Henry this is our Christmas edition Merry Christmas Merry Christmas so Christmas time I don't know how
stressful it is for you Henry at this time of year cooking in the kitchen for multiple guests but
it's an interesting time in our clinics where we see people coming in with all kinds of issues and
one of the most common things that someone will come in and say is that their back went when they
bent down to get the turkey out of the oven. So I'm hoping that we can give people today lots of
top tips on how to prevent kitchen related injuries and other wintertime injuries that
we commonly see in clinic but also how you can then make the turkey and other Christmas
festive meals much more tasty. So we're going to dive straight in and talk about I think this
Let's hear from you, Henry, about what do you do to keep costs down when you're shopping?
And what top tips can you give us for making all our dinners at home much tastier than mine?
Definitely.
Well, for me, Christmas is a wonderful time of year.
And I actually, I don't get stressed.
I'm a very cool cucumber here.
I let everyone else get stressed around me and I just kind of breeze through it.
I'm from a big family.
So, you know, Christmas has always been a kind of a kind of chaotic affair, you know, kind of wrapping paper everywhere, a massive turkey with someone busting their bag, crackers and all the all the usual shenanigans.
Yeah. So for me, it's a real you know, it's a time for feasting and celebration and spending time with loved ones.
And of course, food plays a really important part of that because, you know, I'm a big believer that food is what draws people together.
And yes, you know, you know, if you've got all the family around and maybe a few family members that you're not so keen on.
But, you know, at Christmas time, you make that effort, don't you?
And the food is, you know, coming from the chef point of view, I'm often more likely found in the kitchen.
probably the only time i'd get stressed is if if i'm feeding everyone and then there's someone
standing in front of the oven you know with a mulled wine in hand chatting to me with no kind
of like no concept that there's actually quite a lot of work to be done but i'm i've i've become
as i've become older a bit more blunt of like can you just if you're going to be in the kitchen help
if you don't in the kitchen just just just go chat next door it's fine and um i was probably
you know too polite when i was younger and um and uh you know and then everyone's like oh why is the
Christmas dinner a bit late.
And I'm like, well, you were standing in the way.
Anyway, for me, yeah, so Christmas is all about the food.
I think it's a balance between being prepped
so that you can, you know, you can enjoy the day
and it doesn't feel like you're just kind of slaving
behind the stove.
But then also not being so prepped
that you take all the joy out of Christmas.
Like, you know, I've seen all of those kind of like hacks
on the internet where people are talking about,
oh, you know, I get all of my veg prepped
in September and frozen already.
Like that doesn't fill me with excitement.
And that just sounds like you're taking all the joy at Christmas.
But then for me, part of the joy is actually the cooking side of it.
So, you know, maybe that's talking to the wrong audience.
So actually, I want to be cooking on the day, but not things like making stock or gravy.
There's things that you can do in advance because then you're going to get a really delicious meal.
But also, you want to be doing some things on the day.
because actually I love it when the wife gets involved
or when the kids get involved or my brother-in-law,
who I never see gets involved, you know, and actually, you know,
we're all, you know, it's a kind of combined effort, isn't it?
Yeah.
And I think the other things is, you know, if you're part of a big family
or if you've got a big group coming, it's actually to, you know,
and this is probably quite common, is actually just share out the job loads.
So, you know, I'd make a list on WhatsApp and say, like,
this is what I think we should have.
If you want to add, you know, if anyone's got an idea for a put-in
or a new side or something, you know, of course, you've got to let people, you know, have their
say. And then I'll just kind of pick the jobs that I like doing, or I think I don't want them
to be messed up. So that might be the turkey, obviously, or whatever the meat is, probably the
gravy, and then maybe the roast potatoes. And then I'm like, I'm happy if someone else wants to take
on the carrots, you know, they might not do them exactly how I want, but I'm not going to allow
that to ruin my Christmas. So I think there's an element where you can outsource a bit of that
prep particularly if you've got a lot of people coming over um and just to kind of um manage your
expectations my family so I'm one of six so there's eight of us but then you know there's
wives and husbands and then also um nephews and nieces so when we're all together I think we're
like 27 now we don't always meet up together but um but throughout my whole childhood you know I've
got 30 odd cousins you know even you know from a young age there was always like maybe 20 plus
people in the room so when you've got those kind of numbers it has to be a kind of shared experience
but uh but even if you're just doing it for four you know you can still get other people involved
so yeah i mean does that kind of how does that compare to one of your christmases hayley is it
yeah yeah well usually for us um uh i like to host i quite like it when people come to me um
yeah yeah maybe that's the control freak in me i'm sure my family would say yeah that's how she
definitely is but i just enjoy it i enjoy seeing people open their gifts i'm one of those people
that i get really annoyed if i've missed the person open the present from me because um i get
fulfillment from that i kind of spend a lot of time putting effort into the presents and i get
the joy from watching people open the things from me i don't care what i get i just i like watching
what people get and then i like cooking and actually making them feel like they've had a
really good christmas experience because growing up i had fantastic christmases and have really
happy memories of um you know my mom and my dad and my brother and me we're a smaller family and
we just kind of just had a lovely tight-knit family enjoying all the traditional things um
but over the over the years I've just always wanted to like make things extra tasty and so
probably growing up we probably had the instant gravy with the water and now it's like how can you
how can you make tasty gravy before um i agree i think if you try and do vegetables too far in
advance i mean we shouldn't really freeze them for that long because they could deplete with
their nutritional value over time so if you're preparing it in september it's gonna probably
not be that great for you by three months down the line whereas maybe a month before a couple
of months might be a bit different but yeah how so in terms of gravy you said you prepare that
ahead of time henry what do you how do you make your gravy well okay so for christmas we pretty
much always have turkey i actually quite like turkey i think it does get a bad rap and probably
you know during my kind of real chef years you know i probably used to petition that it'd be
really nice if we had a goose or or like a rib of beef or something but actually you know if you're
cooking for a big group you know turkey in terms of kind of bang for your buck um a big goose feeds
four people and then there's nothing for leftovers whereas you know you do get a good amount of
protein on your turkey and plenty for leftovers for sandwiches and bubble and squeak and all the
