It’s a butter Christmas miracle

We had Christmas dinner with Di and Malcolm from pétanque. Our contribution included the steamed Christmas pudding I won at the pétanque club Christmas party raffle.

A traditional steamed Christmas pudding for those who might not have experienced it is a whole lot like a fruitcake, only without the bright colored candied fruit. And maybe even richer and more heavily soaked with brandy. It’s something I adore, but I recognize that most people in America and even in countries that still pledge allegiance to the King find it a bit much.

You serve a pudding with brandy sauce, which is nothing but butter and sugar and brandy. You want the makings of a glycemic crisis? I got you covered.

Back to our story… it’s Christmas Day and we realize that we don’t have enough butter. And we really thought we would have a hard time finding a place open to get some because they take their holidays seriously here. So we set off in the direction of more crowded parts of the city, turning out of our neighborhood and heading toward shops and taller buildings.

We tried two petrol stations… open but no butter. We drove past many shuttered windows and finally found a small market (known as a dairy here) open, just opposite the hospital. Two kinds of butter!! Dinner is saved.

The nice Indian lady behind the counter said it was in fact a busy day at the shop… everybody buys flowers for Christmas hospital visits.

Buoyed by a happy feeling of God bless us, every one, I decided to drive by the much closer dairy which I positively KNEW wouldn’t be open. Oops, they were there, we didn’t even need to leave the area. So our drive was much longer than it needed to be, but we did meet a nice lady.

And the pudding was staggeringly heavy and confrontingly spicy, especially after Di’s melt-in-your-mouth salmon. The brandy sauce melted slowly into the pudding. For me, it was a perfect ending for Christmas gluttony season.