The 12 rows of Christmas!

Also, I answer the question you've all been asking (where to get a decent vol-au-vent these days). Plus festive telly, soup to make you better, a Quality Street scandal, and the magical Gary Bunt.

Ho ho ho. Tis the season to be jolly and all that, but also - as friends and family gather together over the next couple of weeks - the season to want to murder at least one or every member of said family. Or friends. So I thought today I’d do a quick and festive look at the 12 rows of Christmas before everyone gets together, in an optimistic but probably misguided attempt to see these rows off before they actually happen...

1. The phone charger row. A festive favourite of mine. ‘Who’s taken my phone charger?’ comes a blood-curdling cry from the kitchen. Someone has moved someone else’s phone charger, snuck it off to their bedroom, and because they all look the same nobody will own up to it. I am so petty about this that I have daubed a wobbly ‘S’ in pink nail varnish on my phone charger, so that nobody can claim ownership. Occasionally I’m a bit embarrassed about this wobbly ‘S’ when I look at my charger, but at this time of year I’m delighted. I heartily recommend doing the same before you decamp to your parents’/sister’s/in-laws’ house. Happy Christmas!

2. The dishwasher row. Astonishingly, despite the fact that the dishwasher will run 73 times between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, there will be one person who manages not to put in or take out a single fork during that period. They know where the dishwasher is because they seem perfectly capable of leaving dirty mugs and their breakfast stuff on top of it, but are mysteriously unable to go the last yard and slot anything inside. If you have a house full of people staying, this may very nearly send you over the edge. Can I suggest a walk? (And a warm hello to all my fellow Miele fans, while we’re on the subject of dishwashers! This will make little sense to people who aren’t regular readers but we have - in recent weeks - spent *quite* a lot of time on hoovers and Miele vacuums in particular. Sadly I don’t have a Miele dishwasher because they were double the price, but I gather they’re very good too.)

3. The turkey row. When’s it going in? When’s it coming out? What temperature is it being cooked it at? How long should it be left to rest? Quite tiresome when people who don’t know how to scramble an egg get involved in this bit. See also: how are you cooking the sprouts?

4. The who’s blocked the loo row. I don’t think we need to go into too much detail here. But if your family’s anything like mine there will be an inquisition at some stage as to who has done something unmentionable in the bathroom. Talking of which, I was hovering by the till in Tesco last week when my eye fell on the Christmas card below. And because I had to read it, so you do. Is everyone in the Tesco card department OK?

5. The political row. Particular flashpoints in past years have included Brexit, Boris Johnson and the Covid vaccine. This year, I’m delighted to say they include Trump, the Middle East, our own government, and inheritance tax. Let’s pop Gregg Wallace in here too for the hell of it. If you have various generations around the table, these subjects are likely to provoke raised voices and, in extreme cases, people leaving the room. Quite hard to flounce from a room with dignity when you’re wearing a purple cracker hat, but I have seen it tried. How about a nice walk?

6. The JK Rowling row. People in my own family had to move places around the table a couple of years ago when this topic came up. Avoid.

7. The Ozempic row. A new entry which deserves a category all by itself because I’ve realised that one has to be very careful when discussing it. This has unquestionably been the year of Ozempic (or Mounjaro, or Wegovy) and you may have strong feelings about the weight loss jab, but if your sister-in-law suddenly looks very svelte and is pushing a tiny piece of turkey around her plate, I would just stay off the subject. Each to their own when it comes to this personal matter.

8. The church row. This was, to be fair, more of an issue when my siblings and I were small. Did we HAVE to go to church on Christmas Day? We did, although we were allowed to open one present each before going so we could take it with us. This was only awkward the year that I opened my pony and wanted to take him along with me. (Just kidding, I left the pony at home.) The vast majority of people won’t be going to church these days because we’re all such heathens, but some households will still ring with the cry of ‘Come on, we’re late!’ on Christmas Day. If you’re a household that IS going to church, there will also be a row with a teenage boy about ‘tidy’ shoes.

9. The hasn’t-contributed-anything-but-has-finished-the-Ruinart-row. Some people are wonderful and arrive for Christmas like the wise men themselves, except instead of frankincense and myrrh they’re laden down with smoked salmon and stilton and crates of wine. Others are a bit less wonderful, don’t contribute very much but tuck into what everyone else has brought with enormous enthusiasm. To dodge this, you could always provide everyone with instructions about what they should being beforehand. Divvy it out to avoid being annoyed with someone the second they arrive.

