The Christmas Dinner

I feel it’s a mistake to think that the special atmosphere of Christmas Day will make this “meal of the year” taste good even if you make very little effort with the real flavour of the food. You must try and make it the best turkey they’ve ever tasted, with the most succulent stuffings, crisp fresh vegetables, golden crunchy potatoes and not a packet sauce in sight. (Well, if you must use packet bread sauce add more cloves, nutmeg and finely grated onion to it to give it zest!) Your Christmas pudding will be far more moist and crumbly if you make it yourself and you can buy packs of little silver charms to put in the mixture. It’s all rather a lot of work, but how can a good Christmas not be - at least a lot of the cooking can be done well in advance and gives me, at any rate, a childish feeling of excited anticipation. More than any other meal, the Christmas dinner has to be planned step by step if you are going to remain calm: however disorganised a person you may be, you surely must write out a true plan of campaign for Christmas morning. This way you will have a much better chance of a relaxed and happy Christmas, leaving everyone with tantalising memories of your spectacular food.