A Desert Christmas Feast

When I lived in Melbourne, I always associated a northern hemisphere Christmas with snow. While we were enjoying our Summer holidays and getting festive over local seafood, there was this far-away ideal of a Christmas Day that was not too hot to have the oven going all day, where it was clean and white outside, and warm and red inside. Where Christmas carols made sense, and houses looked like the iced gingerbread ones that I saw on the Gourmet Traveller cover.

It's not quite the reality.

We have had three Christmases in Dubai now, and the closest we got to that picture I had placed in my head was the year before last, when Hambone and five of his mates smoked cigars in the rain under a peaked sun umbrella while my white Venetian tablecloth, recently laquered in splodges of fuscia 4-year-old-girl-Christmas-present nailpolish, flapped in the howling gale like a grazed polar bear trying to escape the horror that was the Walton un-family Christmas. I think it might have got down to about 16 degrees celcius - no less.


In 2008, we had our first Orphans Christmas - we gathered 20 of our closest friends and all pitched in to make an amazing Christmas dinner at our place. It was like home, but without the fighting and degradation that comes with spending alcohol-fueled time with ones' family. The food was incredible, and the kids had mates to play with, so they left us alone to get stuck into the eggnog. We all loved it so much, that we decided to do it again the next year.

But nobody else offered to have it at their place, so I hosted again. In (the aforementioned) 2009 there were 33 of us. Even with everybody preparing a dish, let me tell you, that is too many people to have to your house on an emotional day. It was colder than the previous year, and as we were finishing our main courses, an angry pregnant raincloud made a beeline for our back-yard. Hambone was still swearing "I know weather and it's not going to rain!" when the lightning started up. Five minutes later, soaked in something other than Laurent Perrier, he was still saying "It's going to pass, I just know it!". Everybody else came inside and trashed my house.

The following day, I left for Egypt with my sister in law and Lion at 7am, creeping out before Hambone could come downstairs and see the maelstrom that was in place of our living room. It took him two days to clean up, and he swore at me several times down the phone before I swore never to do it (Christmas Lunch) again.

So in 2010, I waited for an invitation from one of the 33 guests from the previous year. We finally got one, but it was to join them for brunch. It seems my friends are much smarter than me, and realise that is easier, and possibly even cheaper to fork out 500AED per adult to drink champagne all day at the Westin and have somebody else clear the mess up. I was miffed that nobody else would take up the mantle of hostess, but actually had a super day. And now I have to admit, this is probably the way forward for us.

The other thing I have seen in Dubai that I never observed in Melbourne is Room-service Christmas. You can actually order the entire bird and trimmings from a hotel and have them deliver it to your door in Dubai. This truly is the land where you can pay someone to do anything you don't want to. It's actually pretty reasonable too - about 600AED for a turkey with gravy, vegetables and stuffing for 6-8 people. May I stress, chef-cooked, and no pots to clean up? Dubai, for a Muslim city, you really know how to cater for a Christian holiday.


But when you have your Christmas dinner cooked for you, it takes a little of the bang out of the lead-up. As a cook, I adore the planning of a feast – it’s just the delivery in the midst of the kids favourite day and the subsequent required domesticity while everyone parties on that I could do without. So, luckily, my friends at Fooderati Arabia had a plan. We all joined Sally from My Custard Pie at her place to decorate gingerbread, make some truffles and just hang out.

And so, in a mix of Christian, Muslim and Hindu folk, we joined over our other religion – food. It was inspiring – the home-made sweets that I used to make but in recent years had forgotten have resurfaced. I’ve been strolling the aisles of supermarkets and enjoying the winter produce and all those lusciously spiced European cakes and breads. In celebration of my rediscovery of Christmas food, I’ve also started posting a Christmassy recipe each day – so far there’s rocky road and mulled cranberries, but there’s more to come.

As for the big day, I’m off to Australia again to see my lovely Mum and Dad. And I’m cooking – but just for ten!
   

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Room Service Dubai supply Christmas lunch (plus more) to your door - visit their site here: www.rsd.ae - you must pre-order for Christmas Day

We went to the Westin Dubai for their Bubblicious Christmas Brunch, which is probably already all booked out. There are a multitude of other options - check out this page on Time Out Dubai for more info.