New Christmas traditions: my 24 hour post-Christmas break

It’s the evening of December 27th and my daughter and I are holed up in the luxurious Rosewood hotel in London tucking into a club sandwich (her) and a lobster macaroni cheese (me) on room service.

It’s part of a new tradition we’ve established to spend 24 hours together in London just after Christmas. Kate’s not a great one for big family parties so this is the way we celebrate together starting with lunch (this year bento boxes at the excellent Sosharu to which we walked through the deserted streets) a spot of shopping (not high-end, a makeup raid on nearby Superdrug) and the rest of the day in the room, chatting and watching old TV series.

I chose the Rosewood because it’s always beautifully decked out with twinkly lights and Christmas trees (and they were nice enough to give me a media discount otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to afford it). Last year we went to the Hoxton in Shoreditch which is always fun but not quite central enough and the year before, the newly opened Beaumont just off Oxford Street which is sadly much spendier than it was then. The idea is to be able to walk to the shops - and hit the sales (the main point of going after rather than before Christmas). If you look online early enough there are always deals on sites such as booking.com. The period between the 27th and the 30th is a relatively fallow one for London and other city centre hotels)

I like the idea of new Christmas rituals. You can never totally recapture those of the past. Circumstances - good or bad - force change upon you. The break-up of relationships, the arrival of children, the acceptance, years on, that they may sometimes want to spend Christmas elsewhere ...

When I met my husband we used to spend family Christmases in France with all the new traditions that involved, mostly food-related. Capon rather than turkey as the centrepiece of the Christmas lunch, boudin blanc rather than chipolatas and bûche de Noel in place of Christmas pudding though we did use to take over some mincemeat to make mince pies.

Since he died just over a year ago I’ve gone to my son and Spanish daughter-in-law’s who have incorporated some Spanish traditions - always a big leg of jamon (last year’s was actually from Lidl rather than Spain!), and addictive turron (nougat) sitting there temptingly whenever you walk by. (We still had the time-honoured bubble and squeak on Boxing Day though.)

Just like everything else in life Christmas changes. I think the answer, hard though it sometimes is, is to embrace that and regard it as an opportunity rather than a loss. Spending the day with just one of your children rather than frantically trying to make sure everyone gets on is a good plan for a start.

A friend told me yesterday that she’d taken a friend’s 14 year old horse-mad daughter to the Boxing Day meet for the first time, how magical that had been for both of them and that they would do it again next year*.

So what are the new Christmas traditions you’ve established over the last few years and which ones couldn’t you let go?

*yes controversial I know but before you start piling in this piece is about establishing new meaningful traditions not about foxhunting!

Exciting news about my new e-book: 101 Great Ways to Enjoy Sherry

This week has been the realisation of a long-held ambition to write a series of e-books on various aspects of food and drink pairing.

Thanks to the sponsorship of the Vinos de Jerez, the first book is on one of my favourite drinks, sherry. It’s mainly about food matches but there are also some simple sherry cocktails, ideas for sherry parties, a pronunciation guide - and with Christmas coming up, a section on festive pairings under the heading ‘Sherry Christmas’ (sorry, just couldn’t resist that!)

While I couldn’t overlook some of the pairings that have stood the test of time - olives and fino, for example - you’ll also find some more offbeat pairings. (Fino is equally good with sushi and I do urge you to try a cream sherry with a packet of coconut and caramel popcorn!)

What’s particularly fun about the book is that it’s interactive. Click on the links under Jamon, for example, and you’ll be taken to a video of Iberico pigs roaming in the forest and a demonstration of how to carve a leg of ham. Where a recipe is mentioned, for instance chicken with garlic and sherry or Turkish coffee cake the link will take you through to a recipe. All this clever stuff is thanks to my brilliant collaborators Helen and Jonathan Miller of Miller Design who have created similar interactive PDFs for clients such as the World Wildlife Fund.

You find your way around the book by navigating the contents list at the top of the page. Click Sweet Things for example and you’ll instantly find out which sherry to pair with turron and tiramisu.

