No Christmas can be celebrated without considering all animals. The entire Noah’s Ark will be lit up, festooned with pretty baubles and thousands of flickering multi coloured lights, all provided by a solar panel fastened to the main mast. When reindeer have finished their endless flights over rooftops, they too will be asked to join the party.

The table has been set for twelve thousand two hundred forty four guests including four lions, nine elephants and many birds including a pair of wedge tail eagles, a robin and twenty two sparrows. Milo is at the head of the table ( he insisted on it) well away from the possum family who are safely seated and protected in between the jaguars and hyenas. A solitary skunk will be allowed to crawl around underneath the table after promising he won’t look up any stockinged thighs of belted Galloways.

As a special gesture of goodwill and sweetness AC/DC are providing the music with a few solitary violin pieces by Vivaldi during the eating of the Pavlova in memory of Анна Павловна (Матвеевна)The principal ballerina of the Russian Ballet. It was a special request by Milo, who as some of you might now, has been practising his very graceful leaping up into trees. (to try and kill possums, but we won’t talk about that, will we?).

Even so, we know the animal world is very much involved in feelings (more than many people animals) and even though the pavlova is sweet on popular request they insist on seeing, as is their wont every year, yet again a performance of her ” The dying Swan”. This lovely piece was projected on a large screen.

The whole table became quiet and many looked down on their plate of Pavlova struggling with the eating of something so sweet and at the same time seeing the real Anna Pavlova so graceful, yet so tragic. They reflected on how, they too would, at some stage follow life and succumb, like the swan, to a dying. It was so and no one would ever be denied this final dance. Was it something that could even be looked forward to? Ah, the mystery of life.

The animal world reflected deeply on one of life’s deep questions. One of the elephants had tears in his eyes; he told the giraffe next to him, the Couscous was repeating on him, and he needed to stretch his trunk. Needless to point out that the Christmas dinner was totally vegetarian. One can imagine if a roast pork had been served up or worse, a leg of lamb. The horror, the horror. Even a single prawn would have caused a solidarity of revulsion amongst all the animals.

Milo, in the meantime, felt that the table ought to be brought back to a more cheerful festive mood and decided to pull some crackers with good old silly corny jokes.

Why did Santa’s helper see the doctor?
Because he had a low “elf” esteem!
What happened to the man who stole an Advent Calendar?
He got 25 days!
What kind of motorbike does Santa ride?
A Holly Davidson!
What do you call Santa’s little helpers?
Subordinate clauses!

Happy Christmas to all the animals (and people too, if they stay good) from Milo and his best adult friends.

Tags: Anna Pavlova, Christmas, Анна Павловна (Матвеевна), Russian Ballet, Santa, The dying Swan
Posted in Gerard Oosterman

Posted in Gerard Oosterman

The magnificent Raan Curry for Christmas beckons
December 9, 2013

If the Turkey for Christmas is getting a bit hackneyed and the ham has soured, consider the Raan dish. I won’t bother with giving you the exact details in grams ounces or kilos. Try and create your own Raan by just imagining tasting the combination of the different herbs, spices and ingredients.

You know that if you put in a kilo of salt the dish is likely to be very salty. Cooking is very much anticipating how things will taste by mixing and imagining the taste of the mixed ingredients before cooking. The religious following of recipes with the book propped up against the kitchen whisk is never going to be a surprise. Not as a failed dish nor of a basking in the glory of an unimaginable masterpiece, hailed by Rick Stein, Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver and all your guests for years to come. Take the risk!

So, here we go. The bulk of this dish is mutton or at least a large leg of sheep. You need a well aged leg not a lamb leg although that is permissible as well. This dish is Northern India and as you travel up further north, the Indian cuisine starts to be less chilli hot and becomes more infused with the sweetness of yoghurt and dried fruit, raisins, currants etc. of the Northern regions.

The secret of this dish is that the leg of mutton is allowed to cure or ‘cook’ for about three days in the fridge by the acidity of the marinade. The marinade has to be enough to cover the meat. Voila, you need plenty of good quality yoghurt, the juice of about 4 lemons about 200 grams of raisons and currants, a tablespoon of turmeric, a couple of teaspoons of cinnamon, about 4 red-hot chillies, some cloves and about two teaspoons of cardamom, salt and sugar.

Mix the marinade in a mixer and let stand for about one hour, mix again. In the meantime pierce the leg and insert cloves of garlic. Good juicy garlic and not the cheap Chinese tasteless carton stuff. Poor the marinade over the lamb in a dish large enough to hold the leg.

