Christmas Day, Christmas Food, Christmas Books

So, anyone reading previous posts will gather that we’re all still ill, so Christmas Day wasn’t that much fun. On the cooking front it started of course on Christmas Eve, I had a long list of things to make and didn’t make half of it, but I did make Nigella’s cranberry studded mincemeat mince pies (thanks to Girl Lacer insisting Father Christmas needed some), iced the Christmas cake and made the sides of the Gingerbread House. The mince pies were amazing (considering I don’t like mince pies), it was the mincemeat that made it, it smelled so Christmassy when it was simmering away on the stove and tasted gorgeous in the little pies, I think though next time I’ll change the pastry to my standard more buttery Jamie pastry though. 

I had planned on make Nigella’s Yule Log for dessert, ready for Christmas Day dinner but that quickly went out the window, so I thought I’d resort back to the standard family Gingerbread House, which Girl Lacer loves helping me make and she did help a little but she was looking iller and iller and in the end just plain didn’t look hygienic, so I had to put my foot down when it came to assembling the house and now the sides are in a tin, waiting for the day when we’ll be healthy again (when? oh when?). The recipe for the gingerbread though, out of interest was a Rachel Allen recipe from her Bake book and although I haven’t tasted it yet (obviously), it was an impressively easy dough to handle. The biscuits do come out surprisingly (worringly) cake like when out of the oven but they soon harden up.

By Christmas Eve I’d just about managed to wrap the presents, having not done any of the Christmas meal prep I’d planned to do and went to bed (which was actually the sofa, I didn’t fancy sharing a bed with the also ill, tossing and turning Mr. Lacer, but luckily we have a very comfy sofa). That night it felt like someone was using a medieval battering ram on my sinuses, not fun.

Christmas Day Girl Lacer woke first and whereas we’d normally insist on both kids being up before present opening, it was in a state of not knowing when each kid would flake out again, so we started present opening without Boy Lacer. Girl Lacer got some nice presents, including a two wheeled scooter to replace her younger three wheeled model, so she’s impressed now that she’s one of the few in her class to have moved onto two wheels. Mr. Lacer got the world’s most annoying game (for me) from his brother, called Bop It (I think, tried not too close to it to find out) and a sonic screwdriver from his mum. I got two lovely books, pretty much because I’d asked directly for them, Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook’s Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale and Tessa Kiros’ Venezia.

The Writer’s Tale is absolutely fantastic, a massive book of e-mails between Davies and Cook plus scripts, chronicling the creative process during series 4 of Doctor Who, also mentioning Torchwood, plus The Sarah Jane Adventures a little, it is a fascinating look into how Davies writes and the whole process of being show runner. A must for any Who fan and anyone interested in the process of writing (although as Davies points out relatively frequently, this is in no way a ‘how to’). I spent most of yesterday reading it and so far got through Davies working out who will be the Doctor’s companion in season 4, it was to be a character called Penny as Davies didn’t even dream he could get Catherine Tate for a whole series and then you get the excited e-mails when he realises that Tate is interested in doing an entire series. Plus (of interest to Torchwood fans) the interesting  titbit that up to literally the day of filming some of the relevant scenes it was Ianto that was meant to die during series 2 of Torchwood and Davies changed it to Owen at the last minute.

Venezia, I wanted as a present because I have most of Kiros’ books, in fact most of them were Christmas presents and they do make great Christmas presents. I also wanted someone else to buy this for me because as much as I wanted it, I had a feeling it would not pass my ‘am I going to cook from this a lot’ criteria and I just wanted it because it was beautiful and I can’t just justify ‘beautiful’ during my occasional (ok maybe not so occasional in October during cook book season) cook book buying during the year. My feelings about Venezia were right, it is beautiful (specially for someone who loves Venice, but who doesn’t love Venice?) with sumptuous photos but the recipes are (understandably) very fish based (and I don’t eat fish), I may make some of the biscuits, but that’s about it. So, a nice book but no where near as useful or as lovely as Kiros’ Apples for Jam.