10. The telly row. Someone wants to watch the Gavin and Stacey special, someone else wants to watch an old Miss Marple, someone else wants to watch the football. Also, a small child having a nuclear tantrum needs to be plonked in front of Bluey. These days, people can be billeted in different rooms in front of laptops/ipads etc. But you may still face a bit of bickering about what’s on ‘the big telly’. I don’t really mind as long as I’ve got a glass of red wine with me and I get to watch the show I mention in recommendations below…

11. The board game row. There will almost inevitably be simmering tensions by Boxing Day (see all of the above), and these may well spill out over the Scrabble board. Or the Monopoly board. Or during a good game of Articulate. Again, a good, long, solo walk may help.

12. The anger management row. I love my family to DEATH, but there was one Christmas not so long ago where one person fell out with another person over breakfast one festive morning, and the first person then decided to go upstairs and send the second person a WhatsApp link to a local anger management therapist. This was quite uncomfortable for everyone else still sitting around the breakfast table. If you reach the point where you want to tell another member of your family that they need anger management counselling over the next week or so, might I suggest a walk?

Pictures of the week

Granted, the giant vol-au-vent above looks a bit like some sort of operation gone wrong where the shiny, gleaming organs have BURST from their pastry casing. But it was delicious. This was in Bouchon Josephine on the Fulham Road last week. It’s a new-ish restaurant (opened in March) and I’ve wanted to go for ages because a) it’s had great reviews, like THIS ONE from Jay Rayner, and b) I am an absolute sucker for a French bistro-brasserie kinda place. Bread basket and little pats of cold butter almost immediately upon sitting, paper tablecloths, the smell of garlic in the air, surly waiters who throw a plate of food at you as if it’s a frisbee, moules, steak frites, wine list as thick as the bible and so on. What more do you need?

‘It’s like a posh Café Rouge,’ I announced last week, as we sat down, which didn’t sound like much of a compliment, but I meant as one because I LOVED the Café Rouge. Honest, reliable, comforting.

The same applies to Bouchon Josephine, it’s just bit more expensive. My pal Dom and I were going to be all avant-garde and share the rabbit but unfortunately they’d run out of lapin by the time we got there from our Marsden carol service. So he had the vol-au-vent and I had the steak tartare which was PERFECT. Not overly seasoned. Just perfect. Also, any restaurant that offers FIVE types of potato (see above: ‘PDT’) is fine by me. ‘Excuse me, what are pommes vapeur?’ I asked the waiter at one stage, having already declared smugly to the table that it was presumably smoked potato.

‘Steamed potato,’ he replied. So that showed me.

It’s quite a gamey menu, if that’s your thing - partridge and guinea fowl on there atm, along with frogs’ legs, pigs’ trotters and sweetbreads for the traditionalists. Quite retro in some ways too - chicken and mushroom vol-au-vents, rotisserie chicken, rum baba and so on. Also, my god, the CHEESEBOARD. It is £18 a head, admittedly, and we were too full to face it, but from the look of the table next to us, you basically get several whole cheeses for that. None of this ‘have a tiny little smear of goat’s cheese and a minuscule crumb of cheddar’ which happens in lesser restaurants. You could maybe go to Bouchon Josephine, just order the cheeseboard and really settle in with a bottle if you fancied it (the house wine was splendid).

It was all splendid. So I know this is quite niche because it’s a restaurant in Fulham but I just wanted to flag as a very buzzy spot if you happen to be in or around the area. It’s probably booked up solidly for the next week or so of festivities but if you have TIRED LEGS and a great thirst after that inevitable, last-minute sweep through Peter Jones (!), it’s not a million miles away.

Recommendations of the week

1. I think I mentioned my very great love for the BBC’s The Split a few months ago, when it was announced that they were filming a Christmas special. But I’m going to make the point again because I’ve started rewatching the whole series in excited anticipation and have been newly reminded of how brilliant it is. It’s the story of three very different sisters, and their mother, mostly set in a law firm, mostly concerned with family law and divorces in particular. You’ve probably watched it because millions of us did, but if you haven’t, and actually even if you have, then I would sit through it all again on iPlayer before the two-part special comes out on 29 and 30 Dec. I’m way more excited about this than I am about the Gavin and Stacey finale. Don’t get me wrong. I like Gavin and Stacey and I LOVE Rob Brydon. But it ain’t The Split.

