The Nigel Slater Christmas Chronicles Readalong 2024

[RainbowZebraWarrior]

Hello all, it's nearly that time!

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 begins on 1st November, however there are a good few pages by way of introduction. This is why I start the thread now; so that we have time to prepare and settle in.

A lot of us already have the 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.

I shall post each day and we can share our thoughts and feelings on the day's recipes and sentiments. It's particularly lovely to share any memories and personal traditions (as Nigel himself does)

Note: Reading by candle light can be particularly enjoyable. Cire Trudon may be one of Nigel's favourites but they are somewhat pricey. Share your festive finds here, even if they are at the cheaper end of the scale and possibly NVN (Not Very Nigel)

Pull up a chair, grab a cosy blanket, and light your candle of choice. It's that most wonderful time of the year!

I've lost the plot. I took photos of the next four days entries last night before I went to bed in order to get ahead. When I woke up, I thought "oh it's Remenerance Sunday" so I've obviously equated that with the 11th... it's also still rather dark and I haven't put my glasses or the light on! 😁

10 November

A sweet preserve with a savoury past

<enter mincemeat discussion here>

Right. Glasses on, lamp on, DD now dispatched to the lounge to watch something after monologing in my ear for the past hour. Cat fed after whining at me in the other ear. I'm exhausted and it's not even 9.30. Need a cup of tea.

Some things never change. I still have so many tomatoes and I can't move for hundreds of flipping chillies. I've made chilli jam. I've made spicy tomato soup. I need to make something with these today to get my bench space back. I'm thinking slow cooker arrabiata sauce. I posted a similar picture last year and still have many jars of pickled chillies that i made then. What would Nigel do? I'm going to Google Nigel Slater chillies and see what comes up.

Oh, sorry I forgot who asked, yes I've been in lots of TV and film. Only minor parts / background artist stuff mainly. I was once directed in a part by Susan Tully who is lovely. She directed some of the Line of Duty specials more recently. We get a lot of things filmed here in the North East of England. Most of Virgin Queen was filmed at Alnwick Castle.

Oven dried, Antipasti, Salsa, tomato sauce, smoked tomato & chilli chutney, tomato chilli and feta quiche or frittata's? Chilli oil, Chilli and or tomato paste frozen in ice cube trays for instant use? Chilli chocolate? (I keep meaning to experiment with what it would be like as a drink, as I love it as a solid.) Ferment some of the chilli's in saltwater? Dry some and use as decorations.

Pickle it all, put bows and a good label on and give it out at Christmas?
I suspect you'd make very good use of a dehydrator. (something I keep thinking about as gas gets more costly and the oven's on less.)

Martinmas here is the day everyone's supposed to get together to swap and share out any excess they have, and offload onto anyone who has none.
Red wine is required for a toast! (and any dregs straight into the cooks nips bottle)

Thanks @EphemeraleEudemonia Chilli and tomato paste is a great idea. I think I'll go with the quiche idea too simce our hens are still laying. I've dried them loads over the years and my Mum and Dad have many raffia tied ones hanging above the aga covered in dust I've also made so many bottles of chilli oil and bottled them in other ways. My extended family are largely philistines and the sort that cast a wary eye at home made produce. When I worked in a large organisation it was wonderful as I'd have many grateful staff and colleagues to gift them to. Oh actually, you've reminded me of a couple of new people in DD's life this year who would be grateful for such things. I may also add a couple to my wreath.

I can't do fermented things as they make me poorly these days. It also reminds me of living with Korean friends in Australia where I was fed Kimchi and Bolgogi every day for two months. It's a shame when everyone raves about it for health, but doesn't work for me (awkward body I have!)

I saw a bottle of ginger beer with chilli in the garden centre cafe yesterday and made a mental note to try making that. I like my ginger beer to have a good kick! Maybe one for you @RainbowZebraWarrior .

I came across this quote from Nige earlier today in an article about good advice:
You can grow old, but please don’t ever grow up”
One day, a decade or more ago, I had been laughing about the aches and pains of “growing older”. My best friend and business partner, James Thompson, said: “You can grow old, but please don’t ever grow up.” To this day, I haven’t. I like to think I still have the same curiosity, energy and childish sense of humour I had as a teenager. And what is more, I have no intention of ever “growing up”. I rarely think of myself as too old to do anything I want to or to take anything, including myself, too seriously. It is a piece of advice I hope to take to my grave

I saw that Nigel advice too, Confused. I think it’s a good maxim to go with. My mum (who I mentioned before) was 97 when she died and one of the most young-seeming people I knew. She never lost her sense of humour and curiosity - which was partly why I was hit so hard when she died; despite her great age I just felt she couldn’t ever not be here. Ah well.

On a happier note - I did make it to Søstrene Grene yesterday. A lot of the decorations are NVN, I fear, but I liked the outrageousness of some. A few pics (the ones to the right of the sardine-can are balls of wool).

@NigelAdjacent I like your name! I’m sorry about the headache but glad Nigel and the thread are bringing some comfort.

Been sniggering at the Sostrene Grene direction disruption. Ours is clockwise, but Flying Tiger in the same shopping centre and similarly mini-Ikea-ish but more gaudy is anti-clockwise. I haven’t been into either recently to see Christmas things, but Flying Tiger do often have some beautiful baubles.

Great quote @EphemeraleEudemonia. I also loved this quote in today’s chapter re suet in homemade mincemeat: My feeling is that if you use the packet stuff, creamy white specks in a nostalgic blue, red and yellow, you might as well buy your mincemeat ready-made - instantly dismissing most people’s mincemeat efforts in one fell swoop. I only make my own because I can’t buy it ready made and I leave out the suet (not being able to get the packet stuff here either) and I’m not sure you can really tell the difference.

