Open Sesame

My Dear Fellow,

It's hard to shop for Shetland Dad. Er Indoors didn't really know what to get him and neither did I, but it is tradition that he gets a box of oatcakes from us every year.

So I did my bit by going around the "International Foods" section in Countdown and New World for oatcakes. As a bonus, I also found Jaffa Cakes and Cadbury's Fingers. Er Indoors was happy. Now she is wrapping them all up.

I lingered for a long time in front of a Stollen. On the one hand, I do love it at Christmas. Something about marzipan, reindeer and Santa's elves all goes together. On the other hand it is HOT. I don't know about you, but the idea of marzipan in the heat is very unappealing. You could whack it in the freezer and serve it on a stick and I would still feel this way.

So I bypassed it. But then I found real, actual, authentic sesame sticks just like the ones you always send this time of year. That made me very happy. I'm not going to tell you how many I bought, but if the zombie apocalypse came, I would be able to subsist on them until 2020.

Er Indoors is now disgusted. "Caaaahhhhh!" she said. This is because Feefs has literally just emailed her the Christmas Dinner Menu. It involves an antipasto platter, some sort of lychee salad, sun-ripened tomato filo tarts, followed by turkey with trimmings, a honey-roast ham with pineapple and finally a pavlova wreath with lime and lemon grass curd, or a selection of praline biscuits.

"I thought we were just having a ****ing barbecue," said Er Indoors, appalled. 

And it's not like this is a meal we are going out for. Feefs intends on cooking all of this. She's got one of those Food Bag things that are so popular now. 

Er Indoors is determined not to get sucked into the kitchen helping with this ambitious feast. I suspect I might. It will be more entertaining than a conversation about oat cakes after all.

Parsones