Anyway back to the present opening, Boy Lacer did eventually wake up and was rather confused about the present opening. His new toy castle was already out and assembled, so he fell onto that (thankfully not literally) immediately and was playing happily with that (“Up the ladder, down the ladder, help, help! I’m stuck!” – his imaginative play is improving). When he realised there were actually more presents for him, he still hasn’t really mastered present opening, so Girl Lacer did it for him.

Christmas Dinner was a very basic, parred down event, no starter (it would have been bruschetta with home made pesto), just very simple roast chicken (i.e. chicken, which we were having anyway, but nothing fancy done to it, just bunged in the oven with some olive oil and salt), Nigella Lawson roast potatoes and maple roasted parsnips and bacon wrapped sausages from Waitrose. Dessert was the tub of Celebrations chocolate, which wasn’t really touched anyway (I think next year I need to buy a dessert as I never get round to making a proper one). Now cooking christmas dinner in my kitchen is challenging even when in the best of health, with very little preparation space and this really showed when it came to dishing up. Each dish had to be finished and then brought straight into the living room onto the table whilst I finished the next, which made a very already confused by the whole day and change of routine and probably hungry, Boy Lacer very impatient. He started tucking into the roast potatoes, which were good, I’ll have to admit but half blinded my already blurry self due to the smoke from the goose fat and that kept him happy until he choked on one, leaving him in hysterics for the next 10 minutes. So by the time I’d finished dishing up and sat down, I had a shaken Boy Lacer on my lap (wisely, at least in his head), not eating anything else except for sausages wrapped in bacon. Girl Lacer was still awake and functioning at that point but after (at least) trying everything, she didn’t like anything either. So as I was sitting there, eating my (to be honest) not very good Christmas Dinner, I was despairing with Mr. Lacer, was it even worth cooking Christmas Dinner next year, when Boy Lacer climbed off my lap and started tucking into more roast potatoes and chicken, going “mmmmm”, made my mother cook’s heart glow!

After Christmas Dinner, Girl Lacer very quickly flaked out and went to bed about four, so when six o’clock rolled round and it was Doctor Who time, we decided it was worth the risk to watch it live (even when they’re both in the best of health, Boy Lacer has a far greater attention span with things like that than Girl Lacer). And Boy Lacer did watch it (between demanding Pringles) and I think he got the jist of it, cheering when Doctor Who got the Cyber King.

Once Boy Lacer was in bed to, it was time for my favourite Christmas meal; nice bread, nice cold meats, pickles, cheese, salad from the garden and a nice cold beer, perfect. I had planned to make some of Nigella’s chilli jam and her jalapeno cheese tortilla thing to but ill health got in the way, so that’s saved possibly for today (need something to blast my nose away). I finished my Christmas tea off with the first slice of Christmas cake and . . . . oh my god, sorry Rachel Allen (I used her recipe from Bake this year) but it’s horrible! A horrible texture and about as rich and as Christmassy taste as well an ice cream cone with a sprinkling of sand on Brighton beach in mid summer, i.e. not at all! So sorry Nigella (I’ve used her perfectly nice Christmas cake recipe the previous two Christmas’s) I’ll be back using your recipe next year, now I’ve got a not very nice Christmas cake on my hands that no one else is going to eat either, I feel cheated!

Journey’s End – Doctor Who 4:13 Spoilers

Mmmm, well that was Russell T. Davies cramming everything in, I suppose you would if you’d resurrected a much loved institution of a sci-fi series and created two spin off series off it and you were (the specials excluded) about to leave.

Well what was there? There was the unsurprising use of the hand, some more funny dalek moments (I loved the German speaking Daleks), Martha going all UNIT again, Rose’s family making a reappearance again, a second Doctor and so many almost defeated the daleks but not quite moments.

I liked Davros’ final speech about how the Doctor turns the people around him into killers and how they die even though he’s meant to be peaceful, a topic I think that’s been tackled on Who before. But that was nothing compared to his pain when he had to leave Rose again with ‘bad boy’ Doctor this time and then when he has to leave Donna to (Catherine Tate being brilliant again, she really has been an ace assistant).

So it’s back to hurty Doctor again, I just want to give him a hug now . . .

