Meet Marvin

Please meet Marvin the Musical Moose.  He has been such a good little buddy the last few years. Here he sits on the window sill, guarding the Christmas card crop and looking adorable. You may also notice he is sporting a bright red tree ornament, dangling from his antler.

Yep. The very same red tree ornament I got from daughter Patti when I was hellbent on putting up a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. The way I had it figured was, I'd trot around outside, scouting through all the trees, looking for just the right blowdown branch to emulate a pathetic little tree. Given that there has been plenty of boisterous wind over the last month or two, I thought there would be a reasonable assortment of branches from which to choose. Well, there was. The problem was, there was not a single branch that came even close to being The One.

I could have grabbed the hatchet and chopped off a suitable limb from a suitable tree but that seemed, somehow, uhmmm -- unsuitable. And mean. Mutilating a perfectly good tree to score a single branch is just not descriptive of the spirit of the season. What to do? What to do?

Then I thought about Marvin. Hey! There ya go! Marvin is a good sport and I knew he'd be delighted to dandle the dangly for me. It adds a bit of color while he sings his Christmas song, don'cha know?

What song? Oh. Well, Marvin takes great delight in telling folks how Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer. I can tell he's having fun because he wiggles and jiggles while he's singing. I don't want you to think he's being a tattle tale, either. Actually, he's providing an early warning system, sort of. Kind of. The song clearly illustrates what happens when a team of reindeer have to travel so many places so very fast that they don't have time to brake for liddle ol' leddies who step out in front of them. Especially liddle ol' leddies who have been nipping at the brandy that was supposed to go in their fruitcake.

But I guess we don't have to worry about that now. The reindeer are all back at the North Pole and Grannie is recovering nicely. I think she'll probably be in fine shape by the time New Year's Eve gets here.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE!

Making God Laugh

If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans.  

And only God knows who came up with that line originally. I've seen it attributed to everything from "Old Folk Proverb" to Woody Allen and assorted cultures and folk in between. Doesn't matter. It falls into the "best laid plans of mice and men" category and I do believe I heard a fairly subtle heavenly chuckle somewhere in the background today.

Which is why you're getting the LOLcat photo of those cutie-pie fur kids instead of a CBG photo of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. (Sorry about that, Kate.) When the weather was decent earlier today, I was busy with company and "stuff" and couldn't go out to gather the perfect CB tree. When I was free to do the deed, it was raining. Of course. I'm not feeling particularly desperate about it. There's still a week to go. No pressure. No need to deliberately get wet when I can be reasonably sure of helpful periods of relative dryness.

Oh wait. Do I hear a distant chuckle again?  I was not making plans, God. I was merely speculating, okay?

I did get one element of the project safely in hand. Patti brought me the perfect little red ball ornament. Yay! That's got to count for something.

I was also quite pleased with the results of a new (to me) experiment in the culinary department. Do all y'all know about creme fraiche? There are accent marks in there somewhere but we aren't going to worry about it. I'm informed it's pronounced "krem fresh" and it's like the French version of our sour cream. Only more decadent and silky. And it doesn't separate in sauces and soups like sour cream can. You can get details by clicking on this Epicurious link and those folks, unlike moi, know of what they speak.

I've never seen it in the store myself but apparently the creme fraiche in this country is ridiculously expensive. I don't see why that should be when it's so easy to make it yourself. After skimming at least a dozen different sites for recipes, the consensual formula seems to be as follows: for every cup of heavy cream (whipping cream), add 2 tablespoons of either cultured buttermilk, cultured plain yogurt or sour cream. Mix together in a non-reactive container (canning jar, plastic food keeper, etc.) and leave out, covered, at room temperature for one to two days, until it thickens. Shake or stir from time to time. The warmer the room, the faster it will set up. Then you can give it another stir and put it in the refrigerator where it will keep for a week or two, getting thicker and developing flavor as it goes.

I did up a pint of whipping cream with 4 tablespoons of buttermilk and it took two days to thicken to almost sour cream consistency. At that point (yesterday) I put it in the refrigerator. When I took it out today, parts of it were very thick, parts were more custardy -- which evened out when I gave it a good stir. At any rate, the flavor is getting wonderful and it certainly tasted great in the potato soup I made this afternoon.

By the way, it is safe to leave it out at room temperature while it's "making." The good bacteria keep out the bad bacteria. As long as your cream and buttermilk are okay, the combo will be fine.

Prices vary, of course, but going by what I pay at the little market here in town, it costs me all of 15 cents more to make the creme fraiche than to buy a tub of sour cream. The only downside is that one needs to get it started a couple of days before one will need it.

Just remember, if you plan ahead, you might be making God laugh.

PLEASE NOTE: I apologize to any of you who were messed with when you clicked the link to the YouTube video last night. Somehow I messed up the original link but didn't catch it because I didn't do my usual check. Fortunately, Becky and Wendy were on the ball and gave me a heads up. Thanks, gurlfriends! Just for the record, I did check the Epicurious link in this post. (big goofy grin)