The other side of Christmas

47 Kg’s and new mate a Singapore Airlines later, I’ve finally worked out why I have this obscure (wanky) title as a Deal Architect. I got away with only paying for 5Kg of excess luggage when I should have been charged for 27kg and two additional gallons of fuel to get me, and my new love handles back home again.

Christmas at “Ring-a-Rah” was a hoot (that’s the name of the farm). Gaysie put on such a great show. Twenty of us all left fat and happy, promising to do it all again before long. Four generations stretched over four families, a reunion that was two years in the making. We had not been together as a family for fifteen years.

To everyone’s delight, there were no arguments or politics; it was what you’d call low maintenance really. The only drama was the brand new stove shutting down every time I tried to cook the prawns for a pre lunch nibble and whether or not we could procure five dozens oysters from the Richmond Seafood Market with out having to wait in line for an hour. Oysters at Christmas are big tradition in our household, but it was getting a bit urgent to be honest, and the menu was fairly extensive as it was.

Gaysie doesn’t do things by halves; I actually don’t think she’s capable. (Yes, I am my mother’s daughter). Please allow me to indulge you in the Menu du jour. Or as a little joke in our family, when a meal is served up with out being able to see the china it’s sitting on it’s called “a trucky meal”. (Truck drivers are big men where I come from!)

The day begins with every one getting a food hamper at their cottage of fresh fruit, yogurt, bacon, fresh eggs, orange juice, cranberry juice and bakers bread.

Bubbles to start the day, and we’re off, bars open from 10am. To kick it off we have a platter of Peppercorn Mousse, lavishly covered in smoked salmon and served on little crustini biscuits. This is a hit with the clan and one of mum’s specialities.

Then we have sautéed Thai king prawns. They’ve been sitting a marinade of chilli, garlic, lemongrass, ginger, lime and coriander for 24 hours. They were absolutely gorgeous plumps little morsels, but I can tell you, a royal pain in the ass to cook when the stove turned off every 30 seconds. Bless Lucy, she was having conniptions about them not being cooked enough. Hmm, if you’ve ever tried to tell me how to cook, you would have been shown the door, and she was. Pronto.

In the Magic Maid (the old school warming ovens that my Granny JoJo had when she was alive) was the Ham that had been cooked in apricots and masala syrup. Keeping him company were bacon rolettes and the baked chipolata sausages. In the oven were 4 turkeys that had been de-boned and stuffed with a sage, pistachio and forcemeat creation. On the Barbie were hundred potatoes and six pumpkins cut up into massive wedges and five kilos of green string beans were being negotiated between the potatoes and pumpkin for stove time. The table had cranberry sauce, bread sauce and the gravy was off to the barbie to grab some heat and reduce into a yummy golden brown sauce to ladle over the whole lot. Bellissimo.

My Aunt Deb walked in the kitchen, with a look in horror, she said

“Jesus Christ Gabrielle, when are the 40 other people turning up?”

It was time to plate up and there was one hell of a production line. Too many cooks, but we all got there in the end, plates brimming with all the trimmings and as we all toasted to Gaysie’s brilliance, I raised my arm, clenched my fist and pulled down letting out a little “honk honk” before I tucked in. This was one monster trucky meal and it was a product of love from Gaysie and the team. Have you ever seen the movie “Like water for Chocolate”?

The other side to our jolly occasion is like this scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlpuR6LgnkM&feature=related
essentially wonderful love story about a Spanish girl that what emotions she felt at the time she was cooking, her guests would experience when they ate her food.

About an hour later comes the famous Gaysie Christmas pudding, she makes about 30 a year and gives them to people. This is where some people may want to skip to the next paragraph this is not the for faint hearted and comes with a health warning… with this puds is home made Brandy Custard Ice-cream, circulating around the table is her home made hard sauce, King
Island cream and a just for good measure, a tub of plum pudding ice-cream for the more hard core gourmandies at the table.

The general consensus was “I’ll have a little sliver please” I’ve got no idea what the calorie count so far would be, nor do I really want to know either. At this point a MooMoo would have been more fitting than the violet 1920’s drop waisted number I had on. Unfortunately we forgot to serve up the raspberries with it (mum had bought 8 dozen at the farmers market, just for a little colour) but hey, there is always a casualty at these things and who the hell would have known, or needed it?

It all sounds terribly OTT and make most people say,

“Oh my god, that’s way too urgent for me”

,
But where I come from, the women are bred to do this kind of gig in our sleep.