Turn Left – Doctor Who 4:11 – Spoilers

Oh my god that was good, Russell T. Davies is definitely going out with a rather long bang. The Doctor Lite episode it may be but it was so heavy on the Donna and Rose factor. Catherine Tate was fantastic.

Time is changed, Donna never meets the Doctor and consequently never saves him when he blows up the Spider Queen under the Thames and without the Doctor everything goes wrong; everyone bar one dies when the hospital gets transported to the Moon and the list of deaths includes Martha, Sarah Jane and crew. Torchwood dies defeating the Sontarans, America gets eaten by the Adipose. The Titanic renders south England uninhabitable and life becomes extremely miserable. Donna, totally unaware time has changed lives her life thinking that she is ‘nothing special’ but as in quite a few Russell T. Davies scripts, he shows how important ‘ordinary’ people are.

A very interesting idea about how small inconsequential decisions can have big consequences.

As for next week? Oh that looks even better!

Forest of the Dead – Doctor Who 4:9 – BIG Spoilers

That was another lovely episode from Moffat, not quite as exciting as last week’s but it answered the questions posed in the first of this two parter really well. Donna (and the other ‘saved’ people) had been stored in the library’s hard drive, living a life with a husband and two children, the scenes where she realises her children aren’t real, were really well done by Catherine Tate. CAL, the little girl is the daughter of the library’s creator, saved in the computer as she approached death. And as for River Song, awww, it looks to me like the Doctor and Song will be / were husband and wife, as that can surely be the only reason why she knew his real name. That scene where she whispers it in the Doctor’s ear, the change in expression on David Tennant’s face was fantastic. Brilliant stuff.

The Unicorn and the Wasp (Doctor Who 4:7 mild spoilers)

Wow, that was fun! One of the many many reasons why I love Doctor Who is that they can do different things. This week the Doctor and Donna drop in on a 1920s house party where Agatha Christie is one of the guests. Every cliched Agatha Christie murder occurs as the guests start dropping like flies. There is an absolutely fantastic scene where the Doctor is poisoned by cyanide and he rushes to the kitchen to cure himself and he’s there gasping, trying to mime to Donna what he needs. They give a good reason in the end why all these cliched murders happened and yes, there’s a giant wasp.

Makes me want to go and read some Agatha Christie now, haven’t read any for years. Oh and I didn’t know she really did disappear for a while.

The Poison Sky – Doctor Who 4:5 (mild spoilers)

Wow, that was good! The second of the Sontaran episodes, they really upped the pace with plenty of battle sequences (that were necessary not just added on fillers), some great lines (Doctor in gas mask “Are you my mummy?”), some emotional moments with Donna and her family and lots and lots of hints on this season’s overall arc, notably with the second appearance of Rose, this time in the monitor looking like she was shouting “Doctor”, plus more talking about cloning and breeding planets.

And what about next week? Who stopped Martha from leaving the tardis by slamming the door? Who’s controlling it? I suspect it’s Rose. And why was the hand bubbling in it’s container on the tardis? And the Doctor has a daughter and a rather attractive one!

The Sontaran Stratagem (Spoilers)

The Sontaran Stratagem opened last night with quite a Sarah Jane Adventures style opening, complete with crazed megalomaniac teenager in big house (which thinking about it, I’m sure I’ve seen it before in SJA). But then the meddling journalist (second so far in four episodes, is RTD trying to say something?) meets a rather gruesome end and we’re out of the territory of truely kids TV. There’s scary sat-navs and baked potato aliens with interesting ideas on worker relations. Martha’s back and for someone who used to like Martha, I am rather shocked to say that Donna (who once again was brilliant last night) makes a far better companion.

Last night’s episode was the first of a two parter, so I will delay judgement until next week, but so far (and specially considering it’s a 2 parter, which can be a bit weak) it’s looking good. My only complaint, and this stands for the entire series so far, is that the acting from the regular cast members is so good, it really does make some of the bit part actors look wooden. It’s like suddenly switching from the high quality action – drama – adventure that Doctor Who is, to a bad episode of Casualty or Eastenders.