We have a number of other projects in the pipeline some of which will be food- as well as drink-based and would be delighted to hear from you if there’s a subject close to your heart you’d love to see featured in an e-book. Just mail me at fiona@matchingfoodandwine.com

The new matchingfoodandwine.com shop

In order for you to be able to buy the book - which is available at a bargainous launch price of £3 until the end of October - we’ve had to set up an online shop which is all very grown-up.

A few fellow technophobes have had problems working out how to download the book once they've bought it - I’m aware the interface isn’t quite as clear as it might be so I thought it might be useful to run through the steps you need to follow:

* Click on the shop basket symbol

* Click on the e-book

* Add to basket

* Check out

* If you’re not already registered on the site you’ll have to sign up at this point. Sorry - bit of a pain but necessary*. Otherwise you just sign in with your email and password.

* It will then give you the option of the address to which you would like the book delivered. That’s because most people who use this particular shop software order physical products. This is an ebook so you just need to download it but click your home address anyway.

* You then need to confirm the order (note down at the bottom you can see the value in dollars and euros. With Brexit this deal should look more and more advantageous)

* Log into Paypal to pay for the ebook though you can use a debit or credit card if you prefer by checking out as a guest (we hope to add more payment options in due course)

* Once you’ve paid you should be taken back to a screen headed Order Payment. Click on My Account at the bottom and click the box which tells you you’ve made a digital purchase.

* Click on the title of the book then click download and it should pop up on your computer**. Save it somewhere, read (and, more importantly, sip) and enjoy!

It isn't actually as complicated as it sounds. I've just made a test purchase using my credit card and it worked fine.

Do let me have any feedback about the pairings or any other sherry matches you’ve come up with for the next edition!

* plus you can’t win any of our amazing prizes unless you’re a subscriber!

** I know you could in theory forward it to your friends and colleagues but please encourage them to buy a copy for themselves. We’re not actually charging a lot for it and we have to make a living somehow!

Living like a local in Athens

I’ve been thinking this past couple of days that I’ve been getting it all wrong about travelling. The frantic search for the best hotel, the hottest restaurants, the relentless attempt to tick the *must see* boxes. But I’m going to have to admit after two days in Athens I didn’t even make it to the centre.

Instead I let things happen. A conversation with a Greek chef I know, Theodore Kyriakou of The Greek Larder, led to an offer to put me in touch with two winemakers in the surrounding area of Attica, which I’m ashamed to say I didn’t realise was Greece’s most historic wine-producing region.

One - Antonia Papagiannakos of Domaine Papagiannakos - took me to the nearby temple of Artemis at Brauron together with its brilliant museum, an experience I'd never have had if I'd decided to head for the Acropolis. We saw a tiny stone church dedicated to St George being scrupulously scrubbed for Easter then drove down to the unspoilt resort of Porto Rafti to which many Athenians escape for the summer, to sit in a beachside taverna without an English voice within earshot.

Living like a local is not just a question of staying in an airbnb* - though that helps - but adjusting your mindset to a more gradual pace - one where you maybe do one thing a day rather than attempt to fit in six. Discovering things for yourself rather following the herd.

What normally happens if you’re going somewhere? You buy a guidebook, search Google, ask Twitter - you get a list of restaurants that have been written about dozens of times before. But in the case of Greece many people’s favourites turn out to be the local taverna they stumbled across. Such is the Greeks' hospitality you can have a good time more or less wherever you rock up. There are literally hundreds of tavernas of that type in any one of which you might have a decent meal.

The secret of getting the most out of a trip is being prepared to change your plans at short notice. Spending longer in a place if it interests you, leaving if it doesn’t.

It’s easier to say this, admittedly, when you’ve visited a place before or if you’re travelling as a private individual rather than as part of a group - and I know I’m in a privileged position as a journalist but the whole nature of travel writing - 48 hours in so-and-so, 10 places you must see in wherever - telling you what to do every moment of the day lends itself to this idea that you won't enjoy yourself unless you're told where to go and what to do.