   I’ve only rewatched season one so far (Nathan! I’d kind of forgotten all that!), but I’ve cried and laughed and MARVELLED at Nicola Walker in every single episode. I was also thinking you could probably play some sort of festive drinking game while watching, a la Withnail, because blimey do they knock through it. Plus, do you remember how we all lost the plot over Hannah and Nathan’s whopping kitchen? I’m having a v happy time going back over it and am PUMPED for the special, set in Catalunya, for the wedding of Hannah and Nathan’s daughter Liv, which feels a bit weird because she was essentially a child when we left her, but time kicks on and all that. Trailer below.

2. Everyone’s ill atm. Apparently one in four adults in the UK has the flu. I reckon everyone else has either got a cold or is simply hungover. So can I present to you, Julius Roberts’ spinach soup?

My lunch yesterday. I could probably fight a tiger now.

The first time I made this, I genuinely thought he’d lost the plot because it stipulates so much spinach. THREE BIG BAGS or around 800g of spinach. Julius! That’s not far off a kilo of spinach! Even Popeye might baulk at that! But turns out that’s what he means. I hesitate to reproduce people’s recipes here because it feels like cheating them BUT I don’t think Julius would mind because he’s a nice guy SO in short you sweat a couple of onions, a clove of two of garlic and a couple of leeks, whack in a diced potato and a litre or so of VERY GOOD chicken stock, simmer that away for 15 mins, cram the MOUNTAIN of spinach into the pan for a couple of minutes so it barely starts to wilt, then blitz it all in a food processor so it goes emerald green, before pouring back into the pan and adding a spoonful of creme fraiche and a hearty grating of nutmeg. It’s very easy and very good. Alternatively buy Julius’s book HERE because it has the actual recipe along with that tarragon roast chicken I banged on about not long ago and plenty of other GOOD STUFF. It’s a great book and would make an excellent present.

Also, do make the soup if you’re feeling peaky. I don’t know how else you could get that much spinach into your body (rhetorical question), but eating this feels almost like you’re giving it an IV drip of vitamins, which is probably quite needed by this point in December.*

*UPDATE: while writing the above at my desk yesterday afternoon, I suddenly smelled something weird, so went downstairs to the kitchen and discovered I’d left the hob on after my lunch, and the beautiful, vibrant green ENORMOUS saucepan of soup that was going to keep me going all week had turned into a brown sludge. So if you make a batch of it, try to remember to turn the gas off afterwards 😔

Nonsense of the week

I’m so sorry. I talked about Quality Street here only a couple of weeks ago but since then there’s been an alarming development. Look carefully at the bags below:

Look pretty similar, right? You might easily pluck one from the supermarket shelf and assume you’d grabbed the same product?

WRONG.

Look more closely. The bag on the right says ‘Favourites creme selection’ on the bottom of it, which is how I ended up accidentally taking one of them to my friends Tom and Lou’s house for lunch on Sunday and only then discovering that it contained JUST orange and strawberry cremes.

I happen to quite like orange and strawberry cremes. But I know that some people have strong feelings about them. As in, they don’t like them so much. So IMAGINE if you accidentally grabbed the bag on the right, settled down on the sofa one evening and realised with horror that you only had orange and strawberry cremes. No toffee pennies, no green triangles, no purple ones. You would be disgusted. So I’m putting this here as a warning to everyone over the next week or so: stay vigilant. Look carefully when you reach for the Quality Street in the supermarket because there are dirty tactics afoot.

PS. Unless I feel a burning passion to write something, I’m probably going to take the next two Tuesdays off. I know, who do I think I am? The Queen of Sheba? But next Tuesday is Christmas Eve and the one after that is New Year’s Eve, and tbf I have only taken one week off in August this year. SO, I wish you all the very very VERY happiest Christmas and New Year, and thank you for all your support and encouragement and comments and LOVE this year. It’s meant so much. So so so much. I hope you manage to avoid the rows above and have a very lovely time. I’m going to leave you with a little animated cartoon which I was alerted to on Sunday, by the brilliant artist Gary Bunt. Quite by chance, he’s brought a new character into his world which made me GURGLE with happiness on my sofa. You’ll see what I mean if you watch the below. Also, as Mum noted, the angel with her handbag is terrific ❤️