Christmas in Australia is a very different proposition from Christmas in New England. Think kangaroos instead of squirrels, 110F days instead of snow storms, and sixteen hours of sunlight instead of eight. You'd think, then, that Christmas fare would be quite different too.
And you'd be wrong. My family has insisted on serving roast turkey with all the trimmings, followed by a traditional English fruit pudding with hard sauce, ever since I can remember.
I've railed against this tradition for some years. I like turkey well enough, but it tastes like hell when the temperature is, well, hellish. As for English fruit pudding, I think it tastes like boiled lead. This year, for the first time, my family has decided to ditch the stodge, and do the rational thing - go out to a restaurant for a lovely, civilized Christmas lunch. I'm grateful not to have to sweat over a pudding basin on Christmas Eve or peel 347 potatoes on Christmas morning because, trite as it may sound, all I want for Christmas is to spend it enjoying the company of my wonderful family.
So much so that, the night before we left for Australia, I had a Christmas present crisis. Everything I'd bought seemed perfectly nice, but I wanted to do a little something extra. My family deserved handmade gourmet gifts, and handmade gourmet gifts they would have. I decided on these salted butter caramels, because they are fancy and delicious but could be made with ingredients I had kicking around the pantry. It occurs to me that, if you're in this predicament too this Christmas Eve, you'd do well to do as I did.
You can dress these up with tempered chocolate and a few grains of fleur de sel, before wrapping them in lurid candy wrappers, as I did. You can double the salt in the recipe for a more contemporary and sparkly finish, as I did not (my family are traditionalists, you see). But even if you just slip a few candies in a bit of tinfoil and pop it in your loved one's stockings, I really doubt they'll complain. They may even rave, and love you just that little bit more for it. I'm just sayin'.
Happy Holidays, and see you in the New Year!
Comments