Put in the fridge and leave for about two to three days occasionally turning the meat.
Then… as the excitement mounts…pre-heat oven to 200c and cook the lamb for about 30 minutes. Turn heat to 160c and cook 45 minutes for every kilo of the meat. It is cooked when the meat falls off the bone. When it does. Turn off the oven. Boil basmati rice.

I was amazed some years ago when we had Japanese students living in our house they were using an electric rice cooker. When I told them I thought the Japanese had invented boiling rice, they smiled politely but they never tried my system. She said, oh no… too risky! Can you believe it?
Here is how to boil rice; Just cover the rice with one finger digit of water on top of the rice and bring quickly to boil without the lid on. When water is disappearing and holes appear in the rice, put on the lid and turn the gas off. Wait for about twenty minutes and the rice should be dry crumbly and cooked. Perfect

Now, this is the important bit… Break the lamb into bite size chunks, put on the plate with the rice and pour some of the marinade over the lot. Some chutney or cucumber with yoghurt as a side dish compliments the dinner. Have it with chilled water with lime slices floating on top. Don’t muck around with wine. It spoils it. Have it afterwards.
Enjoy and let me know the results.

Tags: Curry, India, Jamie Oliver, Japan, Nigella Lawson, Raan, Rick Stein
Posted in Gerard Oosterman |

The running of the XMas Shoppers.
December 6, 2013

There really needs to be an historical investigation on so many different varieties on the theme of Santa. How come there are a dizzying number of personages claiming to be the original Santa. There is the Bishop from Spain with a servant called black Pieter or Pete by its more colloquial name. He travels to Holland on a White Horse. This Bishop wears a mitre with a white beard and despite this neat attire he climbs down sooty chimneys to either bring gifts to good children or a good thrashing to naughty ones.

Today, the 5th of Dec. Saint Nicholas is being celebrated in Holland. There is wild uninhibited dancing on the streets and herrings are being freely traded on the Amsterdam Bourse and Dam Square.

He, the Bishop of Spain as mentioned before, hails (logically) from Spain and he mucks around in Holland on the 5th of December when the good children are scared witless by black Pieter (Pete). However, the presents make up for the scary bits and the Dutch children’s tears soon dry up. In Spain no one has heard about him. A bit like that Dutch fable of someone holding a finger in the dyke; world famous legend except totally unknown in The Netherlands.

Of course in winter the Dutch during Santa’s ride over roofs don’t have fires going. Just imagine the ire from the Bishop singeing his mitre or blackening his beard while clambering down a red-hot chimney? Most Dutch families therefore sit in the dark corner of the room, shivering, while staring at the chimney. His future is in doubt while many are now claiming poor old black Pete to be a product of racism. There is no peace or understanding in traditions anymore. All is tinged with pc. When will it stop?

Then there is an Anglo/American Santa. He rides in a sleigh pulled by reindeer and is hailed from Finland or Disney Land. He humms and does ho, ho, ho. In Finland there are bits of Sibelius’ ‘Finlandia’ thrown in for good measure. In Lapland he is also known as Father Christmas not so much as Santa. He brings presents on Christmas Eve. He is a more generous version than the pure Anglo Santa by giving presents to both good and naughty children. The only thrashing in Lapland is of the stubborn reindeers. In England of course, especially during Charles Dickens days both children and reindeer got daily beatings, keeping it all in the hallowed tradition of ‘teach the bastards a good lesson’. 😉 It is all so complicated.

They escape blame now by pointing out that the nasty Santa comes from Swedish Lapland. It is confusing especially when over the last few years children are put on soft bosomed female Santa’s knees. So many bishops have done bad things no one trusts the male clergy of any domination in England. In Australia too, male Santa has been put on the backburner. He is skulking at home and suffers from deep depression. The male Santas now seek counselling but end up kicking the cat and are nasty to bank tellers.

The female Santas in the meantime do a roaring trade with the mums and no doubt get a sling back from the photographer immortalizing the littlies in black and white.

I don’t know the cultural intricacies of Santa/and or Bishops in America. They have a mixture of both and I have heard that turkeys are involved. They traditionally eat turkeys at Thanksgiving but also eat them a few weeks later again, with relish (or without relish) at Christmas. They, the turkeys must be terribly nervous there.

Thanksgiving is when many Americans dance around haystacks and hand bound sheafs of wheat, all spread in neat rows on the stubbled yellow land, not unlike a Vincent’s painting. In the evening they partake of a large oven roasted turkey with a dessert of pairs of pared pears and fresh cream.