all the other delicious things you can have a boxing day and onwards and um so actually i've
kind of come to terms with the turkey and uh so for me it's about buying the best quality you can
obviously i used to run a butchery shop so i so i you know i've kind of had them them all you know
and seen you know the whole kind of spectrum but a well-sourced turkey that has been free range
kind of slowly grown so a lot of the kind of cheap ones in the supermarket they'll be really
fast grown when something's fast grown it doesn't have the same flavor it hasn't moved around so the
muscles haven't been worked as much you know it might be a kind of softer meat but it's not going
to have the same kind of flavor it might dry out more because it hasn't kind of built up that lovely
layer of fat and then there's things like you have to um uh dry pluck them uh sorry we're going right
right into the the depth here but uh the quickest way to um get the the feathers out of a bird is
you dip it into boiling water and then you whip it out and then you put it essentially on you know
one of those like um buffers for your um your shoes they like polish your shoes it spins around
and you basically hold the the chicken or turkey whatever on it and it and it essentially it
catches the feathers and it yanks them out and so you you can remove all the feathers fairly quickly
the problem with that is it damages the the skin quite a bit but also it makes it wet so the quality
places will dry pluck them now that means it's done essentially by hand so you know people in
sheds will be spending their kind of lead up to christmas dry plucking a thousand turkey and um
but that dry plucking gives you a far better quality skin then and then the the the turkey
people often get confused with the turkey and they think of it as being like chicken actually it's
more like a game bird it's more like pheasant so you can actually um uh hang a hang a turkey for
a few days so up to kind of depending on size up to five to ten days will then be hung
in a chiller before it's then kind of wrapped and put into its box and sold at the butchers
and and that's similar to when you have a piece of beef that kind of dry aging it allows a few
things one is that it allows moisture to come out so you get a more kind of intense it caramelizes
better you get more flavor there's less kind of water in the bird but also the the protein start
and the muscles start to break down a little bit and so you get a more kind of tender particularly
for a bird that's been you know racing around the the the farmyard it's going to build up quite a
lot of good muscle mass and actually you know when that's freshly slaughtered and then eaten it's
going to be quite tough so you need to have that kind of um dry hanging whereas you know if you go
to the you know get a cheap one from the supermarket that won't have happened it will be more akin to
a chicken it will be reared quickly in a barn um it'll be wet plucked it'll then be frozen fairly
quickly and it'll you know it's going to be cheaper but it's not going to be as tasty so
but the thing i've noticed recently and sorry i know we're talking about gravy but we're going to
get to that um is uh the you know the cost of a turkey is you know a quality one it's astronomical
like um i i was looking at the place that i normally order the turkey for um my mom's house
and it's kind of 15 of us this year and for a kind of six kilo turkey you know it's like um i
think it's like over 120 quid which is which is a lot of money for a turkey you're like oh that is
like that is a significant cost um and uh and so i can totally see um that kind of temptation to go
for a cheaper one is there because actually you know at that price you could probably buy beef
you know but the flavor you get from it is it's hard to replicate so a few little hacks that i've
done and i've done this a few times is um is obviously when you buy a whole turkey you know
you get that beautiful kind of like celebration it's on the plate it looks great and then you kind
of carve it up in actual fact when i was a butcher i learned this most people want to buy the breast
so you'll sell lots of whole turkeys but you'll sell a lot of just like crowns or just breast meat
so what you end up is is a surplus of legs so if you go on to a kind of go to a butcher's or a
quality you know online butchery that is selling quality birds if you if you scroll down you'll see
turkey legs and they're actually quite cheap so for a six to eight kilo turkey you'll get two legs
and they're about 15 quid each.
So suddenly for like 30 quid,
you've got about four kilos of meat.
And I actually think the leg is the tastiest bit.
So my hack that I've done for the last couple of years
is rather than buying a whole bird,
I buy a couple of legs or maybe three legs,
which is kind of a bit weird buying three legs.
And then I'll buy a piece of just breast meat.
So maybe like 500 grams or a kilo.
You are paying more per kilo for that, but because you're buying proportionally a smaller amount, it's not so expensive.
I'm just saying you go and ask for turkey drumsticks.
Yeah, pretty much.
But they're big, you know, they're kind of monstrous.
And then so what I did last year was I boned and rolled a couple of the turkey legs.
So I took the bones out, a little bit of clever butcher.
You could get your butcher to this, but obviously I can do this at home.
And then I used that to stuff it with my nice bit of sausage meat, you know, nice stuffing and bacon.
And then so then we kind of roasted separately a boned and rolled leg, the whole eggs.
So then we still had that kind of whole egg thing and then the breast on its own.
And then in the kitchen, I just carved it up and arranged it lovely on a plate.
So everyone was like, oh, beautiful.
We've got all of, you know, we've got the white, we've got the brown.
And we ended up, so I worked out the same amount of meat that you'd have.
we bought a whole turkey but it came to about 40 quid and uh so i was like well i've kind of
gained the system here um and uh um and actually you know i i think that personally the lake meat
is the tastiest bit so actually i i'd rather have that than a lot of you know the bit that people
moan about is the dry breast meat so it's like well let's just remove that bit and um anyway i'm
not saying this is you know this this is just more if if you were if you were looking at turkey
like i cannot justify spending 120 quid on a six kilo turkey and then the alternative is you go buy
like a subpar one that you're going to be disappointed with from the supermarket well
actually this is a way that you can still buy those delicious you know free range dry prop
you know kelly bronze whatever turkey and um and then cook it really nicely but then the good thing
with that is when you bone and roll the the legs you end up with the bones i then you know buy a
few extra turkey wings um because of course they you know they want to sell all of it and then use
that to make you gravy so you can do that a couple of days in advance before so that no that's
brilliant i don't think many people would have known about the um the the leg hack
yeah don't tell too many people because yeah it'll go crazy
i'm gonna put my order in after this episode and so so what would you do then for the turkeys um
for the gravy side sorry so what would you how do you make that so again as we've discussed
with like a bone broth is what you want to do is you want to get some color on the bones so i would
just roast so i'd buy yeah like a couple of turkey wings which again you know when you think of a
chicken wing from a big turkey they're actually you know a decent you know it's almost like a
they're probably two wings might weigh 700 grams so that you know it's a decent bit of weight so
chop them up roast them in a hot oven until they've got plenty of caramelization because
