In a year filled with celebrity couples, it seems fitting that the best should arrive just in time for the festive season!

Forget Bennifer and Brangelina and even Vaughniston.

It is the coupling of the cranberry and the tangerine that will see the year out.

Hail Crangerina, the jolie twosome!

The cranberry; so bright and tart. A starlet working her way up her very own red carpet.

The tangerine; thin skinned, subtle and compartmentalized. Hard to get to know. Surely he's the serious actor in the coupling?

The union is bitter, colourful, sweet and fragrant.

Take 12 oz of fresh cranberries and combine them in a small saucepan with the juice from 1 tangerine...add the squeezed halves of the fruit for good measure. 1/3 cup of sugar and a very low heat.

Twenty minutes later, add 2 capfuls of triple sec and 2 capfuls of Campari.

Could it be any easier?

Can you believe they even try to sell us canned cranberry sauce?

This festive elixir is the exact shade of the lipstick that one of my aunts wore in my childhood. I remember because I was always wiping it off my cheek.

As colours go, it makes a much better cocktail!

Buy yourself some unsweetened cranberry juice. Make sure that it's not from concentrate.

Per person, squeeze 2 tangerines. That's about 4oz of juice. Pour in an equal measure of cranberry juice.

I am quite partial to using a sliver tequila in this wee potion (though truth to be known, I'd settle for less). I add a fair wallop. About 4oz.

Then I just top it off with triple sec or Grand Marnier until it tastes sweet enough.

Pour it all into a nice tall glass with lots of ice and settle in for a little 'shake and rattle' session under the tree.

Let's see if you can't guess what everyone bought you!

(incidentally, the cran-gerine juice also makes a bloody good mimosa; just pour some into a flute and top it up with some crisp bubbles!)

This little number was a creation that I made out of the blue on Thanksgiving morning and I have made it three times since. Planning my Christmas party this week, everyone asked whether I was planning to make it again before they accepted their invitation.

I might also mention that part of the reason that I haven't sent a newsletter out for so long is because I have been busily working on a section on a great new website called thewhole9.com

It's a lot more than a website, it is an on-line creative community where folks can meet each other, see each other's work and also where to go out or (better yet) have a great night at home (that's the part that I host)

This toffee laden, spicy little number is hiding on thewhole9.com, so if you want the recipe, you'll just have to click the link below. And whilst you're at it, you can cruise around the site and add a profile of your own. You can even get a special free trial period.

I am gleefully unable to resist trying out my flourless orange cake recipe on any other form of citrus I encounter.

The tangerines had no chance.

Such an easy cake...and no flour or oil!

I added dried cranberries knowing that the extra moisture in this cake would plump them up nicely.

The cranberry and Campari syrup only took a moment.

Some coffee, a dense wodge of heavy cream and some good friends. It will be the fabulous ruin in the centre of the table at the end of the night. Folks will go back and pick and crumble bits all night long as the conversation simmers and bubbles.

Don't you love those nights?

It's that time of year...

Having just landed home from a 3 month whirlwind, I am back in my kitchen and hosting a Christmas Dinner tomorrow night.

A lot of folks have requested some of the dishes that I sent out in last year's newsletter, so I'm going to re- send it tomorrow.

Sorry to dump more mail on folks at this time of year, but print it out and put it on the mantlepiece and consider it to be a Christmas card from me.

S.W.A.K.

And share the love!

cheers, Mannix

mannix@thelovebite.com