David Niven and Ginger Rogers in Bachelor Mother (1939)
And so we come to my favourite time of the year. That in-between bit. I just love it. London’s deserted. My bloated email feed has evaporated. The telephone’s stopped ringing. Those over-familiar identity-badge-wearing people who knock on your shiny front door and ask for money seem to have gone away. Cue Plain Song, Cue Silence. Cue the Slow Ticking of an Antique Clock. Peace and Harmony Reign. It’s interesting how in the modern world there’s all this focus on the run-up to Christmas, which now seems to start in October, while the leaves are still on the trees. And all for only one day. As my little sister succinctly puts it: “All for a Bit of Bloody Turkey”.
But historically, of course, the Christmas season is still very much with us. Christmas Day was just the start of the whole shebang, which ran over the Twelve Days (ending on Twelfth Night) and Christmas Day itself wasn’t especially important. By the 1830s Christmas had become a minor, rather low key festival, in danger of vanishing, which was one of the reasons why writers such as Washington Irving and Charles Dickens romanticised it in their writings and in turn, helped to re-invent the nineteenth century Christmas. Judith Flanders’ excellent Christmas: A Biography looks into all this in greater depth: the truth is that people have been celebrating mid-winter for thousands of years, actually long before the advent of Christianity, which- I hate to say it- means that all those hand-wringing, tut-tutting Cromwellian religious types who moan about the commercialisation of Christmas, have, I fear, got it all completely wrong: historically, at least, the middle of December has always been a time for carousing, dancing, spending money, drinking too much and generally behaving in a disreputable fashion. And long may this tradition continue.
Looking ahead we’ve got some old friends coming over to the hovel for the New Years Eve revels and Jiminy Cricket, do those two renegades like cocktails. Champagne Cocktails. Luckily we’ve got a bottle of Veuve Clicquot yellow label knocking about, so it’s time to make classic champagne cocktails courtesy of the Metropolitan Hotel New York, circa 1934. For some reason, New Year’s Eve makes me think of Manhattan in the 1930s, top hats, the Rockefeller Center and ginormous Christmas trees. Anyway. Here’s the recipe:
Soak a sugar cube with a dash of Angostura Bitters. Drop it into the bottom of a champagne flute.
While I'm about it: a quick word on champagne glasses. I use the classic flute shape. My parents still think it’s amusing to use those rather kitsch Victorian novelty shallow glass things- fashioned, I gather, from Marie Antoinette’s left tit. They’re fun- but I’ve been told on competent authority that they’re not a friend of bubbles, and makes the champagne go flat rather quickly. I’m not keen, although its quite fun seeing the tiny bubbles whizz up the stems.
But on with the cocktail: Fill up the glass with a decent Champagne. Our bottle of Veuve will do just fine, although some wiser types might think this a waste of the good stuff. Finish it off with a twist of lemon.
Thank you to everyone and anyone who has taken time off to read The Greasy Spoon over the last year, and I wish you all a happy and peaceful 2018. Happy New Year!