that's where you're going to get all that lovely flavor and again with your turkey leg if you have
done a bit of bone and rolling and that yes i roasted off with some some onions some carrots
etc got loads of color into a pot ideally a pressure cooker or just you know a big
stainless steel pot cover it with water and then bring it to a simmer you then want to just take
off any kind of like flotsam and jot some that kind of floats the top and then in with some
aromats so some bay some thyme a few peppercorns um you know if you got some leek trimmings some parsley stalks and then just simmer it very gently for probably about three hours so you want to get you want to just really slowly
kind of extract all of that collagen out of the bones into the water so then you get that lovely
kind of depth of stock and then at that point um and you want to make a decent amount because no
one wants to be shortchanged on gravy at christmas i know that i've done in the past where i've you
know pass the jug around for my uh father-in-law and he's literally just like glugged a liter on
i'm like oh that's it actually i only i didn't make enough anyway so it's always best to have
more because then you can use it you know for your turkey pie you know later on in december now if
you if you've got a really good stock it might be absolutely fine you then roast your bird up you
know and and then you can deglaze the pan bit of wine if you want to thicken it with a bit of um
bit of flour or some corn flour or something you can um or you could just reduce the chef thing to
do is just to reduce that stock down by half to just kind of really concentrate those flavors
and uh and then yeah when you deglaze it with the pan um you're going to get all those kind
of caramelized bits up again from the the turkey when you rest the meat make sure you rest it on a
tray pour those juices in because that's all flavor and then because it's christmas what you
want to do is just then um uh whisk in some fresh salted butter and um and it just gives it a lovely
shine and a great mouthfeel and yeah and then serve it up and and always taste it and make sure
it's seasoned and you know if it's a bit flat add a little bit of sherry vinegar or a bit of cider
vinegar just to kind of get that acidity up yeah um just like keep it simple like if you've if
you've cooked it from good bones good ingredients you know the flavors will come out and be fine
yeah that sounds great and so how far in advance are you making this Henry is this like the week
before are you doing this yeah well well most so most turkeys you know if you've ordered it from a
butcher or or from a you know a good place online they normally deliver them from kind of like the
20th because you know most people don't have a big fridge to store a six kilo turkey so they're
kind of assuming like oh people are going to put it in their shed or like somewhere to kind of um
or you know they might make space but you know um i've definitely seen my mom do it where it's been
a kind of a not a mild christmas and i'm like how long has that turkey been in the shed for like you
know it's kind of come on um so yeah but put it in a fridge obviously but but okay say you've
received it on the 21st so you're a few days out so at this point you can then you know you can do
your do your butchery so you can remove the bones you can make your stock so that's fine so you know
you're talking you know three three four days out another thing i like to do is is to salt the turkey
beforehand so there's kind of two methods have you have you heard of like brining your turkey before
is that something that you've tried or i have no okay so let's say it's like it's a little kind of
chefy trick is that when you salt something, it changes the, I'm not a scientist here,
so I'm going to say this all wrong. You'll have to go speak to Aston Blumenthal for the exact
science, but essentially it changes how the structure of the muscles and how they're able
to retain moisture once cooked. So by salting something, not only does it season the meat so
then it's more tasty, when you actually cook it, it stops that moisture coming out. So though
But interestingly, when you salt something, it removes moisture from it.
So it's kind of, it sounds a bit counterintuitive, but actually you end up with a juicier result.
Now, the fashion always used to be to wet brine.
So essentially you would, you get a big pot of water, you weigh your turkey and you normally do between kind of,
it's about one to one and a half percent of the weight of the turkey in salt.
And then you boil it up with a bit of sugar and some, you can put some cloves in there.
You can put some garlic, some, you know, pimentos, some peppercorns, maybe some slices of orange.
You can make it look festive, you know, put some cinnamon sticks.
It's not going to do a huge amount, but it's going to make you feel kind of feel festive.
You bring that to the boil, then allow it to cool down completely into a bucket.
And then you then put your turkey into it and you leave it overnight.
So that was kind of like the way that I started doing probably about 10 years ago.
But then last couple of years, I've actually started dry brining.
and um and the theory behind that is it does exactly the same thing but it's when you wet
brine it does make the bird a bit wetter so it's harder to get a really crispy skin
so by dry brining you literally same again you weigh the salt um to the weight of the bird and
then you mix in a bit of sugar and some you could you could ground up some peppercorns and some nice
spices and stuff and then you rub it all inside the inside cavity and then also underneath the
skin so you need to like get your fingers under the skin and kind of work yourself around and then
get the salt down there again leave it in the fridge overnight for um uh um 24 hours and then
you wash the salt off it's not too much salt to be honest um but the dry brine it has the same
effect but it doesn't uh it doesn't like dilute the turkey flavor i mean you're talking marginal
here like it's not brining is you know it's fine brining whether it's wet or dry will make you have
a juicier bird the first time i did it for my in-laws they were so suspicious because they there
was like moisture coming out you know we were carving up the breast and they were like this
isn't cooked because it's not crumbling like um you know something that's super dry and i was like
no no this is this is how it's supposed to be like it's supposed to be uh delicious and um and
not a miserable experience that you then need to add so much gravy to anyway so um so if you're if
you're used to a very dry turkey if you brine it you're gonna be in for a bit of a shock yeah it
I think people are worried to undercook their turkey, aren't they?
I think that's a common question you must have quite a lot,
like how long to cook your turkey for?
How can you tell it's cooked?
Because you don't want to...
People probably err on the side of quarter mid turkey
and probably overcook it, but then they've gone too far
and it's then, like, say, too dry.
So how would you judge it?
Well, my mum...
So it's an almost entirely impossible question for me to answer
because it depends on your oven and it depends on the size of the bird.
So if you think about, if you've got an oven that's like, I don't know, whatever size, this big, and then you fill it with a 10 kilo turkey and there's no airspace, that oven works on a fan and convection.
Now, if there's no airspace for the air to move, you're going to get hot spots and be inefficient.
So first of all, particularly if you're cooking a really big turkey, putting it in your oven becomes challenging because you're stressing your oven out and you don't have that airflow.
And it's seriously important for good airflow.
