Bah Humbug - It's December again! 15 days to go!

Saturday 10th December. Another weekend in December. And I have an assignment to submit on Monday. That rules out any Christmas shopping. But then, who wants to go Christmas shopping at the weekend?

No, after tutoring, I hurried home ...

I was excited. My oven saga was coming to a close.

I was going to use the repaired oven for the first time this evening!

I had to get home and prepare for the momentous, almost historic occasion. I would have an oven for Christmas afterall.

The moment of truth arrived. I switched the programme on to number 4, stood back and admired the fact my oven was now working.

Meanwhile, I prepared the meal.

Out of the corner of my eye, the oven light flashed, or did it twinkle in unison with the fairy lights on my Alt-tree? Whatever, this was exciting stuff. My oven was on its test drive for Christmas.

As with all test drives, there are hiccups.

After 30 minutes, the oven was still barely warm. Something was not quite right. After an hour, the oven was at 170 degrees. Hardly hot enough for my dish and oven french fries.

The rain was teeming down outside, so no recourse to the barbeque. But there's an idea for roasting, if I can find the twirly whirly thing that spit roasts meat.

Frustrated, we grilled the meat and grilled the french fries. It was an interesting experience.

I wrote an email to the supplier. Thank goodness I had not paid them. There is always a purpose in holding back on payment, until someone comes after you with a huge stick or something ...

Bah flipping Humbug. The picture in my mind of a succulent roast turkey, roast potatoes and parsnips grew hazy.

No use calling anyone to "á table!" when there's nothing to eat. This is worse than Bob Cratchit's house.

How am I going to cook for Christmas now?

Bah Humbug - It's December again! 16 days to go!

Friday 9th December. An early morning respite in my tutoring and studying schedule. I took advantage of the strange weather - it is uncommonly hot for this time of year - and set off on my regular, morning walk. As usual, there was the dog poo to dodge, the hole under the kerb drains, and cars.

I was excited this morning. After five months of frustration with a malfunctioning oven, the technician was finally coming to replace the PCB. Why oven's need PCBs, beats me, but I suppose, we live in the internet of everything.

Five months?

Yes, five months. This is Singapore. Distributors pride themselves in taking a brand, but forget that the brand also needs to be maintained. No spare parts. They had to be shipped in. Shipped in from Turkey - not the big bird, but the country. Although according to Google Translate, Turkey in French, is Les Pays de Dinde. Really?.

Whatever, it was being shipping, but only, only when the container was full.

For five months, I was unable to roast anything, although sitting outside, I often found myself roasting. For five months, I was unable to bake a cake, and if I did venture down the route of trying it out - just in case - it would take 2 hours to cook and the cake was raw in the middle. Not pleasant.

What do you make of that, Jamie Oliver??

The appointment was scheduled for between 10am-11.30am. Just enough time for me to make sure that the oven was in working order before heading out to tutor.

I was excited, I would have a working oven, ready for Christmas. I never thought I would find myself over the moon about an oven, but the moon was waiting there, and there was a way over it. Only a few more hours of waiting.



10am passed. 10.30am came and went. 11am sneaked around the corner.  11.30am loomed. I had to leave. So much for my oven repair.

The oven did finally get repaired - after 12 noon. I am not sure what time zone they were on, but definitely not in mine. And what happened to politeness when someone is busy in a meeting or teaching?

Six missed calls.

They remained missed, I was feeling Scrooge-like tendencies creeping.


My incredulity was topped off, when rather than leaving me an invoice to pay, they asked the lady who helps out, to take a photograph of the works order.

Now I was feeling extra Bah flipping Humbug, and I ignored it. A photograph is not an invoice.

I decided that oven cooking would take place on Saturday. Then I would have more time to savour the delight.

Bah Humbug! It's December, again - 1 more day to go

Last minute Christmas shopping

My last minute Christmas shopping had nothing to do with gift shopping. I had done that ages ago, and as I mentioned, I had conducted most of my shopping online. That way I avoided having to interact with anyone, get shoved around by people who should know better - where is that purported Christmas spirit? What happened to the general sense of being kind? 

