Christmas is coming

Saturday:

My dizziness of Thursday is surely explained by the fact I am now sick with a cold. Or flu? Something, anyway. My main symptoms are fatigue, headache, and aching body. Nothing very terrible or serious. I spent most of yesterday sitting around, and this afternoon I even had a long nap.

As I've mentioned before, we are hosting Christmas this year. I love hosting, which we do every second year, but it takes a fair bit of planning. People bring contributions but I do the bulk of the cooking for 4 main meals (plus 2 breakfasts) for a up to 17 people. I've been trying out a lot of new recipes, mostly with great success. But I think today's trial counts as a fail. I've made passionfruit parfaits. We will have them for dessert after dinner but of course I licked the spoon and it tasted pretty good, like passionfruit folded through whipped cream. But to achieve this lovely but fairly simple taste I had to use three saucepans and make sugar syrup and sieve this and chill that and whip yolks over heat without ending up with scrambled eggs and stir constantly and it just wasn't something I want to make for 15 people under time pressures when I'd rather be socializing. Creme brulee is much easier. So unless these parfaits, once chilled, are the best dessert I've ever tasted; I think they will be off the menu.

I think I just have two new side dishes to trial, then I will have the menu set. Christmas is coming, whoo hoo!

Urg, I just sneezed all over the screen. Looks kind of pretty with the light shining through the droplets but still ... yuck.