When chefs are asked to design Christmas cakes, the results can be spectacular and tremendous fun, notes Gamal Nkrumah Where and what you eat and drink on Christmas Day or New Year's Eve says a great deal about who you are. There are individuals in this country for whom Christmas and New Year's Eve repasts are the nexus of how they operate in business, nothing necessarily to do with pleasure. They aren't exclusively proficient chefs, even though I will focus on the professional confectioners. Grannies and mums may be capable of conjuring up the fanciest of turkeys, but few are those talented enough to create gum paste floral art, piped flowers, rosettes, zigzags, edible candied scrolls and rosebuds, marzipan fruits and figurines. Fleurs-de-lis design cake writing and rolled icing are intricate art forms that requires patience, fortitude and forbearance. Chef Eric Heurtel, serious, small-framed and quietly-spoken in heavily-accented French, cannot suppress a smile when he explains that he will be away for the next four days, but will be back just before Christmas. We are precisely a week away from Christmas Eve. "Of course, you also have to take into account the tastes of the person you are cooking for," he hastens to add. "And, his or her taste might be very different from that of a friend you are eating with." Chef Eric Heurtel was the first to introduce the extensive use of liquid nitrogen to make ice cream and other mouthwatering desserts. "Nitrogen is about 78 per cent of the volume of the atmosphere and has a boiling temperature of 195.8 degrees below zero Celsius," he explains as he pours this magical substance and slowly blends vanilla and cream until the yummy mix is completely frozen. It all adds to the Christmas ambiance. "Gloves are terribly important because it is freezing cold," he hastens to add, suddenly trying to look serious. Though greying a little, the diminutive French chef is youthful-looking, rather impish with an amiable personality. So what is it for Christmas Eve? Yule Log? No, I should have guessed. "Apple sugared pomme d'amour," he whispers. It is hard to say how serious he is about this. Clearly, he is a diehard romantic. Actually, there is croustillant chocolat for New Year's Eve -- hot chocolate truffle with tonka beans and pistachio sauce. Never let it be said that Chef Eric Heurtel isn't a good all-rounder. The traditional Christmas turkey with exotic fruit and chestnut stuffing, served with giblet and cranberry sauce? No, he prefers seafood. Sushi and sashimi for New Year's Eve -- sole sushi with shrimps on a bed of couscous with tapenade. And, Marguerite de Saint Jacques -- sea scallip carpaccio with truffles, pan-fried foie gras and tarragon butter -- not cost-cutting but just as controversy-courting as the cappuccino de homard et poireaux -- lobster and leek cappuccino. By now hunger is driving me to make a fresh attempt at devouring his liquid nitrogen ice cream. We live in an age of unfathomable choice. That is for those who can afford it. All eyes are on Sabaya (Youth), the salacious Lebanese restaurant that is reputed to be the favourite Cairene haunt of Omar Sharif. So what can Sabaya's Christmas and New Year's Eve menu tell us about contemporary Cairene cuisine? What about salmon and sea bass millefeuille for New Year's Eve? Or, filo paste cigar -- crepe stuffed with walnut cream. If you crave Lebanese delicacies on the last evening of the year, how about tabouleh with scallop or raheb with lobster, calamari and fatoush salad, and salmon nayeh -- traditional Lebanese dishes with a fishy twist. So where have all the new ideas come from? Chef Nasser Makhoul, of course. And for the carnivores, Makhoul prepares his inviting carving stations with the creative thinking and presentations he is renowned for in his quest for revitilising youth -- sabaya. Celebrities not too sloshed to care will be there, I can assure you. Some adolescents fall in with a bad crowd. Some adults, too. Christmas, after all, is the season of celebrity cameos. I personally tend not to frequent watering holes that are smoky and clangorous and where I know I will run into people I don't particularly want to loiter about and chatter with. However, going back to a favourite haunt, or to the same places makes you feel at home -- a place where everybody you like knows your name. And, that makes all the difference. Outside the light is fast fading. A no-frills behemoth, Father Christmas stands tall in the luminous lobby. He is, I am assured, the tallest Santa in town. The skill of creating chocolate dessert is a sophisticated art, one that the maestro excels at. Cairo's tallest chocolate Santa is 4.7 metres high, and it took 70kg of