the other thing that people do is that they cook it straight from the fridge and actually you know
a big turkey that's been in your fridge at two degrees it might take i don't know an hour and a
half for it to get to like core temperature and uh sorry to kind of room temperature so if you're
then putting it cold straight into to an oven that then doesn't have air circulating around
and you're like oh it says in the packet it takes an hour and you know two hours whatever
um you're gonna find it's not cooked all the way through the other thing that a lot of particularly
old recipes though you see less now is about stuffing it with sausage meat so my mum used to
this you know she'd fill the whole thing up with about three kilos of um of you know delicious you
know um sausage meat stuffing with chestnuts and you know minced in livers and it'd be all lovely
but you're now you're now making you know the cavity where the air could get in and kind of
circulate around as well and cook from the inside suddenly has now got high risk pork meat in it so
you've got to cook all the way through that so no wonder it used to take so actually it probably
would take you know eight hours or so but all that time the outside bit which is the poor breast is
just drying out and um so you'll get a delicious stuffing because all of those juices have come out
and they've gone into the stuffing and they've flavored and you're like whoa the stuffing is the
best bit shame about that dry old turkey now that's right you know if a 10 kilo turkey costs
you 150 quid and you've put you know 10 pounds worth of sausage meat stuffing inside you're going
to feel pretty annoyed if the stuffing is absolutely banging but the turkey is horrible you know so
and then you might as well just get one from the supermarket might be yeah yeah exactly exactly
so if you are going to cook a whole turkey and your oven isn't particularly you know you're
cooking a big turkey and it's not very you don't have a huge amount of airspace a method that you
can do which i actually think is a really nice way of doing it is you slow cook it overnight
so you set your if you can if you've got a digital thermometer you can set your your oven to like
let's say 80 degrees and then you put your turkey in overnight and it essentially it takes so long
for it to cook that actually you can you know you can smash through you know a bottle of wine
whatever wake up in the morning have breakfast the turkey's just in there just really slowly
cooking and then what you do is you remove it um to say you're eating at three o'clock or five
o'clock whenever um because it's not going on above 100 degrees it's not um it's not going to
dry down so you're not you're not going to be losing on the moisture but the um uh the kind of
the connective tissue and a lot of those kind of tendons within the legs break down around about 80
odd degrees so that slow kind of breaking down and it's essentially it's the sous vide method so
that kind of principle of cooking something at a low temperature for a long period of time
So when I've cooked a whole turkey in my kitchen where the oven isn't great and it's big, I've done it overnight.
And then you then take it out.
Your turkey will be completely pale and anemic, but it's fully cooked through.
And you can probe it and make sure that, you know, it's come to core temperature.
And then you whack your turkey, your oven up, you get your roasters going, you get all your other veggies.
And then you literally just rub the top with some lots of butter.
And then you pop it in the oven for about 50 minutes just to get some caramelization.
Take it out and then carve it.
And it is absolutely delicious.
The downside with that method, though, is you don't get any caramelization for a gravy.
So you have to have done, you know, you have to buy some extra bones to make a good gravy.
So it's kind of, you know, it's a good way if you've got an inefficient oven and you've got big turkey and you definitely don't want it to be dry or undercooked.
And that's quite a good method.
My actual favorite way of doing it is on the barbecue.
So if you've got a lid on barbecue, like one of those kind of kettle weather jobbies that a lot of people have, because a barbecue quite often is, you know, it's probably double the size.
So actually you've got a turkey in the middle, as long as you've set it up properly, you don't have to make it taste like smoky or, you know, American style, like you can just use it for heat.
But actually it cooks really efficiently.
And I did two years ago, I did rotisserie barbecue, rotisserie turkey, because I love rotisserie chicken.
And because you've got a metal spike going through the middle and also you've got plenty of airspace, the spike heats up.
So it cooks it from the inside.
So it starts to get the temperature inside.
And then also it's self-basting.
and it was a six kilo turkey and it cooked in about it was probably about an hour and 10 minutes
and it was like utterly delicious like it was so good i was very i was very happy and i was
yeah so the barbecue is a good good good route and also it means you've then got space in your
oven for your roast potatoes and your carrots and your parsnips and all that stuff because
you know often you know at christmas you could you you feel like you need six ovens or so because
there's just so much going on.
Do you tend to do Yorkshire puddings?
No.
I'm too much of a southerner.
Yorkshire puddings just with beef, I'm afraid.
But I do love a Yorkshire puddings.
I would happily eat them.
There's always so much other stuff that I just like.
I don't know.
That seems...
How about you?
Are you a Yorkie?
Yeah, yeah.
I always make Yorkshire puddings.
Yeah, with the Northern family,
they're quite keen for a Yorkshire puddings with their day.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Totally, totally.
and I wouldn't
you know
that's the nice thing
about Christmas isn't it
it's all nostalgia
so you know
there's no rules
your memories
is it
and that's actually
one thing I probably
get right
yeah yeah
more than
whereas the turkey
I'm probably the person
that has made it
a bit too dry
okay
yeah
and then do you do
anything special
with your potatoes
you mentioned that
you like to take
control of the turkey
and the
and the gravy
and the potatoes
is it about the potatoes
I think the thing
with potatoes is
you want
you want more than you think because you you know my daughter could probably eat 12 potatoes and she
you know and ignore the brussels sprouts so you need plenty of potatoes you don't want to be
short-changed and also you want a left over for you know a kind of um you know dipping into the
bread sauce later on or public or whatever and um so the key the key is is to get a good potato
um so like i mean the classic is you know your maris piper something that is gonna um kind of
be kind of fluffy but also crisp up the way that i do it which i think is fairly common these days
is you peel them you chop them chop them like fairly rough i tend to just go in half and then
maybe half again you want a good amount of surface area and then bring them to the boil in in some
good salty water and um and then simmer them not too aggressively but just simmer them until they're
pretty soft so you want them to be like almost mashable so like it's not just like a bit rough
around the edge you want them to be like fully cooked through and then you carefully drain them
and then spread them out onto a tray.
And ideally you can do this the day before.
So this is a great, you know, Christmas Eve,
get the Christmas tunes on, you know,
do a bit of veg prep.
That's a good time to do it.
Because what happens is,
is by allowing them to,
the potato to cook through fully,
and then it gets rid of a lot of that moisture,
you then put them in the fridge,
which is naturally like a dehumidifier
because it's always removing moisture,
leave them uncovered.
It's going to remove more moisture again.