Who spends a trip to London visiting the Tower of London and Madame Tussaud’s or Paris going up the Eiffel Tower or Venice going on an overpriced gondola? Even skipping those touristy hotspots we flock to the same areas - that newly re-opened art gallery, that chic neighbourhood with the arty shops.

Can you truly say you’ve got the best out of a city without that kind of experience? I reckon you can and mean to try and do it more often. What about you?

*Oh, and if you're wondering from my previous post what my airbnb was like and why it cost so little the answer is it was great but in a quiet, residential area rather than one with a bustling nightlife. But only 5 minutes from the metro so you could be in the centre of Athens in 15 minutes.

My big Greek adventure

I first went to Greece when I was 17 as a treat for passing my A levels (not with great distinction I have to confess). My mother and I went on a cruise round the islands about which I can’t remember a great deal apart from having a crush on one of the cabin stewards who bore an uncanny resemblance to Sean Connery in his James Bond heyday. And was probably my mother’s age. Nothing came of it I'm sorry to say although mother, of course, was profoundly relieved.

My next visit was even more momentous. It was in September 2001 when I was at Athens airport that I heard that a plane - and then another - had crashed into the twin towers. We spent the next week - as the world did - in a state of shock.

It was on that visit that we visited Kefalonia. I’d been commissioned by Bon Appetit to write a piece about island wines and by Sainsbury’s to write a food and travel feature about the island, inspired by the interest in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin which had just been made into a film. (Aaaah, those were the days of lucrative commissions!)

The charm of Kefalonia

We hung out with the Kosmetatos family who owned the island’s best known winery Gentilini for a couple of days. I remember the breathtaking blue of the sea on island’s most famous beach, Myrtos and Petros diving off the rocks for sea urchins which we ate on the spot and still remain the freshest and best I’ve ever eaten. At the end of a couple of days we’d bonded - as you do - and they urged me to come back sometime for Easter - which they said was as important to the Greeks as Christmas and absolutely the best time of year to visit the island.

I treasured that thought but never got around to it. My late husband Trevor wasn’t much of a one for travelling. Having been brought up in France, like a true Frenchman he could never see the point in going anywhere else. As I travelled a lot it seemed unfair to go somewhere without him when we could travel together. I didn’t even want to - but now … Why not?

I plucked up courage to write to Petros and his wife Marianna. ‘You remember 15 years ago inviting me to come back for Easter? Well could I possibly make it this year?’ Very sweetly they said yes. I booked a plane without a second thought.

Athens' cheap airbnb

As flights to Kefalonia didn’t start until May I needed to fly into Athens so thought I might as well go a couple of days ahead and spend some time in the city first. I trawled airbnb and was amazed to find how cheap rooms were, picking a room in a pretty flower-covered house in the Chilandri district about 15 minutes from the centre for - wait for this - £17 a night. It doesn’t look remotely like a dodgy hostel and has attracted glowing reviews so how come so cheap? I hope to find out.

My plans to spend time in the city have also been hijacked by a couple of winemakers with whom I was put in touch with by Theodore Kyriakou of The Greek Larder who is hosting his own Easter feast this weekend for which there may still be places. Apparently Athens is part of a winemaking region called Attica. Who knew?

So that’s the plan. I’m sitting writing this on an Easyjet plane hoping they haven’t lost my luggage this time as they managed to do for six days on a trip to Galicia last summer.* Press and other work trips apart, it’s the first time I’ve travelled on my own since Trevor died in October and it feels quite strange.

What will I find? Will Greece be traumatised by its economic woes? How will it be coping with the refugee crisis? Hopefully there won’t be an earthquake (always a slight worry - Kefalonia suffered a devastating one back in 1953 and a couple of less severe but significant ones back in 2014) What will Greek Easter be like? Will I be able to stomach (pardon the pun) the entrail soup that is traditionally served at midnight to mark the end of Lent?

Well I hope I’ll find time to tell you. Follow me on Twitter (@winematcher and @food_writer) and Instagram (food_writer) if you’re interested. I might even have a crack at Snapchat. You never know ….

* it did arrive, thankfully.

Photo ©kwasny221 @fotolia.com