When the kids were little and I worked on Christmas day, it meant getting up early and opening presents, then at 11 o’clock I was off to the restaurant. We’d end up having lunch around teatime. These days it’s about being at home, having immediate family from both sides over.
I’m lucky to have a house big enough to entertain a lot of people, so the more the merrier! Everyone comes, they bring their dogs and it’s chaos, but great fun. Everyone just mucks in. My book, Marcus’s France, may seem a little odd because I’m not French, but French cuisine has been present throughout my life.
As I looked back through all the different books and recipes I’ve done from all over the world, it struck me how much chefs are influenced by one food culture. And that for me it’s French. So the book starts off with college, where I first learned the principles of , then works its way through to the present day.
They make the effort to cook and entertain all year round. Here, we only get special at Christmas, or we only get special because we have a , and that’s when the stress levels go up because we’re trying something we don’t do regularly. It’s a stressful time for so many people, but not in my house.
It’s about good planning and organisation: who’s coming? What do we like to eat? Which new dishes are we going to try out before we get to the Christmas period? “It’s a stressful time for so many people, but not in my house. It’s about good planning and organi.