Probably getting drunk down the pub.

Shopping online saved me the bother of leaving my home - so I had more time to write, illustrate and read, not to mention play with the cat who thinks he is the cousin of the mayor of Barnaul in Russia. Or is that the cat that thinks he is the mayor?

My shopping foray involved collecting a vacuum packed pre-roasted turkey - because I do not want to spend four hours trying to roast the thing and another four hours cleaning out the oven. So, I outsourced that part. I also picked up some fruit - not typical Christmas fruit - strawberries and raspberries, and some Scottish smoked salmon and New Zealand free range eggs. 

"I thought you needed vegetables?" my eldest son enquired, rather concerned that tomorrow's lunch would be a balanced meal - I could make it balanced without vegetables by placing the turkey on a set of scales, but that would just be stupid.

Vegetables were purchased on Tuesday and Wednesday, when they were displayed fresh and are now chilled in the bottom of the fridge. 

My eldest son had even bought his brother a Christmas present at the end of November (I hid it in the bomb shelter). Ironic that my eldest son. The main perpetrator of Bah Humbugishness in our household, should go to the trouble of finding a gift for his brother.

And so, today, Christmas Eve, my son and I shopped like a couple of men - we made a bee-line for what we needed, worked in tandem at the self-checkout, and marched back to the car. Done and dusted in less than an hour door to door.

But that is where I think my son is the exception. I am convinced that Christmas Eve is the day that men (there, I am being sexist), suddenly realise that they should have bought a gift. They rush out in some mad panic, pick up fifteen gifts that have no real relevance or meaning whatsoever to the person or persons they are purchasing for and pay for a wrapping service, because, men just don't wrap gifts. 

There were men everywhere. Well, of course, it is normal to find men about the place. But so many? And most of them with children in tow or being carried. Where did they all come from? What was their mad rush around the supermarket and shopping mall in aid of? 

I only hoped that my favourite, privately-owned toyshop was not beset by more of these pseudo-families who choose not to read the notice: "please do not take the toys out of the box", "please do not remove the boxes from the top shelf, they are on display below" and, "please be careful when replacing the boxes not to knock any other items on the floor. Once broken they cannot be sold".

Yes, I was rather taken aback the other day when a couple came in with their child who wanted everything, he wanted to touch everything, he wanted to open each thing and put it on the floor and play with it. All in spite of the request of the shop owner, who was more than polite. It is at times like these; I am glad I do not own a physical shop. I sell through Etsy, so all my stuff is online. No one can touch it, dirty it, or break it. Phew.

Now, back to gift wrapping. Actually, there are youtube videos of people wrapping gifts; you can watch them for hours and hours on end. But somehow, I can think of better things to watch than presents I shall not receive being wrapped by someone I shall probably never meet.

DOWN THE CHIMNEY ©

Mum blushed, and wiped her hands all dry,

‘I wonder, Santa, if I might pry,

Whether in your ample sack,

A Christmas pud there’s packed?

Santa wiped his face all clean,

A sparkle in his eye did gleam,

I’ve got the toys, a new robot,

And the pud that Mum forgot.

Bah Humbug, tomorrow is Christmas Day!

Bah Humbug! It's December, again - 9 more days to go

Why was six scared of seven?

As if numbers would scare anyone? But this one is old and tired, like the rant about Christmas. The answer, if you have been wandering around the craters of Mars for the past few years, is - because seven, eight (ate), nine.

And so, the need to drive to the supermarket and order a cooked turkey - not a smoked one, not a frozen one, but a cooked one. Not so much because I am lazy, but because I hate being hot in the kitchen when it is Christmas.

