Delia Smith, an icon of the BBC Cooking shows.

During the year there are lots of Holidays and the food offered is usually the same. The dishes go with the idea or spirit of that holiday. It seems that turkey is always coming back and if not turkey then its burgers or hot dogs. I am thinking here of Victoria Day in May, that is the start of the Summer Season and Cottage opening time, so a Bar-B-Q is de rigueur. Then Canada Day again being Summer and July more Bar-B-Q meats of all kinds. At Thanksgiving in October it's roast Turkey or ham and the same at Christmas and or New Year. At Easter it can be a ham though I one point Lamb was a favourite, though Canadian Lamb is becoming quite expensive, New Zealand lamb is quite cheap but full of chemicals and so lately people have been cooking other dishes.  In Canada Tourtière is popular, the famous meat pie of French-Canada, though how it is prepared is important and what quality ingredients you use makes a difference. For some reason the Lac St-Jean version of the tourtière seems a favourite with some people or at least in popular mindset.

Personally, I am not a fan of turkey nor tourtière meat pie, so come any major holiday and I will not think of having either dishes on the table. As for ham at Easter, I like ham in a sandwich but not at a main dish for a feast, I am also horrified by the tradition of sticking pineapple and cherries on it.

So I am always looking for new ideas for Holiday meals, even if it is just for a simple Bar-B-Q in the Summer, I want something different.  Instead of turkey, why not Goose or Cornish Hens, instead of beef burgers why not veal and beef or mixed with some pork burger stuffed with soft cheese and mixed with herbs and a strong dry mustard. Of course you can also get dishes of Seafood, lobster meat (shelled) in a cream sauce or a mix of seafood served in timbale.

Delia Smith with her CBE

Here comes Delia Smith, who through the years has perfected Holiday cooking. I always liked her because her recipes are A, easy to follow, B, there are no mystery ingredients and C, anyone even someone with little experience can prepare her recipes. She proposes menus, from what type of hors d'oeuvres to prepare for a pre-Xmas party, to a dinner party during the Season to the Christmas day lunch menu timed in such a way as to leave cook with time to spare to relax and enjoy the day. By lunch time around 1:30pm all is ready. Of course Delia is an organized person and you have to be too. She will prepare her vegetables the day before, her desserts are also prepared a day or more in advance, so on the actual day only the bird and stuffing is left to be done. I liked her stuffing, a good mix of pork with fine bread crumbs and celery and herb mix. She also tells you to get a bird around 14 lbs no more, and shop around for a black turkey which is gamier and better tasting instead of the supermarket white one which is often very bland tasting. In her preparation of the bird she will smother it in butter and then place bacon strips on top. Placing it in a roasting pan builds a cover for it which allows for a cavity around the bird instead of having the foil wrap itself close and tight on the bird. This way while cooking air circulates all around and in the last 40 minutes of cooking you  remove the foil and let it roast to get that golden skin colour not forgetting to baste it.

She also cooks chipolatas and bacon separately this will accompany the bird and it is a very Bristish tradition. I do not know if you can get chipolatas in Canada.

This year for Christmas dinner I will cook Canadian Lamb filet (12 minutes cooking time) do some roasted vegetables and voilà. I have ordered my desserts and we also have the most wonderful home made Fruit Cake known as a John H. Special. Uncle Johnny has been making them for us for the last 40 years. I am not one to eat fruit cake usually but his Fruit Cake is really something to behold, it is home made and it is his recipe and a very nice recipe it is indeed. I also got a Stollen and we have nice cheeses,  a firm cheddar Goat cheese, some Stilton blue, and other cheeses with nice crackers and fruits like the big Clementines and a nice variety of apples.

Do have a look at Delia website, the one recipe I want to try because it looks so amazing ''Venison Braised in BlackFriars Porter ale and Port with Pickled Walnuts.'' If you do not like venison no problem substitute for beef instead. At any time in Winter this would make a fantastic dish.

http://www.deliaonline.com

Then there is one very light and wonderful dessert she makes which is perfect when your main dish is rich and heavy. This dessert is called, Champagne Jellies with Syllabub Cream and Frosted Grapes.
You do not have to use champagne instead use a Prosecco or a bubbly wine, much cheaper and perfect for this recipe.

Well my shopping is done for this Xmas so the next few days should be quiet, going to dinner at friends and cocktail parties.

 



  

More photos of Xmas preparation and Xmas puppies

Well we got our menu planned out for Christmas Eve, which will be dinner at home
starting with some Smoke Salmon and fixing and then Lamb filet with vegetables and
I will order the mini Bûche de Noël from Michael Holland. On Christmas Day we are going
to Le Café at the National Arts Centre, they have a very nice menu.

Drove by Parliament and the Christmas lights are amazing the National Capital Commission did a
very good job this year. It is spectacular to see.

