The Nigel Slater Christmas Chronicles readalong 2025 - Part 2

[RainbowZebraWarrior]

Hello all, and welcome to Part 2. We Continue our CC journey.

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 Christmas Chronicles (Notes, stories and 100 essential recipes for midwinter) book began on 1st November.

We continue to read along and comment with the book which is set out in diary form. I will make a post each day (or let you know if there is no entry on a particular day)

Some regulars to the thread already have the book. For anyone new, it's a challenge to see of you can pick up a bargain. Vinted has come up trumps in the past, as has ebay. A rare and precious charity shop find is always a bonus. Don't forget, you can also listen along to Nigel's dulcet tones via Audible.

So, welcome to old friends and new, and don't forget that reading by candle light is particularly enjoyable. Cire Trudon may be one of Nige's candles of choice, but it's somewhat pricey. We don't discriminate against other less expensive brands - even if they are NVN (Not Very Nigel)

Pull up a chair, light a candle, grab a cosy blanket and join in!

@Strawberryfield12 I absolutely love Dennis Severs House. It is so atmospheric. What an amazing place to have lived. A stroll around Spitalfields and a curry on the curry mile afterwards is also good! The insta account princeletdrift might be one for you.

We are currently away for a weekend enjoying the delights of flamenco and art in Spain. Will update on our return.

Happy Sunday everyone.

What a lovely post @RainbowZebraWarrior this thread really is the nicest thing on the Internet. I don't go crazy for Christmas as my parents never did, but my husband and in laws feel quite differently and I often feel like they don't believe I can do a 'proper' Christmas. I can! It's just more low key.
Anyway the tree is going up today, it probably won't be to their taste but I don't care. (Can you guess I've just spent a week away with the inlaws?!)
On a different note, I would love to visit Dennis Severs house @RainbowZebraWarrior

I love a house full of teens @frozendaisyi hope it was suitably boisterous!
Thankyou for the tip about Denis Severs House @Strawberryfield12that looks right up my street!
You are very right about chicken nuggets and moments of calm @RainbowZebraWarrior. wise words and today I am going to listen. Our day out yesterday was somewhat fraught with the DSS’s bickering and fighting and tbh spoiling what could have been a lovely afternoon and I didn’t feel great at all.Being a step mum is a sticky wicket sometimes as it’s hard to find the right line on telling them off for poor behaviour. What I would have not accepted from my own DD’s is very different to what I feel I must accept in them and it’s an internal struggle at times.
Chelsea winter village was nice-much better than The Hyde park monstrosity and a relative bargain at £20 if anyone is London based and fancies it. Sloane Square looked gorgeous all lit up and a Ralph Lauren pop up, beautifully styled, in the middle. It made me miss living in London. Not with children though as they make it doubly expensive and very stressful. But that’s the way it goes with tweens and teens sometimes I suppose-best laid plans and all that.
Today I have woken up feeling full of cold AGAIN! For heavens sake.I was meant to be going to Birmingham to meet a friend but I’m not up to it at all (2 hour trip), So it will be a slow Sunday -bit of house stuff, short dog walk, need to pop into town to buy some face schizzle I’ve run out of -then a Christmas concert at Burghley House at 6 that I’ve been looking forward to for ages and which I’m going to, cold or no! Going on my own as DH forgot that he has to take DSS2 to some football thing and he will kick up if he doesn’t get to go, but tbh I actually think I will enjoy it more on my own-2 hours of perfect peace somewhere beautiful will be just the ticket I hope.

I might also attempt some slow cooker fudge. It could go either way I fear-and I might end up with a concrete like substance in my slow cooker but I expect it will smell nice whilst it’s going.

Have a lovely Sunday all

Whoops posted too soon and quoted the wrong person sorry!

Good luck for your cake @PrizedPickledPopcorn. As the worst baker in the world it would be far beyond me!

