Countdown To 2015 | Oh My Mulled Wine Over Christmas!

Merry Christmas Everyone! Here’s to a sip into a hot Mulled Wine bellowing up some smokey dreams in the air, a sniff into the Christmas chill and freezing hands trembling with excitement inside the gloves… yes, it’s that time of the year when happiness is suspended in bubbles in the wine and stuck in the grease of the Turkey gravy. Well that was our life in flashback when we used to live in Germany 8 years back… when Christmas meant the magical Weihnachtsmarkt or Christmas market around Romer in Frankfurt and the aroma of Glühwein hitting the nostrils at all hours… and a real Christmas tree! In Dubai terms, it means searching for the shopping mall that has put up the tallest Christmas tree and peeping into a hotel lobby which has the most gorgeously decked one. It also means that there is fake snow and snowflakes perking up some shopping mall around town (Dubai Marina Mall). We also have the ‘tallest gingerbread tower in Dubai’ – a 11.7m tall tower made by chefs working 432 hours at The Address Marina, using 180kg of flour, 90kg of honey, 570kg of icing sugar! No complaints at all, for December in Dubai is now unquestionably and undoubtedly Christmassy, as compared to a decade back. And I just tasted my first Mulled Wine of the season in a Christmas Market here… The Souk Festive Market at Madinat Jumeirah. The above picture is a testimony to it!   Christmas also reminds me of my childhood in Kolkata, where we grew up celebrating all festivals from all religion. Christmas would mean special rum balls from the very famous Kolkata confectioners – Flury’s (revisted this place during my Kolkata visit this summer). My mother would dress me up in my special gown sewn just for Christmas and we would visit the special candle-lit midnight mass at St. Paul’s Cathedral – one of the oldest structures in Kolkata. Years later I felt the same excitement as I saw my first ‘real’ Christmas tree – a fir tree almost 100 ft long in the Christmas Market in Frankfurt. And sipped on my first Glühwein. I felt the same excitement when Glühwein transformed itself into Svařák on our visit to Prague during Christmas two years back (I have written about it in BBC GoodFood ME). Back at home, our Christmas dinners are complete with Turkey roast, bread pudding and Mulled Wine, the latter prepared sometimes in the traditional way or using a shortcut method with pre-packed mulled spices available in one of the city’s wine stores. Recipe of Mulled wine differs with countries, as well with families. Like a treasured heirloom, some recipes are passed on from one generation to another. Here’s the Czech recipe that I follow… and it can be easily replicated at home (oh forgive the streaks of flash in the home kitchen – it’s Christmas after all)! 

While the above picture is from my Prague album and I still miss the European Christmas Markets, the Festive Souk Market this time really filled us with happiness and we plan to pop by once again… it’s up there until the 27th of December. The season seems all too glittery and my earlier blogpost chalks exactly that – all the *edible gold* dishes that I could find in Dubai. The Festive Issue of Food e Mag dxb is brimming with recipes, roundups of the best dining venues, chef talk and talks about a winter getaway – an European Christmas market once again – to Vienna! I have been hopping in and out of Sally Prosser aka My Custard Pie’s blog the entire festive season and from the morning today – with all the last minute tips on everything Christmassy – starting with the cheese board that I am preparing for our Christmas dinner tonight to some of the festive cocktails that we will be stirring up. And amidst all the hullabaloo, I am still dreaming of a white Christmas that Sarah Walton aka The Hedonista writes about. And once we settle down after tonight’s party, it will be time to catch up on the dining trends suggested by Samantha Wood aka Foodiva.Big Z is making cookies as festive gifts for all our friends this time, with Li’l Z helping in decorating them (I have caught her licking twice into the frosting – apologies!). Nothing brings in more happiness (and chaos) in the house than seeing the two sisters fight over the ‘technical glitches’ that the cookies have been facing. The gifts have already been opened. As I write this post, the Z-Sisters are busy planning for the evening – Christmas dinner is at home. The stocking is already empty and I am keeping Big Z’s note (above) safely in my drawer… lest she forgets. Happiness should be everywhere and for everyone, only that – it isn’t. News channels on the television and newspaper headlines have different tales to narrate. For our children’s sake, can we pray that the New Year will bring a lot of hope and happiness to everyone in the world? Collective prayer works, and so does collective hope… so once again, Merry Christmas Everyone!

Unblogging it all… Ishita

Disclaimer: Please note that this post is not a sponsored post and the subject, story, opinions and views stated here are my own and are independent. While you enjoy reading the posts with lot of visuals, please do not use any material from these posts. You can catch my daily food and travel journey on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.