The Nigel Slater Christmas Chronicles Readalong 2024 Part 2

[RainbowZebraWarrior]

Welcome all new and old friends.

The journey continues.

Morning everyone! Thank you for the new thread I will catch up later 🥰

Woke up early this morning. Tried to go back to sleep but husband as a cold and was breathing very loudly and the dog was snoring 🙄. So I got up, did a few jobs and settled down with Nigel and a coffee. Another nice recipe but dear lord! How many pans does the man use first his simple suppers. I'm now ahead without realising it.
Some gorgeous photos on the thread. It's a grey day here and the garden looks a little sad so they've cheered me up this morning.
Lunch with friends today and then off to the Lake District to winterise the caravan. @IngenTing's saying made me smile. It's what I say when people are whinging about the weather. Then my family roll their eyes and don their waterproofs. 😂

Just catching up, had such a busy week. DS is okay, and we all went for a evening walk to the park. The children love being out at this time of day.

Good morning all. No entry today. Beautiful bright, crisp day here. Hope everyone has a great day.

Oh and winterise is a great word. Winterise.

Ooh, it's crisp today! Just been for a short walk past out local stately home (Delaval Hall) I am now also very excited for our trip to York tomorrow as Romesh Rangnathan has just informed me that their Christmas Market has started (via the radio, I didn't bump into him in the woods or anything!)

@RainbowZebraWarrior beautiful skies! It’s sodding raining here again (of course it is) and I really need it to stop as we’ve got friends coming for a fire pit tonight

Thank you for the Søstrene Grene recommendation (although my brain insists on calling it SorenLorensen) It was exactly my type of shop and I got loads of goodies. It was also an nice shopping experience- I find a lot of shops nowadays with bright lights and noise utterly overwhelming but this was lovely and muted with gentle christmas music. I felt festive rather than stressed which is my usual shopping mode.

I am going yo sostrene green tomorrow morning. We are staying local for dinner tonight. Excited about both.
I've had a lovely nose around John Lewis this morning and got some bits for dh for our anniversary and some odds and ends for other people for Christmas. I always feel a bit happier when I've had a little stroll around JL's for some reason-something to do with going to the one in Sheffield (now shut) as a child with my Mum maybe. I can still smell how the foyer smelled in that one now-it smelled grown up to me somehow.

I'm on call for a bit this afternoon then out for out anniversary. God bless MIL for doing dog (and child) duty.

Wishing a lovely Saturday to all

Disappointing this week that when a certain food magazine did a recommendation of the best five Christmas cook books they didn’t include Nigel! They did however include Advent and it turned out I already had three of the other four suggestions, a quick internet shop later I now have all five.

Some gorgeous photos the past couple of days. I've just checked the latest forecast for next week. Whoah! The thermals are out ready for our trip to York tomorrow, and the grit bin has been filled. I saw heavy snow forecast for next Saturday, but realised I was still looking at York. Doesn't look like it's going to hit us here in Newcastle so far, but it looks like plenty of the rest of the UK and Ireland are going to get it.

Visiting PIL for MIL's birthday. They've hired a cottage on the Glamorgan coast.

No cooking for me (I get a couple of days off family cooking) so get to complete some crafting in the evenings. Little knitted Gingerbread, that my DD decided needed to climb the plant, and watch the seaview.

Looks like you're about to get some of our weather in York @RainbowZebraWarrior

This is our forecast for the next week. I've got the defa heater and battery charger ready to plug into the diesel car so it starts in the minus temps.

The wind here on the mountain is absolutely howling tonight and the snow has just started. I think we're in for a rough night.

But we're cosy.

Hello everyone, thank you for the new thread. I had a bit of time today, so I made the orange and poppy seed cake, thinking it would keep for a few days. There is now about two slices left 🤣 I'll definitely be making it again soon.

The fire is roaring away, I have just lit my Santa Maria Novella Tobacco Toscano candle (a very special gift to myself whilst in Florence last year), a beef shin ragu is bubbling away on the hob and a glass of red in hand - all set for my daily delve into the Chronicles.

My goodness @IDontLikePinaColadas, that sounds VVN - enjoy your evening!