so then when you come to roasting them because they're going to be like fully cooked through
they're going to be really fragile so if they're hot out the water they're going to
fall to bits and you're going to end up with like mash on your um in your tray but also um
it's removed a lot of that moisture so then they're going to crisp up nicely
and then in terms of when it comes to fat i mean obviously your classic is goose fat or duck fat but
um i also i i like a bit of beef tallow but i would probably at christmas use just get some
duck fat or goose fat from the from the supermarket you want to get your tray heated up nice and hot
so you want the oven at you know kind of 200 degrees so good good good temperature preheat it
so it doesn't need to be absolutely smoky and like free yorkshire pudding but just kind of
it's going to get a bit sizzle in with your potatoes give them a good tossing over so they're
all coated in the fat and then just start roasting them and then just just you know they're going to
take 30 40 minutes or so depending on how good your oven is give them a few turns throughout the
the time because obviously they're going to caramelize on the bottom bit and you really
want to get all the the edges to kind of break up a little bit and and you know they almost kind of
like slightly deep fry in in the fat um and that's what makes them extra delicious and then about
five minutes before you finish I think it's really nice just to um chop up a rough chop up a lot of
garlic go get some uh some rosemary from the garden a bit of sage you know sage is a lovely
a bit of thyme you know really kind of classic Christmassy herbs and then just toss them through the potatoes just for that last couple of minutes It just gives you this really nice kind of aromatic kind of finish a little bit of mold and sea salt or
you know some kind of christly salt and yeah and then serve them fairly quickly and delicious yeah
that's how i make them that's really interesting that you add that at the very end i don't know
whether it's other recipes i've looked at but i i've always sort of thought you have to put the
rosemary in at the beginning or through and then i've wondered why the rosemary's then black
yeah yeah well it just burns it just burns it yeah yeah so if you do it if you do it too late
you're gonna it's just gonna be you just want like a you know three to four minutes five minutes tops
just for it to kind of like the flavor not to be completely raw like particularly the garlic
obviously you know like you want it to kind of cook a little bit but if it goes in too early it
will just burn well what i often do is on the chopping board is just like chop it all together
so it's all kind of mixed up and then just it's almost like a kind of rosemary garlicky salt
and then just sprinkle that over give it a good good toss and um jobs are good yeah and it's
interesting that you didn't when you had the potatoes cooked um like you say before you put
them in the fridge that you you didn't do the classic pan and lid and kind of shaking them
around to kind of buff them up like you kind of they'll be so if they're if they're fully cooked
through they'll be so delicate it'll just happen anyway like it's not a problem whereas that that
thing and that's how i used to do it was you know boil them for five minutes and then really kind of
like bash them around a bit the problem with that is it does that that roughage on the outside you
know it means that they go crispy but you still because the potato hasn't cooked through there's
all that moisture in the potato still which then has to come out and so then then you're fighting
you've got moisture wanting to come out of the potato and then you're trying to like crisp it up
and obviously you know it stops it getting crispier it's essentially it's how you only get
these like delicious triple cooked chips in um in pubs and you're like they're just so crispy and
they're like they're like shatter like glass and inside it's just like fluffy and delicious
it's essentially it's that principle but for a roast potato it's just a bigger chip really when
you think about it and it's actually really good for you to double cook your potatoes because it
changes the starch component um actually better for your body yeah so it's that they sometimes
call it like twice cooked potatoes but yeah it's a much better way for your body to kind of process
it's a healthier way to get resistance starch it's actually really good for you for you it helps
so that's really interesting so not only will they taste delicious yeah yeah i don't know what
you think to um using semolina on potatoes like i've sometimes done that and that can make them
quite crispy but what do you think to that well i have done that before i mean i've tried you know
i i'm a bit of an experimenter and i like to try all sorts of different things and um and again yeah
I think it can add a nice little crust and a bit of a crunch.
Again,
I certainly think these things can be a distraction or a little bit of
novelty or whatever,
but,
but yeah,
there's,
there's nothing wrong.
I mean,
you know,
essentially the semolina is going to,
going to add a kind of drying force to the outside that then it's going to
be,
cause it's a,
you know,
it's a hard grain.
It's going to be able to caramelize,
you know,
give you that super kind of crispy,
a bit like you might get with,
I don't know,
like fried chicken,
you know,
it's going to give you that kind of feel,
isn't it?
Cause it's like a kind of,
you know,
yeah exactly on the outside but yeah I mean delicious I mean semolina's it's got a lovely
flavor it's got beautiful yellow color yeah I think the thing I love about cooking is that
there's no there's no right or wrong way there's just you know there's just you know whatever makes
you happy yeah oh that sounds good and so any any other tips for how you do your veg or your
sprouts do you kind of do your bacon and your sprouts together or what do you like bacon lardens
or how do you i mean i'm a fan of i'm always a fan of bacon and any opportunity to have their
bacon yeah i think yeah sprouts i've been a sprout hater you know probably for most of my um up until
probably you know the age of about 18 i don't think i like sprouts and then and i think that's
probably because they were always just boiled whole um you know i just kind of you know the
smell of an old people's home i don't know all that that kind of cabbagey school dinner vibe yeah
this wasn't, wasn't, wasn't my bag.
So I definitely got into that whole kind of like loads of butter, you know, lots of, you
know, pancetta and chestnuts and parsley and lemon juice, you know, kind of, again, lots
of seasoning, lots of butter tossed around.
I've done the whole kind of like roasting sprouts.
I think roast sprouts really delicious.
So you can chop them in half, a bit of olive oil, you know, plenty of seasoning on it.
And then just, you know, roast them quite, quite hard.
I think delicious, but actually even, even just like a kind of shredded sprout, you know,
it's quite nice uh probably not for your christmas dinner but like you know i actually
my wife loves sprouts she'll eat them all uh all when our veg box starts uh arriving with a bag of
sprouts each week she makes her very happy so uh we have to kind of get a bit creative about it but
um but yeah i think any you know with a sprout it's got a nice kind of um peppery kind of flavor
to it hasn't it and uh and i think you just don't want to like you just like boiling it in like
unseasoned water and then just serving them steaming is just you know is not the way to do it
but actually um uh and if i find that psychologically if people don't like sprouts
chopping them in half is quite a good way because it just like it doesn't feel like this kind of big
intimidating ball of like smelly death uh so so actually like cutting in half maybe for me it
certainly helps as a psychological point of view um getting a bit of butter in there but um but
quite often depending on how the meal is you know if you've got if you've got like you know a lot of
caramelized stuff you've got roasted parsnips you've got roasted carrots you've got roasted
potatoes you've got actually sometimes it's nice to have a bit of contrast and not have too much
caramelized stuff because sometimes it can be a bit overkill i've definitely done it where
everything's been roasted and it's got like there's you know there's everything's caramelized
and um and probably individually it's quite delicious but when it's all together it's then
it's a bit much so actually probably of late i've been a bit more gentler with my sprouts and maybe
you know um yeah just cook them in good salty water and just toss them in in um in plenty of
butter and you know good squeeze of lemon and lots of black pepper and and probably kept it
quite simple but i don't know i i am i'll almost certainly do it you know if i if i'm cooking the
sprouts and it's one of my jobs um it'll almost certainly be um uh a last minute um uh vibe it as
i go kind of thing which is why i quite like my christmas you know a couple of glasses of wine in
and i just see see how it takes me how do you do your sprouts hayley i'm intrigued well i've tried
both as well i've tried just the normal cooking them in salty water and then trying to toss them
in butter whatever i didn't know about the lemon juice so that's a good tip and uh and then i've
