Rossi Xmas

We went home for the official Rossi Christmas - Roast dinner and prezzies!

Very Gothic decorations!

Pictures are here on Picasa.

  

 

Tree Preservation

I've just been chopping up the Xmas tree to put it in our wheelie bin - the 1st collection of the year is going to be on Tuesday.

Not a single needle had fallen.

Well, not until I got the big snippers out on it, anyway!

I suspect, this was partly due to the fact that the tree went up pretty late this year. (Hey! At least it went up, thanks to Grace & Harry), but partly due to the fact that we have, over the years, developed a super technique for putting up the tree, and keeping it alive once it's up.

Since living in my own house, and putting up my own tree, I must have bought every single tree stand available on the market - but now we have the simplest method in the world.

It starts with a wooden half barrel - just an ordinary outdoor plant pot - then it's lined with a couple of the super strong bin liners which are used for rubble. Into the bottom of this we sit a plastic bowl which just fits inside and which was a new addition to the ensemble after last year's little water incident.

We then stand the tree in the pot and wedge it in with cobbles. This allows the tree to stand up without being held, but still allows the trunk to be moved about a bit so we can get it straight. (This method was invented by me years ago when I didn't have Dan, Grace and Harry to help me get the tree up - only one pair of hands being the mother of invention - I would get the tree in the pot, lean it against a wall, and wedge half bricks in to make it stand up!)

Bearing in mind what can happen when you let the water out, we then came up with this year's pièce de résistance which was the addition of an empty Vimto bottle, upside down, through the cobbles and into the plastic bowl at the bottom which would allow water to be easily topped up in the system! This was Grace's idea!!!

The final phase is that we use scoops to pour gravel into the gaps between the cobbles, and this makes for a very securely held tree and a heavily weighted one which isn't likely to tilt over!

It was such a successful method of watering the tree that whilst we've dismantled it all, I've kept all the constituent parts for next year!

 

Dan and Archie

Dan and Archie spend a bit of quality time together...

Aren't they lovely???

Happy New Year Archie!

We saw in the new year this year with baby Archie (party animal) and his mum and dad, Marina and Matt!

Archie was completely un-phased by staying up after midnight.

"Don't know what the big deal is" he said, "I do it all the time".

He was a very good boy and went to bed at 2am, and only woke at 7, and we all had some lovely quality time with him - as you can see from the pics!

I even perfected the art of holding a baby in one arm and a champagne flute in the other. See...I do have a maternal instinct after all!!!!

He was given a baby bouncer for Christmas by his Connor grandparents and so we had him boinging in the doorway for a while too. Marina also dressed him up as a gangsta bee with his new little babygro hoodie outfit, and we took loads of pics and laughed at him a lot! Poor wee thing!

 

When Creme Brulee goes wrong...

...you get vanilla flavoured scrambled eggs! I never knew that.

I'm a first time creme brulee maker. I thought it looked lovely and simple.

Cream, sugar, vanilla, and some orange zest and Cointreau as this was going to be an orangey flavoured one.

Some whisking, and some bringing up to simmer heat. A bit of combining of ingredients, and in to the pots. Don't they look perfect?

The recipe I was using was an American one, and I quickly googled the phrase "convert 325 degrees f to celcius". If you click on my link, you'll see the results I got. The 1st link returned contained the snippet of a phrase "325 F to Celsius 169 C."

Aha, 170 degrees I thought.

In went the lovely creamy creme brulee pots. With Cointreau. And expensive Madagascan vanilla.

We set the timer for 20 minutes. The recipe said 40 but it's always good to go and have a look after a bit.

At 20 minutes, we could see the tops getting quite brown.

Well, I know they're supposed to go brown after the sugar gets caramelised on the top - but brown before leaving the oven? I wasn't so sure.

I had another check on the website for the recipe. I googled the temperature conversion again. This time I used 'Centigrade' instead of 'Celsius'. The results came back looking like this.

Nealy 10 degrees cooler.

Ooops.

By the time I realised the oven was way too hot, and had whipped the brulees out of there, it was too late.

We had Cointreau and Vanilla flavoured scrambled egg.

Note, in the pictures, the lovely gathering of Madagascan vanilla seeds in the bottom of the concoction. Imagine how nice it should have tasted. Weep for the cream, sugar and Cointreau which will now go in the bin.

