The Potage Cup 2014

The Potage Cup results are in... It was a Griffith one-two!

First and Second place went to Mr G's middle sister Kate who we think stole the show with her Ham and Barley broth and homemade oatcakes and Mr G who came a pretty close second with his Neeps and Tatties soup, with haggis croutons!

Third was Cousin Jo with "Piping Hot" Beetroot and Curly Kale soup (with both Scottish and festive "pipers piping"), fourth Daddy Bear curiously with Polish Hot Cucumber soup, fifth yours truly (amazingly!) with Cranachan soup and sixth Uncle David, quite rightly so with his "Defiance Soup".

The scoring

This year's scoring system was as follows:

• Taste – 10 points
• Christmas Spirit – 10 points
• Presentation – 5 points
• Texture – 5 points
• Originality – 5 points
• "Comebackability" – 5 points

And in honour of the big news from this year, the wild card category was:

• Scottishness - 10 points

The entries

Soup 1: Hot beetroot and curly kale soup. Note the 11 pipers piping. Both festive and Scottish

Soup 2: "In England's Green and Pleasant Land" Soup. Content, except for "defiance" unknown.

Soup 3: Highland ham, mushroom and barley broth with homemade oatcakes.

Soup 4: Polish Cucumber soup. Festiveness and Scottishness added as sides, not ingredients.

Soup 5: Neeps and Tatties soup with Haggis Croutons

Soup 6: Cranachan soup!

The results

 

Second place

Winner!

The Winner's Crown.

Until next year....

 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, Chez Griffith.

With one week to go the decorations are up, the presents are wrapped, the last of the cards have been posted, I'm halfway through a bottle of dry sherry (my new fave festive tipple), the house is covered in glitter and sequins that have fallen off my various festive outfits, the invites for our Griffmas drinks have been sent and the menus are planned.

tacky decorations from my Deep South road trip

Eat drink and be merry at Griffmas Drinks

Christmas Eve invites - soups at the ready!




Dressed up for Fake Christmas

So, now... that leaves only one thing left to do.  I need to think of a soup for the Annual Potage Cup.

This year's scoring system is as follows:

• Taste – 10 points
• Christmas Spirit – 10 points
• Presentation – 5 points
• Texture – 5 points
• Originality – 5 points
• "Comebackability" – 5 points

And in honour of the big news from this year, the wild card category will be:

• Scottishness - 10 points

So, considering my past efforts have focussed heavily on the Christmas Spirit, by being based almost entirely around, ahem, spirits (the alcoholic, not the spooky, variety), I'm wondering if other competitors are going to use the final category as a way to encroach upon my turf.

Ideas on a postcard please.

 

Or a text message... there's no time for snail mail in times like these!

 



Merry Griffmas!!

 

Festive snippets - December 2013

Today was a back-to-work day. After a week of sofa-surfing, onesie-wearing and food-gorging I was almost looking forward to going outside, putting on proper clothes and getting back in to a routine.

Less than an hour in I was pining for my PJs and reminiscing about the last month of festivities.

Destination Christmas on Oxford Street

It all started with a trip to Oxford Street to see the decorations and drink Christmassy cocktails and the purchase of our first real tree (which I decorated whilst wearing my gingerbread man onesie and watching A Muppet's Christmas Carol, of course!). Oh how gloriously it fragranced our house! I'm gonna miss that tree!

Our first real tree!

Decorating the tree with Snow Pooh

Then, the family took off en masse to visit the Christmas markets in Munich for gluwein and lebkuchen. Yummy.

Munich!

After that, it was party, after drink catch up, after festive lunch, dinner and brunch gatherings... which of course required a whole suite of Christmas jumpers and sparkly accoutrements.

Christmas jumper number one at The Cortiina Hotel, Munich

Christmas jumper number 2 in the loos at The Zetter



Christmas Jumper Day with 5/10 of Pineapple Club

Christmas party at The Corinthia

Festive afternoon tea at The Covent Garden Hotel

It all came to a head with a festive BBQ and the Annual Potage Cup, Chez Griffith on Christmas Eve, lots of fun, food and family time, with both families on Christmas Day and DVDs and cocktails on Boxing Day while Mr G slept off his night shift.

Our Christmas Eve party invite - festive knitwear mandatory!

Yummy bespoke sausages on the BBQ!

Christmas jumper number 3 on Christmas Eve

Gold and silver trophies for The Potage Cup winner and runner up

Winning - AT LAST!

I finished the festive season with a "survivors" meal with the family (for those still going/remaining) on the Friday and then a girlie outing to see The. Most. Amazing. piece of theatre I've ever seen (and I expect it'll never be bettered): The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable, by Punchdrunk. Go see it. Just go and see it.

Stockings on Christmas morning

Christmas Tree Chez Hale

Festive Griffs!



I added some snuggly socks to my glitzy Christmas Day outfit

Onesies, films and fizz on Boxing Day...

We ended the year with good friends, Mexican food, drinks, games and laughter as we saw the new year in in a slightly more sedate style than last year!

Happy New Year!

The Potage Cup 2012

It was SOUP-er.

The Potage Cups for first and second place

Well not for me - I came third. Close, but no trophy.

Baby Bro sent the rules out a few weeks in advance and there was a new category added for this year "Patriotic-ness"... well, that I can do.

Every year the other contestants go all out, testing out recipes, looking for clever ideas, sourcing unusual ingredients. Every year I find a random fruit, add a slug of alcohol, a bit of garnish and give it a clever name.

15 mins of prep time

15 mins of prep time

15 mins of prep time

I have a select number of "fans" who always mark me quite highly... everyone else exclaims in outrage that it's actually not a soup, but in fact a cocktail.

How very dare they!

Last year I did a vodka, orange and chilli gazpacho in shot glasses, the year before I hollowed out a melon, blended it, added some vodka, a spring of mint and served it in the melon skin. Genius!

This year? I blended some fresh raspberries with some rose wine, sieved out the pips, served with blue meringue clouds and some white creme fraice, placed on a patriotic tray and named it Red, white and blues-berry soup, with meringue clouds and Royal furniture.

The Entries

Soup 1: Red, white and blues-berry soup, with meringue clouds and Royal furniture.

It went up against the following:



Soup 2: Rubbish soup

Soup 3: Roast chicken soup with chorizo bits and triple cooked chicken ciabatta blue croutons.

Soup 4: Squishy and squashy butternut squash soup with chestnut and bacon topping and olive Olympic rings

Soup 5: Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

Soup 6: Pea, pear, mint and ginger with caviar and fish roe biscuits.

Marking

The marks were allocated as follows:

• Taste (/10)
• Texture (/5)
• Moreishness (/5)
• Presentation (/5)
• Colour (/5)
• Christmas Spirit (/5)
• Britishness (/5) (In honour of the Jubilee and the Olympics!

The winners

In second place came Joanna, with her Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire having received very high points for Christmas Spirit.

 

...and in first place, Mr G with his self-proclaimed Rubbish Soup. He's a very good cook usually, but this soup was cobbled together at the last minute, tasted pretty vile and was rather un-festive or patriotic (until he raided my Jubilee party box and London 2012 souvenirs). Quite how he won, we're not sure. Absolutely nothing to do with the fact that his mother was involved in the voting... hmmmm.

 

 



 

 

Will there be an adjudicator's enquiry?

 

Either way, after years of striving to reclaim his trophy, he's finally got it back and he's finally stopped whinging about the previous years' winners being cheats, so that's good enough for me!

 

So now he's putting up a shelf for his trophy...