Which beast for the feast?
Just before I get started on the main topic of the blog, a quick message for my funky friend. I know how disappointed you are that you can't use the phrase "Well that was our summer, then!" to me at present - however the current cliche doing the rounds is this one:
"All ready for Christmas then?"
What a boring and utterly pointless phrase! Why do people do it? Have you nothing more interesting to say? And why do you ask anyway? Do you really want to hear a potted run down of my Christmas preparations? You are not going to be there (thankfully, lol!) What you really want to do is use it as prelude to giving me a run down of your own irrelevant plans! Wind it in people!
Anyway, Mr Fulford, I reckon I have been asked that by 99 people so far this week, so I may as well give you the chance to make the century, go on son, fill your boots, I know you want to. I expect to see it on my wall by morning!
Right then, on to business. Rather than blah on about a selection of random Christmas trivia, I shall focus my attention on the choice of bird to adorn the table here at Baconham Villa this Christmas. Not a particularly difficult choice to make really. These toffee nosed chefs can waffle on about geese and such like to their hearts content, but let's face it, we pay mere lip service to that pretentious crap, we're all having a turkey, we don't know any better, and nor do we want to. The main question is what sort of turkey and where are we getting it from?
Now those with large families will get a full bird, I'm sure - if that was me I'd be instinctively drawn towards one of the local butchers, however, there's not a huge appetite for meat in our house. Though it's probably fair to say I do compensate for the others shortcomings.
Claire will eat an average amount, Ollie will eat a bit, and Jamie won't touch it at all. The nearest he will get to any flesh is a fish finger, anything that's lived on land is a big no-no. At the moment anyway, however he is only two.
Plus (and I'm not going to go down any obvious Sid James style humour), breast is best in this house. Which is why I rarely buy whole chickens because no-one wants anything other than the breast. Don't even bother with "oh but you can make stock with it etc", there is no point. I live with a family of fussy eaters and that's that. Yes, I know some of you probably have an image of me gorging on the carcass and stuffing all the bones into my mouth in some sort of depraved carnivorous orgy, but that's quite the wrong image you have got of me there. You have made the mistake of allowing past media coverage of my culinary habits cloud your judgement. Shame on you. Anyway there's no video footage anywhere of me ever doing anything like that, so you can't prove anything. Agent Jack Bauer owed me a favour.
Anyway...what I am saying in a roundabout sort of way is that a Turkey Crown is the way to go here. As I think it is with many families these days. So we've narrowed it down to that. But where to get it from?
Well last year, I spent about 30 quid on one of these crowns from M&S and I think I made a pretty decent job of cooking it. Well nobody complained anyway. Or threw up. My main gripe really was that there wasn't an awful lot of meat on it. There was about as much left over as there would have been from an average Sunday Roast joint that normally costs me about £7 and gets placed in a tupperware container and placed into the fridge, never to be seen again. It always mysteriously disappears from the fridge about 1:10am on a Monday morning. Strange, as I normally roll in from work about 1:05am and I've never spotted the culprit.
So, disappointed somewhat with the M&S offering, I was delighted to discover last Saturday morning in the Times "Weekend" section, a large section dedicated to Christmas Food. Particularly catching my eye was a double paged spread about Turkeys and various other festive fayre (pigs in blankets, that sort of thing).
This was written by some celebrity chef or other, can't remember which one. However it quickly became clear that he considered himself to be on a somewhat higher plane than the rest of us mere mortals. Now I know the Times likes to aim for a higher demographic (myself being a prime example) than some of our less savoury newspapers, however this guy really was taking the piss. Amusingly so, though!
In terms of the turkeys, those reviewed came from Tesco, Sainsbury, M&S, Waitrose and Fortnum and Mason(!) So starting in the mid market and heading upwards. I was most pleased to see the Tesco turkey get an absolute slating. I do like to see a bit of journalism free from any censorship from the bosses in fear of upsetting the advertisers, and wow, did this guy go for it. This didn't just apply to the turkey, he had a good go at some of their other offerings too. He really really doesn't like Tesco. Their turkey got 1 out of 5. Sainsbury and M&S didn't fare much better. He was begrudgingly nice to Waitrose, yet it seems if we really want anything decent we've got to get it from Fortnum & Mason. Well that's handy then. I heard they were opening up a branch in the old Winners building. Or perhaps not.
