No more kitchen martyrs – a guide to sharing the load at Christmas

From peeling sprouts to pouring drinks, there’s an art to being genuinely useful during festive cooking• Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, Feast“Anything I can do to help?” If ever a line was guaranteed to incense the person in charge of cooking for a crowd, it is this one: uttered in seeming innocence by a guest roused by the sound of clattering pans, and who wants to seem polite but in reality hopes the answer is: “No, thank you.” This was drilled