This evening we watch on BBC Player on the Internet Chef Delia Smith who lives in Suffolk. She is 73 yrs old now and the programs are about 20 years old but nonetheless very well made and very interesting. She basically shows you how to make Christmas Pudding and Cakes and all manners of
other things for the Festive Season. She had one recipe for a fruit cake which can be made in minutes and takes 90 minutes to cook, very simple and perfect for anyone who has never made one. The one I really liked was the sticky toffee pudding cake and of course all those candied fruits and candied chestnuts, so very good. Now come to think of it we should have suggested to our friend Spo who wanted a recipe for Plum Pudding to watch Delia make one, very simple.

While she was mentioning the ingredients you need and even wine pairing, I felt nostalgic for those days when I would at the Holiday time fly through London on my way home to Ottawa and stop off and buy all manner of food stuffs. London prior to Christmas is a great shopping place and has so much to offer. Even Heathrow still has the real Duty Free shops not the make believe nonsense you find in most airports these days.

Such shows on the BBC really put you in the Christmas frame of mind.

Xmas puppies they sleep about 20 hours a day to prepare for the Holidays.

Holiday Table Centre

Silver snow flakes

this is such a nice Panettone, so good with a coffee.

Will's home made Ginger cookies

We also discovered on the internet radio RMF Classic 98.3 FM Warsaw, Poland. They have a 

very good selection of Christmas music. Music in Polish and English.

Food and Food programs at Christmas time

At this time of the year there are a multitude of food programs with recipes for that perfect Christmas meal, cocktail, drink, party. All guaranteed to impress your guests to death and make you a celebrity.

It is all a bit silly when you think of it because unless you are a regular cook, someone who is comfortable in the kitchen and has imagination when in comes to food preparation and combination of different foods, well it can be a challenge to say the least to prepare a meal or a dish for that special Holiday event. Not to mention make it picture perfect like in that magazine.

I do however love to watch cooking shows at Christmas time, some of the recipes are intriguing and depending on the presenter/chef you can get that good feeling about a recipe and how beautiful it looks and how good it must be.

One Chef that I do like is Nigel Slater on the BBC Player, see www.bbc.co.uk/food

He is one of several chefs who present various recipes. What I like about him is that his recipes are or appear to be easy to make. I have tried a few and yes the result were as promised, no fuss and good.

I also watched another Chef on BBC, Delia Smith and she has a segment on Christmas Cakes, it looks easy and she certainly presents it that way, minimum fuss and preparation appears simple enough. Her method of presenting on air is old fashioned, first will show you the ingredients all pre-measured on a work table in her kitchen, then she puts all ingredients in a bowl and does a minimum of mixing, then jumps to the final product, voilà. You do not see her put the cake into the oven or take it out or even cutting the cake or tasting it. It is somewhat a little too surgical and just a little too pat. She also speaks to an audience of women, somewhat formal, no nonsense and no humour, you know she is not talking to men in the kitchen.

Rick Stein is another chef on the BBC, Rick has a restaurant and he is in business, big business.
He prepares dishes more to show you what can be done at Christmas time, I do not get the impression that you could do this at home. His preparation take place in his restaurant kitchen, it is all professional and he has other chefs to help him out, they work for him.  The results are great and he serves the food at a party for about 40 guests. It is fun to watch and you get the feel good of the Season.

But I return to Nigel, I have read his books on his life as a kid and love his recipes, he makes it easy and fun. The only one problem I have with his 12 Christmas dishes is how his producer for the series staged it all. We are told it is at his house in North London, a very modern and nice place with a great garden. Then the filming or shooting effects, the camera goes soft, zooms in and out of the kitchen, some shots are from the garden looking in or from the kitchen looking out, somewhat wistful, as if the cameraman is distracted by some external thought or souvenir. In the end it all looks a trifle recherché. Nigel also simpers to much a bit like an old lady.

In his Christmas special, he is in Scotland and Norway. First in Scotland in the Highlands with two good looking lads, he calls them the boys who cook a dish for a family dinner. Nigel watches them prepare a cocktail and a meat dish for an upcoming Christmas dinner and there is some double entendre banter throughout. Nigel purses his lips a little too much and needs a haircut.

Then off to Norway to select a Christmas Tree for Trafalgar Square, the tree has to be more than 20 meter high, a very big tree. So there is lots of walking in the woods with two Norwegians looking for the big tree. Finally finds one, a superb tree, 115 years old. We are told that since 1946 Norway has given Britain a Christmas tree every year as thanks for the help received during the Second World War.

This of course is a segway to another of his recipe, the Salmon Wellington which is very easy to make and looks wonderfully delicious.

This year we are not having Goose or Roast Beef or Crown of Lamb. My cousin is cooking and we will have a tourtière and a ham, vegetables and Plum Pudding and other desserts.
Though next year I do want to return to Roast Goose a favourite dish of mine at Christmas.

One tradition if we can call it that, is our friend John who for 30 odd years has produced wonderful
Fruit cakes at this time of the year. John has a unique talent to produce the most wonderful fruit cakes
from dark to light coloured ones. His fruit cake is the sort that you could eat in one go if you did not restrain yourself, they are that good. He also introduced a long time ago, the notion that his cakes keep for one to two years because they are soaking in Brandy or Rum and remain moist and delicious.  Indeed it seems that the vintage cakes are better tasting, richer and more flavourful.

My personal favourite is his light golden coloured fruit cake a real treat.