... well. I don't know. Either roast stuff at my parents', per their limited but genuine festive family prep. Or, apparently, sausages at home by myself. I really hope my neighbours have got covid (not for their sakes, they have small kids, but there's no other bearable explanation for getting pinged for a second time today, dated to yesterday when I went for a walk and met no one and did not pause for 5 minutes, let alone 15). I am up to my nostrils in LFTs already, and I feel absolutely doomed at this point.
So over the weekend I laid down some limited but definite emergency supplies, without a list or a plan. It turns out my idea of Christmas is sausages. Having had a largely veggie couple of weeks, I've abruptly bought chorizo, cocktail sausages and fancy Italian soss that make a brilliant pasta sauce with some fruit or some tomatoes. And some cheese biscuits. And cake. Anything that keeps a bit and might feel jolly if you ate it off a sparkly plate.
Together with my brilliant recent realisation you can warm mince pies on a radiator if you don't want to run the oven for one little pie, maybe this won't be the bleakest Christmas ever. Though for those of you already in stricken households and lacking taste/smell capacity, I realise that may raise laughter of the hollowest kind.
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| The Haunton Method (not TM) |
It is, to put it mildly, tricky at the moment. I daresay you've noticed. Thankfully, I'm working most of the week, but the lightening things I had planned either cancelled (The Globe, good luck, little theatre) or were prudently cancelled by me (Dennis Severs' House in its Christmas getup - the loveliest of visits, but not on a tube strike day with the antivaxxers demonstrating in town).We're into Christmas telly, so there's not even a regular House of Games episode to signal the end of the working day. Life is cold, grey and trepidatious. I have sunk so low I'm watching Emily in Paris as a nice thing, rather than to mock its very premise and existence.
Time for stodge. Vegetable stodge, but still stodge. Rachel Roddy's pasta book has never been so basic, nor so comforting.
Leeks with cream and saffron - and angel hair pasta if you can (vermicelli in my case, oh no)
Slice and sweat off pale green and white bits of multiple leeks in some oil or butter or something. You want them decently soft, so slice fairly thinly. Give them time. Then add a small glass of white wine, and let it mostly boil away.
Then add plenty of single cream (it's Chriiiiiiiiistmas, also you won't use the leftovers for anything else, you need the fridge space). Gently bubble the cream mixture for 10 minutes or so, adding lots of parmesan (or whatever you have, there's an end of Alpine something or other in here as well as some pecorino).
Add salt, pepper and saffron if you have any and care about that. I did, it turns out, have a tiny bit, so I added it to get rid of the packet. It made no discernable difference to the overall beige.
Cook your very skinny pasta till almost done, then tong it into the sauce, or drain it imperfectly and slop it in - you want a bit of pasta water to leaven it. It will still be gloop. It will not take a good photo, but it will be quite comforting in a world that otherwise lacks comfort.
It'll be all right. It will be. Even if I'm Christmassing on stollen and chorizo, or weak tea and toast. Maybe it's even healthy to realise how absurdly much we pin on being specifically healthy and able to mingle on 25/12 every year, rather than just generally pleased to be seeing people regardless of calendars. But goodness me, I'm glad of comfort food sometimes.
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