Christmas Food

We've been cooking and eating all day.

No surprise there!

Obviously we've been documenting it with photographs - the picasa web album is here.

Culinary highlights have been

1. The home made cranberry sauce
2. The Kelly Bronze Turkey

We're stuffed. A bit like the turkey!!!

Christmas Shopping

I remember back to when I was a Saturday girl at our deli - I worked mornings and Janey did afternoons - and around Christmas time, we used to marvel at just how much food people used to order. We'd know, for example, that their weekly bread order was a vienna loaf and 6 white batch [1] and then on Christmas Eve, the order would be 15 vienna and 30 batch - or something equally ridiculous. Similarly, people used to order pizzas like they were going out of fashion. Why pizzas at Christmas? We didn't know! 10, 15 large pizzas - each different. Hundreds and hundreds of them on Christmas Eve. Mum would have to get extra 'pizza girls' in just to keep the production line going in Christmas week, with grated cheese, chopped ham, and all the trimmings!

Still, I've never really got it.

We have had 2 'at home' Christmases these past 2 years. One with Dan's family, and one with mine. It's been really lovely. But, although I know we had a few extra bits we wouldn't normally buy (eg extra puddings for the Aldridges, or extra wine for the Rossis) it wasn't an order of magnitude bigger than our normal shop for that week - maybe an extra 50 quid. On one shop. The one before they came.

So, I was rather dismayed to pitch up to Sainsblobs one night after work over a month ago - it was the 2nd week in November - to find that I couldn't get a parking space. The cars were actually parked all over on the pavement in spots not normally allocated to parking.

"What's going on?" I thought to myself. Was it a special event on at the White Rose shopping centre? Then I realised - it was a Thursday 'late night'. The first in the run up to Christmas. I couldn't believe it. 6 weeks before Xmas and already the shops were overflowing. Aren't we supposed to be in a recession?

So, we've not been anywhere near a supermarket since then. We've shopped for milk/bread/eggs at the local convenience market - they even do a line in fresh salad items and wine too. We've done one delivery order from the aforementioned supermarket chain (loads of fizzy water, bottles and tins, poor guy) but mostly we've been eating what's been stored in the freezer. I refuse to jump on the consumer bandwagon!


[1] That's "bap" for the southerners and "breadcake" for the Yorkshire folk

 

What's on top of the tree?

Grace and Harry spotted this lovely pengy just as we walked in to Tong Garden Centre yesterday to get our tree. They know about my pengy passion and so they headed straight for the little scene of polar creatures set up just by the entrance - there were fluffy polar bears, penguins, and various other creatures placed unnaturally together in the same environment, but in the name of Christmas festivities, we'll forgive their Zoological faux pas!

Anyway, when it came to putting the star or angel on the top of the tree - Harry suggested that we put the pengy on top of the tree.

I loved the idea!

In fact - I remember that there's a type of penguin called a 'Fairy Penguin' so it seemed very appropriate to be the fairy on top of the Christmas tree! 

OK so I know *this* one isn't a Fairy Penguin - looks like a King or Emperor - but hey ho with the semantics. 


I've got a fairy penguin on top of the tree!!

The Christmas Tree is UP!

We've just spent a lovely afternoon with Grace & Harry who have for about the 5th year running, helped us put up our Christmas Tree. It's so late on in the Xmas season though, that I thought we'd never manage it. I've been feeling rather ill these last few days, particularly yesterday; very groggy, headachey and exhausted so I was quite glad that the guys were around to help us. 

The pictures are here on picasa.

We've got the whole thing off to a fine art - in and out of Tong garden Centre in a matter of about 20 minutes and the tree was put up in record time. Pizzas were consumed and the baubles went on. The whole event in about 3 hours!

Thanks again guys! Couldn't have done it without you!

The Christmas Episode!

Hello & Welcome if you've come to the blog via the little Christmas message we sent out in our cards this year!

How quickly time flies! It hardly seems like a year since we waved goodbye to Mum, Dad and Janey after our lovely Christmas here last year!

So, what's been going on in 2009?

For those of you who follow the blog, you probably already know, as most of it is documented! For those of you who don't, then here is a guide to our 2009...


Food

• We bought a PIG (yes really!)
• yo!
• Lovely tea last night
• best hot and sour soup ever!