also try i've even tried in the horrid air fryer last year and they just okay i personally for me
they just didn't taste very nice and they sort of go a bit chargrilled and i was like i'm not sure
i want to do that to my sprouts but you're right about having too many roasted veg because sometimes
you get it on your plate and you actually crave something like cauliflower cheese something just
with a different texture so um yeah that's interesting i've thought that but not come to
that realization that's what i'm thinking on the meeting so uh i'm gonna definitely i often think
like christmas dinner like you know we there's always probably too too many sides so actually
when you know you're kind of looking at and you're like you know you never go to a restaurant and
have like you know six veg three types of meat two different stuffings all these different sauces
loads of great you're like it's it is quite intimidating and um and um and uh my little
brother is really he's he maybe doesn't have the nostalgic twist of um or or pull of christmas and
so he's quite often like you know uh if he's writing the list he'll be he'll say like oh no
i think we should just do um we'll just do three sides we're not having parsnips because we've got
carrots like we can't have both you know what do you mean you can't have both and um and then like
you know my mum was like oh i left red cabbage he's like no red cabbage can't have sprouts and
red cabbage whereas of course you can you know most people do you know so then if you're you know
you're adding in cauliflower cheese you'll be like whoa this is this is too much but i kind of like
i don't know i feel for christmas you know actually um uh you know don't try and kind of
turn it into some kind of super gourmet thing it should be it should just be a great opportunity to
sit down with your family and you know and have a good time so this food shouldn't be a stress
but you know um but that that doesn't mean you can't try and like balance the flavors and
you know just be a bit conscious of stuff if everything is roasted then you know maybe don't
roast your sprouts but actually you know if you haven't got parsnips and the carrots are just going
to be i don't know steamed carrots and then maybe getting a bit of color on your sprouts might you
know might might be perfectly uh definitely fine did you steam your carrots um i i roast them with
like honey and a bit of oil so i just kind of do that with parsnips that's how i always tend to do
them but um and then when it comes to dessert what do you do what do you do for that do you
have a traditional christmas pudding yeah um uh so i'm going to my mum's house this year and i think
i think there's about 15 of us so i'll probably make a big old trifle mostly because i've got
one of those like old school cut glass trifle bowls yeah i imagine this year there'll probably
be requests from my daughter to do some kind of dubai chocolate style one with lots of pistachios
and whatnot but again like or you know maybe you know like a tiramisu style one i don't know i'll
just i'll google some recipes and be like oh well let's give that a go but yeah i like the kind of
custard and that kind of bit of showmanship but in terms of yeah i'm a big fan of um christmas
pudding so with when i'm with my my in-laws my father-in-law and i are the only ones who eat
christmas pudding he uh he'll he'll get a christmas pudding and steam it for hours though actually you
can do it in the microwave though he swears that the microwave dries it out and it's uh it's a nice
sustain but the thing that i love doing is um is and i think we talked about before is is the flambé
so i've got a bit of a kind of christmas trick which i've maybe tamed down a little bit but i i
would set up a um a camping stove this comes with a warning of um maybe don't try this at home um
right yes so set up a camping stove and you get a frying pan and you get it till it's absolutely
smoking hot and then you have your christmas pudding already you dim the lights you then get
a bottle of brandy or you know something that's 40 plus but brandy works fine and uh and then you
christmas pudding in it um little bit of parchment paper because it can burn quite quickly and you
don't want to burn your pudd and then in with a good glug of of booze and then tilt it to the flame
and the the flames will you know they they'll they'll they'll catch your ceiling so it's it's
preferable to do either outside or if you've got um a double ceiling you know somewhere with plenty
of height but you can get yeah you can get those flames pretty high it's a good um crowd pleaser
for the uh the nephews and nieces though i did it a couple years ago just outside it was quite windy
and it singed all my eyebrows off so uh you have to you have to be a bit careful but it's become a
bit of um yeah uh it's now requested is uncle henry gonna set fire to the christmas anyway yeah
um obviously that's not the safe way to do it but it's quite exciting doesn't add anything to
the flavor but certainly adds to the um adds to the christmas drama anyway we always have the uh
the hassle of trying to find a nut-free christmas pudding and i never can quite work out how to make
one is tasty without using some of the nuts so i know you can probably just use the dried fruit
and things and just hope it binds and sticks together but our family are not that keen on
christmas pudding either so i tend to go down more of a chocolate dessert route or a yes like
say classic 80s trifle yeah my wife doesn't like trifle or christmas pudding so she goes down the
chocolate route lately we've been making a nice like a kind of chocolate chocolate pot so uh so
essentially it's like it's like a kind of mousse that then you bake very lightly so it's it's almost
kind of like a kind of semi souffle but um but much easier to make and then and then it's kind of
almost like a kind of chocolate fondant tea kind of you know a big dollop of ice cream it's
delicious but you can you can make it in advance and do them in little pots or or a big one and
then and then bake them off but yeah it's um it's an easy easy put to do and uh she always makes it
with her brother i think it's about the the only time they're civil together um is when they're
making chocolate pudding at christmas so how does he how does he make that it's too
melted chocolate and butter and then you essentially you sorry you melt the chocolate
and then you um uh sabby on the um the egg yolks and the sugar so you've got to beat it for ages
until it gets light and fluffy so it does help if you've got one of those electric mixes and then
you fold in the melted butter and chocolate and then fold in the egg whites and um so it's like
a flourless chocolate thing and then in the bottom you can put you know some nice prunes or some
raspberries or you know if you've got some nice kind of christmasy fruit maybe some figs you know
something nice and then you and then you just bake them in the oven for about eight minutes
and you want in it you want to catch it so it's like it's it's cooked enough that it's not
completely raw but you don't want it to be fully cooked through because it's a bit dry and um and
i would say they it happens mostly it's because i don't eat it because i'm like got the christmas
pudding and they'll pull them out the oven they'll say are they ready and they'll be like oh no they're
quite raw and i'll be like maybe another minute and then they'll put them in forget about them
and then like oh crap the chocolate pudding and then and then they're overcooked anyway so
but it's fine they've made them so they're happy i don't get involved oh these are delicious
god that's made me really hungry do you find um anyone in your household ever has any issues over
christmas time because um like i said at the beginning people going in and out the oven is a
classic one where people go oh my back and i've now like got the turkey halfway up from the oven
and it's gone do you i guess yeah i guess christmas you know it's often a time of excess and maybe
people are you know whether that's drinking a bit hard or eating a bit hard i think you know i've
always just you know if you're feeling kind of lethargic that actually going for a walk after
dinner quite often after dinner before pudding just get up and go for it even if it's just like
10 minutes around the block just to you know you'll feel better even if it's you know it's dark and it
feels you know a bit kind of stormy actually just getting out there and um uh because you know i
don't know i i can't just like indulge and then just sit you know and because one because then
you just fall asleep and actually you know you kind of you lose you lose the day don't you but
um I've yeah um I guess I don't know I guess it depends how big your turkey is I don't know I
I've never had my back go in but is that something that you see at clinic is it a Christmas injuries
is there like um is there a running pattern yeah there there things like people falling off their ladder when they trying to get something at the top of the Christmas tree that another classic Or trying to get the tree out of the loft and their back goes or their partner been sent up into the loft
and, you know, they're crawling around and then, you know, classic like,
oh, my back's gone and I don't know what to do and speed dial their physios.
