By Vivienne
My main aim for Christmas is to have everything organised so that between Christmas and the New Year I do not have to do any shopping at all. It is a holiday week and that means nothing but having a good time with the family. So this means some planning and extra stocking of the pantry. The check list is crucial – lots of beer, wine, turkey, ham, quality long lasting fruit and vegetables, all cars full of petrol, housework totally up to date (ugh) and a double check that I have enough frozen Aussie raw prawns and scallops as the seafood shop closes for what seems like three very long weeks.
The biggest task is actually fitting everything which needs to go in the fridge in the fridge. Years of practice usually sees success but it is not easy. Making room for the important liquid refreshments means there is a battle between the fruit juices, mineral waters and the milk. Unlike some people we cannot survive on nothing but ouzo. We have some serious beer drinkers and wine buffs in the family. One rule which must be obeyed is always replace the beer removed from the fridge or else there will be no cold beer later on.
We have tried a cold Christmas meal but some said, yes, but, yes, but … we still want your roast potatoes and the best roast carrots in the world! It was a bit odd really so I continue with the whole roast turkey and vegetables spread. We have it as a late lunch/early dinner. No getting up early either!
About 11 am sees me preparing the stuffing for the turkey. Herbs are my own homegrown and dried. The turkey is soon in the oven and the various vegetables are all prepared. The dining table gets a make over and looks rather good.
At around 2 pm we start to enjoy ourselves. We begin with various cheeses and my smoked trout and pickled water melon rind, anchovy stuffed olives (the whole family is now hooked on them) and chicken liver pate. Next up will be an old fashioned prawn cocktail. Then it is time for the turkey and pulling bonbons. The wine courses usually commence with the sparkling shiraz/durif and then it is over to my wine buff daughter to choose what’s next. After that it is have whatever takes your fancy (there are two different single malts in the ‘cocktail’ cabinet). There is no pudding on offer as everyone is too full to even think about it (one year it was on the ‘menu’ but was left forlornly untouched). You may wonder about the ham – well that is for general consumption with salads before and after Christmas.
In the days which follow we will head up the mountains to pick berries to eat and freeze for coming months. It is a lovely day and apart from the last three years when the drought and fire buggered up the crops it is something we have done for 25 years. We will also head out to the Rutherglen area, buy some more wine and have a beautiful lunch at one of the wineries. In between times there will be much watching of cricket and some DVDs as well as playing Monopoly and Scrabble.
My immediate family is small. I am the only child of an only child. Of my two daughters one has a ‘bloke’, a long term partner – he is part of our little family. His parents can’t join us this year. Some years we have an interstate visitor but not this year. The five of us will have a lovely and loving time and that’s how we like it.
This is half of my herb garden. The photo was taken very recently and since then the oregano has commenced to flower. Unseen is the sage and mint (behind the rosemary). Elsewhere is more thyme, parsley, garlic and regular chives and aloe vera (to soothe itchy scratches etc.)
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Sorry I haven’t commented before now Vivienne, but I’m glad that you all had a lovely christmas… me, I just like to ignore it until it goes away; hence the tardiness of my comment. Hope you all have a wonderful New Year too… and many of ’em!
😉
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Good to hear from you astyages. Not to worry – we are not religious but we do enjoy the holiday and my little family all together.
Yesterday we did the Rutherglen area and had a truly fabulous lunch at the Pickled Sisters which is attached to Cofield’s winery out of Rutherglen. We then went to our favourite winery Mt Prior and replenished some favourite drops including the sparkling Shiraz/Durif and Late Picked Riesling.
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Well we went up the mountains for our berry picking expedition yesterday and I am sorry to say it wasn’t what it used to be. I phoned the orchard in the morning and was assured there were plenty of berries for the picking. Well, there weren’t. New owners took over three years ago and made some changes. Ripped out original vines and planted new ones. They obviously weren’t in full bearing stage and the cooler weather meant they weren’t ripening as usual. All we managed was 2 kilos of raspberries. No brambleberries worth picking. All other berries not even nearly ripe. Chap said there were plenty of ripe ones but all picked out in the morning. That was a lie. We did enjoy ourselves but it was very disappointing. To top it off the price had gone up 50%. And … their home made berry icecreams weren’t much chop either – in fact, not even icecream – some strange slush. Daughter No.1 had told her bloke how wonderful it all was and his first experience did not live up to her description.
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What is a “brambleberry”, Viv ? Is it something like a boysenberry ? In my last year of Ag Sci, I picked fruit and enjoyed a sunny but impecunious summer rich in Vitamin C and replete with tattooed hands from the red berries and the spikes on the canes.
I hate bullshit artists like the lying hounds you encountered. They have no foresight. Now for the price of a post at the Pig’s, several million visitors to the Pig’s Arms will be aware of their time-limited scam. Blast their eyes !
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To make matters worse Emmjay – today I spotted that they had an advert in yesterday’s local paper saying a b c d e etc varieties of berries all available for picking. These new owners must have no tastebuds. The place itself looks great but I think they must have put off repeat customers.
