Snow On Snow

[poliphilo]

Maybe this'll stop us dreaming of a white Christmas.

Tony Robinson's timely series about historic climate change took us to Greenland to moralise over the Norse settlers who were driven out by the medieval mini-ice age.  Their mistake was wanting to be too civilised.  If they'd given up farming and reverted to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of their Inuit neighbours they'd have been fine.

Odi's central heating has gone phut- and her landlord says there's nothing he can do. Peter thinks this is racism; I think it's just landlords. We've lent them a couple of electric heaters and told them to contact their Home Office minder.

We were planning to go down to Kent for Christmas. It  now seems very unlikely that we will. It's been snowing all morning. Snow on snow, snow on snow.

I just trudged up the road to buy kibble for the in-laws' fat little dog.  We don't have seasonal food in stock- what with having planned to spend Christmas away- so I dropped by the butchers in the airy hope that he might be giving away unsold turkeys. He wasn't. In fact he had very little in his shop. What he did have was a clutch of Bury black puddings- the nation's best. I bought one- and I'm going to serve it for lunch with eggs, apple sauce and (a seasonal treat that was demonstrated for us last night by the BBC's Hairy Bikers)  fondant potatoes  

Comments

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Sorry to see that you are stuck for the holiday.
I stopped going a distance for Christmas years ago, and always have a dinner at my place, usually inviting other stay at homes from the neighborhood (or lately from the same building).
I started doing this during the New Hampshire years after one famous Christmas when we got snowed in. We found out that we could have a merry day together without going a long drive to the family, even with something other than a traditional Christmas dinner. A much nicer time could be had by making visits in subsequent years a little before the holiday, or even sometimes between Christmas and the New Year.
By the way, what are "fondant potatoes"?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Fondant potatoes:

You take a whole potato, peel it, fry it in butter on both sides until golden, add a little stock, garlic, herbs- cover- and leave to simmer for 40-50 minutes till soft.

They're called fondant potatoes because they have such a wonderful velvety texture.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Sounds yummy! You are quite the cook, aren't you? You've given me more than a couple of ideas to try out in my kitchen.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

This is so easy. I wish I'd stumbled across it earlier.