My Granny JoJo was an entertainer glamour puss, who was not just good at the show, she was the master of ceremonies. Such an extraordinary woman and my god when she threw a party people and the social pages would talk about it for months afterwards. Many have told me that she was one of those incredibly magnetic women that from the moment she walked into the room people were instantly drawn to her. She had presence, a 6ft tall broad, striking looking woman with a laugh that filled a room and then some. Apparently always the last one standing, you could never get her off the dance floor, oh yes she loved a stage and a martini or ten.

My mother was naturally her protégé, but in reality, I have to say the gene pool is fairly strong; I was blessed with her love for martinis too!

The other side of this blog and ambition to publish a book called the Pampalona Project; is a plan to embark on another project and publish a book about the bloodline of the JoJo, Mum and Me. I’m still at concept stage on that one, more desire phase, but like all of my writing seems to, it will just evolve and pour out at some point.

Gaysie and I were getting stuck into the Noble One Sticky and admiring the cheese board, when she turned to me and said,

“You know Flozzie, when people make a special effort to come all this way to see you and share their time with you, you want to make an effort to make it special for them in return”

I loved that, and I got it, that’s just how it’s done with Gaysie and I have undoubtedly carried on the tradition. That’s what it’s like for us, it’s such a pleasure create an splendid environment for people come together to indulge in wonderful flavours amongst the company of people they love, or are just meeting for the first time. Either way, it doesn’t really matter, you’re always most welcome at our table. My friends will tell you if you come over for a casual Tuesday night quick bite, you’ll be more than likely served barbequed quail to nibble on than a baked potato. It will be a dark day in hell when our fridges are empty or not packed with options!

The other side of all fun and frivolity at Christmas time is missing the ones that are not able to be there with you. Our cousin Andrew died tragically a few years ago a tender of 30. He was the eldest boy with four sisters and was the softest of them all, he was everyone’s best mate and such a special soul. Later in the day there came a point when I noticed the girls had rallied the wagons and were sitting together, having a tear and sharing stories about their brother. He would have loved this Christmas, and it was painful not to have him there. But you know what, I’m sure he was there with us; I have no doubt about it.

My darling cousin Jono is a Kirk Coban look a like and is equally a legend in his own right. We were getting stuck into the Jack Daniels and dancing to Queen “Another one bites the dust” and I went in for a big excitable hug, intent to rebound on again to play dj for the next tune… except he didn’t let go. From a ping pong to full awareness my cousin was distraught. Three months ago his best mate had fallen out of a window at a party in Brazil and died instantly. What shock to hear such news, and such a shame. Poor bugger, it is going to hurt for a long time. Rather to get morbid about it, I asked him tell me about his mate and the reasons why he was such a good bloke. He stopped crying and told me his stories and then told me how all he wanted was to be able to morn the death with his mum, but felt there was a barrier to do so. The other side of this is, 1) you can’t cheat the loss of a brother, family or otherwise. And second of all, people can’t read minds, so instead of going it solo, you need to reach out and ask for help or just let some one know you need to talk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNQRfBAzSzo - a bit of Queen for you.

It was the best Christmas I have ever had, but if I’m honest, my loss was that my Brother and Blista, Guy and Vikki and boys Marlowe and Ariel were not there to share the day. It would have completed a perfect day, but then again, we can’t have it all, all of the time. But if this Big Sheila had sat on Santa’s lap this year, that’s what I would have asked for.

The other side of the Christmas was all the joy of giving and seeing the kids faces when they opened presents. Funnily enough, Gaysie’s right hand woman, Joybell’s presented me with a gift on Christmas Eve that was a cracker. It was a pair of Cinderella glass slippers and a pumpkin. It was to mark the significance of my room upgrade from being “Cinda-fucking-rella” in the kitchen (as I had moaned about being on the phone only days before), to the Princess in the master bedroom. I told you, you do have to have a sense of humour in my family.



The other side of this graduation is a confession that I would make a terrible Princess. I hate conformity, I can’t stand keeping up appearances, I call out “Hoover” when people name drop and my feet just aren’t cut out for glass foot wear. I need a steadier shoe, a softer fabric that can be more forgiving to a slightly wide size 41 hoof. And let’s be frank, when I look at a pumpkin, all I see is a roast chicken, or perhaps a warm salad with baby spinach leaves, roasted pine nuts with a generous amount of Meredith’s goat’s cheese. There is neither a chariot nor a prince anywhere in my consciousness.

The other side to this story is please don’t be afraid to ask me around for a baked potato on a Tuesday night, I love cruisey mid week catch up. I’ll eat anything generally if it means great company and a giggle.

What ever you got up to or ate on Christmas day, I hope it was lovely. Well done Mum, top show old girl.

Diet starts tomorrow.


Fleur
TBS

p.s – I hope one day I have a little girl. There are traditions that should never die.