Alexis Bruchon
I don’t really like champagne but somehow at 11am on Christmas morning, I enjoy a glass. It is part of the tradition, I suppose – like waking up early and opening the presents. For the past 30 years, most of our Christmases have been spent on top of a mountain in the Italian Alps. We have a log cabin that we built in a place called Monti della Luna, about an hour and a half from Turin. My husband Francesco is from Piedmont and he grew up skiing there when he was young. It’s not like Verbier: there are no nightclubs, just around 20 houses. It’s the kind of place where doing the shopping means bundling up, hitching the trailer to the snowmobile and heading to the nearest village. A bit of an ordeal really, but it’s outward bound and full of adventure.
With Francesco being Italian and me Australian, we grew up with two very different experiences of Christmas. Although I think there is a real charm to those Aussie Christmases with prawns on the barbecue and swimming at the beach, I do love the traditional English Christmas. And that’s what our four children – and now our six grandchildren are used to. We all come together at this time of year.
I suppose our Christmas is a bit of a hybrid, including the menu. We might start with some agnolotti, a classic stuffed pasta from Piedmont. There would be two: one filled with spinach or aubergine, with a butter and sage sauce; and the other with meat, served with a tomato sauce. But then that would be followed by turkey and Brussels sprouts, roasted potatoes and the rest. Yes, we’ll have a Christmas pudding, but we’ll also have panettone. Thank God panettone comes out only at Christmas because I’m addicted to it. On Christmas Day, we serve it filled with whipped cream – panettone farcito. Not exactly healthy, but delicious.
We tend to have a late lunch or early supper in the kitchen, where we have a big wooden dining table that sits 16 (I never use a tablecloth because the wood is so beautiful). The house is surrounded by pine trees, so I’ll gather some branches and twigs to decorate the table, which is lit by candlelight. I always use napkins that my mother made me many years ago: beautiful red ones that she embroidered herself with little green Christmas trees.They remind me of my darling mamma, whom I miss so much.
