Thread 16 - TalkLair: "Well, I'm not exactly quaking in my stylish-yet-affordable boots, but there's definitely something unnatural going on here."

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 15).

Another year over, a new one just begun...

In the TalkLair, the hearth is glowing, the walls festooned with tinsel, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, rugs are down on the floors, the tree is twinkling with fairy lights (and possibly being clambered on by cats). The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch though, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics.

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey Christmas roast beast over there in the corner of the cave…

I was wondering! Although I thought maybe being turned into syrup explained the near extinction of pandas.

I have never watched Buffy. I should probably give it a go at some point.

I am sort of prepared for Christmas but with one massive fail which is that the house is a tip with the kitchen and dining room especially cluttered. I really need to do some tidying. Oh and present wrapping.

Abel and Cole order arrived today and Ocado are coming tomorrow. Cake is marzipanned but not iced yet.

I dealt with the pile of dining room crap by stacking it all at one end, chucking a damask cloth (snow) and cheery red runner over it, and piling up the mince pies, xmas pud and stollen (all still boxed) in the shape of a Christmas tree.on top.

Domestic goddess level unlocked.

That’s quite a plan! I reckon I could recreate the Himalayas if I dug out a white table cloth.

Pannage pork sounds good. I'm not a fan of pork at all but I think I'd give that a nibble to see how I liked it.

@artant I've been untipping the flat for a week which has been a bit of a mare because I have chest and lung issues. But! I've got quite a way with it except for vacuuming. My vacuum cleaner died, Snoop has loaned me her hoover but it's doing a very poor job of picking up so I'm a little disappointed. I'm also overflowing with boxes of feeding tube food that will be either returned to the company or taken to the tip. I hate the idea of tipping it but even if it's returned to the company it's tipped despite not being opened or used by me. It makes me mad that there is so much waste but blah.

The one thing that isn't even nearly sorted is food and I'm looking forward to doing some food shopping for things that tickle my strange fancies. These will include some incredibly posh nosh and some total moggo food as well. I can't wait.

I made my Christmas pud though so that’s in a plastic pudding basin which is somewhat unappealing. Mince pies arrive tomorrow but probably in very plain boxes. I need more Christmassy packaging in my life.

So far my Xmas food preparations have consisted of helping with MiniPSB's first attempt at a Swiss roll for the Xmas day trifle, and adding and taking away from the Waitrose order. And buying drink.

I really must at least start the untipping process! Instead I am lying on the sofa doing nothing. This is why the house is such a tip in the first place.

Ooh, I have never made Swiss roll. Or trifle, come to think of it.

Trifle has always been the best bit of Christmas food for me - mum used to make a fine one using Birds custard.

For years I made a 'traditional' one of cake and fruit and egg custard and cream, but more recently I've made one with Added Jelly like mum used, and it's definitely my preference. The coming of decent egg custard like you can buy in Waitrose and Sainsburys has helped a lot - Birds custard isn't quite as good. Sorry, mum.

I've bought a tub of posh custard and will be picking up trifle sponges from the gluten-free bakery tomorrow, so my choices about jelly or not jelly, how much sherry, fruit or jam or fruit and jam can't be made until then.

I did bake my little ham today, and had a delicious dinner, followed a few hours later for the first of those Christmas fly-by 'one little shaving won't hurt' nibbles. It is now firmly wrapped in foil and in the fridge.

One of my neighbours went to ASDA today and all their veggies were stupid-cheap (as in about 8p a bag, or so he claimed), so he bought massive quantities and has been playing Father Christmas up and down the road. We now have potatoes, carrots and parsnips (my #1 fave!) in abundance. (I refused sprouts!) Perhaps I should respond with a Swiss roll? Swiss roll was always surprisingly good fun to make, though I haven't done so for going on half a century.

I couldn't be arsed to make a chocolate sponge for the foundation of my Black Forest trifle (they don't seem to sell swiss rolls over here) so I bought a pack of brownies from the supermarket bakery and used those instead. I got some frozen cherries and simmered them in some cherry juice and then put the cherries all over the brownies and measured the juice and some water with a cherry jelly mix, and that is currently setting in the fridge. Tomorrow I'll make some chocolate custard (I have Birds! They sell it in the British food shop in Freeport, Maine!) to put on top, and on Tuesday I'll whip the cream and put some maraschino cherries and grated chocolate on top.

