The Humble Gourmand

It was without thinking that I invited four friends round for a pre-Christmas Christmas dinner.

If I’d been thinking, I probably would have remembered that I’d never cooked a roast chicken before, much less a turkey; that Christmas dinners are pretty damn expensive; and that I’d invited a vegetarian.

But I didn’t think, so the date was set.

The day before, I headed to my nearest supermarket in central London with a list longer than my arm, only to discover that supermarkets in central London aren’t actually supermarkets. ‘Submarkets’ would be a better name, for not only was my local lacking in sprouts and chipolatas, but also any kind of whole bird — though there were individual, overpriced breasts of numerous varieties.

So I hopped on a bus and 45 minutes later I’d arrived at an out-of-town supermarket this time worthy of the prefix. They had a conveniently named “Christmas aisle” which served me well until I noticed the prices of the turkeys. Was this a joke?

I looked around. No, apparently it wasn’t a joke. From their popularity with other eager shoppers, I discerned that turkeys must always cost a fortnight’s food budget. A kind lady noticed my pale face and pointed me in the direction of the turkey crowns. These were even worse – and considering I was only cooking for four meat-eaters I decided a chicken would be a far superior (at least in terms of my bank balance) option.

It was with trepidation I began peeling my potatoes and copious other vegetables on the pre-Christmas Christmas day. Two hours later I wasn’t nearly done preparing and the guests were due to arrive in 30 minutes.

I’d never roasted a chicken before because I’ve lived with a vegetarian for four years and the penchant for vegetables is catching. When I started stuffing the chicken, I remembered why I’d always found courgettes so appealing. The giblets put me right off my food, and suddenly, the veggie’s nut roast (that she’d provided herself, thank goodness) looked rather tasty.

The guests arrived and were duly warned that my original ETS (estimated time of serving) had been wildly optimistic. By this point, it looked as though we’d be eating about two hours late. I opened the wine and hoped they wouldn’t notice.

Except for a minor incident when I dropped the roasting tin, chicken and all, on the floor — prompting one friend to say I looked like an “alcoholic housewife” — everything seemed to be going well. This worried me.

Turns out I was right to be worried.

Because of the token vegetarian, I had decided to make a red-onion gravy that we all could enjoy. The veggie helped, and together we produced something that tasted slightly more like onions than vegetable stock.

I dished up the vegetables, the veggie sliced her nut loaf, and by this point, two hours late, I was fairly sure the chicken wouldn’t kill anybody of salmonella. My friend Dan offered to carve and I accepted. This quickly turned out to be a mistake as he took it upon himself to “improve” our lovingly prepared red-onion gravy by adding the meat juices.

By the time we’d noticed, everything else had been dished up and was ready to be eaten. The veggie pretended not to mind, but her nut loaf and vegetables looked about as dry as the Sahara, so Dan had little choice but to rustle up another gravy.

The new veggie-friendly gravy (which, in truth, tasted better than the original) was whipped up in less than five minutes. Unfortunately, this was five minutes the rest of the food didn’t need. By the time we started to eat, everything was cold.

On any other day, I might have cried about the fact that my hours of shopping, peeling and cooking had resulted in a tepid plate of overcooked food. But this was pre-Christmas Christmas day after all -– a silly occasion if ever there was one — so it all seemed rather funny.

The experience did teach me a few things about Christmas dinners, though: don’t cook one if you’ve never roasted a chicken before in your life; save up for a few weeks beforehand, and if you invite a veggie friend, don’t let a rogue, meat-eating one do the carving. And finally, when making gravy, make like Jamie Oliver and cook it weeks in advance.

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