Brambleberries are bigger, juicier, darker than the others. They are truly fabulous eating. They freeze well too. That was another reason for the disappointment. I have no supplies for the year other than 8 packs of raspberries. It was hard work finding those 2 kilos. I probably should go back there in a couple of weeks but I am still feeling p….d off.
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Mornington Peninsula, Vivienne. Great raspberries. The lady behind the counter said to only keep them one day for fresh eating. I doubt the area relies on fresh produce for a living; Melbournites descend upon it during the day. I don’t think I’ve ever had such fresh squid at a café though, and the pie (chicken and leek) and chips at another café, served with their own chutney, was to die for.
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Mornington is a bit too far for a day trip. I’m 22kms northish of Albury. Your lady is dead right – just one day after picking – that’s why 95% of our mini bounty went straight into the freezer.
I spent the first 20 years of my life in Melbourne and we used to go to Mornington penin. to gather fresh mussles by the bucket load. In those days there were no cafes offering delicious squid or home-made pies and home-made chutney.
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Aren’t ‘brambleberries’ more commonly known as ‘blackberries’? In fact, Emmjay, if I’m not mistaken, loganberries are a genetic cross between blackberries and raspberries… all these fruits are related, I understand.
🙂
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They certainly are black when ripe but they are not the common blackberry which basically grows wild and is prickly and small. No prickles to worry the picker. I think this particular variety came from the USA.
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Vivienne your herb garden is obviously thriving. But your turkey presentation is a total triumph!
I was lucky enough to choose this year to indulge in a few unchallenging new plants, including golden marjoram (very similar to growing oregano as you would know) that has proved to be a good choice for underplanting roses since it releases its fragrance as I step on it while pruning. The foliage colour provides good interest as well.
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Thanks Voice. The turkey photo is courtesy of our skilled editor. My daughter has been taking large clumps of herbs for her fellow workers who have snapped it up with glee. The mint died about 13 years ago but this year’s fantastic rain brought it back to life so I can make my own mint sauce once again.
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Viv,
Is that rosemary flowering in the background? What a lovely herb that is. Fry it with chopped up anchovies and add to any dish, yum.
I am tolerant of most things but not vegemite. How anyone can open that jar and look deep inside that brownness and then spread it over bread is beyond me. But then again, I noticed the thousands and thousands of Australians with many tourists packing the cricket stadium and having the time of their lives. I have learnt to live with both, and cheerfully watch others eat vegemite and watch the glorious game of cricket, both at the same time.
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That is some lavender in a large pot. It was for my daughter’s essential ingredients for making nice smelling, sleep inducing hankies for under the pillow. The rosemary is used fresh and dried for lots of things in the food line as well as a soothing foot bath.
Gerard, I love vegemite. I think you have to grow up with it so it is not surprising you find it beyond you. Have to agree with you about cricket.
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For all it’s looks and taste, Gerard, Vegemite is a wonderful source of B-complex vitamins… I grew up with Marmite, and it still took me many years of ‘getting used to’ Vegemite… but now I can eat it without any qualms, even though it’s been declared ‘unfit for human consumption’ in the USA (so was kale when I was a kid; it was grown locally, but supposedly only as a feed for livestock; but I’m pretty sure our school kitchens fed it to us as ‘cabbage’ anyway! No matter; kale is also high in the same vitamins, minerals and iron as cabbage…).
On the other hand, ‘rape seed oil’, which we now call canola oil, was also seen as ‘unfit for human consumption’, and from what I’ve heard, it still is… I try to avoid using it myself, but it’s in nearly everything one buys if one uses prepared meals at all…
😉
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Interesting comment about canola oil. At home I only use peanut oil and virgin olive oil (local). I think most fish and chip shops use canola – at least some actually have a sign up saying what oil is used and suggest canola is ‘healthy’. I do try to avoid cooking in oil and pretty well restrict it to calamari rings and crumbed scallops and the occasional tempura fish (as readers would already know).
I checked the berry orchard’s website and the brambleberries are indeed of the USA and can be called blackberries.
Tonight? my tandoori chicken and lamb curry with papadums and various accompaniments, beer and wine.
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Viv, what I have missed most is the second fridge that we left on the farm…
We kept it in the laundry and used to put it on when visitors came,and turn it off when they left. With family here for Christmas , and some of them staying longer, we were ready to rush and buy a second one for the garage, but don’t have do it now as Daughter has a spare in her garage which we can pick up…
You seem an extremely well organised lady, Viv, we are not quite so good here, and having the grand-kids staying with us during the holidays, one often has to abandon one’s plans and just go with the flow…
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Ah, yes Helvi, the second fridge. Used to have one too. I am well organised but also completely able to go with the flow. I just can’t bear all this last minute shopping people seem to thrive on – in the country it seems to bring out idiots who lose a lot of normal abilities, like being able to drive properly, manners go out the window. So I avoid it the best I can.
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“Unlike some people we cannot survive on nothing but ouzo.”
