Thursday 24 December 2020

Time to put the sprouts on, Mother

 

Right, the solstice is over, the sun summoned back, the bonfire stamped out, so its time to get dressed and put the sprouts on to simmer, Mother. There's only 48 hours of boiling time left.

Yes, I know it was fun, and you have a spell simmering, but it is too bloody cold for lingering, the Great Conjunction has been and gone and there's some serious cooking to crack on with. Here's a classic recipe from Stanislav, the Young Polish Plumber:

A FEAST OF JAMIE

Try and have right good fucking English Christmas round here.  Watch Jamie Bloke on telly and copy everything just right.  For soup is surprise a la Jamie.  Go in garden pull up handful of weeds from ground,  is ok leave some dirt on weeds, is organic soup,  innit,  go back in house and kick oven for good luck and get half kilo of garlic and smash up  with dirty old brick.  Have a break and pick nose for a minute,  tell cockney joke about My Old Mum.  

 Mmmm,  smell all that lovely garlic.  And then get some red hot chilli and smash with brick,  not too much,  just enough.  And then get ten pounds per litre olive oil off Sainsbury shop and pour some in jug.  Assemble all ingredients and season all up with half pound of cayenne pepper and half pound of vindaloo curry powder off Sainsburys.  Take weeds and oil and garlic and chilli and anything else you got lying about and throw in machine and give good fucking blitzing for minute or two till is right sloppy -  everything, weeds, garlic, oil and curry powder is one delicious and appetising grey-green mixture.  Wipe finger on arse of jeans and stick in soup.     Mmmm, is fucking miasma of friendly flavour  and texture,  'Strewth, fair leaps up from bowl and tickle under fucking chin, eh.? Pour in bowls and serve cold with handful of weed ripped up and thrown on top.  Mmmm,  is delicious and  is guarantee family will go mad for it.  Can make six month in advance and store in garage with coal.  Season to taste.
 
Next up is turkey.   Jamie Bloke says go down local turkey farm and kill bastard with own hands.  Is right organic.  Meaningful, like in fucking Guardian.  First chase after turkey in mud and shit and grab bastard by legs.  Mrs get one end and stan  get other end and twist like fuck, pulling like tug of war,  knack is to twist and pull just right and snap turkey neck. 
 Often bastard break free and bite and fucking squawk and shit and run around  and is back to square peg one.  Stanislav make rugby tackle on fucking turkey and bastard still won’t stop still and get killed.  Go back in van and get biggest in set of Stilson wrench and chase turkey bastard all around,  land blow on bird now and again but often is just fall on arse in mud and turkey shit.  Go back in van and start up engine.
 
Not much damage in the end, is just bumper and headlight and radiator all smash up but turkey is good and fucking dead, crush between van and wall;  not bite no other bastard.  Pay farmer hundred quid for turkey and hundred quid for wall and hundred quid for field all ploughed-up and hundred quid for not phone cops and hundred quid for  RSPCA.   Fuck me, thought plumbers was bad.  But five hundred quid for smelly old turkey about ten years old and made from leather and  most is all fucking claws and  feathers and shit. And have to pay cousin small fortune to fix up van with iffy parts  off eBay.  Still, organic make better citizen, like Mr Blunkett wants.  Only not  take turn with Mr Hoggart off Guardian and fuck other bloke Mrs and get kid. Too fucking organic for most folk.
 
Anyway,  get turkey up on table and splash liberally with white spirit off Sainsbury or petrol  from Sainsbury garage will do if not got any spirit  and set on fire until feathers is all burn off. Is best open windows.  If no spirit and no gas is best  cover with grated firelighter and light from other room. No need for too fussy.  Is Christmas and feather,  like run out of money, is Xmas  custom. Rub both hand vigorously down jeans and slap dead turkey on breast and stroke,  going,  mmmm just look  at that,  mmmm, just look at that.  Only  lightly season  - put few handful  of black pepper and couple of kilo of rock salt up turkey jacksie and pound or two of  ripped up weeds from garden,  hedge clippings from summer will do,   and few tube of squeeze garlic paste off Sainsburys.  Not bother with pull insides out.  All adds to great organic flavour.

Now is best part.  Go in garden with wheelbarrow.  If poor and not  got garden,  never mind, go down park, is open at Christmas,  full of wino and incognito crack prostitute from Cabinet and children shoot and stab  each other but never mind, is Christmas,  eh,  in prosperous,  cautious,  prudent Britain.  Anyway,  make plenty shovel of dirt in barrow and mix in smooth paste with couple of gallon of water from pond  and season with several kilo of garlic smash with brick and few jar of strawberry jam from Sainsburys.  Is good friends, garlic and strawberry, reassures  Jamie.  Make delicious mix of flavour on top of  dead turkey.
 
