[ad_1]
After baking shortbread, Orian will make hermit cookies, molasses spice cookies, Nuremberg Lebkuchen, chocolate heart cookies, sugar cookies and coconut macaroons – “a very special Christmas treat, as my mother first started baking them when she was a teenager in the 1930s”.
Her daughter will bake Snickerdoodles, a cookie rolled in cinnamon sugar, “in part because she has always loved the name.”
“We go all in for Christmas,” Orian said.
‘Each year I wrestle with the turkey’
By self-admission, Christmas dinners play to reader Kay Strong’s keen planning and organisational skills – although this hasn’t always prevented the odd culinary nightmare.
Kay explains: “To avoid problems due to distractions, forgetfulness – having that sherry too early maybe – I have my ‘Christmas Bible’ as an aid. This comprises a typed menu, time plan, shopping list divided into courses, and a further shopping list for fresh and frozen items to buy ahead of time.”
After 30 years married, her and her husband have established roles – “my husband enjoys contributing, cooking the stuffing he’s made or bought, carving the turkey, organising the music and DVDs, and washing the dishes.”
Meanwhile, “each year I wrestle with the turkey, not literally, but I question what to get for the two of us; how to cook it; whether to brine it; whether to stuff it; should I go Mark Hix and de-bone and stuff the legs; and what’s my budget?
“We usually opt for a small bone-free joint, not the most aspirational, but it plays a minor part in the meal, in life in fact.”
[ad_2]
Source link
