What wine goes with turkey?

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas Day and are enjoying the 12 day feast. We had a quiet one in our new house, with Carol and Terry. Mandy went to school with Carol some fifty years ago, and I met them forty years ago. I have happy memories of Carol visiting us in Holland in the early nineties, and our toddler Robert following her around the flat going “Darrel, Darrel” which was as close to her name as he could get.

I cooked a very traditional Christmas lunch – turkey, vast numbers of pigs in blankets, stuffing balls, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, sprouts with chestnuts and bacon, cauliflower and broccoli in cheese sauce, mashed swede and carrot, gravy, cranberry sauce and the contentious bread sauce, I say contentious because for many it is a pointless, flavourless sauce. But for me it makes Christmas. We once stayed over Christmas in a very fancy hotel, and I rang them in advance to make sure we could get bread sauce. Yummy.

Everyone drank what they wanted. Terry and Mandy had champagne. Carol was driving and had a heavy cold so drank water. And I wanted wine. The question was which wine. Over the years I have read many opinions on the best wine to drink with turkey. Some say a crisp Chardonnay – maybe a Chablis. Others opt for a light red such as a Pinot Noir. Others agree with Mandy that Champagne cannot be beaten. But I really wanted a Chateau Musar.

Musar is my favourite wine. It comes from Lebanon, fairly near the holy land, so I suppose has a geographical connection with Christmas. But I just love the taste – deep, rich and powerful. It is everything that experts would say does not go with turkey – likely to take over the mouth taste instead of allowing you to enjoy the meat.

I called my younger son, Martin, to ask his advice, He used to be a sommelier and really knows his stuff. I think he was spot on when he said “It really does not go with turkey, but you should always remember that wine is meant to be enjoyed, and you should have whatever you enjoy.”

So I did. A 2005 vintage bottle that I had been saving. The cork was soft and broke up with the corkscrew, but the wine itself was not corked. I sieved it twice to remove the sediment and bits of floating cork, and then poured it fast into a decanter to introduce more air. To me it tasted wonderful. Maybe it did not go with turkey but I loved my Christmas dinner and I loved my wine.

What did you do for Christmas? I hope that as for me, happy memories were made. Join me next week for a brand new year.

December 27, 2024 0

Why is Christmas so tiring?

We have had a wonderful Christmas week. Far too much to eat and drink. Thoughtful gifts. Wonderful company. Competitive games. An unexpectedly busy Midnight Mass. A glamorous hotel. A hideaway cottage. An apartment minutes from the beach. And most of all – family.

Christmas Day is my favourite day of the year. I hardly sleep in the week before because I am so full of excitement. It harks back to my childhood when Christmas was such a magical time. And then when our two boys were little and the anticipation and delight n their eyes. Sometimes the reality of Christmas is a let down, but sometimes like this year it is every bit as good as I had hoped.

So why am I so tired?

I have not worked very hard. Others have taken on the heavy lifting of cooking, planning, entertaining. It has been fun. But the truth is that all of us, including the dogs, now just want to sit in front of the TV and snooze.

Maybe that is how Christmas should be. Full on, and then sleep.

I am a very lucky chap.

December 29, 2023 0

It’s beginning to look a lot like a long journey

We will be getting up early tomorrow (22nd) because we need to be on the road b y 0530. We are travelling from Edinburgh to Brighton to spend Christmas with our son Rob and his fiancée Alessa. At best it is a nine hour journey plus break stops. However, the BBC website says that tomorrow will be the busiest road day of the year, with many people still working and many others, like us, travelling for Christmas. So we expect the worst.

There is also a yellow weather warning for high winds, and with the roof box on the car that does make us a little like a sail. We will have to be particularly careful on bridges.

I am not looking forward to it. When we are on the narrowboat we also have to be careful for winds. Particularly in marinas it can be exceptionally difficult to steer. But we are only going at 2 or 3 mph, and the beauty of being retired is that if we do not like the weather we can just moor up.

