The Christmas Special
Woolworths TASTE|December 2020
Christmas is a time for gratitude, not least for Sam Woulidge, who counts the chef-artiste (and now her TV co-host) Jacques Erasmus among her best friends
The Christmas Special
That I will always count Jacques Erasmus’s Christmas custard – the one he served at a Woolies Christmas media launch one year – as one of my culinary highlights says as much about me as it does about him.

I cannot, and will not, resist Woolworths’ 500 ml tub of fresh custard made with vanilla seeds and fresh cream. I have been known to eat an entire tub by myself. Perhaps not all in one sitting, but throughout the day, or an afternoon, using a big spoon to dip into my secret stash at the back of the fridge. It is the finest custard in the world. And that day Jacques served it in enormous glass fishbowls. There must have been about 20 litres in each bowl. Five sparkling bowls filled with golden-yellow, ready-made custard to which he had simply added dollops of thick cream. So extra. And so right. Because my friend Jacques is both a Zen minimalist and a mad maximalist.

It was a showstopper: the simple elegance of presentation; the extravagance of enormous quantities of glorious cold custard; the confidence that certain things cannot be improved upon, that a good custard is a great custard, and that sometimes, it is the simplest things that bring the greatest joy. When they were served, the crowd went wild with childlike delight and grown-up gluttony.

This story is from the December 2020 edition of Woolworths TASTE.

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This story is from the December 2020 edition of Woolworths TASTE.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

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