EDITORKARENCHOOSES...
“I love Delia Smith’s
Christmas (BBC Books)
and make two recipes
faithfully every year: orange,
port and cranberry sauce and her savoury
palmiers. The latter freeze brilliantly,
ready to be pulled out, sliced and baked
whenever the whim strikes. My other
favourite is a lesser-known book by
gardener and food writer Sarah Raven:
Complete Christmas (Bloomsbury £25).
Sarah is famous for her gardening
expertise, so there’s lots of table-
decoration inspiration, alongside
down-to-earth, appealing recipes.”
FOODEDITORJENCHOOSES...
“I stumbled across Elizabeth
David’s Christmas a few
years ago and it resonates
with me as I also find myself
wishing for a ‘selfish anti-gorging,
un-Christmas dream of hospitality’ on the
run-up to the big day. I adore her honesty,
and the way she writes a recipe inspires me
to make fewer things well. I make her gravy
using the turkey giblets (reminds me of my
mum’s way) and I love the section on first
courses and cold meats, often wheeling
out her cream cheese croûtons as a tasty
nibble with drinks. A read of this collection
of recipes is amusing and useful.”DEPUTYFOODEDITORSOPHIE
CHOOSES...”Nigella
Christmas (Chatto & Windus
£26) is pulled off the shelf in
late November ready to plan
a week of feasting over Christmas. One
of my brother’s birthdays is on Christmas
Eve, so another excuse for some serious
celebrating. Checking the fridge and
pantry are the first things my brothers
and I do when we return home. Nigella’s
ginger-glazed ham is what we look for,
then fight over come breakfast time. We
rarely make cocktails, but kicking off with
a poinsettia (prosecco, Cointreau and
cranberry juice) makes sense.”delicious. team favourites
Myunqualifiedfavouriteisthe 1988 anthologyCHRISTMAS
MEMORIES WITH RECIPES (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), with
contributions from 25 food luminaries. The stories range from
Julia Child’s hilarious account of a rolled up newspaper
substituting for a bûche de Noël in the filming of a TV show,
to Maida Heatter’s moving account of baking cookies for
servicemen during World War II. The historian and writer Evan
Jones observed: “In any season, the kitchen is the marrow,
the essence of the house.” I wholeheartedly believe that, even
in these topsy-turvy times, it can still be so. It must be so.InELIZABETHDAVID’SCHRISTMAS(MichaelJoseph£14.99) she talked of ‘enforced
jollificationsandanorgyofspending’.Likeme,shedidnot ‘willingly cook or eat bread sauce’
andfoundplumpudding‘aprettyawfulconcoction’,offering chocolate ice cream as an
alternative.Nigellaagrees,assertinginherChristmasbook that “no children like Christmas
pudding”.HerchocolatepuddingforChristmaspuddinghaters has just found a place on
mymenu.Mostendearingly,ElizabethDavidtalksabout“marauding bands of persons who
apparentlyroamthecountrysidecallingthemselvesunexpected guests” – as alien to her
astheyaretome.(Whoarethesepeople?!)CHRISTMAS&OTHERWINTERFEASTSbyTomParkerBowles(FourthEstate£30)
isa lessoninhowtheotherhalflives(caviarislistedasa kitchenessential).Butto
dismisshisbookonthosegroundsistodepriveyourselfofthiswitty,joyoustome,
whichdoesincludesomesimplerfare.There’shistory,too.Didyouknow,forexample,
thatinthe1920sand1930s,Fortnum& Masonsoldcrackersupto6fttallintheshape
ofBeefeaters?Whenthestringswerepulled,thefigureexplodedandshowered
everyonewithsmallcrackers.ThemodernF&MincarnationistheMajesticsetofsix
crackerswithfabriccrownsanddesignergifts– yoursforthesumof£1,000.
make it special.
“A woman after my own heart”
“Crackers aren’t what they used to be”
And finally...