More on the Year's Turning....
Nov. 9th, 2008 02:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
f4f3Once Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night are out of the way, I generally switch into being a curmudgeon about how early people are starting to celebrate Christmas until December 1st, when I fling myself into it and get very Christmassy indeed. Last year Unblinkered and I were in Prague about this time of year, and she was delighted to see Martinmass Goose on the menus. I was just confused (which didn't stop me enjoying the goose). Martinmass, if it means anything to me at all, is one of the Term Days I dimly remember from Property, Trusts and Succession in second year law (or was it Conveyancing? I never was cut out to be a lawyer...).
In Germany though, it appears to be a big deal on the seasonal calendar, which I suppose makes sense if you've never been rescued from starvation by aborigines, celebrated pacts with the devil, or had your parliament mined by Catholics.
Which is a long way of explaining why I'm typing this in the kitchen, while unblinkered is alternately butchering and basting a bird. A very large bird. Friends K & J are coming over this evening to help eat said bird. They don't celebrate Martinmass either, but J in particular celebrates food (he's a wonderful example of what happens when Italian expansiveness gets mixed with Scottish mischief). Since we sourced the lobsters for last month's feast, they located a goose for tonight. J sent out his extensive contacts into the Glasgow foodosphere and came up with something weighing around 5 kilos. I'm very glad of out large oven.
My job is to do the cheese and wine,and Oddbins and Melis's came through again. We're drinking German wine tonight. Apparently light and lightly chilled reds are the way to go for goose, so we're going with Dornfelder with the main course, and some interesting looking Resiling for starters. I'll cheat for the cheese though, since we have some nice port and some very nice Burgundy tucked away.
I'm loving the cooking smells, the bustle of getting ready, an, shortly, being booted out of the kitchen to get the lounge hoovered.
Life, on the whole, could be worse.
In Germany though, it appears to be a big deal on the seasonal calendar, which I suppose makes sense if you've never been rescued from starvation by aborigines, celebrated pacts with the devil, or had your parliament mined by Catholics.
Which is a long way of explaining why I'm typing this in the kitchen, while unblinkered is alternately butchering and basting a bird. A very large bird. Friends K & J are coming over this evening to help eat said bird. They don't celebrate Martinmass either, but J in particular celebrates food (he's a wonderful example of what happens when Italian expansiveness gets mixed with Scottish mischief). Since we sourced the lobsters for last month's feast, they located a goose for tonight. J sent out his extensive contacts into the Glasgow foodosphere and came up with something weighing around 5 kilos. I'm very glad of out large oven.
My job is to do the cheese and wine,and Oddbins and Melis's came through again. We're drinking German wine tonight. Apparently light and lightly chilled reds are the way to go for goose, so we're going with Dornfelder with the main course, and some interesting looking Resiling for starters. I'll cheat for the cheese though, since we have some nice port and some very nice Burgundy tucked away.
I'm loving the cooking smells, the bustle of getting ready, an, shortly, being booted out of the kitchen to get the lounge hoovered.
Life, on the whole, could be worse.
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Holidays!
Date: 2008-11-09 05:56 pm (UTC)Re: Holidays!
Date: 2008-11-09 06:06 pm (UTC)Re: Holidays!
Date: 2008-11-09 06:43 pm (UTC)