Wow! Sounds lovely! I got a beautiful terracotta scented pomegranate from there and the fragrance is still there nearly three years later - have you been to the little shop down from Fortnums? On my list to visit one of my favourites 💕

I was there the other day and had to stop myself from buying another one!!

Love that little shop - I bought myself the wax tablets with potpourri scent last year, they still smell lovely.

Hope everyone is suitably snuggly this evening.

@WeMeetInFairIthilien that cottage looks lush. Also, I love the little knitted gingerbread man living his best life!

@IngenTing that weather looks and sounds harsh. I guess you get used to it, but the idea of snow always seems idyllic when you don't have to travel in it, etc.

@Partridgewell I'd say the orange and Poppy seed cake is probably the most favourite recipe here. It certainly doesn't last long in this house (DD likes to cut a generous slice!)

@IDontLikePinaColadas the combination of a roaring fire, Santa Maria Novella candle, a glass of red and beef shin ragu sounds like the perfect evening to me. (And also definitely VVN)

We have been making beeswax rolled candles today, as we are hoping to do a Christmas craft fair in December. DD is very good at it now, having been brought up watching me make them. These particular ones have been made from wax we found in the cupboard under the stairs. We reckon it's around 15 years old. These will go to all of our local farmers along with jars of honey as a Christmas gift and a thank you to them for allowing our bees to be placed on their farms over the course of the year. They aren't necessarily perfect, but still burn well.

Aww, they're lovely!

Gosh how lovely.

I’ve spent 2 days stupidly looking for this thread and it hasn’t shown up in any searches. Finally had the intelligence to message @RainbowZebraWarrior and of course it appeared immediately after I did that. So frustrating!

A NVN week here - dashing about with 2hrs a day driving doing grim stuff to the general public. I don’t know if I mentioned on the last thread but I went to the middle of Lidl for some Jo Malone dupe candles (NVN) & lit the leather and cedar ones for my antenatal classes and they were v well received! In other NVN news I purchased a rubber broom to help get pet hair out the carpet (despite having a pet hair Miele vacuum) & OMG I’m simultaneously impressed an appalled.

DD and I spent the evening baking and made a ridiculous chocolate cake which we will share with our neighbours in the morning. She of course stormed off to bed about 2hrs later over an imagined slight.

Young teens are so tricky and sometimes, very rarely, I would love to shake her and say bloody hell please be a bit more consistently calm because I hate mood swings. I hate them. My own mum left when I was not much older than my DC and I sometimes cannot bear this time of year as it felt so utterly bleak those first couple of years and how we got through it I will never ever comprehend but we did.

Anyway. The slow cooker is back on, steak and ale stew is cooking overnight (again) so we have something lovely to eat on Monday night which is such a frantic evening in our house. Tomorrow I will bake for a work cake sale - will see what Nigel recommends.

Morning, still not feeling great but aiming to get up and read today

@piscofrisco we found the Soestrene Grene shop in Coal Drops yard when I went with friends in August, we shopped, had cocktails and shopped again

17 November

Pork and panforte

Just as I might eat a wedge of butter-soft panettone with shudderingly bitter coffee on a winter's morning, or bream a marzipan-scented slice of stollen after and afternoon spent sweeping up leaves in the garden, I too get a fancy for a tiny triangle of chewy panforte. Looking forward to the gentle slap of sweet spice as much as I do that of Lebkuchen or gingerbread, I am more than a little ashamed that I had to warm to it's honeyed tone when I visited its rust-red hometown, Sienna. With hindsight, I probably though the slim, white packages piled high in every shop were soap.

Good morning, all.

@AgathaMystery I'm so pleased you found us. I stupidly let the last thread fill up which I won't do again. Sending you a massive hug as it sounds like you've had a stressful few days. Also that's so sad about your Mum x

@FiveGoMadInDorset sorry to hear you're still feeling poorly. Hope you can manage to have a restful day. Sending gentle hugs to you too.

@AgathaMystery I feel your early teen pain! I barely see mine now and when I do she is grumpy and horrible to her little brother, who adores her. It hardly seems any time since they loved playing together. I hope this phase passes soon but I may have to get used to it as the new normal.

Otherwise I have not been sleeping well so got up early and there is an orange and poppy seed cake baking in the oven. That's an acceptable Sunday breakfast, right?