Yes.
Or they get a lot of backache because they're standing in the kitchen.
And one thing I always say to patients is just resting your knees is a really good top tip
is to just rest your knees against the cupboard door
or your kind of work surfaces
because it kind of keeps your back nice and stable,
nice and upright.
And that kind of slight forward lean position
that really makes the muscles work really hard.
So just trying to kind of punch your knees against the cupboard
just so you kind of,
almost like you're just trying to rest against it,
really, really helps
when you're doing preparation work in the kitchen.
And just having a stretch backwards every now and then
because if you are in the kitchen being forward flexed like washing up or anything bending down
up and down up and down down to cupboards and and trying to kind of really think about
the way that you do things because um a classic one as well is dishwashers emptying dishwashers
and people going i just i had you know you have patients say i just avoid it because i get someone
else to do it because i can't do it um and it's actually not that they can't do it it's the way
that they approach emptying the dishwasher so they'll do a lot of twisting um and they'll stand
at the corner of the door as the doors open and stand at one of those corners and i say stand side
on to the to the dishwasher and get really close and just do that half with a with a half quarter
turn so you empty everything out onto the work surface and then move everything from there and
put it away and then go around to the other side if you can and do exactly the same thing but reverse
your position and then push the drawer in by keeping forward and then bending with your knees
and properly keeping your back straight to empty from the lower um from the lower tray but the
amount of people who just stand look the knees back really hinge over up and down up and down
and um and they go that's really troublesome especially when you've got heavy pans or heavy
kind of um you know all those lovely uh kind of oven dishes that that you probably have in your
kitchen anyway those new weighty ones are gonna again really pull on your back if you're kind of
really hinging over and bending forward so so we see a lot of that people um yeah hosting and doing
more washing and you know trying yeah and that i guess i guess in christmas you're just doing
yeah there always seems to be more going on so you're like rushing around you're carrying
you know you seem to be moving stuff from a to b whether that's your turkey or your presents or
you know you're you're you know it feels like life suddenly accelerates doesn't it and you're
doing everything a bit faster because you've, you know, you've got to be at a carol concert or,
you know, there's something going on, you know, where you've got people coming over. So you're
just trying to like squeeze absolutely everything in because you want to like, you know, you want
Christmas to be full. And so you're going to cram in because you want to feel that festive cheer.
And I guess, you know, that I can see that that would be a time where you could be, you know,
you just go a bit faster and then something goes. And then, yeah, I can imagine like, you know,
pulling your back muscle or you know well they don't oh people don't think about distributing the
weight with their shopping they'll um they'll carry everything on one side so we completely
lopsided and i say just put it across two bags something as simple as that or take a backpack
and have some in your backpack some in your either hand and loading the car is is another one so sort
of using that same knee trick to put your knees against the boot of the car um so that as you
load something heavy into the car you're not having to wrench through your back
and wrapping like the amount of people who wrap um presents just like bending over on the floor
and they're usually like my hypermobile patients that then get that real classic lower back ache
right in the dimples of your lower back because they're you know on their knees bending over with
the sellotape trying to wrap up but actually if you can take a few minutes to sit at a desk and
it's often with wrapping it's like well where's a good place to wrap because obviously you know
ideally the kitchen table is probably the biggest place that's nice and flat and at a good height
but then if you're trying to do it in secret you end up doing it in you know upstairs on the
bedroom floor you know you can't do it on your bed so you're doing it kind of you know on the floor
and um and yeah but i try and kneel on the floor occasionally but i i can definitely you know you
know you've got that kind of onslaught of you've bought too many presents and now you've got to
wrap the bloody things and and you've got 15 minutes to do it you know yeah i can and someone's
would you recommend before kind of you know in that kind of lead up to christmas you know to
make sure you're doing plenty of stretches in the morning just to get yourself nice and supple if
you know you're going to be having quite a kind of full-on day is that like what what what what
could you do to kind of you know because no one wants to spend christmas in pain and miserable
not good for you or anyone around you so what you know if you if you know if you think that you're
like acceptable to you know hurting yourself what kind of what kind of things could you do to kind of
get through it and as jolly as possible yeah so it's um it's thinking about those functional tasks
for sure so making sure you're not um building up risk factors throughout the day making sure you
stretch throughout the day so doing those back stretches periodically especially if you had a
long drive to go to a family's house three hours away um making sure you use heat and breaking up
postures throughout the day don't just lie or sit on the sofa for too long don't cross your legs is
is the other one um making sure if you do you if you are susceptible make sure you just got a little
bit of paracetamol and some heat packs or something in the house just if you manage to have an issue
and then you can't get to the shops because the shops are shut you know so it's good preparation
um and then just being hydrated people obviously with christmas they stop going to their normal
exercise classes or routines so making sure that you can do some general movement going for a walk
after lunch like you mentioned um and just drinking plenty so you don't dehydrate those muscles so if
you're having your wine alcohol either turning some of them into spritzers to reduce the
concentration of your alcohol down for having a glass alongside um your festive uh festive poison
as i like to call it sometimes yeah just kind of give your body a bit more of um a chance to to
kind of keep hydrated a bit like your turkey but you want to keep the moisture in um and you don't
to kind of dry out your back discs because anything dry is always going to be a bit harder
to function. So just keeping and being sensible. So if the weather changes, especially for our more
elderly patients, good footwear, you know, good footwear and standing in kitchens where it's quite
cold or hard flooring, you sort of do need to have, you know, a good solid slipper or shoe or
something that you can stand in that can give you a bit more comfort. So there's lots of things,
but those are the classic ones to help yourself over the Christmas time.
Do you think there's an element, because I mean, like, you know,
I obviously, there is an expectation, you know, if I'm having Christmas,
that I will be taking probably, you know, doing a decent amount of the cooking
because that's what's expected and that's fine and I'm really happy with it.