Last year I looked at why on earth we eat turkey at Christmas - although, my father frequently made sure we didn't - a dry, tasteless meat. Not what tradition dictates. If you want to read more, then whizz over to the page from last year: 2 more days to go

Consequently, growing up in my house, no one ever fell asleep after Christmas lunch, as we never got to eat turkey. Actually, that's a lie, after the rushing around cooking, slaving over a hot stove, washing up and then wondering if we'd eaten too much (I always had two helpings of Christmas pudding), my parents fell asleep and I usually sat and read a book.

Ah, hah! The real scientific truth is the fact that eating too much, rather than eating turkey, makes you sleepy. What do you expect if you eat too much, shovel carbohydrates and obviously drink copiously? Enough to send anyone into a soporific stupour. 

Turkey, like chicken, cheese, yoghurt, meat and fish, contains L-Tryptophan. An essential amino acid that the body needs, but cannot produce itself. Tryptophan helps make niacin (vitamin B - great for digestion and skin and nails) and out of that, serotonin (great for making you feel great).



So, give the old bird a break - gobble your turkey (see what I did there?), give your potatoes a roasting, eat your flaming Christmas pudding, and, drink and be merry. Then close your eyes and enjoy a well-earned siesta. 

Bah Humbug, good job Santa hadn't eaten first ...

DOWN THE CHIMNEY ©

My brother found a cricket bat,

Mum said, ‘You can’t use that.

Let’s face it Santa’s squeezed in tight,

He’s been there half the night.’

'But I want to open all my toys,'

I said with too much noise,

'There must be something we can do,

To release him from the flue?'

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-does-turkey-make-you-sleepy/

http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/edible-innovations/question519.htm

http://www.livescience.com/41543-thanksgiving-myth-busted-eating-turkey-won-t-make-you-sleepy.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/lifestyle/bedroom-ideas/11681583/foods-for-falling-sleep.html

Bah Humbug! It's December, again - 18 more days to go

Irreverant Christmas decorations

Living in a household of boys, - (even my cats are male, although they are at both ends of the testosterone scale) - means that there is no fairy atop the Christmas tree - not even a Fairy Liquid bottle - that would be too frou-frou, like the fat, feather adorned fairy of my childhood.

In fact, it is amazing there is a tree at all. The whole idea of Christmas is simply too commercial and too emotional.

This year, I didn't even buy discounted advent calendars. Mostly because all that were left were Bob the Builder and a rather tacky Transformers set. I just could not bring myself to part with my cash. Instead, they can choose to buy their own chocolate, or save up for a game. I suppose it helps to cut down on the Oxy-5 spot cream.

Nevertheless, there has to be an element of cheery laughter and a whisp of tongue in cheek humour associated with any Christmas - well, any Christmas in our house.

So, over the years, I have decided to create irreverant Christmas montages. A sort of relief to the clichéd nativity scene that is a construct of conjecture.

This year features a decapitated teddy on top of a bag of now-lost-its-smell potpurri, topplying snowman giving a Halo or some other posable game character, a kick up the butt.

I hate to think what might happen when the toys come alive at night.

Last year, we featured Santa - who looked like he was in a rush - ladened down with gifts, being show a Christmas cook book with a roast turkey on the cover, by a Penguin. I thought it was rather fitting as it carried on the John Lewis theme: roast a penguin.

I suppose now, I need to create a second montage for the moon. Maybe I will use some cheese and crackers, afterall, that is what the man in or on the moon eats, isn't it?

Bah Humbug. I wonder what roasted penguin tastes like?

BAH HUMBUG! - It's December again - only two more days to go

Bah Humbug, its 23rd December and now there are only two more days to go.

I suppose it will be a let down once Christmas Day is over. We don't get Boxing Day here - the concept of putting on padded gloves and smacking each other is too much for a hot, humid climate.

Actually, the thought of eating a huge meal is rather ridiculous for the tropics, but I suppose it is tradition and traditions are important, wherever you are. They create a sense of your original home as well as the new home you have chosen.

This year, as I said, I have outsourced many of the functions of cooking the lunch to the supermarket, frozen vegetables and whatever other time saving devices I can conjure up.


