Nigel Slater Christmas Chronicles Read Along 2023 - Part Two

[RainbowZebraWarrior]

Continuing from Part 1

For anyone who has not already had the pleasure, the annual Nigel Slater Christmas Chronicles read along is a real time annual MN tradition.

The book began on 1st November, however there is still time to fully appreciate Nigel in All His Splendour as it takes us to Christmas and beyond.

Most of us already have the book (or Audio book) For anyone who doesn't, it's a challenge to see of you can pick up a bargain. WH Smith has come up trumps in the past, as has ebay. A rare and precious charity shop find is the holy grail and adds a certain special-ness that simply extends that warm, fizzy Nigel feeling (and some well earned smugness)

I shall continue to make a post each day and we can share our thoughts and feelings on the days recipes, sentiments and indeed Dear Old Nige himself.

Pull up a chair and a cosy blanket and join in. Twinkly lights are optional, but candle light is definitely recommended. Regulars and newcomers are welcomed like old friends.

Meant to say earlier that there's no chapter today.

I'm still reading along - just a bit behind due to illness. Everything has been delayed a bit so we had our own home Christmas dinner yesterday. I'll be doing the Turkey Scotch eggs from the Fortum and Mason cookbook as I do every year.

Bought some Jerusalem Artichokes at the market today as they caught my eye and have just realised that Nigel had a receipe with them in yesterday! I may have to try it.

Now I'm actually feeling better and am not as bone achingly tired, my eye looks over my 'to be read' book pile, which includes a book called 'The Fairytellers' which is about the origin of fairy tales. Nigel would probably enjoy it.

30 December

Christmas stamps and bubble and squeak

Tidying up, I find a pile of cardless envelopes destined for the recycling, and it dawns on me that I received very few cards with Christmas stamps on this year. A Christmas card without a Christmas stamp is like a birthday cake without a candle.

Very late posting today. The days just seem to be disappearing. Can't quite believe it's NYE tomorrow. Just taken delivery of my Waitrose order. I've been a tad lazy and bought their party food. Although I will be making my own chicken skewers and having those with my own home made chilli jam. It's only me and DD after all. As she's 12 now, she wants to stay up until midnight tomorrow night. I've decided I'm also going to assemble an orange hedgehog. I'm not sure if that's NVN, or if he would actually approve, as he is a man not that much older than me, and I feel sure he would have experienced the orange hedgehog during his own childhood. I'm shaking things up a bit though and thinking cheese cubes, Pepperoni and olives.

I love a hedgehog, although all the hedgehogs I've known have been baking potatoes so I had to read "orange hedgehog" a couple of times before I understood.

I'm behind on chapters but will catch up properly tomorrow. Still enjoying the thread.

Feeling that the first day of January comes too close to Christmas and is neither the start nor the end of anything much, it is not really an event I can get enthused about just about sums up my feelings! The moment I feel the year rolling round is at the beginning of September - the new school year - what the French call la rentrée. My favourite New Year's Eves were living in London when the kids were small, we would go to the pantomime with my parents followed by a late dinner to see in the New Year and the kids were genuinely thrilled at being able to stay up until midnight. I loved those years. Now the kids are old enough to do their own thing I'm perfectly happy for DH to volunteer to work and spend it on my own in front of the TV followed by an early night. In fact this year we are spending it with neighbours who are bringing oysters and dessert (almost certainly featuring chestnuts) while we provide the main course and cheese. They've invited themselves to ours, but I'm quite happy with that as I love laying the table and getting out all my china and glassware. The French love New Year and I know there will be big queues outside the fishmongers, butchers and cheese shops this morning as people line up to collect their orders - looking forward to stroll round there in a minute. to soak up the atmosphere.

31 December New Year's Eve

Fizz and Focaccia

My father adhered strongly to the Scottish tradition of first footing, the habit of making sure that the first person to enter the house on New Year's Day was a dark haired male brandishing a sixpence and a lump of coal, to bestow good luck on the coming year. Just before the stroke of midnight, he would leave the house through the back door, then, once the clock had struck twelve, would enter through the front, coal and silver coin in hand. He would sing, too, though I cannot honestly remember what. I do know there was quite a fuss made of the whole charade, which I found both quaint and faintly embarrassing.

Nigel's memories of first footing are the same as mine. I didn't find it particularly quaint as a kid, though, just irritating as the adults were usually slightly annoyingly pissed and overly sentimental in my view. I did used to chuckle sometimes at the fact the chosen first footer was always grasping their whisky in their hand as well as the coal as they stood outside in the freezing cold (I don't think we did a sixpence here)

I can actually get on board now with the actual tradition being rather quaint, however, as I've lived by myself (apart from DD) for 10 years, I've been distinctly lacking any dark haired first footer brandishing trinkets and good luck.

There were a couple of years as a teen, where my Mum would go and put some rubbish out on NYD morning. She would then remember that Dad hadn't done the first footing the evening before. She would then lament for days how she ended up being 'her own first foot' and how unlucky this was going to be.

I don't first foot but I do open the front door at midnight to let the New Year in and then I open the back door to let the Old Year out.

"Old year out, New Year in, who's going to let the lucky bird in?" is what my Dad (from Yorkshire) used to say. Lump of coal left on doorstep for whoever was first in after midnight (preferably my mum as she was the only one with dark hair).

