Christmas Cooking by Generation

Every year my Mum comes out for a couple of days; on Christmas Eve, we cook. This year we were a bit behind the eight ball as there'd been a fierce and violent storm in the district (it was even called a mini tornado) the night before that caused a lot of damage and dropped power lines. We weren't hit with any damage but were affected by the power outage. We had been in Toowoomba and came back through about 20 minutes after the storm; it took us an extra hour to get home as we had to constantly stop to remove fallen trees and branches. Gibbo was in front of us in his car; we followed him and we had another car behind us.

It was a hellish trip home in the dark; we were very relieved to turn left onto the road to home where the damage wasn't so bad but we came across this!

Power wasn't restored until after 1 o'clock; it was then a mad rush to get everything cooked and prepped!

Mum did the pork; she did the whole butter/salt/oil thing that I remember from my childhood/growing up. It's so long since I've seen her do it like this - I had actually forgotten her method. For a long time I've just used oil and salt but when I saw her do this it took me back….and honestly, it was the best crackling ever!

Also this year, for the first time in many, I deviated from the usual two roast chickens from the supermarket and bought two boned out chickens from the butcher (an idea my hairdresser gave me). We used my grandmother's/Mum's stuffing recipe - Mum made it - and the 3 of us (Mum, Meg and I) rolled the bodies and jammed them into the string sleeves. Plenty of laughs in that process. Verdict - best chickens in a long time; we'll do it again next year! I enjoyed the fact that the smell/taste/memory reminded me of a time so long ago. I liked that it was 3 generations in the kitchen sharing recipes and methods from my childhood. The memory of my grandmother was heavy in the air too, especially strong when Meg made the filling for the stuffed eggs on Christmas morning. It's all a lot of work but it's tradition and I like that.

Gibbo was hard at work with his little friend keeping him company. She's never too far from his side.