Lately, the turkeys have been given presidential pardons so, they go gobble, gobble even lustier, till…come Christmas and Santa holding a sharp cleaver hidden up his sleeve, creeps behind many a hapless (and soon headless) turkey. Turkeys then prefer to lay low hidden in the crofts of old leaning sheds and at the back of very rusty Ford utilities resting underneath old willow trees.

You can tell Santa is getting close when “the running of the shoppers” start. The atmosphere within giant shopping Malls, the holy Mecca for shoppers, crackles with static combustion caused by the frantic fanatical movements of shoppers running manically en masse through shopping aisles. Huge hams are being fought over. Children get smacked ripping into overblown sized bags of Violet Crumble bars while sitting in the trolley on top of mum’s bacon rashes. Husbands look pale, frightened and wait in Japanese cars below in grim concrete parking bunkers. From Germany a report is coming in from someone being beaten senseless by a frozen turkey that was being swung around by an elderly gent, overcome by the relentless jingle bell, jingle bell chiming.

Garlic bread is suffering a late run and so are crumbed calamari, stuffed olives and jars of maple “flavoured’ syrup.
One young lady wearing a T-shirt which had ‘fu*k U’ written on it, went for some early snifters of Christmas spirit. She was found spreadeagled over at ‘smallgoods’ on top of a raw Kiev chicken that had been pre-marinated in Finland Vodka.

Many Santas now do courses in self esteem with the help of white boards and large textures while also throwing pillows at each other. Is it any wonder? Who can blame them/

Dear Santa, give us our daily rye bread with just a slice of smoked salmon. (A Dutch croquette would be nice too.)It all taste so good and nice.

Tags: America, Amsterdam, Black Pieter, Finland, Santas
Posted in Gerard Oosterman |

Posted in Gerard Oosterman

The Christmas Present
December 3, 2013

Each year we face the challenges of Christmas presents. Already featured on the news, amazing tales of spending are spun. ‘Billions in the next few days,’ an announcer declares standing in front of an apartment store. Beads of triumphal materialism are glistening on his face. He mops his brows. His hands gesticulate and give emphasis to his prophesies of enormous spending. This is expected to be seen by the viewer of proof of our wellbeing. Shop till you drop is now going like wildfire, ambulances are heard screaming their way to those that have dropped. Many shoppers are on the streets carrying large bags emblazed by large letters. A man is sitting near the corner holding a sign, ‘I am homeless.’ His head is down.

There is also a war to the death being fought. E-Bay is the Trojan horse that has entered our shopping habits. Apparently many now shop in front of a screen and rarely move outside. Wardrobes are piling out with bargains. Anything under $1000.- is GST or VAT free. A dream come true. And we don’t have to go anywhere! Beauty. It just seems odd to buy clothes and not then go outside to show them around. What is it all about?

Men are buying computers or E-Pods/pads/tablets/routers/ and tweet to the world of their prudent shopping, all on E-Bay. Fishing rods with spinners, even leather jackets and bike helmets. The electronics bought from E-bay can then be used to ferret out even more E-Bay bargains. So it goes on. I wonder what I have done wrong to be totally outside the loupe of the E-Bay world of excitement.

For years now I have often missed out buying cheap things. I just can’t for the life of me think up something that I might like. My E-reader is lost somewhere.After all that concern about my eyes deterioration I still prefer a normal book. The E-book reader was about the last ‘thing’ I bought. I downloaded ‘War and Peace’ just to prove I still had the technical nous.

I don’t wear ties and only use paper handkerchiefs. Who wants to put a used hanky back in one’s pocket? That leaves socks or a meccano set. I bought Norwegian socks that are life long wearing. After 16 years of wear I darned one hole in each sock near the heel, using a hard boiled egg. Afterwards I ate the egg with a little salt.

With the meccano set I lost the Alan Key. I don’t normally skateboard or do twirls on a bicycle which seat has been lowered to the frame. I have become a man without wanting presents. I really would not know what I could still want to buy. I like a hug or a nice compliment, an unexpected kiss, a pat or stroke. Who doesn’t? I get all that and more. Why want to shop for an E-Bay gadget or tool. Should I buy a Pierre Cardin suit? I would look silly and self conscious. I am happy in jeans.

A garden for both of us is the ultimate gift and is free. Here is our garden that Helvi has managed to transform from an original bit of wasteland with ugly exposed paling fences. Have a look at it now. How can an E-pad or Louis Vuitton handbag compete with this?

Tags: E-pads, GST, Trojan horse, VAT
Posted in Gerard Oosterman |

Well, almost empty.