But I guess for a lot of people, it might be that there's like, you know,
it's that classic, you know, mum does it all and everyone's sat, you know,
watching TV while mum's slaving away.
and actually you know if you if you know that you're in a situation where you might be vulnerable
to like you know doing your backing or whatever actually just i don't know maybe is it kind of
like sharing the load a little bit because i think you know it's a um obviously i can't talk
from lived experience but i do know that having spoken to other people that you know in lots of
families it is you know one person does the majority of the work and everyone else just has
a lovely relaxing time you know drinking the beers and you know and relaxing and playing a board game
whenever while one person's kind of doing all the the carrying and actually you know if you're that
person maybe you know uh maybe this christmas is a time to kind of um you know make a plan and be
like hey look you know i want to get through this without getting injured it's going to be good for
everyone so actually can we you know can we all help out a little bit can we you know and actually
probably be good for you know good for the family unit because it you know gets people working
together and communicating and you know and um and you know might it might be it might be a different
kind of Christmas but maybe maybe maybe a better one I don't know yeah definitely sharing the load
because then you're you're basically pacing everybody and you know if they're they're kind
of tucking into the suites if you're sitting down and that person you know you've got someone who's
doing all the work and other people who are sitting it's really good for those people to get up and
move around so their blood sugars don't rock it and you you do want to keep moving around but um
I think you said it beautifully like just trying to share out jobs um and just keeping some activity
you're going because then it's going to be much harder for people otherwise in january when they
want to get back to their fitness goals and that's sort of suddenly start going into exercise again
um you know they haven't really prepared themselves very well over christmas but
so christmas can be you know a relaxing time time with your family but it can be a vulnerable time
for the body if we don't look after it but if you think about you know the christmas dinner could be
quite healthy with all your vegetables and things that we've discussed totally it's just trying to
make some slightly healthier choices throughout so maybe they could have more of your delicious
sides um as opposed to too many carbohydrates or or you know just trying to think about how else
they can um keep a bit healthier a tip that i have learned that um and this is from definitely
from lived experiences to not eat the quality streets or the celebrations too early in the day
i think there was one christmas where you know we'd had a cup of tea and it was probably seven
o'clock in the morning because the kids were up and we were at the in-laws house and you know they
wanted to open the stocking so we you know i would have liked to have been in bed a little bit longer
but i was up with a cup of tea and then my father-in-law kind of shook her celebrations i i
think he just did it just to be friendly and i was like oh go on then and you know before i know i've
eaten four and then i just felt quite ill and i think staying off the sugar for as long as possible
if you can you know if you can get through the lunchtime you're gonna feel so much better just
like whereas if you cave in early and start you know hitting those sweet sweet things and um and
it's so easy to be like well it's christmas isn't it but actually you know i know personally i just
feel horrendous and then and then i don't enjoy the rest of the food because i just feel like i'm
on this kind of like sugar high and then and then it's you know it's not i then just don't yeah i
don't i don't feel like i enjoy the food as much and um and so yeah staying off those sweet things
as much as possible but it is hard isn't it like you know if you're like i work at a bakery and
there's mince pies already around and i know that you know we start getting gifts from customers and
people start bringing in and i've baked some cookies and you know suddenly there's just all
this just temptation around and it's so easy to be like oh it's christmas you know it's and it
probably it's it's those rally advent calendars where it goes wrong isn't it because you know
they encourage you to wake up and the first thing you do is eat a thimble of sweet chocolate and
you're like well that's it game over so maybe don't don't don't buy an advent calendar or get
one that isn't edible sorry i'm sounding a bit bar humbug no or you could i mean one one simple
trick is if someone's bought you like one of those huge boxes of um uh quality street or whichever you
know said chocolate brand if you kind of just when as soon as you open them if you tip half of them
into a bag and just put them in a cupboard where you just don't think you kind of forget about them
when you keep going to them you you're you're saying oh actually they are going low and i'm
not going to eat all of them because some families are diving in and yeah so once they're gone they're
gone and you might just have a different you know you might be telling your brain you know actually
we've eaten enough that's it that's enough now we can't see anymore because if you can't see it
you don't want it so you could just kind of divide them out and um just you know so they're they're
not out all the time because it is just temptation or if you've had some put them away
so that they're not just going oh should we just have another pringle because they're out you know
yeah you almost need to have like like a um a strategy in advance of like how you're gonna
like tackle christmas particularly you know like where is it i don't know what they call like how
strong-willed you are or whatever like you know i'm i'm fairly strong-willed but i know that if
there's just temptation everywhere and then you know you you you caught you know a slight hunger
a pang and you're and it's just in front of you it's so easy just to like cave in isn't it and
particularly when it's christmas and you're like wow it doesn't really count so actually having
that kind of stress you beforehand whether that's like you said putting some stuff on a cupboard or
just you know removing half or just you know being conscious that you're going to be in that situation
and can you kind of um because i i really do think like for me it totally derails my
you know my day if i if you know if i eat too much sweet stuff too too soon it's just like it's
game over and then and then you know you just don't enjoy it so much yeah yeah and i quite like
um just like squeezing loads of different fruits or like trying to do more of a like tropical
cocktail bit of fruit juices rather than always relying on those horrible like schler fizzy things
that are just no good for anyone really um so just to try and get a little bit of vitamin c into your
day but you know if you could and you can make a fancy can't you with like a straw and you have
and your offshore glasses that you don't normally use.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's another way to kind of make it just feel a bit different
to just always reaching for the same drinks
or breaking things up with some hydration and other things too.
But I think you said it beautifully there, Henry, with a nice summary.
And so I think I'm going to go and order my turkey legs.
Well, I'll write a recipe up for it because it is a good hack.
Particularly if you want to buy good quality,
but you cannot justify spending, you know,
130 quid on a turkey or so.
And you know what?
We're going to have to do next, Hayley.
We're going to have to do a January one
because I find January,
I've been, last couple of years,
I've approached it differently,
but I'd be interested to hear how you approach January
because a part of me has been like,
oh, sod it, it's the worst time of year
because it's cold and dark
and I'm just going to carry on with the festive fun.
But actually maybe it is an opportunity
for a bit of a reset.
Yeah, it'd be great to, you know.
and I know I know obviously a lot of people you know book their gym membership and then
never go but um yeah it'd be a good one to to get into and discuss how we how we how we beat
those winter blues yeah we can and um have to say lovely Christmas jumper as well Henry yeah thank
you yeah little burger doesn't look very healthy does it but anyway there we go it's got a hat
well I'd love to speak to you and that yeah feeling very festive now yes yeah and I'll see
you on the next episode yeah brilliant cheers Hayley bye thanks Henry
you