17 December,2023 05:59 AM IST | Mumbai | Aastha Atray Banan
Javed Mallick of Bandra’s organic café, The Village Shop, serves a conscious Christmas cake packed with raisins, ginger, candied orange peel and warm spices. Pic/Anurag Ahire
What are the literati, glitterati, and swish set of Mumbai up to in the Christmas week? Well, they do what we do - eat, drink, sway to music, bake and hang out with buddies and family. We got in touch with SMD's die-hard followers and arm-twisted them into telling us about a few of their favourite things. Take notes.
I am afraid I don't do any of the exciting things [that are typically associated with Christmas time]. But, I do bake a fruit-filled Christmas cake. The fruit is soaked in rum for long. I plan to bake the cake today, in fact, and lovingly feed it with rum as it sits cozily in its box, double wrapped in parchment paper. It is ceremonially unwrapped on Christmas Eve and enjoyed. âEaten' is too crude a word to use for something so rich. Let me say we "partake" of it on Christmas Eve. Whoever comes home during the following week gets a slice. By New Year's Eve, the last crumbs are polished off.
My recipe is drawn from three master recipes. I use candied ginger from one, molasses from another and ground roasted almonds from a third. I soak my fruit in enough rum to immerse it, paying no heed to those who recommend the use of brandy or Cointreau. The common ingredients are approximately five times the weight of flour in dried fruit, nuts and candied peel. They soak for up to a week. This year, mine will booze for six days. The dried ingredients are easy to remember. As much butter and dark brown sugar as flour in weight. Three eggs for 150 gm flour. Four for 225.
Any cake bigger than that is for giants. I always add half a teaspoon of baking powder, although many recipes don't bother with it. Into the batter goes zest of one orange and its juice along with a couple of tablespoons of molasses. It's a slow-baking cake, two to three hours at 150 degree celcius. So, you have to protect it with parchment paper inside and outside the tin. When it has cooled a little, poke it around and brush the top with the liquor drained from the fruit. That is only the first feeding. There can be several more till you eat the cake. It's not a cake, it's a ritual. Hic!
Now that I think of your question, yes, there are a couple of things that we do every year at this time. It's a double celebration for us because my son, Pezanne, was born on Christmas day. First, all through the year, my wife, Khushnuma, starts preparing for the Christmas pudding. It's a labour of love. It takes one year of soaking the dry fruits and whatever else goes into it, in brandy and rum A few days before Christmas, she steams the pudding. My friends wait for Christmas just to dig in. And I am in charge of setting up the Christmas tree. I put some carols on, and a glass of wine to sip on close at hand.
I bring out my priceless decorations; priceless not because they are expensive but because I have handpicked them from all over the world. Some from the US, some beautiful ones from Prague, and also from Bandra, including from the children street sellers. You should see my tree! On Christmas Eve, it's party time at my place. The original group has grown bigger, with friends and family included. Two members are in charge of thinking up the fun games. A turkey is ordered from a traditional Christian home chef Fat Alu caterers. There's, of course, a secret Santa session. And, for the past few years, we've been visiting Christmas markets too, to enjoy the infectious vibe and energy.
We like to celebrate Christmas with close family and friends at our home in Panchgani or the family farm in Mulshi. Christmas for me means decorating the Christmas tree, eating rich plum cake, making mulled wine, and singing carols around a bonfire - that one I love the most! I love most carols, but my favourites are Hark the Herald Angels Sing, The First Noel, God Bless Ye Merry Gentlemen, Ding, Dong, and Merrily on High. When possible, I enjoy attending midnight mass too. I usually order The Village Shop's [Mac Ronells Bungalow, Saint Andrews Extension] rich and fruity Christmas cake.
Our family Christmas ritual is to go to the Damian furniture store near Mehboob Studio in Bandra and take lots of pictures with their iconic decorations that everyone has been looking forward to for decades. The showroom is very close to our familial home and I remember our father taking our mother, my brother and I on his scooter to admire the beauty. From there, we'd head to Mount Mary and complete the jaunt with some peaceful praying.
For the fresh-off-the-boat Mumbaikar that I was in the early 1990s, Christmas symbolised the sounds and lights of Bandra, Santacruz and Khar - the lovely carols and the Santa Claus processions, the rush outside Mount Mary church, the dazzling shop windows with golden hues that we would gawk at, and the mandatory plum cake. But there was something more important beyond the shining lights. Christmas represented all that Bombay was. An urban metropolis, a mix of the traditional and modern, the city with a heart, embracing everybody with joy, bonhomie, love and light. As a true-blue Mumbaikar who has received and hoarded the immense warmth of the city over three decades, Christmas continues to be celebrated, now coupled with a happy tinge of nostalgia. So, it is not just about that beautiful feeling of oneness, but also recreating those old memories and moments, by making a trip to Bandra's beautiful villages, checking out the dramatic scenes at Mount Mary, eating pastries of various hues from American Express bakery, enjoying the macarons from Candies, and the chicken puffs from J Hearsch & Co. [Hill Road's heritage bakers], the special rum balls of Santacruz's Vienna Bakery, and soaking in that mushy, happy feeling.