Good morning all! At football with the child. It's cold and grey but we saw a huge rainbow on the way.
I'm going to make crackers for cheese when we get in. I fancy experimenting with seeds and herbs.

I've been reading everyone's posts but work has been so manic and I've been poorly so I'm just lurking at the moment really.

Loving the flamenco pic @Bimblesalong

I have crashed and burned today, and not made it to concert number two of the weekend. Well, I made it, nearly passed out in the church toilets, and was bundled off home again. Feeling very sorry for myself and frustrated that my normal ability to push through tiredness has gone missing. And that I still have to do all the normal things because there's nobody else here to make me a meal or a cup of tea.

On the plus side, being on my own means things are actually quieter from now onwards to Christmas - once I've posted presents there's not really any prep to do other than get myself some food in. I have got a friend staying over one night this week which will be really nice for the company, plus she's absolutely no hard work at all and won't care how much I've tidied up or not!

We had a huge rainbow this morning, and I’m not a million miles from Burghley, though I’ve never been. Some of us could be really close neighbours and never realise!
My cake has gone well, thank you Pisco. The raw mixture was divine. I hope the cake is too! I was startled to realise there’s no spice in it! No pinch of clove, shake of allspice or spoonful of cinnamon!
The question now is whether to feed, and with what. I have citrus syrup from the candied peel, I could add vodka and feed it with that. I do at least like that. Rum or honeyed whisky I don’t much like. I generally like my alcohol in a glass rather than in food!
My preparations were scuppered by the want of red food colouring. Turkish delight and coconut ice are on the to do list. As is quince curd, if I can find some jars.
Those crackers sound good, @DarkEyedSailor! Gosh. I could cook all day if I had nothing else to do. It’s so satisfying!

@martha79 and @piscofriscoand everyone else who’s under the weather- get well soon!

I was missed off the flu jab list, so am avoiding very busy places. Sat at the back of the Nativity this morning, and left at the first opportunity. Curmudgeonly of us, but don’t fancy sharing the air with all the world! 🤣

Dennis Severs house sounds amazing! Will go after Christmas.
I made Christmas cakes today - one for PIL and the other for DH’s godfather’s wife who is a friend of the family. I favour a v dark recipe from Dan Lepard https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/nov/27/caramel-christmas-cake-recipe
I don’t even eat dark fruit cake but the others love it. Made with copious amounts of rum!

Fruit cakes are one of the easiest things ever to make.

I finally feel as though things are a tiny bit more Christmassy here. I got up relatively early to go and do some essential grocery shopping, then came back and made (in quick succession) bread, soup (from Jerusalem artichokes from the garden, with home-made chicken stock), and then settled down to wrap my Christmas presents. It’s 95% certain that we’ll be going away for Christmas now, so I really needed to do them before we go rather than leave it till the last minute. They’re now in a very un-glam cardboard box waiting to go in the car in due course.

I’m rather embarrassed by just how much nice wrapping paper I have - a legacy from the days of the Paperchase sales, when I used to go slightly mad in their flagship Tottenham Court Rd store. It also made me nostalgic for the other lovely shops I used to go to in London in years past - like Neal Street East, which was a wonderful source of inexpensive stocking-fillers. There just don’t seem to be places like that any more.

The Nutcracker live stream was wonderful. Brunch was lovely too. I had baked oats for the first time. Rather cake like. I had them with Greek yogurt and banana.

Today's moment with saint Nigel has caused me to remember that I haven't ordered any Turkish delight so I have just rectified that ommission via NVN Amazon.

On the home strait work wise now. I have a couple of tough meetings tomorrow and will need to shore up my team to get them to the end of the week when most will finish. I am on leave after Friday but I think I will check in with the skeleton team holding the fort next week given how things were last week.

I feel rather too organised at the moment and keep wondering what I have forgotten to do or buy!

@Hendiadys "It also made me nostalgic for the other lovely shops I used to go to in London in years past - like Neal Street East, which was a wonderful source of inexpensive stocking-fillers. There just don’t seem to be places like that any more."

