MERRY CHRISTMAS!

If everyone’s coming to you this Christmas, you may sympathise with Elizabeth David’s views on seasonal catering and getting stuck in the kitchen…

If I had my way – and I shan’t – my Christmas Day eating and drinking would consist of an omelette and cold ham and a nice bottle of wine at lunch time, and a smoked salmon sandwich with a glass of champagne on a tray in bed in the evening. This lovely selfish anti-gorging, un-Christmas dream of hospitality, either given or taken, must be shared by thousands of women who know it’s all Lombard Street to a China orange that they’ll spend both Christmas Eve and Christmas morning peeling, chopping, mixing, boiling, roasting, steaming. That they will eat and drink too much, that someone will say the turkey isn’t quite as good as last year, or discover that the rum for the pudding has been forgotten, that by the time lunch has been washed up and put away it’ll be tea-time, not to say drink or dinner time, and tomorrow it’s the weekend and it’s going to start all over again.

This extract is from her anthology Is There a Nutmeg in the House? However, I got it from the ‘Festive Fare’ chapter of The Joy of Eating – The Virago Book of Food, edited by Jill Foulston.

Meanwhile, very best wishes for the festive season, however you celebrate.

Cheers!

7 thoughts on “MERRY CHRISTMAS!

  1. Dark Puss says:

    An Omelette and a Glass of Wine – such good advice. In my household I did all the peeling, cooking etc. But I did get my champagne and salmon (and a glass of 2004 Rioja with the duck). Happy Christmas!

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