Turkey, the bird, not the country. Why do we eat Turkey at Christmas? My father used to detest it, "dry, tasteless meat," he would complain. Well, if you overcook it then it will be dry. I am sure that Jamie Oliver has a recipe somewhere to ensure that all the juices "stay trapped inside".

But I am not interested in a cooking lesson, I want to know why we eat a Turkey and not something else? Strictly speaking, many families eat a great many other things, ham, beef, fish (in you live in Scandinavia), capon (like an humungous chicken), pasta (if you live in Italy) and just vegetables if you are not into meat.

Everyone knows that Scrooge bought Bob Cratchit a turkey (he was going to eat a goose) in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843).  Turkeys are just larger birds and if you were a large family in Victorian England, then a turkey for Christmas lunch seemed like the best option.

Turkey was considered a luxury until around 1950s - most families ate goose, like Bob, or swan, or pheasant or even peacocks (hard to imagine that these birds were not considered a luxury!). If you wanted something really splendid then the family roasted a boar and decorated it - they did roam fairly freely in the wild years ago. Many families still eat roast ham along with their turkey.

It is reported that Henry VIII was the first English monarch to eat turkey at Christmas - a tasty bird. Once source I found, mentions that in "1526 William Strickland imported six turkeys from America and sold them for tuppence each." [Why do we eat Turkey on Christmas Day?] A cheap meal at half the price. Well maybe not five hundred years ago! Imagine being the first six people to eat turkey 500 years ago - unless of course Henry VIII bought all six and ate them all. He did like his food.

Edward VII, Queen Victoria's son also liked his turkey at Christmas it is said.

I found a wonderful anecdote from Jonny Wilkes: "Before the introduction of the railways, Norfolk farmers would dip turkey's feet in tar and sand to make 'wellies' for the walk to London, which could take up to two months.

Rather fit turkeys by the end of that walk.

Whatever the reason we gobble the gobblers, if they are free range, they are a good source of low fat protein (and no added sugar or corn syrup) and they free up the other animals, like cows to make the milk and cheese and chickens to lay eggs, and sheep to give us wool and pigs to eat the left overs.

So give a thought for the sacrifice the turkey is making for the good of animal kind as you tuck in to your Christmas lunch.

BAH HUMBUG
Gobble, gobble, gobble.

Read more from these sites:

Why do we eat turkey at Christmas?

British Turkey

Why do we eat turkey dinners?

BAH HUMBUG! It's December again - only 3 more days to go!

Bah Humbug. It's 22nd December and there are only 3 more days before I have to get up early and cook a massive lunch that will send everyone to sleep.

Vegetables to peel, vegetables to roast, a bird to roast, stuffing to make, gravy, and then the Christmas pudding and mince pies that don't have meat in them.

Precision organisation is required. What a bore!


So, in the true spirit of Bah Humbug, I have decided to outsource the cooking and pre-preparation - not necessarily the healthiest of options as I cannot control what goes into what, but nevertheless an easier option and cheaper than going to a restaurant.

Funny how most restaurants tend to get the Uber disease at this time of the year. Rather like those $99.99 cherries in the supermarket.

Frozen roast potatoes and sweet potatoes.  Who cares if they taste like cardboard?


Fresh parsnips that my helper calls white carrots, will need peeling and preparing. So be it.

Broccoli and carrots - these have to be fresh - frozen stuff is just mushy.

Stuffing - thank you Jamie Oliver.

Cranberry sauce - thank you Wilkin & Sons.

Turkey - no legs and wings, because no one eats then and I think the cats are quite fat enough this year. Roasted by the supermarket - thank you Cold Storage. All that will be needed is a whizz in the oven to warm it up on the day.

Gravy - easy, a few lightly sautéed shallots and some chicken stock.

No Christmas pudding as no one eats it apart from me, so maybe I shall make a rich chocolate cake tomorrow - not rich in the sense of having lots of money, but rich because it has copious amounts of dark chocolate melted in to it.

