So in the end, people bought cold weather food. Turkeys marched out in droves - if you can have droves of turkeys when they are frozen and encased in plastic - on Christmas Eve. Forget the Boxing Day sales at the department stores. The real bargains were at the fish stall in the supermarket. Crayfish, $35 down from $70. Salmon, $12 down from $28. Oysters, $6.50. By mid-afternoon Boxing Day, a kind south-westerly had shunted Christmas Day's black clouds somewhere else, maybe over the mountains where the last week's blazing fires were still smouldering like a mother-in-law's disapproving frown, and the sun came out and made dappled shadows on the lawn. Just in time for our Boxing Day barbecue. Lime butter salmon, barbecued. Make the lime butter: add the zest of two limes and the juice of one, a tablespoonful of finely chopped parsley and two chopped cloves of garlic to 50 grams of softened butter. Combine and refreeze. Slice into rounds. With your knife blade on the h
Recipes and ruminations from a small house in a big city.