An Old-Fashioned Christmas Sweet Traditions for Hearth and Home

I’m a sucker for most cookbooks, but even so, more recently I’ve been more selective than ever, which is partly financial and partly the fact that we are fast running out of space, the normal places for keeping books have long been filled and there are piles of books growing wherever I can fit them in.   I know I am due a clear out, but if I’m honest, I’m so dreading doing this that I’ve been putting it off… 

 

Anyhow, there are genres of cookbook that I have especially soft spots for and one of them is Christmas books and cookbooks. This book from the other side of the pond has a foot in both types, being a memoir of Christmases past with recipes.  An Old-Fashioned Christmas Sweet Traditions for Hearth and Home by Ellen Stimson (The Countryman Press 2015) I had not heard of this author, but will get her other (non-cookbook) in the New Year to read.

 

I just love the cosiness and wrap-me-up-in-a-warm-blanket with a roaring fire in the fireplace feeling it has.  Perhaps with snow falling softly outside. Ellen is a Christmas girl as she says, and she really is, she gets the very best feelings of Christmas and Winter, and can transfer them to the written word very well indeed.  When I first started reading this book I found it evocative of Laurie Colwin and Diana Henry’s writings. Which for me is a very good thing, though this lady has a voice all her own too.

 

There are her family’s stories and pictures of some of their precious Christmas tree ornaments or baubles if you prefer.   Of course there is also food, divided up into different sections  like Butter & Sugar, Cabin Food, Treats for Four Legged Friends, Party Foods, Christmas Eve Brunch, Christmas All Day Long and The Next Day.

 

I’ve not made anything from this book yet, but I had to share it with you now, before the big day arrives for this year. It’s an easy read, and could easily be binge-read (awful phrase, but you know what I mean), but I’m stretching it out in the evenings to last me up until Christmas Eve.