Belated Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.

My Christmas celebration was a glass of red wine with my mother while we sat on the floor and curry-combed her Great Pyrenees. We talked about when she was a little girl, and how the room we were sitting in used to be the open porch where they churned the butter and plucked the chickens.

I made roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for dinner, with a whole bunch of sides and vegs out of an very old British cookbook. Pretty much the whole thing was new territory for me and a lot of work (Meat that’s not chopped to pieces and sauced? Alien and suspicious.) but turned out very well.

I hope everyone else had a similarly comfortable and close company, and an equivalently enjoyable meal.