Christmas!

Christmas comes but once a year...or so the saying goes! Well here we are celebrating to the full...

Christmas means Dinner Parties...loads of them in fact! Here are some pics of  "some" of the parties attended.

Here I am sitting at table at Jurgen`s parents` house. Yepp! My future in-laws invited me and (not so!) little trouble over for dinner on Christmas Eve. The company was good, the food delectable (compliments already given to the chef...) while the spirit was overflowing, alcohol that is!!

This is dear hubby, mummy Josephine (his mother is called exactly the same as mine :)) and me in the middle. There we go giggling happily...I did mention the drinks, didn`t I?

Those are Jurgen (again), Nicole (busy with some MORE  toys) and Oreste, Jurgen`s father. Ermmm...what are those bottles doing there??!

Another family gathering, this time it`s my extended family from my mother`s side enjoying this year`s 6,352nd. Fenkata (and still countinnnng. sic!!) This occured at a favourite haunt of our`s: the good old favourite Friend To All Bar & Restaurant, behing the Mgarr parish church. The ambience is an authentic watering-hole to the local farming community where, after a hard day of toil at the fields, the farmers go for their daily "drop" of  home-made wine. Vile and potent stuff, renowned for its outstanding ability to causing drivers to fail the breathalyser test just by smelling the wine. Back to the food. The starter is soggy over-cooked spaghetti with a mild Rabbit sauce and I mean mild (for rabbit sauce spaghetti just marinate a whole chopped rabbit in a whole bottle of good red wine and a couple of large whole cloves of garlic for a couple of hours or so. Next fry the rabbit pieces in lard, (that`s it lard! That is hard on one`s arteries but we don`t eat this daily.) When the rabbit is cooked thoroughly lift from the pan and set aside, add to the pan (with the lard and the rabbit juices) the garlic cloves from the marinade and cook until golden. Add the marinade, a couple of bay leaves, some rosemary, a good dose of curry depending upon taste, and a can of tomato pulp, or half a kilogramme of chopped fresh tomatoes if available. Bring to the boil, and simmer until the sauce thickens in consistency. The reserved rabbit is usually eaten as the main dish served with some "gravy" made exactly as above but omitting the tomatoes and curry. ) But the entree` is divine, it is very rare that one finds rabbit cooked so esquisitely as this. Even mother doesn`t fry the rabbit and leave it as juicy!

An important lunch was the one of Christmas Day... where my maternal extended family gathered for a buffet lunch at a prominent hotel. This year the honour fell on Selmun Palace Maritim Hotel. As usual, the standard at this establishment is very high, the food plentiful and delicious, the wines are even more so.

Guess which one is the four-year-old?

Ermmm... DITTO!

The assembled party.

The love-birds.

Mother, together with Auntie Lilian to her left and Aunty Anna to her right.