was semi-forced to resign by the human resources people – I hope she will be OK.

I finally finished work yesterday for the holidays – I will be back at work on the 4th January 2008.

Family events are coming up, so it’s bound to be a busy time for all the Mums out there, cooking, cleaning, buying/wrapping presents and sneaking into bedrooms in the dead of night to leave an overstuffed Christmas stocking by the bed. I still give both of my sons a Christmas stocking – they are 25 and 20 respectively, but I don’t leave them by the bed, I hang them on their bedroom door handles – even so I still seem to be going to bed at around two in the morning. I have tried to stop this tradition, but they both begged me to keep it up – big babies!

Just in case I don’t get back to blog world before Christmas and New Year, I wish you all a happy time with whatever you are going to be doing - the photo above is my greetings card to you all.

Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo.

Jo xx