A sliver of smoked salmon, a morceau of pate de fois gras de canard, some cheeses and mini pizzas (thank you Waitrose, you allowed me to be lazy) for those who really do not want to eat turkey and vegetables.

Perhaps I may manage a lie in on Christmas Day?

Probably not.

BAH HUMBUG!

Bah Humbug. It's December again - 9 more days to Christmas

Bah Humbug, it's 16th December,.

And so the countdown continues. 9 more days to Christmas. 

Better fatten a turkey or a goose or something. 

I forgot to buy a Christmas pudding, but no one eats that here as the weather is too hot. Another tradition that I shall have to forego.

Talking of which, sprouts. Yes, sprouts. Those nasty little bundles of green cabbage-like stuff that smell like farts and give you gas. As if it wasn't enough that they smell like what comes out of the other end after eating.

I really detest them, not enough to stand on a soap box and demand that they be banned, but enough that I am rather thankful not to have Christmas with any of my immediate family who always insist on serving them.

Countless dinner times ended up with me being locked in the dining room, a plate of sprouts, or asparagus (that I rather like now), or the kidney bits in steak and kidney pie lying on a plate congealing into cold. All because I refused to eat what essentially created an allergic reaction in my mouth. Even the appearance of the spider's-web encrusted coal shovel could not entice me.

What is it about sprouts that makes us eat them at Christmas? They are reported to be the most hated vegetable in the UK and the US and the UK seems to grow more of them than anywhere else. I know there are many recipes out there from chefs famous and not so famous, all claiming to make the sprout tasty - but I simply cannot do it. Steam them, fry them, bake them, roast them, pour copious amounts of butter and honey over them - which sort of defeats the purpose of a healthy vegetable and annoys the bees - but I still simply cannot do it.

What is it about Brussels sprouts?

Sprouts, or correctly, Brussels sprouts are a member of the cabbage family, they are the sprout at the end of the stalk. Believed to date back to Roman times - gosh, then they should be called Roman sprouts, they began to be grown widely in Belgium and around Brussels in the 16th Century and that's how they got their name. I can't help thinking that the Romans may have used their powers for ammunition when they ran out of everything else ...

That leads very conveniently into the fact that they stink, not just smell, they pong! The excuse is that they stink when they are overcooked - you should only steam them for 5 minutes, but pick up a bag of uncooked Brussels and take a whiff! They smell.

The stench comes from something called,  glucosinolate sinigrin, a sulfurous compound that is supposed to fight cancer. OK so they are good for you. And the Chinese doctors prescribe them for digestive upsets. OK so they keep you going.

Brussels sprouts are packed with Vitamin C (more than an orange, but then again, most fruits have more vitamin C than an orange, we've just been media-hoodwinked into believing oranges = vitamin C). They also have a few other letters as well, Vitamin A (good for eyesight, so are carrots and they don't stink), and Vitamin K, but per 100g fresh parsley, basil and watercress all have more vitamin K than sprouts. I know which I prefer.

Ah ha! but wait, that vitamin K thing is not too good if you eat too much of it and you have high blood pressure, it can act as a clotting agent.

So there is a downside.

Which makes me wonder why a Swedish man, Linus Urbanec would even consider eating 31 Brussels sprouts in a minute just to get into the Guinness Book of World Records in 2008.

Gosh I am glad I wasn't in the same room as him.

As a parting shot - no pun intended, I leave your with a Spike Milligan Poem:

Norrington Blit,
Ate aught but grit,
Aught but grit and mussels,
Save for a bag of sprouts from Brussels,
Or was it Oldham?

BAH STINKY HUMBUG! 

There'll be no Brussels sprouts on my table this Christmas.

Foods high in Vitamin K

11 Things about Brussels sprouts

The benefits of Brussels sprouts

Photo of Brussels sprouts by Zsuzsanna Kilian of Budapest, (http://www.freeimages.com/profile/nkzs)

Photoshopped by me.