“They” say there are two types of people: those who live to eat, and those who eat to live.
“They” say an awful lot of things but “they” are correct with this observation.
With thanks to my friend Peta, who first made me laugh with this expression, I have a kitchen only because it came with the house. It’s there to dish up the muesli or make the toast or the occasional fried eggs that are staples.
It’s also the spot the five dogs gather around for the peanut butter sarmies we share. They have theirs, so I can cunningly disguise the medicine they need and won’t take any other way, and I get mine for breakfast or dinner.
My sister Jan and I share this incompetence, so much so that the Slogrove sisters’ culinary ineptness was mentioned at her memorial service, to some knowing laughter.
Her husband, Sean, early in their marriage when this little hurdle was not so evident, bought a yam and an mdumbi. On the way out the door, he asked Jan to boil the mdumbi. He came home to find the yam simmering away. He became the cook of the family, and this story became family folklore.
Now we come to Christmas, when food and family are the main ingredients. And I get to show off my packet, tin, carton and bottle skills.
There is little that can’t be made out of a packet, tin or bottle.
My piece de resistance, which I first tried in 2014 (I know this because I was so excited I took a picture) and is now a family expectation, is trifle. It is nothing I would offer to anyone outside my family, though.
When I was girding up for yet another culinary calamity the first time, I asked friend, colleague and food connoisseur Frank Chemaly for some trifle tips. All the fresh-fruit chopping, home-made jelly and baking the perfect sponge he did for his version was not on my agenda, and the project nearly crashed and burnt before it began.
But having a booze ban in my life made it an intriguing dodge; I wasn’t drinking the sherry (which is not a liquor of choice without all the other bits), I was eating it, so it didn’t really count, did it? I bravely went ahead, all out of packets and tins and cartons, and it was a hit at home.
It is strictly a Christmas-time treat, so now the question has become: When does Christmas actually start and end? Is it the whole of December, a week either way or just the day and day after?
This year has been hell on wheels, and our family “gathering” will be our little bubble.
We have decided trifle time is whenever the hell we choose. The boxed jelly is setting in the fridge and the rest is ready to be opened, splashed, layered, cherried and Flaked.
We’ve learnt life is too short to trifle with and we’ll be raising bowls to loved ones lost or absent because of Covid protocols. I wish you a safe and peaceful Christmas period and will be back (all going according to 2020 curve balls, of course) in the new year.
The Independent on Saturday