So this article did not help me much. So I went out into the field and did some research. Whole turkeys only at the butchers it seems, so what have the supermakets got? Well M&S have the usual pricy stuff same as last year, which Times critic doesn't rate. Tesco's offering looks uninspired and bearing in mind what he wrote and my general displeasure with them, they certainly won't be getting my custom this year. Iceland? Three Bird Roast? Don't even go there...
Then I took a trip up to Aldi.
And lo and behold, there are some lovely looking turkey crowns for less than half of what M&S are offering, and they didn't look half bad at all. I mean, how bad can they be? Probably not bad at all - my experience of meats from Aldi has only ever been good. I have to say I am tempted. Going on what the guy in the Times said about Tesco, Sainsbury and M&S it hardly sounds as if they are setting the world alight. I did not purchase one today, but I think I may go back and get one tomorrow. Because I reckon I can buy there for £10 something that will be just as good as what's £25 in M&S.
Aldi wasn't mentioned in the Times article, perhaps they consider that their readers are above shopping at such a place, well, I say wake up, we aren't all stockbrokers popping into Fortnum & Mason at our leisure, you can be reasonably affluent and intelligent and shop at places like Aldi. In fact I would say shopping there is a very intelligent thing to do, never mind about being on a budget - why pay more just to keep up with the Joneses..."Oh you bought your turkey from Aldi, how frightful?" No need for that in this day and age.
Well hopefully...I'll let you know after December 25th.
Disclaimer: Bicester Blogger can accept no responsibility if you decide to go and buy your turkey from Aldi based on what was written in this article and it turns out to be absolutely horrible.
If you have enjoyed reading this blog, please take a look at my books on Amazon (Paperback & Kindle), where you can read lots more of the same! Click here.
Jason xx
"All ready for Christmas then?"
What a boring and utterly pointless phrase! Why do people do it? Have you nothing more interesting to say? And why do you ask anyway? Do you really want to hear a potted run down of my Christmas preparations? You are not going to be there (thankfully, lol!) What you really want to do is use it as prelude to giving me a run down of your own irrelevant plans! Wind it in people!
Anyway, Mr Fulford, I reckon I have been asked that by 99 people so far this week, so I may as well give you the chance to make the century, go on son, fill your boots, I know you want to. I expect to see it on my wall by morning!
Right then, on to business. Rather than blah on about a selection of random Christmas trivia, I shall focus my attention on the choice of bird to adorn the table here at Baconham Villa this Christmas. Not a particularly difficult choice to make really. These toffee nosed chefs can waffle on about geese and such like to their hearts content, but let's face it, we pay mere lip service to that pretentious crap, we're all having a turkey, we don't know any better, and nor do we want to. The main question is what sort of turkey and where are we getting it from?
Now those with large families will get a full bird, I'm sure - if that was me I'd be instinctively drawn towards one of the local butchers, however, there's not a huge appetite for meat in our house. Though it's probably fair to say I do compensate for the others shortcomings.
Claire will eat an average amount, Ollie will eat a bit, and Jamie won't touch it at all. The nearest he will get to any flesh is a fish finger, anything that's lived on land is a big no-no. At the moment anyway, however he is only two.
Plus (and I'm not going to go down any obvious Sid James style humour), breast is best in this house. Which is why I rarely buy whole chickens because no-one wants anything other than the breast. Don't even bother with "oh but you can make stock with it etc", there is no point. I live with a family of fussy eaters and that's that. Yes, I know some of you probably have an image of me gorging on the carcass and stuffing all the bones into my mouth in some sort of depraved carnivorous orgy, but that's quite the wrong image you have got of me there. You have made the mistake of allowing past media coverage of my culinary habits cloud your judgement. Shame on you. Anyway there's no video footage anywhere of me ever doing anything like that, so you can't prove anything. Agent Jack Bauer owed me a favour.
 |
| I just thought I would randomly insert this picture in here, as it's one of the all time classic comedy Christmas moments |
Anyway...what I am saying in a roundabout sort of way is that a Turkey Crown is the way to go here. As I think it is with many families these days. So we've narrowed it down to that. But where to get it from?
