Part III

Following the spot of exercise reported at reference 1, moved onto the festivities of the day proper. Which, given that we have downsized from turkey to chicken, started out as very much a replay of the meal noticed at reference 2. With one difference being that the stuffing was not cooked as much, perhaps not quite cooked enough for my taste, but it went down fast enough, just the same. And perhaps better cold than the more cooked version. Another being that the wine from Slovenia was preceded by a wine from France, one of the ones from the wine tasting last mentioned at reference 3.

A 2018 Chassange-Montrachet from Patrick Miolane, which went down very well. It was a pity that we didn't have two of them, because the wine from Slovenia did not follow on so well. Took a while for the palette to change gear. Avoiding such problems is, I suppose, one of the advantages of have a proper wine waiter.

According to gmaps he operates without fanfare from the premises snapped above, right on the edge of the village of St. Aubin. There are what appear to be vines behind. With a modest web site to go with it to be found at reference 4. 

Unusually for such an occasion, we did less than half the chicken.

In the interval, while BH was catching up on the Queen, I turned the pages of my collection of annunciations from Phaidon, rather as I had in the margins of the summer meal noticed at reference 5. Apart from wondering why such a high proportion of the virgins were wearing blue cloaks over red dresses, the annunciation which caught my eye was one by Paris Bordone, painted in the late sixteenth century, presently in the municipal museum at Caen. A picture in which the painter seemed much more interested in architecture than in annunciations. To the point where you had to look carefully to find the angel Gabriel at all. Plus I did not think the virgin very appealing.

Christmas candelabra, lately of Montreal

Handcrafted by BH

Slovenia visible in the background

After the interval, Christmas Pudding, taken with both white sauce (syllabub) and yellow sauce (sugar, butter and custard. A childhood favourite). Sauces spot on this year.

Fortnum's treading a fine line between fashion chocolates and Black Magic. Smoked salt indeed. But very nicely presented and generally very good. As of noon today, down to three left.

The next day, chicken was taken cold with a fry-up of left over vegetable. That is to say, rice, cabbage and mashed potato, livened up with a little onion and butter. Demise of stuffing.

The day after that, getting a bit low, so augmented with gluten free chipolatas. Usually bought for children who prefer minced pork to fowl. Taken with regular vegetables. Demise of yellow sauce.

And last but not least, for boiled down for soup on Tuesday. To which I added all kinds of stuff, not least lentils, bacon, crinkly cabbage and noodles. Demise of white sauce and Christmas Pudding. Demise of Christmas candles, that is to say, not those snapped above.

PS: checking up on turkeys, Wikipedia tells me that they come from Central America, but were brought to Europe by the Spaniards and then some, at least, were sent back from England to their north American colonies, possibly as early as the late sixteenth century. Not clear where the ones running wild in woods near Ottawa come from.

Reference 1: psmv4: Part II.

Reference 2: psmv4: More stuffing.

Reference 3: psmv4: From Kimmeridge.

Reference 4: http://www.miolane-vins.fr. The Microsoft default paste gets rather carried away here and so reverted to raw text.

Reference 5: psmv4: Meat from New Zealand.