I think the biggest difference between travelling in a car and travelling in a narrowboat is that in a car, it is all about looking forward to the destination, while in a narrowboat, it is all about the journey itself.

But there aren’t any canals between Scotland and England, and even if there were, the 380 miles would take us about two months.

Christmas will not wait for us, and so we just need to grit our teeth tomorrow and face into the journey. At least we can stick on some Christmas songs to cheer us up. And when we get there I am sure we will have a really lovely week with our family and Alessa’s family,

So instead of Bah Humbug, I will be Ho Ho Ho and wish you and yours a very very merry Christmas.

December 22, 2023 1

Why do people not play board games anymore?

Over Christmas we had guests and played quite a lot of games. Charades of course, a tournament of a card game called “sh*thead”, funny rummy, dobble and more. But the only proper board game we played was this Lord of the Rings version of Risk – and even then we ran out of time to finish it.

When I was growing up we played a lot of board games. I was one of four children and over board games we learnt how to be competitive while still friends – most of the time. In particular with my brother Michael, we would spend long afternoons over Monopoly, Cluedo, Wembley, Flutter, Battling Tops. Each Christmas our parents would buy us a new game to share and it became a Christmas morning favourite after Church to play the game while our Mum made the dinner (different times).

When I first met my wife Mandy, we also played a lot of two person games – backgammon, othello, pass the pigs. We have a cupboard stacked high with games which these days are gathering dust. I am not sure why we don’t play them. We still play cards when we have people round. This week we learnt a new card version of golf, where you have 9 or 18 holes (rounds) to minimise your strokes (points on the cards). I guess when we were growing up there were no computer games, and only three channels of black and white TV. I am also aware that I am really speaking for myself. There are millions of dungeons and dragon players across the world that would laugh at my comments.

But I do miss board games. Perhaps I can persuade Mandy today to choose one of the dusty boxes from our cupboard, and we can return to our usual arguments over the rules. For the avoidance of doubt, there is no rule in Monopoly that says all fines should be put onto free parking and picked up by the next player that lands there – even if it is a good idea!

I wish you a very happy and game-full New Year.
Pete

January 6, 2023 0

Ten reasons Christmas is my favourite day of the year

Christmas is my favourite day of the year. Always has been. I wonder why.

I love the anticipation. Probably more than the day itself, I love the run up – getting things prepared, making plans, organising.
For a little while everyone seems friendly. When I am out walking the dogs, strangers greet me with a “Happy Christmas” instead of ignoring me. People all seem to smile a little more, be more patient.
I like food. I like drink. I realise it can be excessive, especially the Christmas lunch. But there is a generosity in excess that I love.
So many happy memories of Christmases past. As a child excited to find out what Father Christmas had left. As an adult making it just right for my own children.
I love the carols and ceremonies. My Dad was a vicar, and even just the smell of a church at Christmas reminds me of the time when we came out of a midnight service to find snow falling on Christmas Day.
I love the decorations, the tree bedecked with baubles and tinsel, the cards around the rooms, the lights.
I love hearing from distant friends. Even if it is just a note in a Christmas Card once a year, it maintains the connection. We had a visitor from New Zealand this week, who we had only seen once in the past 30 years. But we had stayed in touch at Christmas and it made this week’s visit possible and memorable.
Cold is good. I much prefer cold weather to hot weather. Last week in particular was crisp, bright and very cold. Nothing better than going out for a bracing walk, and then returning to a warm house and a wood burning stove.
I really like Christmas films. I am a real weeper for soppy films and they don’t get much more soppy than at Christmas.
It is all about family. We are fortunate enough to have our sons with us this year, and I am so looking forward to our time together – playing games, eating, drinking, chatting, slobbing.

On the narrowboat, the dogs food is kept in an old Christmas tin, with the label “It’s the most wonderful time of the year”. Hardly a day goes by through the summer, when I don’t hum the song to myself, because for me it is true.

To my blog followers and readers, whatever your faith, I wish you a very merry Christmas and hope you too enjoy a bit of seasonal magic this year.

December 23, 2022 0