Christmas dis - aster dahling!!

I always used to call stewing steak chuck steak, although I don't think I've seen it used so much recently. My favourite mispronounciation story is the Italian diplomat who went into a London pub for a meal. He asked the barmaid for a quiche, but using Italian phonetics it came out as a quickie! Not well received by the barmaid

With sweetbreads you can get in a mess ANYWHERE

I'm always getting it wrong at the butchers. When I first came to Australia I wanted some stewing steak, which is called chuck steak here. I asked for some in my broad Yorkshire accent, not realising that the Australian word for a chicken is a chook, which my 'chuck' sounded like.

He just laughed at me and said "They must breed 'em big where you come from, missus"

And when i was on the school exchange in France, they asked me to go and get 'deux cent cinquante francs de saussisson sec' (not sure if I've got the French right after all these years) It is a bit of a tongue twister, full of the letter s, and I stood there trying to get the damn words out - it took forever, with the 16 year old me getting redder and redder.

These days I buy meat in bulk every 6 weeks, with my husband at my side!!

Joan Your post was bl***y hilarious ! (I've only just read this thread .)

thanks very much Granjura sounds delicious ! will try that one soon x

There is no recipe, as such. Take a big jar or tin of cherries, black if possible, but morello will do. Put juice in a pan with sugar to taste and boil slowly for about 5 mins to reduce then add a teaspoon of cornflour and stir, then a couple of tablespoons of kirsch, to taste, and stir cherries in, reserving a few for decoration if you want. Place cake at bottom of dish and sprinkle with kirsch, then pour cherries + reduced juice over cake. Cover with custard which has been allowed to cool, then whipped cream on top. Decorate with remaining cherries or grated black chocolate, or both. Easy peasy.

Had Christmas lunch in a restaurant in Brussels, I have never seen anything so unchristmassy. There were no decorations and it was normal menu, diners turned up in walking or cycling gear. Public transport ran all day, and the dustbin men emptied the bin at 7.30 in the morning. I carried M&S party food in a plug in coolbox and a case of pink champagne so we still had a celebration around the Christmas tree.

Granjura- your trifle sounds yummy can we have a recipe please

I always use surgical spirits on a cold sore, ok it burns for a second or so but dries up the cold sore quickly, then I follow up with Tea Tree & Rose water cream (a cure-all here)

Joan Granjura

Good fun

..... really laugh out loud, I mean! I was busy telling DH, and not concentrating! .

granjura - oh I wish it was possible to _really- laugh out loud on here! I'll just have to make do with x 100! Thst really made me laugh! DH too!

Joan, that reminded me of a true story. We had a French assistante at our school who was boarding with the family of one of our 6th Form student. One week-end the family asked if she could cook something typically French, and she decided 'coq au vin' would be easy and not too expensive. Went to the local butcher's that was always very full on a Saturday - and when it was her turn asked the butcher's 'have you got a big coq?' - well, you can guess what happened next, poor thing

It freezes well Hunt I always make loads and freeze some. This year I made some with homemade GF bread and really enjoyed it.

My sister once left 2 pints of bread sauce in the microwave only to be found when Christmas dinner was well and truly over. Nobody had liked to mention it as maybe she hadn't made any. Not much you can do with 2 pints of cold bread sauce!

Love that, Joan ! I remember one of DH's pals getting quite enthusiastic about the CAPONE that his mum was cooking for Christmas dinner - I could picture it with a scarred face and carrying a tommy-gun !

I luckily found two no. 25 chickens, stuffed them and cooked them Christmas Eve. We had them with a cold spread Christmas day, 'cos it's ever so hot here. There were 10 of us.

The size of them reminded me of when I was first married, and wanted to do a lovely Christmas dinner for just me and my sailor husband. So I went to the butchers and asked to order a very large chicken. He said he could get me a capon if I wanted. I had never heard of such a thing, so I asked him asked him what a capon was.

He leaned over the counter from his great height, and said "It's a castrated cock".

I was somewhat taken aback, but recovered enough to say: "Well, I guess he wouldn't have minded dying then."

(Don't you just love it that in Britain, we don't ( or at least didn't)need to use the silly word 'rooster'. a word invented in the USA because 'cock' is too rude. )

Stuffed to the brim, oh dear -but it was excellent

DH has just tried cake and declared it edible cats aren't so certain about it, but there may be too much alcohol in it for them!

Leg of lamb in the oven, tatties and parsnips par-boiled, brussels ready to boil- my very special Swiss black cherry and kirsch trifle in the fridge and Delia's last minute Christmas cake good and ready - enjoying my G&T.

Bon appétit all

Enjoy the madness of it all. Very quiet here, our first Christmas alone - parents all gone, and daughters and grand-children with their respective in-laws a long way away. Just enjoy ...

As I discovered Sainsburys local has closed early and all day tomorrow. I went to the "spend and save" open all over Christmas, saves a journey tomorrow.

I thought I was really on top of every thing this year. Did keep putting off icing the cake though, so this afternoon I set to. I was using powdered egg white, mixed it up and started stirring in the icing sugar. It didn't seem to look quite right and I suddenly realised that I had used twice as much egg white powder as I should have done! Too late to go and buy more sugar so had to slap on what I'd made and wait to see how it looks and tastes tomorrow.

Just discovered there is no washing up liquid left. The dishwasher can't process the volume of washing up fast enough when you're cooking. It looks like a walk to Sainsburys local tomorrow. All my plans and I didn't check that.

Phew!! I've just sat down after a 14hr day doing all the Christmas Eve stuff as well as visiting mum and a last minute bit of panic shopping. DH has worked his usual magic on all the veg so we're good to go. I did wake up in a panic last night though as I had forgotten to ice the cake Hence the early start this morning. I'm looking forward to Outnumbered and Mrs. Brown's Boys tonight and Midnight Mass from wherever because it really calms me down.