SHIRLEY Capital of Poland
ME Warsaw
SHIRLEY No. Another city.
ME Gdansk... Katowice...Krakow...Lodz...Wroclaw...
SHIRLEY No. No. Where stag parties and hen parties go.
ME Oh. You mean Prague?
SHIRLEY Yes.
"Articulate" is a pretty good board game though it could lead to family rifts. Frances and Stew bought me it for Christmas. Even when I was carefully reading the rules out before we started, Mrs Pudding was grumbling, "Come on get on with it" and she was on my team!
Having an influential vegan in the house on Christmas Day has its downsides. For example - no knobs of butter on the vegetables or in the chestnut stuffing and rather than having simple sweet brussel sprouts they had to be sliced in two and tossed in red onion and soy sauce. Mmm... sometimes it is best to keep schtum. Ian had shredded jackfruit in place of roast turkey. It certainly has the texture of poultry.
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| Ian's vegan Christmas dinner with jackfruit north west |
My toothache has not disappeared. It is still there but like a whipped dog that has been sent to his kennel, it has remained still grumbling but in abeyance. My dentist does not reopen until January 2nd though I could access the NHS emergency service if the dog comes out of its kennel again. Thanks to blog visitors who showed kind concern and an upright finger to those who didn't!
Frances and Stew headed down to London on Boxing Day morning to be with Stew's extended family for the last part of the festive season. However, his brother won't be there. He lives on a little island south of New Guinea. It's called Australia. Stew had a special Skype call with his brother on Christmas Eve and learnt that his sister-in-law is at last pregnant! Whoopee!
Ian caught a very early train down to Bristol this morning to spend thirty six hours with a Bristolian woman called Jo before she heads off to South East Asia. He seems to be sweet on her. They met a month ago when her Asian trip was already planned and paid for. Ian has even bought her mother a Christmas gift.
So that's it. Christmas is over for another year. The three wise men have headed back to the east and the devastated carcasses of two or three million turkeys sit under aluminium foil in kitchens throughout the land. What is there left to look forward to?
THE LAUGHING HORSE BLOG AWARDS!
To be announced on New Year's Eve.
Cooking was definitely easier this year for me as Sarah has rebelled against her veganism. I don't mind eating vegan food but it can be tricky to prepare (unless you're an expert like Ian). Articulate sounds like a fun game. We've only managed one game of Trivial Pursuit so far.
ReplyDeleteArticulate is easier. More silly and more fun. Also suitable for blondes.
DeleteI thought Ian was dating an Italian woman....he must be quite the ladies' man! :) I've never heard of shredded jackfruit in place of poultry. Is it good? And no butter....that's just sad. Holidays in this house call for sinful amounts of butter! Although I will say that your plate of food looks delicious and very appetizing!
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear that the toothache is still around. At least you have dental care through the NHS, though. Dental work here is crazy expensive and even with dental insurance a toothache could well drain your checking account in a flash. I hope you feel better very soon!
My plate had plenty of turkey on it and "pigs in blankets" too. Do you know what they are?
DeleteThe food looks great, but I can imagine it takes a bit of getting used to NOT using butter in the kitchen. The jackfruit - if you had not told us what it is, I would have simply assumed it is meat.
ReplyDeletePrague? Seriously? (I don't know the game so I don't know whether the questions are given by the game or the players make them up on the spot.)
Sorry to hear your toothache is still around.
You have a card and in the "World" category Shirley had the word "Prague". Then I had to guess what it was. The clues must not include "sounds like" or "begins with a p" but you can gesticulate etc.. There's also an egg timer and when the sand has run away your "go" stops and the next team has their "go".
DeleteAnd who gets the point if the person asking the question gives the wrong clue, so that it actually is impossible for the other person to give the correct answer?
DeleteNO BUTTER????? Well count me out!
ReplyDeleteI am a butter fan too. It's one of God's best inventions along with Tetley's bitter and Black and Decker drills.
DeleteYou had a very pleasant Christmas Day. Bring on the Laughing horse.I'm cleaning the dust off my blog so that it will be seen in it's best form.
ReplyDeleteI hope you have enjoyed wearing the Blogger of the Year Crown Red but soon you must relinquish it. Time marches on.
DeleteI do hope you can keep that dog of a toothache in line until your dentist opens. The board game sounds fun but I might need a quick geography review for that one! It looks like no one went hungry with that vegan dinner! We had a roast for our holiday meal but also made salmon for our pescetarian granddaughter. Things are winding down here but we still have one of my son's birthday to celebrate this week.
ReplyDeleteHow many children and grandchildren have you got Bonnie?
DeleteI have two sons, one married with a 17 year old son and a 23 year old granddaughter. My youngest son spent so many years earning his doctorate in music that he has not yet married. My granddaughter loves Ian's book and says he is really cute! (of course she is correct)
DeleteOops - my son has a 23 year old daughter - he would not appreciate me say he had a granddaughter that age!
DeleteI guess that when you are a grandma, you are allowed to make that sort of mistake Bonnie. It comes with the territory. Given the ages of your grandchildren, you could be a great grandmother before too long!