We still stick to the traditional first footing of a dark haired man bringing in a piece of greenery and a lump of coal. I remember as a child in the old fishing area of a small Yorkshire town, it was usual for youngsters (the boys, not the girls!) to go round at midnight knocking on doors, taking a piece of greenery and a lump of coal to wish the occupants a happy new year - and hoping to be the first foot and get a piece of silver in return (a silver threepenny piece, or a sixpence if they were lucky)!

We always do first footing, always go outside and back in again, DH first as he's the darkest haired, although a little more salt and pepper these days 🥰. We are often the only people out on our road no one else seems to be superstitious bothered by the concept.

We usually do a fire pit new years day bit of a tradition and also the winter solstice, welcoming the return of the light, but I fear the wind and rain may stop play. Netflix fireplace might have to suffice, NVN at all though!

We also uphold the first footing tradition here. .we're actually going out tonight to a concert- first hogmanay out in well over 10 (possibly closer to 20) years. It's a concert I really want to go to so the date is largely irrelevant but I suspect will make for an excellent atmosphere. Will have to ensure DH is first in the door when we get home after midnight.

We also do the opening of doors to let the old year out and the new year in. These traditions remind me off my wonderful grandmother- l almost always stayed at her house on Hogmanay as a child. Her neighbours would come in and there would be music and dancing and a few sherries. They wouldn't just stop at throwing a tall, dark, male neighbour into the cold in order to first foot granny's house; we would all trapse around all the neighbours' houses in the street in a sort of conga libe, with the chosen dark person leading the way, so everyone got equal amounts of luck for the year ahead.

@LillianGish The pantomime and late dinner sounds heavenly. I must admit to never having enjoyed New Years Eve once I left childhood behind. The evening seems to last too long and there was always the interminable wait for a taxi.
I hope you have an enjoyable meal with your neighbours. I’m now salivating at the thought of Mont Blanc for desert.
@RainbowZebraWarrior I’ve never experienced this first footing tradition, but judging by the responses here I must be a bit unusual.
I’ve just caught up on the last few days of CC and had to dig out my old stamp albums to relive the glory days of Christmas stamps. I don’t have Nigel’s favourite one (13p stamps weren’t likely to land on our door mat) but I do have a couple of others he mentions. I’ll post a picture in case anyone is interested. The second set includes the‘hippy angel’.

Happy New Year to one and all - Nigel’s celebrations looked more pared down than ever on Insta. Not sure I could ever approach that level of minimalism, but it looks very calming.

1 January. New Year's Day

Anew loaf, soup and salad

The comfort of ritual, the reassurance of the familiar, is important to me. Doing repetitive, domestic things - kneading bread, stirring soup - on the same day each year helps me feel grounded. But that repetition must be seasoned with the new. I don't ever want to stand still. That was lies a score of missed opportunities, not to mention a certain atrophy, physical, emotional and culinary.

Good morning everyone and Happy New Year!

Couldn't agree more with Nigel's sentiments this morning.

@LillianGish that room is just to die for isn't it? So calming as you say. I could never hope to achieve that level of minimalism either. Although when my lounge is tidy, I do find it very calming as I have a similar, muted colour scheme.

Happy New Year, everyone.

I'll be doing lentil soup today (practically law in Scotland to have lentil soup and steak pie on New Year's Day) but will be doing the boring old fashioned kind rather than Nigel's rather fancy spiced version.

I've now got a pan of lentil soup on, too. I also did your 'Welcome the New Year in the front door then go and open the back door to let the Old Year out' last night. It felt rather cathartic.

Really looking forward to the last month's worth of chapters. I actually forgot how much I love this time of year for some things. Like Nigel, I buy heritage vegetable seeds. Also very much look forward to Blood orange season and trying some fresh new recipes after some of the stodge of the Christmas season.

It's a bright and beautiful day here and the birds are sounding rather spring like. I know I will be seeing various shoots starting to poke though soon and I love that. The hellebore, the first snowdrops and the pussy willow are all life affirming and wondrous.

Pantry already had a clear out and washing machine is on a service cleaning wash while the soup bubbles away and the sun streams through the kitchen window.

Happy New Year everyone!

Nigel's room is lovely, but a bit too sparse for me. I hope he is OK.

Beautiful stamps @narniabusiness

I’m making a butternut soup here - a bit more substantial with the addition of lardons and gruyère as a garnish. I also love the the final chapters @RainbowZebraWarrior - I like the way Nigel takes us right through the 12 days of Christmas and then slowly eases us through the dark winter days into February.

Lentil soup here too! I always like this time of year - it feels low pressure. It’s when I get tickets to see plays and shows to brighten up Jan. have put away decorations and the space feels calmer. It all has its season doesn’t it. Might get some hellebores when out.

I see Nigel has also got his pan of soup on, now. Mines done, and I can honestly say it's the most content I've felt over the whole holidays.

Nigel waxing lyrical about stirring soup (a pleasure only matched from stirring risotto) reminded me of winning a soup maker one Christmas in a raffle. I used it once and then gave it away. It took all the pleasure out of soup making (plus it was ugly and I couldn't really see a big difference in time saving)

I was given a soup maker for Christmas a few years ago by a relative @RainbowZebraWarrior and I have never used it as like you I don’t see the point! How do you do all the browning, softening and stirring at the start with a soup maker? Mine is in the back of a cupboard! Reading your post has made me feel much better about it 🤣 My Christmas decs will stay up until the 6th - I love sitting quietly in the twinkling lights.