chocolate -- the equivalent of 700 bars of chocolate -- and 360 hours of hard labour to produce this work of art. Created by Pastry Chef Karim Mahbouli and Kitchen Artist Helmi Abdel-Ghani, some 6.5 square metres of sugar paste were used to create this phenomenal creature. "It took an endless amount of dedication and passion," Nabila Samak, director of marketing communications at Semiramis InterContinental, mused. Father Christmas, a much loved character, enchants Egyptian children as much as he does children the world over. A young friend of mine was entranced by the colossal Santa. For himself, he has procured a grim-looking chocolate box, entombed in an even graver chocolate coating. Santa didn't smile, for he was, after all, a gigantic bar of chocolate -- sanguinely edible. No liquid nitrogen, though, for his icing. As if such technological exuberance is not enchanting enough, Grill Maitre d'Hôtel Walid Abbas proceeded to explain the mammoth proportions of Santa Claus. Curiously enough, a "fasting menu" is available at La Bodega, Zamalek, for Coptic Christians who wish to celebrate the Gregorian New Year, but who insist on not breaking their own fast all the same. I inquisitively inquired of Chef Ahmed Mahmoud of La Bodega what the "fasting New Eve's menu" might be composed of. I myself, would have none of it, but I suppose it is a quaint gesture to Copts observing their venerated fast. Plated desserts are rarely mouthwatering enough for me. Not even in the festive season. I simply do not have a sweet tooth. However, I was intrigued by the manner in which dairy products were cleverly omitted from the "fasting desserts". Lemon drizzle cake and the Four Seasons' brandy snaps are a real treat. Meringues with orange zest, too. Mousses and soufflés, icings and glazes all hint at the magic of Christmas. They, however, necessitate the inclusion of dairy products as an essential ingredient to bring out the delicious flavours. Chocolates and confections galore for Christmas. Flamed Christmas pudding with brandy sauce? After the party, the hangover. In rainless Egypt, where forests are a rarity, fake fir is the seasonal decorative centrepiece. Most fake firs, of course, are Chinese. The five-star hotels are among the most dedicated fake fir aficionados. They delight in showing off their exorbitantly high-priced arboreal adornments. Every Christmas brings with it new menus and ever more exotic dishes. The hospitality is heartfelt. The manner in which Egyptians celebrate Christmas has never stopped evolving. Few Egyptians actually commemorate Christ's birth on 24 December for religious reasons. Most Egyptians are either Muslim or Coptic Christians, the latter celebrating their Christmas on 7 January. In the late 1970s, and especially by the mid-1980s and throughout the 1990s, a wave of Islamist militancy derided Christmas as a Christian, at best, and pagan, at worst, celebration. Christmas trees were scoffed at. Some Egyptians, however, mostly the Westernised elite, reacted nostalgically against the endlessly negative images of Christmas. A more nuanced picture of Christmas is emerging as we approach the end of the last decade of the first century of the third millennium AD. Christmas and New Year festivities are food and drink to those engaged in the service industry, hoteliers and restaurant owners in particular. It is ironic, that the Islamic New Year of the Hijri calendar went almost unnoticed, even though a few Muslim preachers reminded their parishioners that Muslims ought to celebrate this solemn occasion. Many bars and liquor stores closed shop for the day. Few Muslims appear to celebrate the Islamic New Year with as much verve as the moral police and the authorities religiously obsessed with enforcing anti-drinking laws. The politics of religion intrude even into the season's celebrations. "Christmas doesn't interest me," Nevine, a student enrolled at the American University in Cairo shrugs nonplussed. "I choose not to get involved in the Christmas and New Year celebrations. "I do," her bubbly classmate Yasmine gasps in mock disbelief. Both don the Islamic headscarf and modesty attire, the hijab. No such qualms, as far as five-star hotels are concerned. I hardly manage to say Merry Christmas to the maestro before he is pouring out details of his Christmas menu. The divisive nature of Christmas and New Year celebrations do not particularly bother him. The Christmas tree next to the grand piano, like a romantic duo, has pride of place. Fairies practice gymnastics on the branches of the fake firs. He clasped his hands together, splayed his fat fingers, and handed the excited children candied animal-shaped fruit and little marzipan dolls.