DeleteThat doesn't look vegan to me! I could swear that they're meaty-bits at 10 o'clock. Have you noticed how plates, cutlery and glasses have all become bigger over the years? We had lunch at my Mum's and she used her modern plates for the spread in order that the food would fit after doing a sweep around the buffet (Chinese chicken wings, slow-roasted beef, bbq lamb cutlets, prawns and salads - nothing remotely Christmas-y this year!). The tiny-diameter plates from the 70s stayed in the cupboards.
ReplyDeleteSorry about the long wait for the dentist. Things needing servicing about one's person always crop up on Sunday nights and public holidays, I find. I lived on a Greek island for several months once where there was no dentist but there was a man who would happily extract the offending tooth for a modest fee. I was surprised to see that even young people chose to go down the gapster route!
Hello again Pip. At ten o'clock there is shredded jackfruit and as you partly suggested - it is all on an oversized plate. My wife calls it a trough. I had one too! Oink! Oink!
DeleteSo I've checked on jackfruit and find it's not very high in protein. This is an issue I have with a vegan diet; it's hard to get enough protein and iron. My vegan daughter was severely anemic during her second pregnancy, partly due to moderately severe nausea and vomiting, but I would guess partly due also to the lack of meat in her diet. Does Ian find it hard to get enough protein/iron in his diet?
ReplyDeleteHe is fit and healthy but it is true that if vegans are careless about their diets their health could suffer. He takes some food supplements to fill the potential gap. Some of the world's best sports people are vegan including Serena Williams and the World Formula One Champion - Lewis Hamilton.
DeleteI had to look jackfruit up. I had heard of it before but didn't know it could look so like meat! You are showing your age saying that Ian is " sweet on" a girl ! Not heard that expression in many a long year!!
ReplyDeleteHope the tooth settles down. X
I bet a few chaps were "sweet on" you Frances. Maybe they still are.
DeleteI just can't even start to mentally cope with a plate with so much food on it being in front of me. I had a vegan friend for dinner yesterday (by that I mean he came to dinner rather than I ate him). I am very used to vegetarian cooking but vegan is a step that bit further. Vegan starters are easy. I made a porcini and chestnut risotto for main course (it must have been acceptable because I made a pan for four hearty people and there's just enough left for a small elf to finish off). However neither vegan nutritional protein flakes nor vegan parmesan were available in Stornoway so it definitely lacked something for me. The poached pears in mulled wine were, I thought, a good idea and they, too, disappeared. However the red wine was not vegan which I realised as I was serving it. He chose to eat them notwithstanding.
ReplyDeletePS I take exception to the finger pointing upward at me because I didn't pour sympathy in your direction. That's not very polite. Notwithstanding that now that I know what misery you are suffering my good nature forgives you and I will pour sympathy upon you.
Consequently the finger is lowered as the toothache's intensity has lowered. Your meal sounds delicious. I contend that there are different grades of vegan. At one end there are the evangelists who have no truck with anything involving animals. At the other end there are vegans who happily have a splash of cow's milk in their tea and do not blow a fuse if there's a little butter in their mashed potatoes and don't mind leather footwear.
DeleteI agree absolutely about the various degrees of veganism. A number of my family are vegan (strict). I gave them Bosh when it was published.
DeleteAcording to legend over here, the three Wise Men haven't even turned up yet. They got there on 6 January, which is when our kids will be getting their presents - not sure if they've asked for frankincences and myrrh or the Beano annual and PlayStation games.
ReplyDeleteOff to Google jackfruit now. Enjoy what's left of the holidays!
Coming from the east, I wonder if The Three Wise Men are involved with ISIS? I hope that The Border Force check out their turbans.
DeleteIf they'd listened to Trump and built a Wall, history would tell a different tale.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, on biblical stories, you may be interested to know that today, 28 December, is the equivalent of April Fools' Day here. People play tricks/jokes on each other; a custom which apparently originates in the tricks people had to play to hide their babies from Madman King Herod on this very day!
I hope you are guarding your precious offspring with the fortitude of a true Yorkshireman Brian!
DeleteShredded jackfruit?! Now THAT's something I would never have thought of. But I guess that's why he's a famous vegan chef and I am not. Do hen parties go to Prague? I had no idea.
ReplyDeleteYes they do Steve. I guess you have never been invited to join such a cultural extravaganza.
DeleteI don't care what people eat or don't eat - lots of people with allergies or other concerns, but I love a good meal and that one looks delicious, vegan or no. On the other hand, I'm definitely a fan of a good tenderloin steak and we've eaten way too much in the way of goodies over the holiday, of course. I suppose, in the interest of good health, I could toss the rest of the homemade fudge, fruitcake and various other goodies to the chickens.....but I won't, lol!
ReplyDeletep.s. So sorry about your toothache. I've always thought it would be nice if we got a new set of teeth around age 40 or 50....when we're far more likely to diligently take good care of them! Are you using a good 'sensitive teeth' toothpaste? It does help...
ReplyDeleteYou obviously had a wonderful Christmas spent with your loved ones..and that's what it's all about. Good company, of choice...and good food, of choice.
ReplyDeleteI spent my Christmas quietly, by choice...with my two furry mates and lots of good food. And I'm still working my way through it all! :)