Food, Glorious Food!

As the last of our festive stragglers disappears out of the door and the mountain of clearing up begins in earnest, and I waddle around due to the agony of seriously bruised ribs compounded by the excesses of Christmas, I find myself reflecting on the fundamental joys of Christmas 2009. Having all the family together again for one last major beanfeast, before some of the teenagers decide to disappear off to newfound friends and families in years to come, was the greatest of them. With a whole ocean and a continent dividing us, it proved to be a very precious time forging new bonds and reaffirming old ones.

The American cousins have never spent Christmas with us, despite the older ones being seventeen. Thanksgiving is the main family holiday in the States so my sister-in-law usually just has the 25th December off work. As a single 'mom' of three, she cannot afford the luxury of unpaid Christmas leave, so the choice inevitably is between a summer holiday or an expensive Christmas trip. The airlines know that they have their Christmas pricing policy sussed! The double whammy of using up your precious holiday leave [never generous in the USA at the best of times!] and paying an arm and a leg to bring four full fare 'adults' across the pond mitigates against everyone being together. So this year was indeed something special.

Having Christmas at Bardies, en famille, then was the icing on the cake [which I only just managed to finish moments before they all came through the door!]. I even managed to make a 'stollen' this year too! We had a few anxious moments as we read and saw the horrendous holiday disruption being reported on the evening news but, remarkably, everyone made it with the minimum of delays. One brother-in-law flew from Dresden, via Schipol, the other drove down after taking an overnight crossing to St Malo with his family. My sister-in-law drove over the mountains from Heidlberg in a rental car because her own car had given up the ghost battling snow drifts in southern Germany. My mother-in-law made it from Kent to Gatwick in thick snow to meet up with my other sister-in-law and her children, who had had the good sense to take the Gatwick Express from London. And Easyjet didn't let them down either. A miracle indeed.

We started as we meant to go on, with a huge lasagne brought down from Chiswick by my sister-in-law in a freezer bag, still frozen because the weather en route had been so cold followed by a warming panetone bread and butter pudding, made with lashings of extra butter, cream and dried fruit. Nineteen around the table was a hoot and the logistics of serving everyone were helped by some deft changes to our kitchen layout - turning my workbench into a serving 'counter' was a stroke of genius, even if I say so myself! The kids, at first a little reticent with each other, and with us, warmed up as the evening progressed. By the end of it they didn't seem too daunted at the prospect of sharing rooms of six and five respectively, one sure way of getting to know one another pretty rapidly.

Christmas Eve got off to a cracking start with a solo performance on the piano of 'The Nutcracker', complete with narration and props, by my brother-in-law. I should really qualify this by saying that, as an ex Opera House Director of Music and Conductor, he does it for a living, giving solo pre-performance talks of all the major operas at the Berlin, Dresden and Leipzig opera. He has always struggled with his sight but, now, tragically, like Beethoven he has lost his hearing, torture indeed for a brilliant musician. He has his own little business now, which is much in demand, so we get personalised performances whenever he is with us. The kids will never look at the 'Nutcracker' in quite the same way again.

As we quaffed smoked salmon blinis [the blinis freshly prepared by one sister-in-law], sausage rolls [from the freezer cabinet of 'Les Mousquetaires', but surprisingly good], warmed mince pies [from Waitrose, of course!] and [pretentious or what!] 'Bellinis' [made the quick way a la recette de Jamie Oliver], we continued with carols in front of the Christmas Tree. As more alcohol was consumed, the quality of the singing deteriorated in inverse proportion. We might even have got onto 60's pop songs if we hadn't called time! I had made a huge fish pie during the afternoon so we were able to stagger into dinner without too much extra work. This was followed by Nigella Lawson's divine Clementine cake [actually, it was mine but you know what I mean!]. It was such a shame, though, that we managed to get the times of the Midnight Mass in the Cathedral in St Lizier wrong because the French go in for early starts and 'minuit' is pretty much the finale.

For Christmas Day, in true French style, we had capons, which were absolutely delicious. We started with some of Caroline's 'mi-cuit' foie gras [this is France!] and brioche, followed by the capons with all the usual trimmings. I had had the good sense to bring fresh cranberries with me to make a cranberry, port and orange relish. I had also brought vacuum packed chestnuts to make the stuffing because I have never seen any chestnut trees around us. The 'pigs in blankets' had been brought down especially from Marks and Spencer's in Chiswick because my fifteen-year-old daughter had been adamant that it wouldn't be Christmas without them. We even found Brussels sprouts locally, at the third attempt, which is more than many managed in the UK I gather. Sadly there were no parsnips to be found in a twenty kilometre radius, but with mounds of roast potatoes and honey glazed carrots, though, I don't think that anyone noticed.

The bread sauce I made with my own bread, because my darling mother-in-law had bought me a Panasonic bread machine a few years ago for my birthday "just in case you have a crowd, Lola, and can't get to the shops". Brilliant for times of mass catering like this, when the idea of slicing crusts off the round edges of baguettes is just a little too daunting. My mother-in-law had also made her legendary Christmas Pudding, which we served with creamy rum sauce from the family Father Christmas Toby jug [promised in her will to my sister-in-law in San Francisco!]. By the end of it, we were well and truly ready for the Christmas present unwrapping fracas, interrupted midway by the teenagers' urgent need to see the Christmas 'Doctor Who' special, which by all accounts was well below par. We finally got to bed, deliciously over indulged but thoroughly content, at 4.00am!

Boxing Day brought home baked muffins followed by much needed walks in the winter sunshine and trips to St Lizier and St Girons. For lunch, we had a whole leg of organic unsmoked ham, lovingly prepared by my sister-in-law and driven down, with festive coleslaw, home-made soup, baked potatoes, antipasti and salad, and the most divine cheese from Madame Gilbert in St Girons. A French 'fromagier' will never sell you a cheese which is anything other than perfectly ripe for the occasion. We had Brie, Camembert, and four different types of chevre and even the teenagers demolished platefuls saying that they had never tasted cheese so good. I had brought a Stilton with me but it remained unopened. Somehow it didn't seem quite right.

So now we're consuming all the delicious leftovers. We waved the German cousins off with sandwiches of Madame Gilbert's Brie and ham, mince pies, left over chocolate cake and fresh fruit for their long trek home. Those destined for Blagnac didn't need a packed lunch, sadly. It all seems to have gone so quickly, like Clara's 'Nutcracker' dream. The house is quiet, but ours again. We miss everyone terribly but it's nice to be just four. We talk and chat and curl up with new DVD's. We loved 'Milk' and 'Benjamin Button' especially, the first time that I've sat down in over a week.

Even the leftovers taste great. Last night we finished the fish pie and clementine cake. Today we had smoked salmon and cheese for lunch. Tonight it's ham and eggs with the remains of the 'leek gratin', followed by leftover bread and butter pudding. We seem to have eaten our way through the Christmas cookies [Nigella, again!], the chocolate orange muffins [Darina Allen] and the delicious stollen brought from Dresden by my brother-in-law, as well as the Christmas 'lebkuchen' brought from Heidlberg by the German contingent. Needless to say, the Christmas cake [mine!] and the big chocolate panetone [Carluccio's] haven't been touched. I wonder why? We are all stuffed after a festive feast of food, glorious food, that's why! The diet starts on 1st January!