For about the eleventyumpteenth time, I'm wishing I'd grabbed a tuna press on my way out of Subway. (Subway doesn't even use them anymore, haven't in years, meaning there are about twenty thousand of them just hanging around somewhere. They're made by a company called Nemco and worth a couple hundred bucks new.) It's a manual screw device you hang on the side of sink. Invert a #5 can of whatever you want to get the juice out of, with the (cut off) lid still in place, and slowly screw away. I realised early on that you could put anything in the empty can and press the fluid out. Having had to squeeze out tuna by hand since then, I've really been wanting one. I think it might be perfect for this.

I was raised Episcopalian and followed a similar route to yours, still hanging on to many old cultural traditions without attaching mystical deific significance to them. I made my family's Christmas pudding last Sunday, right on schedule (the old Anglican Stir-up Sunday), and it is curing until the 25th, when we'll reheat it, tip it out, douse it in booze and light it on fire.

Here's to traditions involving food and fire!