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Sunday, January 14, 2007

The proof's in the puddin'...

...and the fact that she came to eat it up.

No movement at the station. In fact, Zoe and her station of a stomach (plus Owey and Sage) came over for a slap-up dinner of chicken and Christmas pudding, enjoying the chance to chill with only one tired little tucker:

Zoe and Sage at my dinner table

And o mi gawd, what a pudding.

pudding!

My sister-outlaw, Naomi, made it and saved it for us. We picked it up on the way back from holiday as we swept through the Blue Mountains, and decided that it had to be eaten in the company of People Who Know Their Food. Which meant the collective company of Zowen, and I was ever so pleased that Zoe was still able to come and enjoy such a rare delicacy.

The photo above was actually taken after Owen had drowned the pudding in warm brandy and set it alight, like this:

flaming pudding

We lit it three times, it was so much fun. Sage was very impressed.

Then we got down to the serious matter of eating it, with some deluxe (bought) custard (come on, it's midsummer, who wants to be stirring custard?). The way we ate that pudding belied the fact that we'd just stormed through an enormous roast chook (stuffed with lemon halves and herbs, with crushed pinenuts, coriander and garlic slipped under the skin and basted in olive oil and lemon), lemony Greek roast potatoes and a green salad.

plate of pudding

It was cut and come again, in the immortal words of Norman Lindsay, each of us scoffing at least two platefuls, if not three in some cases. Cor, we let loose.

pudding all et

And when it was all over, Zoe wasn't the only person waddling around the house. Solidarity, sister.

And THANK YOU to Naomi for providing such a luxurious experience, all the better for being three weeks after the day we were supposed to eat it. But who cares?

"Hurrah, we'll stick together,
And always bear in mind
To eat our puddin' gallantly,
Whenever we're inclined."

9 comments:

Tim said...

I don't like xmas pudding but I do like setting food on fire. Looks like it was a fun night.

Anonymous said...

Whoa, Z. You've got that earth mother look down pat!

Bountiful, wot?

-TJ

Anonymous said...

*takes a bow*
(being able to do so as stopped eating her own Christmas pudding a few weeks ago but I tell you, was hard to bow at Christmas time).

Am gratified that you flambeed it correctly, and must say that the best photo of a flamin' pudding I have ever seen - well done!

Ampersand Duck said...

The advantage of knowing Foodies is that they always know how to do things correctly! Although we couldn't decide whether to use cake forks or normal spoons to eat with (almost used the fish forks, just for fun :) ). We ended up with the regular spoons, since we were using the 3rd-best plates and in a hurry to stuff puddin' in our gobs.

Anonymous said...

I think I need Zoe to have her baby right now. This is worse than doing a thesis - I need to see the baby immediately.


Pudding - also now! I have had numerous requests for reperformances of pav cat's trifle, and I must say, mid January seems exactly the right time for Christmas favourites.

Anonymous said...

Quite the best puddin' EVAR. I was just sad I could only manage seconds and picky bits instead of the full three platefuls catastrophe. As it was I had a hard enough time walking the two blocks home.

Anonymous said...

Great stuff!
I have been making trifle too - and also bread and butter pudding which I only make at Xmas, due to always buying too much fancy bread.
This year's effort was pumpkin and poppy bread, with pear slices nad brandy sultanas - yum!!

JahTeh said...

Two great photos of two beautiful looking puddings.

Jeanette said...

OH yummy that xmas pudding looks good