Well last year, I spent about 30 quid on one of these crowns from M&S and I think I made a pretty decent job of cooking it. Well nobody complained anyway. Or threw up. My main gripe really was that there wasn't an awful lot of meat on it. There was about as much left over as there would have been from an average Sunday Roast joint that normally costs me about £7 and gets placed in a tupperware container and placed into the fridge, never to be seen again. It always mysteriously disappears from the fridge about 1:10am on a Monday morning. Strange, as I normally roll in from work about 1:05am and I've never spotted the culprit.
So, disappointed somewhat with the M&S offering, I was delighted to discover last Saturday morning in the Times "Weekend" section, a large section dedicated to Christmas Food. Particularly catching my eye was a double paged spread about Turkeys and various other festive fayre (pigs in blankets, that sort of thing).
This was written by some celebrity chef or other, can't remember which one. However it quickly became clear that he considered himself to be on a somewhat higher plane than the rest of us mere mortals. Now I know the Times likes to aim for a higher demographic (myself being a prime example) than some of our less savoury newspapers, however this guy really was taking the piss. Amusingly so, though!
In terms of the turkeys, those reviewed came from Tesco, Sainsbury, M&S, Waitrose and Fortnum and Mason(!) So starting in the mid market and heading upwards. I was most pleased to see the Tesco turkey get an absolute slating. I do like to see a bit of journalism free from any censorship from the bosses in fear of upsetting the advertisers, and wow, did this guy go for it. This didn't just apply to the turkey, he had a good go at some of their other offerings too. He really really doesn't like Tesco. Their turkey got 1 out of 5. Sainsbury and M&S didn't fare much better. He was begrudgingly nice to Waitrose, yet it seems if we really want anything decent we've got to get it from Fortnum & Mason. Well that's handy then. I heard they were opening up a branch in the old Winners building. Or perhaps not.
So this article did not help me much. So I went out into the field and did some research. Whole turkeys only at the butchers it seems, so what have the supermakets got? Well M&S have the usual pricy stuff same as last year, which Times critic doesn't rate. Tesco's offering looks uninspired and bearing in mind what he wrote and my general displeasure with them, they certainly won't be getting my custom this year. Iceland? Three Bird Roast? Don't even go there...
Then I took a trip up to Aldi.
And lo and behold, there are some lovely looking turkey crowns for less than half of what M&S are offering, and they didn't look half bad at all. I mean, how bad can they be? Probably not bad at all - my experience of meats from Aldi has only ever been good. I have to say I am tempted. Going on what the guy in the Times said about Tesco, Sainsbury and M&S it hardly sounds as if they are setting the world alight. I did not purchase one today, but I think I may go back and get one tomorrow. Because I reckon I can buy there for £10 something that will be just as good as what's £25 in M&S.
Aldi wasn't mentioned in the Times article, perhaps they consider that their readers are above shopping at such a place, well, I say wake up, we aren't all stockbrokers popping into Fortnum & Mason at our leisure, you can be reasonably affluent and intelligent and shop at places like Aldi. In fact I would say shopping there is a very intelligent thing to do, never mind about being on a budget - why pay more just to keep up with the Joneses..."Oh you bought your turkey from Aldi, how frightful?" No need for that in this day and age.
Well hopefully...I'll let you know after December 25th.
Disclaimer: Bicester Blogger can accept no responsibility if you decide to go and buy your turkey from Aldi based on what was written in this article and it turns out to be absolutely horrible.
If you have enjoyed reading this blog, please take a look at my books on Amazon (Paperback & Kindle), where you can read lots more of the same! Click here.
Jason xx
I'd have to agree in that the meat from Aldi is generally good quality. We had a 3 bird roast from there last year that went down well with my in-laws.
ReplyDeleteHope you have a great Christmas Jason.