gavin in da haus

This is Gavin (told you we'd arrive at a name):



And yesterday we ate him.

The preparation of Gavin was insanely complicated, requiring us to stab him repeatedly with a skewer, pour boiling water over him, drain and leave him in front of a fan for hours (or overnight) to dry out.

In the morning Gavin smelled a good deal and not at all pleasantly. We (okay, mostly I) were a bit panicked that we would die from Stinky Goose, but the lovely flashman via twitter with internal temperature recommendations and Smila via Real Life (with a serendipitous phone call) who had cooked a goose before (and assured us that it should smell) both came to the rescue.



Nigella seals poultry with a toothpick and ordinarily I do too, but this time I decided to raid the sewing box. I've had this chunky needle for over 20 years and have never used it, but it seemed like it might be effective for the task. And wow(!) it is mucho superior to the toothpick (no ouchy fingers!). I'll be busting this out for chickens and turkeys and other such animals in the future.


Cooked Gavin, pre-carving.


Minimalist table setting by Joan (because we are slackers, we did not raid the garage for Mom's beautiful china and silver)


Dished up!

Verdict? While Gavin was quite tasty, am not entirely sure he was worth the $95 he cost, however the fat he contributed to the potatoes made for the best roast potatoes I have tasted in my life (canned oie fat is not nearly quite the same), and the mashed potato stuffing was utterly and completely magnificent.

The accompaniments were just brilliant and perfectly suited to the meal. I'll eventually write the meal up (no! really!) on the eatin' blog.

I would argue that it was the Best. Christmas. Meal. Ever.

So maybe Gavin was worth the dosh after all, but not for the meat. If I had a hunter in my life, I'd send him out to get me another just to obtain more goose fat.

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like sunday morning

Though the goose is still unnamed (we'll decide upon nomenclature once we have him in our cold, dead hands) we've settled upon method and accompaniments. We'll be following Nigella's Goose stuffed with mashed potato recipe from Feast (p.18) accompanied by Potatoes roasted in Goose Fat (when too much potato is barely enough), Green Beans with Lemon and Sauerkraut with baked apples.

I now need to caucus with Joan re: the pre-lunch nibblies, lest we all get hammered on peach bellinis and need a nap or two.

Acquired gifts for TeamCareerDeath today. DishyBoss give us vino, AnxiousMum gave us Haighs. In attempt to be unconventional and superior and thoughtful (quelle surprise!) I settled on a theme of "hands": Badger Balm for DishyBoss (who is a mad keen gardener) and Burt's Bees manicure packs for AnxiousMum and Minion. I would be delighted if I received same, which is mostly my criteria for gift giving. Also, I feel unconventional and superior and thoughtful.

Only a fraction of Mom's pressie to go. She desires photographs of us (but we so don't take happy snaps of ourselves!)

Have I mentioned how I adore the buying one large and expensive combined christmas/birthday gift for Joan and The Babies? I do so heart having adult and teenage childrens.

And my beloved husband adores his hideously expensive christmas gift. Because of Reasons(^TMthe fabulous Third Cat) last year's gift of a cheese-making course at CSU did not occur, I made it up this year with a gorgeous, candy-apple-red, shiny electric guitar - which he adores & which I had hoped to buy him on our first Christmas together, but alas, we were too impoverished for such trifles.

Truly, I think this is the easiest Christmas ever (except for pauvre Joan, who has yet to find the ideal mid century modern dressing table - maybe we can buy her a ranga kitty of her very own as a consolation gift)!

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woo

I just received the call - we have a goose!!

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almost compleat

The Christmas prep slowly drags itself forward.

Friday:

• Belatedly tried to obtain goose. Butcher said they were very hard to find, but he would try and call me back. He did not call me back.
  
• Purchased annual Xmas treats from DJs for Grandfather and Maiden Aunt

Saturday:

• Ferried Joan to the ever-ghastly Ikea. The dressing table we were planning to buy her was v. expensive, horrid In Real Life and Poor Quality, so we gave it a miss. In addition, they did not have one of the components for the desk she wants, so we'll be making a return trip. Now undecided as to her pressie <sigh>.

Sunday:

• Made awesome tote from fabric found on street a couple of years ago and net-a-porter ribbon (is lined with black twill & reversible) to contain Grandfather + Maiden Aunt's DJs treats. Must package & pay exhorbitant amount for express post. Must make similar tote for self.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Mostly decided non-goose Xmas menu with Joan - duck (in goose-style) + chicken. We'll do chicken in kettle BBQ and duck in oven. We'll be starting with peach bellinis, but still need to decide on canapes and accompaniments.
  
• Much pleased that there are minimal gifts remaining, would be surprised if they took 30 mins to obtain. The Post Office will be the biggest challenge (that and finding pix to have printed for Mom - difficult when we tend not to take photographs of ourselves).

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fluff

It's no secret that I delight in bad novels, the more preposterous the better (hence my complete and utter devotion to the later works of Mr Cussler).

You may recall that while accumulating library books to see me through my surgery recovery, I discovered the hitherto unknown crafting genre of mystery/crime/murder novels. They were terribly light and fluffy and one was also terribly terrible.

Now that I have the super-fantastic kindle, I spent a little time yesterday afternoon acquiring material to read over the hols and decided to revisit the entire genre. And Oh My! There are far more fluffy crafting/special-interest mystery/crime/murder series with pun-tastic titles set in idyllic country towns with a protagonist who either owns or is affiliated with some form of crafty small business than I could ever have imagined!

