Who'd have thought it!

Santa came early for me this year - my Editor and IT consultant, aka my nephew Lucas, bought me a website www.miammiamcookery.com – so much easier – it will take you straight to the blog. The best present!

Way back in the year, in the post By the way I mentioned chatting to Bernie Keith (bernie.keith@bbc.co.uk) on his BBC Radio Northampton morning show. In early December I received an invitation from the lovely Sarah, his Producer, to Bernie's outside broadcast from his home on 23^rd December to do a food demo in his kitchen during the show. Mad woman I hear you splutter – and you'd be right!

To cut a long story short I decided to make, among other things, tuna pastries (see Summer Holidays) and White Christmas (see Crossword Clue) for the sweet hit. The pastries are quick, easy and tasty and make a great canapé. The White Christmas is, you may recall in feedback from the taste testing - “...better than Rocky Road!” Good choice I thought.

Off I went on my merry way with my comforter – the satnav!

It was the best morning. I've cooked in confined spaces, surrounded by people, many times before but this experience took it to a whole new level. You must have heard the expression “vertically challenged” - a suitable description of myself – for once being so challenged came into its own – duckin' and divin' with trays of tuna pastries and trying hard not to injure guests when trying to open the oven door! The guests were kind and the recipe for the tuna pastries requested – they all disappeared.

A lady guest spotted the huge bowl of white chocolate melting on the hob and “was intrigued”. When the time came to assemble I tapped her (politely of course) on the shoulder and asked if she would like to see the end result. I tipped the remaining ingredients into the melted chocolate – “it's difficult to believe all those ingredients will disappear into the chocolate”. I can confirm that they did. I was then able to utter those immortal words, “... and here's one I made earlier!” offering the sweet treat to the guests from boxes that were ready to eat – depositing the one just made into Bernie's fridge to set. Went down a storm, even though I say so myself!

It was such fun and great to put faces to names that I've been listening to for ages - thanks for the invitation Bernie (and Sarah of course).

P.s. The following morning en route to Derbyshire, listening to Bernie. before we were out of range, I'm delighted to report that he'd found the tray of White Christmas in his fridge - the remaining boxes he'd taken into the Station and sampled whilst on air – he liked it!

What a way to start the holidays!