My World of Travel and Food: Christmas 2020

Little Nudge starting the day as he always does, pops up on my lap and drags in my arm to sleep.

Then he moves to Andy's leg cushion which Andy needs for his ankle, and once again.... Nudge sleeps on

My beautiful Chrissy pressie from Andy. Vocalise fragrance from Maitre et Parfumeur et Gantier
which he's bought for me since our first trip to Paris.

After my run, breakfast was Andy's kaiserschmarrn. I cannot emphasise enough how delicous this brekkie was.

A lightly spiced pancake, twice cooked broken second time round in a little butter,

served with very sharp berries, spiced pain d'epice liqueur and semi frozen berry yoghurt.

We started prepping dinner not too long after brekkie. This involved celeriac fondant (in lots of butter)

Entree was my sourdough blini (I made big blini rather than little wee ones)

I'm pretty good at my sourdough blini. We had them with smoked salmon,

charred smoked salmon (Andy's idea to mix the two variations), creme fraiche, proper caviar (the real stuff) with a tiny hint of lime zest and chive. Absolutely divine with a decent Chablis we bought from..... Chablis.

Main was outstanding. It was difficult to take photos. Anyway. Pork fillet cooked to perfection wrapped in pork proper fatty pork mince which was flavoured with fresh sage, fennel seed and sweated down onion. It was wrapped and tied in cling film, cooked in water unwrapped and browned off in the pan last minute. Served with onion puree, That amazing celeriac fondant we had prepped earlier, the buttery juices from the celiac fondant, roasted apple and the most bloody amazing Jerusalem artichokes you will ever eat ever. Guaranteed. We lightly precooked them, scooped out the insides and baked the shells in duck fat until they were crispy and chewy and delicious. We served the scooped out inside as a separate puree. All dusted with browned and ground onion skin. It was an absolute delight.