Food glorious food

Here's a pic of the fam taken some time this week, earlier into the binge eating festivities. My camera has died and I cleverly didn't bring my charger, so you'll all have to wait for the good pics.
So Jamie went crabbing with Pauline and her partner Dave on Christmas eve, and good lord did they come back with some great loot. They endured the cold and caught 20 crabs - serious sized crab - and we cooked them all up on Christmas eve. And when I say we, I had nothing to do with it, I was too entertained playing Dave's buck hunting game on the TV. It's great to have that much crab in front of you that you can become complacent about it and decide the little legs are too much hard work and that you are just going for bodies and claws. The leftovers were turned into crab cakes and eaten the next day. So good, so fresh and so totally nommy.
Christmas day we had scrambled truffled eggs with fresh smoked salmon and caviar, all made by moi. Unfortunately the truffle was a dud - I think it was too old, and didn't really do much to the eggs, let alone the chicken skin we shoved it under later on. Bummer, but I'm in no way deterred from the truffle, it was just a bad one, and our own fault for being impulsive about it.
So christmas dinner was the chicken, and also a bunny (made from a Stephanie Alexander recipe) with fennell and pork sausages. I wisely skipped over the chook, realising early that the bunny was where it was at.
But the pinacle of our gluttony was yesterday, boxing day, when Frank roasted a whole suckling pig. In fact, it was bigger than a suckling pig, because a sucking pig is supposed to weigh between 4 and 8 kilos, and ours weighed 15 kg. Mum and Frank have a monster BBQ (with rotisserie, natch), but this not so little piggie was too big for it, so while I went out conveniently boxing day shopping, Frank and Jamie hacked the piggie up into three, roasted two bits in the oven and one bit on the BBQ. It was out of control good. So moist and full of flavour. This was defintiely a happy pig when it was alive. It even looked happy lying on the kitchen bench awaiting dismemberment. And snaps for Phil's girlfriend, who was totally unfazed eating her breakfast next to a pig carcus.
When it came time to carve the beast, I was very keen, so Dave and I hopped in with knives and cut the beast up. We also volunteered to get all the meat off the bones after dinner and nearly filled up a STOCK POT with delicious pork, some of which is being baked into pies now.
It's so nice just chillaxing and being part of the family - listening to everyone talk, mum coo at the dogs, Frank blast us all away with his opera, incessant sport on the TV, someone putting the kettle on in the morning, fridge chockers with food, Jamie fitting right in with everyone and topping up wine glasses. It makes me feel really sad and aware that we don't have this whenever we want. Sure, it's not perfect, no family is, but we've been having such a great time. Tomorrow is our last full day before we fly home, and while I'm trying not to think about it, it's definitely in the back of my mind. At least we've got an exciting new kitchen to go home to!