Tag: Christmas

Christmas Baking

xmas baking.jpgI was looking for Christmas cookies the other day — you know — something to put on a plate when the neighbours drop by, over the holidays, looking for a free coffee?  OMG, what a total lack of imagination!  They’re all boring sugar cookies with green tree icing or candy cane stripes or something that vaguely resembles a reindeer — except it’s really a rodent with blobby ears and a red sprinkle nose.  What did they do?  Just scrape the pumpkins off the leftover Hallowe’en cookies and start again with Santa?

Old man nostalgia in 3…2…1.

Back in the day, we had all kinda baked goodies at Christmas.  Stuff that was exclusive to the holiday.  Stuff that was handmade and squashed with a fork.  Stuff that was saved in Tupperware — for months.  Stuff that was trotted out for guests and late night movies.  Stuff that still smells like Christmas whenever I run into it all these years later.  Whatever happened to that stuff?  Well, I found it!  I’d like to say I spend months in old bookstores, library archives and university basements looking for old cookbooks and Good Housekeeping from 1931.  I’d like to say I travelled to the villages of Great Britain, carefully recording the reminiscences of their oldest residents.  Nah! All I did was phone my sister and brother-in-law.

Over the years, all my sisters baked at Christmas (in fact, I think they were once collectively sued by the Keebler Elves) but these days, Bonnie and Jim Vandale are the keepers of the Fyfe Christmas flame.  So here are three recipes from the archives and one more that I didn’t even know they had.

UNBAKED CHOCOLATE OATMEAL COOKIES (we had a ruder name for them)

2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup butter

Bring to a boil. Boil one minute, then add

3 1/2 cups oatmeal
5 tbsp cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
Pinch of salt

Mix well. Drop by teaspoon onto wax paper. Let them stand until they harden. You can use 1 cup of coconut in place of one cup of oatmeal if you want. (My family doesn’t like coconut, so I just use the oatmeal.)

BUTTER TARTS

1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup corn syrup
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 or 2/3 cup raisins
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
2 eggs ( 1 if syrupy filling desired)

Melt butter, add all ingredients except eggs. Mix thoroughly, let mixture cool and add eggs. Beat just enough to combine yolk and whites. Pour into pastry-lined tart tins.Bake on lower rack for 15 – 20 minutes at 400 degrees F.

SAUCE FOR CAKE  (This can be used over any cake you want. I use it with Plum Pudding or Ginger cake.)

1 cup brown sugar
1 large tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla
About 2 cups water
1 tbsp cornstarch

Combine sugar, butter, vanilla and water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and thicken with 1 tbsp cornstarch.

———————

And finally, my mother’s shortbread sucked, so my sister’s skipped a generation on the recipe — although I thought this had long since been lost.

GRANNY FYFE’S SHORTBREAD

Cream together well:

1 lb. butter
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 cup cornstarch

Gradually add:

3 cups sifted flour

Mix thoroughly. Chill dough. Knead the dough until it is soft and smooth.  Roll into small balls and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Press the ball of dough down with a fork (put some flour on the fork so it won’t stick.)

Bake at 300 F for 20 – 25 minutes. If the bottom of the cookie is golden brown, your shortbread is done.

 

Merry Christmas!

Christmas and the iThing

We interrupt this blog to bring you an important breaking story.

ithing

In a surprise marketing move, at least 3 gigantic electronics companies have introduced the same new consumer product — just in time for Christmas.  The Incredibly Useless Thing was introduced simultaneously at retail outlets around the world today.  The product sold out within hours.  Immediately dubbed the iThing by every unimaginative journalist in the universe, the device has sent computer geeks everywhere scurrying back to their mothers’ basements to try it out.  According to industry spokesperson, Dakota Nebraska, the iThing comes with twice as many mega-pixels and enough speed and memory to launch the Mars Rover from your kitchen.

“We’re calling the iThing the next generation of useless electronic device.” Nebraska said. “The iThing is totally wireless, you can recharge it with the steam off your pee and battery life, with continuous use, is approximately 12 minutes.”  Nebraska Dakota went on to say, “There are already 80 million Apps available for the iThing, and even though they all fundamentally do the same thing, the iThing does come pre-programmed with some awesome coloured lights that go off and on and a variety of unusual sounds.”