I love that quote @Confusedmeanderings and I can't remember in which book or interview I've previously read it. I also whole heartedly agree.

Chilli ginger beer sounds interesting. It's also getting me thinking about a Bloody Mary kit I want to put together for my Dad with spicy accompaniments. I keep seeing Chilli Honey in the shops but my Dad has barred me from ever experimenting with this bastardised abomination.

I've made mince and dumplings for my Mum and now I need to start the arrabiata pasta. I also need to strain my latest propolis tincture. I used standard vodka and it doesn't really work very well. It needs to be the 80% stuff in order to fully dissolve the propolis. I have some antique medicine bottles somewhere that I will pour it into anyway.

I succumbed to the chilli honey a couple of months ago, it does seem to be one of the “in” things food-wise at the moment. I bought it after having it drizzled over a pizza (which also had black pudding on it, it was in Scotland) and was surprisingly tasty. It is good drizzled sparingly over Mediterranean style salads, or in a honey and mustard dressing.

@RainbowZebraWarrior might be a bit late now but just catching up - I've been listening to Kate Humbles a year of living simply (which is fab) and remembered she had the same issue with a glut of chilli's and made this - hopefully the link will work!!! www.kathyslack.com/blog/tomato-harissa

Beautiful warm sunny day down here in Cornwall feels like Summer again!! ☀️

@RainbowZebraWarrior Not Nigel but Nigella. She has a great recipe for a chilli jelly. It's in her Christmas book. I've made it a few times and it's really good.

I have to say that Nigel's dismissal of packaged suet in today's entry is one of the bits of the book which annoy me. I make my own mincemeat which enables me to use exactly the quantities of different fruits I want, and to omit the candied peel if I can't get hold of any of the good stuff. I used packet suet but it's still vastly superior to anything I might buy in the shops, even the posh stuff.

Boo to suet snobbery!

or with grilled halloumi

Absolutely agree. He's just so Nigel in this bit, isn't he. I thought for many years that I didn't like mince pies, then one year in a fit of madness kindness (DH loves them) I made my own mincemeat, putting more of the things I like (dried figs, yum) and leaving out the nasties (nuts) and it was a revelation. I haven't looked back; I have used many different recipes (we have lived in Japan and in China so the available ingredients have varied to say the least). At no point have I felt the urge to grate my own suet.
Incidentally, learnt from my time in China where suet was not available, Mary Berry's recipe uses butter instead and is equally tasty.

@piscofrisco ah, we are local to each other! (Or at least, to Stevenage) that is an excellent list of viewing, but not North and South? Makes me cry every time

I made the apricot brandy this morning and we really enjoyed the marmalade pears with vanilla ice cream after our roast chicken. I added mead to the sauce and it made it very rich. Definitely on the "keep list".
i looked online at the candles he recommends for Christmas Day.. I don't think I will be buying one at £90 😂
@JustAMiddleAgedDirtBagBaby i concur with the suet snobbery, I was listening (mine is on audible & PDF recipes) thinking WTAF... it is preposterous to suggest that just because I use packet suet that my homemade delia mincemeat, cooked in the Rayburn, is anything at all like some syrupy mush from the supermarket.
you may as well say if you didn't kill the chicken yourself why bother eating anything other than Chicken McNuggets. I like Nigel's writing and recipes but I think in real life he is probably an absolute crashing food snob bore, a bit like my ex who is has got a Michelin star. God he was boring about food provenance.

I really like it drizzled on baked feta 🤤
I just mix a bit of honey with some sweet chilli sauce. Probably would make Nigel faint at it's supermarket provenance 😂

Nodding at 'syrupy mush' @StiffyByngsDogBartholomew I always think the supermarket stuff looks sloppy. I like a nice, stiff mixture. The sort that would put hairs on ya chest. Totally agree so much love and care (and a boat load of orange liquer) has gone into mine.

By that rationale, if he made a lamb tagine but used shop bought harissa paste should he not have just bought a lamb ready meal from the supermarket instead. Barmy.

I'm happy to mix some chilli flakes or my chilli jam with some honey and use as a dressing. My Dad simply banned me from putting chilli into our jars of honey aka chilli honey and selling it. Which I get as it's a natural product and that's a big part of who we are. We only sell pure local honey that is 100% natural and has nothing added, but people are free to use it with chilli's etc in dressings themselves naturally.

@StiffyByngsDogBartholomew I'm making the marmalade pears tonight except I had much less marmalade than I thought so it is half normal marmalade and half chinese yuzu tea (which does not have tea in but does already have quite a lot of honey, but I had already added the honey so it might just be very sweet). I feel like Nigel maybe doesn't have to contend with other people in his house eating things and not mentioning when they are nearly empty.
If anybody has not listened to 'in and out of the kitchen' from Radio 4, in which Miles Jupp plays a cookery writer who I feel is about 95% based on Our Nige, it is on the BBC sounds app and quite fun

@bigbadbarry I'm listening to 'in and out of the kitchen' whilst busy in the kitchen. It's so obvious within about 5 minutes that it's based on Nigel. The first few minutes when he says he wrote a book about everything he ate in a year I thought "hmmm. Sounds familiar"

I’ve just remembered I used the ‘hot honey’ (funny as we have just been talking about it). It’s pretty gentle, not too much chilli kick, and I think it’s pretty delicious

I meant to add; it's rather brilliant!