As the Turkey leaves the building for 2021 we celebrated with a traditional curry. There is enough for a pie in the freezer but the curry is always the big send off.
Henry VIII was the first English king to serve Turkey at Christmas feasts.I feel a lot like Henry VIII right now. Rotund and somewhat over feasted.
Over feasted yet I wake up hungry in the morning. Deep December is a funny place to live. Mince Pie for breakfast anyone?
This is the start of a good day. A Christmas parcel, missing for 6 weeks turns up in Hong Kong. Miss VV checks the paperwork.
Every two year old needs a new bee.
The box contained more than just the bee, just in case you think we are wicked people who wrapped up something small in a big box.
So by video we get to share the excitement of Christmas in January. And I get to think again about our Christmas Festival @theoldmortuary which looks set to run for a few months yet. Fake Christmas, or Christmas extended is causing some complications. Our ‘Bobbing’ friends are amused by constant Post swimming snacks of Mince Pies.
I groan at the thought of cooking the bargain turkey who is resting in the outside freezer. In early January a local farm advertised frozen turkeys for £20
I booked one and turned up to collect him. He was one huge turkey. Common sense should have pre warned me that the only left over turkeys in 2020 would be massive. Cold and slippy I wrestled the turkey to the car with the same style as I’ve used with drunken work colleagues on the tube, I rested him in the child seat at the back of the car and strapped him in. There were immediately two worries. Would he fit in the freezer.? He does but the only other thing we can get in there is the ice we bought for our non existent Christmas socialising. That was a couple of interesting days of culinary experimentation trying to eat the frozen foods evicted by the Daddy of Turkeys. Worry number two was can we get him in the oven to cook him?
This is a problem, we have no idea which cooker we will be using for Fake Christmas. It’s a worry but nothing a good swig of Christmas Advocaat can’t solve.
Christmas 2020 a never ending feast!
Chapter 1 ended with @theoldmortuary taking time out to enjoy an Easter Sunday Roast. Over the long weekend we had a dig around in food cupboards to see what ingredients we had to make celebratory food even though there are only two of us here.
Mincemeat was the most obvious make, using up dried fruits, marmalade, nuts and suet from Christmas. We had no Brandy so the mincemeat will have the flavour of Cuba.
More Dried fruit and a curiously large amount of ground almonds in the store cupboard lent itself very well to a recipe for Simnel Cake. A very traditional part of British Easter, but not in our house. The closest we had ever got to Simnel Cake was a special edition chocolate bar from Kernow Chocolate company last Easter.
https://www.kernowchocolate.co.uk/
Undeterred by inexperience Hannah set about making the cake and I learnt the sticky art of making home-made marzipan. We were pretty far through the process when we watched Mary Berry making one on TV. Mary appeared to be using shop bought Marzipan!!!! She also burnt her Apostles , the 11 marzipan balls on top, with a blow torch. As luck would have it we have a blow torch, of course we do.
I took before and after pictures just in case the whole blow torching thing went terribly wrong. It didn’t so here is our inaugural Simnel Cake in all its torched glory.
And here is the before shot which was a little more artistically staged.
Here is our main event, it sets the stage for what will be a rather meaty chapter.
Whilst we were enjoying the fruits of our labours, and those of unknown West Country vegetable farmers and a distant New Zealand sheep farmer, other roasty photographs were tumbling into my in box. The first a fabulous Bird Roast from Becky Reep who lives up the river from us in Cargreen.
Unexpectedly some fabulous Greek images came in while we were enjoying supper. Another work colleague from the Heart Hospital, Alayna Malamoutsi sent me this facebook message and photographs from last year’s Greek Orthodox Easter.
“In Greece they fast for 40days in lent. They break the fast Saturday night of Easter weekend with a goat Offal soup.
Then on the Sunday they spit roast a Lamb and the other meat in the photo is kokoretsi (which is offal wrapped round the spit with intestines).
Their Easter is also going according to their Greek Orthodox Calendar. So doesn’t fall at the same time as ours normally. ”
So much meat! Next week Pandemic Pondering#25 will be filled with lockdown Orthodox Easter feasts. It’s lovely to see a normal one with families close enough to hug.
Hugs are the thing I miss most currently.
Alaynas gorgeous lamb pictures lead me to Poland, although not actual Poland as our Polish relations in Poland couldn’t get what they needed for a modified lockdown feast. So no photo’s.
Our Polish pictures and a super tenuous link take us to Truro where Sam, Justyna and VV live. Justyna created Polish breakfast for them all including, Sheep shaped butter.
Less tenuous a link and to balance the somewhat meaty core of this blog, Sam’s sister Jenna and her boyfriend Charlie, isolating in Wimbledon, sent us this beautiful shot of Cinnamon Almond Lentil Stew.
I love it because it gives Chapter 2 such a beautiful full stop.
If Pandemic Pondering Chapter 1 or 2 have inspired you to hunt out or create any feast pictures, either Lockdown or past Real World feasts please email them to me julietcornell@gmail.com. Pandemic Pondering #25 will run until the end of Orthodox Easter next week. I am lacking Passover feasts at the moment.
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