That was cruel, Vivienne! We also have baklava, you know! Sometimes we also eat pastourma… though this Xmas, my nephew’s house, where the party was held, looked like your fridge: You couldn’t walk into it for all the food! Four huge tables in his huge lounge room were brimming with plates and platters and glasses and goblets screaming out, “take me, take e, take me, me, me!” And these were not the only tables! Three more out in into his back yard and two upstairs where he had music going. A CD he put together, where the music alternated between Greek Rembetica -for us oldies- and all sorts of other anglophonic stuff. He had the volume so well sorted out that from downstairs, one could either tune in and hear what he liked or tune out and go on talking about philosophy, love or footy.
French wine, Oz wine, whiskey, ouzo and Retsina. The wine and the whiskey was barely touched. The Ouzo and the retsina was given the warmest Xmas greeting.
The pickled watermelon rind sounds intriguing. Pickled in what, Viv?
The trips to the mountains sounds fantastic. Walks with people one loves are always enormously pleasing. It reminds me of my young days in Greece when that’s precisely what the whole village would do. Walk around in family groups from one village to another and, at Xmas, when it was freezing -snow and sleet everywhere, we’d walk from house to house, stay there for a while, eat chest nuts roasted in the fire place, figs, cheese and olives, tell ever-expanding stories of Turkish occupation and oppression, before us, kiddies would fall asleep in someone’s lap…
Don’t know what’s ahead in the coming days around here. Most probably more roaming about from house to house with more eating and drinking and people yelling at me, “watch your diabeticals, George!” Fools! Don’t they know it’s Xmas? No one can suffer from diabeticals at Xmas! Santa just wouldn’t allow it.
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Ato – pickled water melon rind recipe is in one of my Kitchen stories. It really isn’t pickled but that is how it is described and what it was called when I first came upon it about 30 years ago. It is in a syrup really.
Your day sounded just lovely.
The mozzies are bad here owing to all the rain – more of it yesterday, big thunder storm. My aloe vera is coming in very handy – bits of it all around the house.
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I think Santa came out on strike too, ato… after a bad case of the blues! (Hmmm, maybe there’s a third verse for my song in there somewhere! BTW, loved your entry in the christmas psalms/blues competition, ato!)
🙂
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Vivienne love the look of your herb garden. The only thing growing well in mine at the moment is cooch.
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Thanks Algy – I’ve kept the same plants going for 30 years. Some are all originals and others are from the annual seeds of each generation.
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We have sone herbs growing in our herb garden from our time living in a unit over 20 years ago. We do nothing for it and they still grow. We let the continental parsley go to seed and let grow where it likes as well. its lal surrounded by gerberias that have been growing here since the ’50s.
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Merry Christmas Viv. Being gluten and lactose intolerant I am surprised at how normal my xmas day meals are. Buckwheat and honey pancakes for breakfast, seafood for lunch and ham and cheese toasties for tea. This is the best way to eat gluten free bread. Wine must not have being clarified by milk and the local sells a gluten free pale ale by O’Brien.
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You seem to have the hang of the gluten free – not hard, unless you were a fan of cakes. Glad you found the O’Brien beer – my daughter says it tastes just like any good beer.
Our food fare went off extremely well but we decided to have the cheese platter for dessert. We put quite a hole in the wine cellar.
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Hung, if your lactose intorerant (my youngest sister is the same as you) how do you eat cheese.
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It is strange, my daughter is lactose intolerant but cheese does not bother her. Or it could be luck.
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Viv, there are degrees of lactose intolerance. I was tested for the problem and I make about half the lactase (the enzyme for digesting lactose) that a Caucasian my age usually makes. So if I have only small amounts of milk, I sneak past. And natural yoghurt is OK because of the lactobacillus bacteria that digest the lactose for us. Same for cheese. But if I was to drink a whole milkshake, I’d overwhelm my supply of lactase – and then the lactose sugar passes into the large intestine and the bacteria there run riot on this free source of energy. It’s their by-products that cause the problem.
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I’m just intolerant!
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Yes, that is what I figured. Just don’t drink four glasses of milk a day and you’ll be right. Like the gluten thing – you could be uncomfortable or feel like you are about to cark it.
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Thanks for clearing that up Emm, I was unaware of the degrees. I know with my sister it has the potential to open up the sluices at both ends.
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It sure does, Algy. My family get edgy if, for example I am given over to buying say, an ice cream or maybe even a lime spider. I know they get edgy because they wind down the car windows a little bit 🙂
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Algernon, Aged cheese is fine as the lactic acid is converted to something else. Can’t eat Brie and the like but cheddar and parmesan are fine.
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Can’t eat brie!! My deepest condolences.
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Well that’s a relief for you Hung, some of the more interesting cheeses are the aged. Sister doesn’t eat any. Are you able to eat goat and sheep cheeses or do they create the same problems.
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Alge, Hung looks very sad in that painted picture, I don’t think he can drink any Shiraz or eat hard cheeses 🙂
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Guess what is one of our new favourite cheeses …. Dutch Sheep Cheese. And, that is its name – little joke as I had forgotten its name and asked my Francois, what was that dutch sheep cheese called? Dutch Sheep Cheese he replied. It has a hint of parmesan to it. This year’s holiday selection was the DSC, a d’Affinois brie, Castello and a beautiful aussie cheddar.
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Dear Viv, very best Christmas to you and your family…(too busy today with all things Christmasy to read and write today) 🙂
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