Stir Up Sunday

Sunday 21st November

Day 214

Traditionally it is Stir Up Sunday today - the day to make your Christmas pudding when all members of the family, right down to the smallest, take turns stirring the sticky mixture.

For us it’s Stir Up Chutney Sunday. I want to use up all the bowls of unripe allotment produce which have been hanging around in the fridge for far too long - grass green tomatillos, squashy, pale orange cape gooseberries, wrinkly skinned apples, tiny sprouting onions, even smaller bulbs of garlic.

It’s cold, damp, overcast and bleak outside. My husband puts on a CD that we bought in New York - a jazz quartet we watched playing in Central Park on our first warm blue day there. And we start chopping - the chillis and shallots stinging our eyes. Soon we have two pans bubbling on the stove, the smell of vinegar and allspice rippling through the kitchen.

While my husband paints his clay model dragon, I weigh out the dried fruit for the Christmas cake and leave it soaking in several glugs of brandy. I’ll cook it tomorrow - keeping up my own tradition. Only one cake this year - I used to make one for my mother who liked marzipan but not royal icing on hers. I’ll remember her though, when I’m stirring up the sticky mixture.

Today I’m grateful for my store cupboards - stuffed full with packets of raisins and almonds, glace cherries and apricots - and that I have a wonderful family who will share my Christmas.