Trips/Hols

• We had a holiday in a weird little cottage in Cumbria
• Trip to Portsmouth
• New York & Vegas
• Venice Pics

Work & Geekery

• Liza went to Raleigh, again
• Dan on the night shift
• Lots of machines
• Norbert
  

Newsworthy Events

• Dan's Car blew up on the M62 -(1) A scary Phone call (2) Part 1 (3) Part 2
• Oscar
• Archie
  

Everyday Things

• A new project (Li's needlework)

Check out our Photo Albums

• Album 1 - this one has the older pics - going back to about 2007
  
• Album 2 - this one has 2 of the NY and LV albums on only
• Album 3 - most recent - including Archie, Oscar, Venice.
  

Of course, there's LOADS more in the blog - feel free to bookmark it and have a pootle around at your leisure.

So thank you if you've been part of our year this year, and we're sorry if we've not got round to seeing you in 2009. Lets get together in 2010 and you can be part of our special year next year!

Love, Li & Dan

 

Celia Imrie, eat your heart out...

Friday dawned bright and breezy - and so after a coffee to shake off the fog formed due to the lateness of my arrival, we were ready quite early to head out locally into town. With nothing specific on the agenda today, there was no pressure to do anything so we just wafted around Ealing looking at the shops and making a few small purchases.

We decided we needed something to eat and Janey's fave bar/pub is a nice spot on the corner of Ealing Common called 'The Grange'. It was fabby...and we had a couple of their shared starter plates and some glasses of wine.

As we'd been wandering round Ealing, we had been into a lovely cookware shop and bought some Christmas themed wine glass identifiers - silly shapes which stick to your glass so you can see which one is yours at a party. The (rather super) salesgirl in the shop came over as we were looking at them and said "See the Christmas Tree? His name is Norman" - it's true - see the picture.

How could we leave them in the shop after knowing that?

They were really cute! We got them out in the pub and put 6 on one glass and 6 on the other. They looked so funny we then decided to take a picture of them.


I held up my phone and looked thru the lens to get the picture right. Janey was sat behind. As soon as I saw what was framed in the viewer, I started to giggle. Memories of "Calendar Girls" and of Celia Imrie holding up her iced buns!!!

What do you think?

I could hardly hold the camera up for laughing!!! In fact, I think you *may* be able to detect a teeny bit of camera shake!

Janey didn't know why I was sitting there hyperventilating into the table, so I just said, take a picture of me - and handed her the camera.

Her shoulders started to shake in that 'laughing so hard you make no noise' kind of way.

I felt really sorry for the people sitting near us as we sat there for about 10 minutes squeaking and squealing, trying not to laugh, but because all we could see of each other was a view with wine glass boobs, every time we looked across, we cracked up again! And this was BEFORE the 1st sip!

Totally brilliant!

I think I may have needed another glass!!!!!!

A quiet weekend in London #1

I'm not too big on public transport but I hate even more the thought of driving down the M1 late in the evening. So, Thursday found me sat on the 19.40 from Leeds to Kings Cross hoping that the person booked into the seat next to me wasn't going to get on at Wakefield! (They didn't!)

As it was the 1^st week in December and I'd not had time yet to write my Xmas cards, I'd decided that the train journey was going to be the ideal opportunity to sit down for an enforced writing session, and I prepared my addresses (labels) and Xmas greeting (a set of mini cards from MOO telling folks to read the blog rather than using up half a forest by printing out the usual round robin) in advance.

I got started before the train set off – I was so engrossed I hardly was aware of setting off or even the time! I kind of looked around every time I completed a pack of cards – one of 10, one of 15, one of 16! The numbers went up quickly In the end I'd completed 66 by the time I thought I was ready to stop! The time FLEW!

The tube to Ealing was nice and simple – Victoria and then Circle – so even though it was a late-ish start (19.40) and late-ish into Kings X (22.10) I was walking along the platform at Ealing Broadway just before 11pm really not bad at all!

Valentines Shmalenties

I'm not a fan of Valentine's day. I don't really like the whole "being forced" to display your affection just because someone has decided that it's the day you should, and whilst I appreciate that the tradition has been around a while, I just don't like it!

http://www.meish.org/vd/card/someoneelse

Now that's not to say, I don't like the sending/receiving of gifts, surprises, and flowers and all that sort of stuff! I just don't like being told to do it to order!

