… work it out for yourself.

I could’ve sworn that was included in Jazzie’s Groove from Soul II Soul’s Club Classics vol 2, but anyway, it’s been and gone. In much the same way as the jar of haimisha pickles came and went this evening.

So today, I prepared for Christmas by covering my hob with sticky cranberry mess and by almost setting fire to my top oven. I’m not usually so disastrous in the kitchen, and I’ve no idea why I’ve suddenly turned into Rhea from Butterflies, but my nonchalance towards roasting the turkey is evaporating with every passing minute.

Why on earth did I think making cranberry sauce would be a good idea? This is one of those condiments that has never made it onto my family’s Christmas dinner table. For good reason too, because it’s bloody vile. It’s like some sort of earwaxy bitter joke that’s been made up by people who hate Christmas just to inject a little bit of vileness into the best meal of the year. I blame these bloody TV cooks who present their idealised world to millions. Yes, it would be lovely to be one of the people who get invited to one of Nigella’s or Jamie’s Christmas dinner parties, to sample that special world of theirs with all the accoutrements they embelish their dining tables with, but this is my Christmas, and my Christmas has never, ever included cranberry sauce. There’s no justification for including it this year, other than seeing the shiny berries on display in the supermarket the other night and thinking, wouldn’t it be nice to incorporate just a little bit more unnecessary faff and stress into Christmas by making something that I know I don’t like from scratch? And here’s what happened:

Because my stupid bloody hob can’t do “simmer” the whole gelatinous (pectinous) gloop exploded the second I turned my back. Why does my stove do this? Why can’t the lowest setting of the gas ring be at a temperature that simmers and doesn’t burn things to fuck?

Then there was the ham, which I decided to cook in cider. It made absolutely no difference to the flavour whatsoever, so there goes another fiver. After “simmering” on the hob for an afternoon (i.e. alternating between vigorous boiling and doing sod all), it was ready to coat in a honey/mustard glaze and roast in the oven. The instructions said to roast at 220C for 30 minutes. My oven said, roast for any more than 15 minutes at 200C and I’ll self combust.

Such mess. Cooking generates such unwanted mess.

I’m forever cleaning down my hob, work surfaces and the tiling, especially at the back of the hob. There are a number of reasons for this: a) because I’m not a scumbag; b) because I like things to be clean; c) the kitchen smells if you don’t keep it clean.

There’s that greasy grime that coats all the surfaces in your kitchen after a while. Despite trying to keep on top of things on a daily basis, some areas do get neglected for months at a time, these being the cooker hood and the tops of my kitchen cupboards. With the propensity for stuff in kitchens to become coated in cack, why do people hang their utensils on the wall behind the hob? This is the prime place for stuff to get completely splattered with grease, covered in steamy and splashed with whatever the hell you’re cooking.

The more stuff there is on work surfaces, the more stuff that needs to be cleaned and cleaned underneath and around. Microwave? No. Toaster? Absolutely not. And don’t get me started on spoon rests and spice racks.

The final countdown
So tomorrow marks the beginning of the end. I need to buy a load of presents and wrap stuff, but that’s fine. The evening brings “veg prep” and turkey showdown round one.

Despite me “doing Christmas”, my folks are insisting that they do what they usually do in terms of prepping the meal for Christmas Day. I’m having them here for tea and we’ll be peeling and preparing vegetables over Carols from Kings and then stuffing the bird and readying it for cooking on Christmas Day.

I’m looking forward to it immensely. This is the first time I’ve ever done Christmas. I could be a total nob and try for a Nigella/Good Food/Jamie/Delia thing, but I actually quite like our Christmas the way we do it and I don’t really want any of that to change, cranberry nightmare aside of course.