I find Flying Tiger isn't bad, but it doesn't have anything like the quirkiness of Neal Street East. And places like Oliver Bonas used to be good but they're SO expensive now. Online, I like Present Indicative and Wicked Uncle, but, again, not cheap.

I am feeling a bit more Christmassy too. I bought some random presents earlier; the tree is up and I have a candle going (Diptyque Amande Exquise from several years ago, which I excavated from the back of a drawer). I've been listening to some Christmas music too (Bach Christmas Oratorio and Bing Crosby!) as I realised I have really only been listening to podcasts for ages.

Brilliant selection of paper there. I miss Paperchase at this time of year too!

I try only to buy wrapping paper that's overprinted brown paper these days, for biodegradability, but there's a part of me that misses the shiny stuff from before!

I hope everyone is able to start relaxing and getting into the Christmas spirit soon, it sounds very tough for some of you. We finished some of the main Christmas sweet tidbits, some very lovely lemony fig roll biscuits and sourdough stollen (with homemade marzipan) - yummy. :)

Bah! Stollen picture didn't post.

Those look absolutely gorgeous, @sbplanet ! Though at first I read it as though you'd finished eating, rather than cooking...

Can't believe it is Sunday evening already!

We're all at the tail end of a cold/cough, so have all been feeling a bit sorry for ourselves. Very much counting down the days to the end of this week.

Hope everyone else is feeling a little better.

We had a very misty, cold morning, and then went on our traditional Santa Express steam train. My late Grandad was obsessed with steam trains, and always used to take me and my DSis on a steam train to see Father Christmas, every December.

We lost him in 1996, and when I got my current job, I knew it was the right one, as there was a heritage railway line at the end of the road. We've taken the DC there every year since they were born. The lamp there always puts me in mind of Narnia.

Had a gentle run around the park this morning, with the DC on their scooters. It was lovely to be out in the wintry sunshine.

Edited for SPAG

We have a tree!
it’s not decorated
but it’s in a stand drinking water
3 teens carried it back we just paid

I made our final roast before Christmas Day

and the teenagers are fucking useless in a crisis - far too long to explain - needless to say headless chickens would’ve run circles around them - at least we know they are not gang material- so that’s something!

Christmas baking to the fore today for drinks with the neighbours - mince pies with homemade mincemeat and DD’s Christmas biscuits. The mince pies always require an explanation - they are so ubiquitous in the UK, but virtually unknown here, I always have to explain what is in them, but they always go down well. Lovely wrapping @Hendiadys - beautiful paper and it looks like you had the good sense to buy things which are easy to wrap.

Meant to add, the Santa Express sounds magical @WeMeetInFairIthilien. My DS would have loved that as a child. I got out all his old wooden train track and Thomas the tank engine trains for a little boy at our party today - he had no idea who any of the characters were, but he was absolutely captivated. It reminded me how much my life was dominated by trains 20 years ago. Where has the time gone?

@LillianGish I didn’t show the bottle - which just has tissue paper round it and is in a gift-bag! Delicious-looking mince-pies there…and @sbplanet your stollen look so good too…

@LillianGish thank you, yes, it is magical. From my Grandad, I love steam engines, and we've always gone on them.

Littlest is also obsessed with trains, and loves the Thomas books. He and his sister, who is almost 10, will still fill the living room floor with a wooden train set, and play for hours. In face, both DC have a Brio loco for Christmas that propels itself and makes smoke (has a water diffuser inside).

DH once commented that he'd have loved to meet my Grandad, who had a Hornby model railway up in his loft, as DH always wanted one as a child. His family placed value on experiences (private school, exciting holidays abroad, summer camps), rather than physical presents.

I gave him his own Hornby set that Christmas, which we always get out at Christmas, and he loves to play with it and the children. In fact, one of the reasons for having our loft boarded, is so that we can all play trains up there!

Am a little teary now, such lovely memories.

Have a good day, all.