I am spoiled though. Since Christmas I've received 4 bunches of flowers, 2 bottles of champagne, 3 surprise gifts, and my favourite dinner cooked for me twice!!

What a lucky girl!!!!

More Nice People - A Christmassy Tale

About a year ago, Dan posted a link to a heartwarming story which reminded us that there are some lovely people out there in the world - even amongst all the trauma.

Ever since, I've been meaning to do a post on a really nice thing that happened to the Rossi family (and me in particular) one Christmas morning.

It was Christmas Day 1986 - I was in the Upper 6th at school - and I'd just completed my set of mock A'Level exams in anticipation of the real ones coming up that summer. I think I failed most of them but that's not relevant to the story!

We'd just got back from Mass and were in the process of preparing for our 'at home' party which we had always had on Christmas morning - half the parish would call round after each of the morning Masses and have a little Chrimbly tipple, some panettone, mince pies, and all the lovely nibbles of the season.

It wasn't time for any of the guests to arrive yet, but the doorbell rang and I ran off to answer it. As I did, a car which looked as though it was waiting until someone opened the door, moved off and drove away down the street. How weird. I thought it was someone hand-delivering a card - but you'd have thought they'd put their head round the door to say hello, seeing as it was Christmas morning!

I looked down and there was a plastic carrier bag on the doorstep. Weirder still! I picked it up and brought it into the dining room. Mum, Dad, Janey and Uncle Jim were there. I told them what had happened and we all started to get a bit nervous. Was it a bomb? Who would leave a bag of stuff, anonymously, on someone's doorstep, on Christmas morning? Curiouser & curiouser, as Alice would say.

Inside the bag were a number of little parcels wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper.

Eventually, we plucked up the courage to open the first one and found a toy, suitable for a little girl, aged about 5 or 6 years old. What was going on? We opened the next one, another toy, again suitable for a tiny child. A children's book, a puzzle, a teddy. This was very strange indeed.

Eventually we got to the bottom of the bag, and opened the last parcel. Inside, beautifully shrouded in coloured tissue paper, was my favourite, and oldest cuddly toy. A little pig, called 'Piggy' (good job I went into the sciences, rather than the arts!) who I'd had since the day I was born.

Piggy is a MUCH LOVED toy, whose hands and feet I chewed on as an infant, and so my Nonna sewed him a little yellow jumper and orange shoes, to keep his stuffing in. He once was pink, and fluffy, but over the years he's gone a bit grey, and bald! You just can see how much he's been hugged!!!!

So, how come he ended up in a bag of toys on our doorstep on Christmas morning?

Well, as mentioned at the top of this blog, It was exam time, and as well as being my oldest toy, he was my lucky mascot during exams and has sat on the exam table with me for every test I've ever taken! Fortunately, Mum made me stick an address lable to his shoe when I took him out of the house.

So.....all we can speculate is that I must have dropped him somewhere, and someone lovely found him, on the bus or in the street, and pictured the little girl who was going to be missing this well loved toy. They must have planned to deliver her a lovely surprise on Christmas morning by returning Piggy and a whole load of other toys, suitable for the owner of this little pig. Little did they know that the little girl was not so little - 18 years old and sitting her A'Levels!

It really made our Christmas Day, we thought it was WONDERFUL. Proper Christmas spirit. And we kept imagining the family who must have been enjoying their Christmas day because they'd done a good deed to a little girl who had lost her favourite toy!

Needless to say the toys which I was given, went to a deserving cause, and Piggy has been kept safe with me, sat on the bed, for the last 22 years!

He's getting on a bit now (a bit like his owner, he he) and Auntie Bo has recently done him a refurb, so he's all bright and shiny again - although he is still a bit grey and balding! It doesn't matter, i'll always love him!

What Dan wants for Christmas....

A blue Christmas Tree!
What else?

Best Xmas Prezzie ever - Part 2 - Parrots

Part 2 of the daily routine involved cleaning out the cages of the parrots which were being kept off show. 18 cages, scrubbing, cleaning, feeding, watering and sluicing down! Some of the birds were nervous, some were gregarious, some didn't really like us! All of them needed feeding. Claire was very reassuring - and explained the characters of each bird - like this one - Houdini, who "escaped" every time but as soon as you put the net up to catch him, he flew straight on to it! A few of the birds were nesting, which was exciting, and the girls are all pretty good at the hand rearing. Claire herself was rearing a baby one of these --->
It's difficult to tell what he's going to be when he grows up, as at the moment he looks like a miniature plucked chicken!!!!
You can really see that birds are descended directly from the dinosaurs! And see the next post for a video of him being fed and squawking alot!