Go back in house and prepare turkey for oven  by putting in big fuck off dish and pour over tasty and flavoursome mud crust.  Get brother-in-law, Waldemar,  away from Christmas with Clarkson Video - Oh, this car go so fast my hair catch fucking fire,  Oh, this car so slow get overtake by fucking glacier;  Oh,  Birmingham is shithole; Oh, you might think I am fat useless repetitive overpaid BBC cunt. But you’d be wrong.  Waldemar help shove turkeybastard in oven,  kick door with foot and weld-up tight with gear from van and roast at  five hundred Celsius, Gas Mark 20, for several days. Maybe a week. Maybe fortnight.  Remove when cooked.
 
Unfortunately, family say not eating that shit, Stan. You can be organic as fuck,  we is off down McDonald,  get decent,  honest fucking mechanically reclaim turkey burger made of eyeball, foreskin,  arsehole,  beak and fucking feather and come with salty,  powdered chip with large Coke and apple pie to incinerate fucking gob,  complete with have nice day greeting off poor fucking miserable pimply bastard wish he was fucking dead, roasting in Hell,  rather than togged-up in stripey shirt and cap on head.  Even with howling smelly regiment of spoiled little bastards all having birthday party and poor old cripple mopping fucking floor, McDonald is better.  Fuck this organic shit.  Is not fit for decent person.  Only for  cockney ponce on fucking TV.
 
Must admit Turkey en croute with dock leaf and Bisto sorbet not best ever family Christmas dinner.  Maybe next year take advice from  fish and chip bloke in Cornwall.  Dig big fucking hole in garden, throw in firelighter and stick and coal and roast alive some poor fucking crab and lobster and eat with fingers. Dance about singing I do like to be beside the seaside.
 
Always assume of course that there is fucking Christmas next year and not all in  fucking NewLabour workhouse, nation of fucking homeless, vagrant dossers, line up for free soup off Salvation Army U Like.  Economic miracle, Phase 2.
........................................................
 
Musical Interlude - not a carol
 








11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Magnificent. Good cheer and healing times to you, Mrs I, and to all on here for this Christmas and 2021. Let us keep the faith and do the small things well.

mrs ishmael said...

Hello, mr anthony, nice to meet you and thank you for dropping in. And excellent good cheer to you. When you say, "small things", you are referring to the sprouts?
The government message is, I think, if I have it right, stay inside. That's it. Oh, okay, venture out during the hours of daylight, briefly. But, really, stay inside. It is an infestation of vampires we're dealing with, right?

inmate said...

A peaceful Christmas to you mrs I and all fellow Ishmaelites and a well deserved rest for the Editor mr Verge.
Hears hoping for a more sensible new year, less ruin from the fat turk and Handcock.

Bungalow Bill said...

Yes, peace for us all please. God that would be good, in the bleak midwinter.

Mike said...

Beast wishes Mrs I, and all fellow travelers.

Cold cream of asparagus soup with melba toast (we always go retro at Christmas - on New Years it will be prawn cocktail with radioactive sauce) and grilled NZ salmon. Its our summer Down Here, but not too hot at the moment. To think that only a year ago all we had to worry about was bushfires.

Anonymous said...

Thanks mr Inmate, and what mr Mike said, with or without the typo!

cheers

v./

Doug Shoulders said...

Good luck and a better year than last to all Ishmaelites. Here's hoping. Great stuff from Stanislav, btw. Brought a smile to my face.

Yardarm said...

Amen to that, Mr inmate. Merry Giule to all Ishmalians.

mrs ishmael said...

Beast wishes to all Ishmaelians, as mr mike says. No doubt he'll have a chilled glass or two of something white and delicious to enhance his chilled asparagus soup. I hope there's a few more courses, because asparagus soup sounds like slim pickings. Me, I've got friends cooking up a storm with five courses, starting off with lobster soup. One day, remind me to tell you about the 12 course Christmas dinner that mr ishmael and I enjoyed one Christmas in Amsterdam.
To be unaccustomedly serious for a moment, I want to echo mr inmate's good wishes for Editor mr verge. Without his encouragement, I would not have been bringing you the Sunday Ishmael each week, and without his hard work, there would have been no anthology, with two more volumes in the works. A toast to mr verge - raise your glasses, Ishmaelites!

mongoose said...

Yes, best wishes, everyone, and a double helping to the noble mr v.

Looks like Bojo didn't flinch at the end, mr mike. It is still a Treaty though and so the silent worm-like tentacles will still be there mooching about beneath the surface and the sappers will be under the corners for eternity. All things considered, probably as good as it was going to get after the "incompetence" of the May administration.

Merry Christmas, war is over.

Jock Roach said...

Merry Christmas Mrs I and to all contributors let us hope for a more productive period in 2021 rather than the fiasco which continues.
Thoroughly enjoyed the recently published work which Mr V
collated and look forward to the next volume.
Now, must get to work on the turkey with these invaluable tips from the plumber.