If it was adults only I'd put some booze in the sponge cake (my mum always used sherry) but we have five children aged between 6 and 12 here on Christmas Day, and Americans are quite puritanical about that kind of thing.

Ooh trifle! DH has forgotten about making a trifle, but if I mention it to him I'm sure he'll go into a frenzy of trifle preparation.

Because we no longer have a functioning "proper" oven, we can no longer make our own Yule log - the mini-air-fryer oven is too small to accommodate a Swiss roll tin. So we bought a Yule log from the supermarket.

Christmas Day plans are now slightly upended. FiL was due to come to us, as he has done every year since MiL passed (apart from the lockdown year). This afternoon, he randomly appeared at our house to "drop off some presents from BiL" and then announced that he would wish us a Merry Christmas now because he wanted to stay at home alone on Christmas Day. Wouldn't be persuaded otherwise, and then (the kicker) said, "I'll be perfectly fine, it's what I did last year and the year before." So now DH is annoyed, not so much that FiL has last-minute blown up the plan, but that he's re-written history that he's spent the last several Christmases alone, and presumably has been telling every random acquaintance.

DeanElderberry · Today 21:02

I've bought a tub of posh custard

Oh bolleaux! I was out today and bought double cream and entirely forgot to get Sainsbury's vanilla bloody custard! I love it.

In domestic news, my wife has made an hour long song and dance about getting a Christmas card, the Sellotape and wrapping two presents, for her sister's son and daughter. She's said that I can wrap the presents this year.

DD looked bemused and said, "What do you mean? He wraps them every year." I foolishly, even though it's entirely true, agreed.

I read threads about husbands with strategic incompetence and think, "Yup. I know that one!"

Americans are quite puritanical about that kind of thing.

They wouldn't have approved at all of my grandmother's trifle. She was raised Methodist and was virtually teetotal except for medicinal purposes, and trifle. The base must have been equal parts sponge and sherry. No allowance for age of guests.

I don't remember age allowances for my mum's trifle either, but DDIL is American, and her sister (who is one of the guests on Christmas day along with her husband and two children) is a doctor (OB/GYN) so I think likely to object to alcohol being fed to her children. Deffo better not let them taste my rum and raisin ice cream then, since that is fairly well fortified with rum. I did make chocolate ice cream as well, for the children.

I’m sure my mum did make trifle years ago but as both she and my brother profess not to like custard (the weirdos), I think trifle probably isn’t the way to go in this house.

As well as Christmas cake (containing a goodly amount of brandy), Christmas pudding and (shop bought) mince pies, I will be making the Ottolenghi clementine cake on Christmas Eve. We also appear to have an awful lot of chocolate in the house so I don’t think we’ll be struggling to find sweet stuff.

My aunt B was a lifelong member of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association. Once when I was making trifle I very kindly and thoughtfully offered to make her one without alcohol.

mistake

How did she react, @DeanElderberry ?

I miss trifle. My mum always use to make a jelly and Birds custard one. She nearly had a nervous breakdown when I became a vegetarian aged 18 and told her I couldn't eat jelly any more. She then started making a traditional one with cake, fruit, whipped cream and homemade egg custard and it was bloody fantastic - an absolute revelation! I kept making them until a few years ago, when it became apparent that - in spite of liking the tradition - baby weasel didn't actually like trifle that much. This meant that we would have a small bowl each for Christmas dinner and then I would spend the next week eating my way through a whopper trifle singlehandedly, which didn't do my festive weight gain much good. It seems impossible and too much faff to make a tiny trifle, so I go without now whilst pouting a lot.

With very firm insistence that alcohol in cooking didn't count. A point she continued to remind me of for years. I didn't bother to point out that trifle is more about assembly work than cooking. Wouldn't have dared. Nice woman my aunt, but capable of making her opinion known.

Anyhow, after my last, final, definitely last, last pre-Christmas shop I now have apricot jam and tinned peaches and candied apricot halves and almonds, so will be able to have the trifle I'd hoped for. No jelly in this one.

No poppadoms, but the curry tonight will be fine without them.

A baby weasel is a kit, isn't it?

It is indeed, which is very apt for her given her real name