It’s all very well having people to stay over Christmas but the aftermath is an awful lot of sheets needing to be washed, ironed and put away goodness knows where so that’s what I’ll be doing in the coming few days.

Lindt ball league

Regular readers will understand my unhealthily close relationship with Lindt balls over Christmas that has developed to the tune of almost 3kg in gained weight. Knowing it was probably going to end in tears, I ordered a big sharing box of the things online choosing the flavours that I liked best. It occurred to me last week that I could use this for some top quality Substack content. It’s the least they can do. So I brought one representative of each flavour home to Beckenham to attempt a ranking. Silly me. I’ve realised that I need more than one of each to do a proper comparison and even I have a maximum I can devour in a day, so I’ll do the taste test league table in dribs and drabs until I can go and retrieve some more. Content, baby. Here goes:

Round one: 70% cocoa dark vs 45% dark chocolate truffle

To my surprise, the 70% won hands down. The dark blue has something curiously sour in it. Not to my liking.

Round two later. Next week, probably. It is possible to have too much of a good thing.

Tested recipes

I had lots of guests over Christmas, at least it felt like lots, and I did that thing I always do, which was cook new recipes for the first time when we had guests arriving, a horribly stressful expectation to impose upon everyone present. I’m not quite sure why I do this: my low boredom threshold prevents me cooking the same thing twice too close together and some FOMO thing in me stops me asking too many questions in advance in case I have my fears confirmed.

Anyway, for the first time in my new electric AGA, which I absolutely adore in the manner of those women who can no longer contemplate cooking on anything else, I cooked overnight chicken, overnight goose and ham according to the ham/pan/lid/simmering oven recipe. All worked splendidly. For veggie guests I made roast cauliflower and celeriac steaks, though it took me a while to work out how to slice the cauliflowers. I made soup with the leftover florets, don’t worry.

My individual Christmas puddings according to Marcus Wareing’s recipe worked out really well and, though I still have three left in my fridge, I feel sure that we won’t be wasting them. I was too cowardly to attempt individual melt-in-the middle chocolate fondants so instead I made a luscious fondant traybake, which went down well with my young guests. This recipe from Mob worked really well.

The two panettones and two sourdough loaves I made tasted OK but the rise was disappointing. I think I’ll have to do a course to find out what I’m doing wrong. People say it’s so easy and I follow the recipes but they just don’t seem to work for me.

Wardrobe

I’ve been elevating my wardrobe in the last year. It’s so chilly and overcast here for so much of the time that I think it’s worthwhile investing in good winter clothes for the times when I’m not in dog-walking leggings and hoodies. I’m trying to make sure that as many new clothes as possible are sustainable and B corp brands, which might even outlast me. Brands that have worked well for me in the last year are

Frame: I love their jeans and they fit me well.

NavyGrey: wonderful heritage jumpers whose next owners I’ll have to decide when I redo my Will.

Frank and Eileen: these can be stupidly expensive but they have good sales if youre quick. The sizing is all over the place and based on biody weight (!) but as they come from California I take a medium.

Colorful [sic] Standard: T shirts, hoodies, joggers and generally dogwalking clothes. Their sizing is very weird, though, either vast or clingy, and I’m told that their T shirts are a Gen Z gender-neutral boxy shape. I’m not sure how I feel about this. The Gen Zs I know probably find all of this cringe in the extreme.

Fitflop: I have wide feet. Their waterproof walking boots don’t hurt me.

MaxMara: For nicely-cut jackets.

There’s not much happening this week, is there? Could you tell? Back to normal next week, which will be busy and I will try and write as I go along.

Until then be good but have fun.