Remaining festive over the festive season can require a game plan. Contrary to what rom-coms might suggest, making the good times roll is not always a lark. The expectations of kids to be surprised, the traditions of extended family and their need to be delighted, the pressures of the season more generally: Accommodating all these can be a lot.
I read a brilliant book this year called “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.” The author, Oliver Burkeman, says a lot of useful things, but — beyond the mind-focusing fact that, assuming that we live to be 80, then 4,000 weeks is what we’ve got — I had one key takeaway. As important as deciding what you are going to do with your time — your day, your week, your year, your life — is deciding what you are not going to do. Because once you’ve decided what you’re not going to do, there’s no point berating yourself for the consequences of not doing it.
Recipe: Sticky Date and Pecan Pudding
As the end of the year gets packed, we all have different things we’re not going to do. We might decide not to see every single person we know and love, or we might decide that we don’t need to be the last person standing at every party we attend. There is no point feeling guilty or worrying about not being part of the crazy fun thing that happened, for example, if you choose to lie low. It’s like the opposite of a New Year’s resolution — and decidedly more doable as a result.
And so to festive food. It is no surprise that I am generally expected, whether as host or guest, to actually make the dishes I’m serving or taking somewhere — “make” as in start with eggs and flour and butter and sugar, when the end result is to be cake. I’m generally a very happy baker, but this can feel like pressure. I’ve always admired the French custom of proudly, unapologetically picking up patisserie from a shop when entertaining or contributing to a meal. Why get the kitchen counter covered in a sheet of flour when the alternative is a perfectly wonderful gâteau from a clean cardboard box (and the most precious gift of all: some bonus free time)? At this time of the year, many in France will be strutting down the street with their bûche de Noël, the traditional Yule log, in hand.
I, meanwhile, have chosen to produce a particularly British take on pudding. Unlike in the United States, where pudding tends to refer to something closer to a custard, “pudding” is more of a catchall word in Britain. There’s no neat definition. The dish can be sweet or savory, served warm or cold, but it conjures something hearty and filling — stodgy, even.
Puddings have a long history in Britain, dating back centuries and finally finding their bowl-like shape in Victorian times, thanks to the mass production of pudding basins.
As described in “The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets,” edited by Darra Goldstein, these basins allowed “even housewives with no servants and little cookery expertise to make complex puddings.” Imagine! I’m sure the “housewives with no servants and little cookery expertise” might have had a few thoughts on their workload, but my point is that these traditional puddings have been around for a long time and are designed to be pretty easy to rustle up. Their names, on the other hand, could be a bit more confounding.
In her “Book of English Food,” Arabella Boxer introduces us to so many wonderfully named puddings: pudding Louise, Lady Portarlington’s two-crusted apple tart, Lady St. Just’s raspberry and red currant compote. She also mentions “a two-tiered lemon pudding,” a dish decades of food writers have found hard to describe without using words like “magical,” “alchemy” or “surprise.” Overused as these words may be, particularly when it comes to baking, there really is something a bit “ta-da!”-ish about a simple sponge pudding — sometimes toffee, sometimes butterscotch, sometimes lemon but always sweet and rich — that when you take a bite reveals a whole other layer coming to life below. All this to say: We really shouldn’t be overthinking pudding.
As our time feels increasingly pressured, we need to cut ourselves some slack. Have a little game plan for the weeks ahead, decide what you are (and are not) going to do and the rest will take care of itself. The kids are fine, the extended family will cope, the season will come around again before we know it. Get a couple of things in the freezer, delegate where you can and, when it comes to the menu, make a lot of a little, rather than a little of a lot. Embrace the shortcut, and never apologize! Whether you are picking up a cake from a shop on the way home or rolling up your sleeves to bake from scratch: It’s all good. Time is precious. Keep it simple. Let the pudding sauce itself.
Recipe: Sticky Date and Pecan Pudding
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