Next part of the afternoon's activities, was washing the dishes and chopping all the fruit and veg for tomorrow's feed. It was very much like being back in the Restaurant! At least my years of chopping skills were able to be usefully applied here! We also laid out the bowls for tomorrow, filling them all with the dry feed. The birds have an amazing diet - honestly, every bowl of food I saw, I'd have been happy to eat from myself - seeds, nuts, sprouted pulses - it was like something from Gillian McKieth! Apparently the slightest of fluctuation in the birds' diet can make a difference in whether they will breed or not. A nutritionist works very closely with the keepers and designs the meals very carefully - half a walnut, a scoop of seed, half a carrot - it all makes a difference. And the birds are all healthy!

Best Xmas Prezzie ever - Part 1 - Pengies

Wednesday morning at 8am, instead of being at home, getting ready for work, I was in fact here, at the staff entrance of Chester Zoo! Why, you may well ask! Well I was just about to embark on a very special day out being a 'Keeper for the Day'.
As I wandered round to the Parrot & Penguin section office, I wondered what my day had in store. I was kind of excited and nervous all at the same time. I needn't have worried. The P&P team were really nice. Alan, the team leader, Karen and Claire, the keepers, and Sian, the vet student. When I arrived they were putting all the feed into metal bowls. I know now that they put all the dry feed out in the bowls the night before, and also chop all the fruit and veg ready for the morning (but they keep it in the fridge) so that's what they were doing - adding the fruit and veg to the bowls of seeds, ready to hand out to all the lovely birds.
So first things first - I got changed into my 'work gear', and then Alan asked me the important question - Parrots or Penguins? Penguins I said - but I love all the birds! SO first detail of the morning was feeding the Pengies. Off we went to the penguin enclosure and into the fish store area - there were a load of fishies in the sink -boxes which were taken out of the freezer yesterday and left to defrost. We had to sort out the odd looking ones (they're mostly sprats but the occasional different one creeps in) and then choose 20 sprats to add a vitamin pill to - for all the nesting females. Out we went into the back of the penguin enclosure, and straight into the main area. Sian fed the female pengies and Karen showed me one of the baby penguins which had had some problems and they were weighing it every day. As you can see it was very cute - and was the right weight! After that I was allowed to chuck the fish into the pool for the penguins swimming there. They flew SO fast through the water it was quite impressive.
After the feeding, Sian and I had the task of washing all the windows around the penguin enclosure - it was quite an interesting feat trying to clean the INSIDE of them, especially with inquisitive pengies following the broom's every move.
Next post will be about the Parrot part to this lovely day out!

It's Christmas time at the Rossis

It's Christmas time at the Rossis
The family all are here
To eat and drink and be merry
And welcome in the new year!

It's been a lovely day; we've been going on about the lovely food last week at 'Pied a Terre', but I tell you what, that's nothing in comparison to what we've had for lunch today. I think that the menu was actually better than last week (but then that's possibly because I'm a total Dad fan).

Steak Tartare (wow that's my fave)
Teeny Cheese Fondue (in an expresso cup)
Creamy Salmon in Yorkshire puddings
Prawn Cocktail

A selection of Dad's jazzy salads - herrings in mayo, mushrooms, prawns, toast.
Cheese course
Panna Cotta

Hmmmm is there anything missing? Oh yes! It's the Christmas dinner!!! We got so full after 5 starters that we've voted for the roasty dinner tomorrow instead of tonight! So it's the cheese and the panna cotta and so to bed!

Happy Christmas Dad

Dear Dad,
you know how you 'borrowed' our coffee machine in August and it has been living in a corner of your (lovely bright shiny new) kitchen ever since? Well take a look at this photo.....

Can you answer these questions.....

What is it?

Where is it?

What is the date on the magazine?

What can this mean????

Happy Christmas &
Lots of love from

Lili, Dan, Bo, Ste Mum and Janey

Disco Penguin

One of my fabby Christmas Prezzies!