There are loads of different knitting series, sewing, quilting, embroidery, soap-making, baking,farmer's market and truly, surely the most niche of all: historic home flipping (aka haunted home repair)!


You can guess what categories these end up in.

What I really should spend my Xmas break doing is prepping/refreshing for a week-long course I'll be attending with The Professor and a couple of other minions from TheSaltMinesLimited in mid-January.

The course outline contains such gems as: "Extending logistic regression to the multinomial case — multinom() in the nnet package, mlogit() in the mlogit package and (now set in a Bayesian framework) lda() in the MASS package". There are a lot of prep exercises and I'll also need a stats refresher before I attend. TeamCareerDeath and DishyBoss's uber micro-mangement style has really atrophied my brain.

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pissy

I don't know what has been happening over the past week, but it has been mucho exhausting and I have had little inclination for bloggering.

Last Friday saw the SaltMinesLimited Christmas party, which was held in a quite wonderful venue and we enjoyed some marvellous food and company. Unfortunately the bottomless glasses of wine (we later estimated 5 bottles between 4 of us before the main was served, and probably the same amount afterward - and let us not mention the post-lunch drinkies) got the better of me.


Be safe, fellow drunkards!

And while I arrived home safe and sound (while the sun was still up!) I was rather unwell indeed and threw up on the bathmat.

This lead me to thinking quite a very good deal indeed - and honestly, I really am too old to be doing that sort of thing (as the ever-sensible Joan commented, "<lecture> ... you're 43 years old!").

Yes, it is time to act like an adult! Or a lady!

And so it came to be that the only alcohol I consumed in the past week was a solitary glass of wine at the Team CareerDeath lunch, while DishyBoss, AnxiousMum and Minion shared three bottles (and then AnxiousMum and Minion shared an additional two bottles after DishyBoss left). I am super-pleased with my ability to resist the incessant naggings of my colleagues for "just another small glass", "go on, it won't hurt".

Being the only sober one was quite eye-opening. While I am not a shouty, harranging drunk like AnxiousMum (I am more the life-of-the-party, "i love you, man", load-up-everyone-with-compliments sort), I am pretty sure I don't want to be so hammered ever again and have big plans to ease off on the alcohol consumption. This will be number 1 on the not resolutions list for 2011.

Though tonight, being Friday, I have enjoyed a couple of glasses of the (rather underwhelmning) wine which DishyBoss gifted the team for Christmas. But I am being eminently sensible about it.


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lighten up, it's just fashion

I dunno about you, but I'm thinking there are slightly more picturesque locations within the immediate vicinity for a photo-shoot than our driveway



Or more gritty locales if you're looking for that sort of thing.

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my bad, my bad influence

Walked home today in the 3Xtr3m3 h34t, so sent Joe/Frank down to collect the mail (the mailbox not being on the direct 3xtr3m3 h34t route). There was some mail for Don and none for me¹, thus I cast all mail-related matters out of my mind.

When Don arrived home (with wine!) he opened the mail and found the following:



Oops.

Gasp! Pinged for doing 53kph in the Cross City Tunnel, which at the time of driving was a 40kph zone (I will point out that the usual speed for the tunnel is 80kph - stupidly ridiculous variable speed limits! And for no reason!).

It would seem that my kindly gesture in driving Joan home after she locked her keys in her haus had backfired!

One point gone and $90 later.

Don thinks this hilarious because I am an absolute stick-to-the-speed-limit-Nazi (no! really!) and curse all who exceed it, including Don (and it is interesting to note that he has well exceeded 80 in that tunnel and remained unscathed. Conspiracy?).

Joan can catch the bus(es) home next time².

¹Interestingly, Joan called about a random ANU survey sent to 80K hausholds in Sydney and asked if we had received it, I was all like, "no, but Don has a mysterious, unidentified mail item from Strawberry Hills".

²Also, Joan, you need to return your spare set of keys to me for when this next occurs.

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miss scarlet, lounge, candlestick

This year, on Saturday evenings when the babies have been with us, we've tried to do something family oriented. We've watched footy, elections, movies, played buzz), but mostly, we've been about the board games.

Last evening, we dragged out Cluedo (which I don't think we've played for at least five years).







This was followed by an impromptu game of scattergories (which we don't actually possess, so we rolled our own - which proved just as fun. Though we need a D20 for next time).


photocredit: Joe/Frank

At the beginning of the year, we'd need to occasionally handicap ourselves to be fair to Bessie, who was just a sensitive (a teary) wee girl and was not at all competitive.

I don't know what has happened in the past three or so months, but she is now regularly kicking our arses at everything we do.

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festively decorative

For the last couple of years, what with space considerations &etc, we've eschewed the christmas decorations at casa donandcarol.

And I'm certain it will come as no surprise that we never did make that utterly fabulous christmas tree.

This year I'm quite taken with this christmassy light fixture, as seen on apartment therapy.

 


However I know better than to think we would have the space to display (or truth be told, the will to construct) such an item, but it does look quite marvellous.

Our sole token gesture to the season (apart from the exhorbitant amounts of $ spent) is pretty party lights on the balcony (though they're there all year, so it is no great stretch!)



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first day of december

And the prep for the Christmas feast begins:



Pudding acquired!

Joan and I keep dithering about making our own, but I don't think we could do much better (despite our cumulative awesome baking sk1llz) than the Pudding Lane macadamia and Brandy puddings, which are teh awesome (if not a little expensive).

Now we just need to work out where we might obtain a goose.


Also, where exactly did that year go?

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