The iThing uses the new Inutile Operating System, which is no different from all the other operating systems on the planet except it’s not compatible with any of the electronic crap you already own — including your toaster.  It’s unnecessarily complicated, and the Interactive Help Menu is no help whatsoever.  However, all three gigantic electronic companies are offering 24/7 tech support which is exclusively accessible from the iThing itself.  In other words, say your prayers, cuz the coyote’s got a better chance of catching the road runner than you have of ever figuring this thing out!

In a candid, off the record, interview, one techno-drone said,  “We’ve changed all the names and placement of every function on the menu — just to screw with ya.  We’ve added a Tool Bar that doesn’t do anything, and if you press “Back Slash, Gallery, Back Slash, Cap Lock,” Facebook automatically enrolls all your friends in eHarmony.  And we’ve done a bunch of other stuff, too, but why should I tell you?  You thought you were so cool in high school — with your cars and your cheerleaders.  Well, who’s laughin’ now, Braaadley?  Who’s laughin’ now?”

Initially, the iThing will be offered in two models: the cheap one you see advertised (which is under- powered and worthless) and the outrageously expensive one (which the pirates who made the device know you are going to have to buy eventually, anyway.)  However, some electronic companies are taking a bold, new retail approach.  “We don’t care about the iThing itself,” they say. “It’s free.  We’ll give you the damn thing for nothing, as long as you sign a 5-year contract of penal servitude so we can charge you for every nanosecond it operates — from the minute you turn it on.”

There have already been protests about the predatory pricing of the iThing.  A fake YouTube commercial, showing the iThing exploding, has already been emailed to everyone on the planet, and a Facebook group called “iThing Sucks” has attracted several million members.  Retailers have responded to the criticism by saying, “Big deal! A bunch of kids and old people have clicked a button on Facebook.  So what?  We’re sold out already, anyway.”

Dakota Nebraska, spokesperson for the three gigantic electronic companies, also responded by saying, “There has been some criticism, but the retail numbers speak for themselves.  This is not a manufactured shortage.  Our customers are saying they want the iThing.  Look at the unholy prices people are getting, reselling it on eBay!  But we’re all about families here at Big Electronics, and we want parents and grandparents to have something for their loved ones during the Holidays, so we’re offering an opportunity to pre-purchase the next shipment of iThings.  Your purchase comes with a numbered gift card which you can use to track your iThing through the entire manufacturing and distribution process.”  However, Nebraska Dakota also admitted that there was already a new and improved model, the iThing 2.0, in production — with tons more memory, better resolution, and a cheaper price tag — which should be in retail outlets on April 1st, 2017.

We now return you to WD’s regular blog.

 

I Need A Montage

montageHere it is December 6th, and I haven’t even thought about … OMG!  there are only 19 more Panic Days ’til Christmas.  What the hell?  I haven’t got rid of the Thanksgiving waistline, and now there’s another turkey looming on the horizon.  This happens every year: leftover Hallowe’en candy mutates into Thanksgiving pie that turns into Christmas cookies that become boxes of Valentine’s Day bonbons which morph into gigantic, solid chocolate Easter bunnies — and it’s July 17th before I can see my toes again.  Merciful Jesus, sew my mouth shut!

And it’s not just my jeans screaming for mercy.  It’s almost the end of the year, and I haven’t fixed the kitchen fan, the living room light or the bedroom window screen.  My desk looks like Attila the Hun has established a colony, and if I don’t clean my car soon, the Department of Health is going to put a padlock on it if — big if — the Department of Safety even allows them in!  I’m never going to get a tree, deck the halls, find the perfect present, string the lights, attend the parties, suffer the hangovers and get anything wrapped in time…. The whole world sucks and I hate everything.

I need a montage.  I need that movie device that compresses time so guys like me and Rocky Balboa can quit whining, chisel our abs, finally get a few things done and go out and kick Mr. T’s ass — once and for all.

Movies have had montages since Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein developed the technique over 100 years ago.  You would think by now some smart Silicon Valley type would have invented one for real life.  Just imagine cramming six months of relentless, laser-focused work into 3 and a half minutes of an “Eye of the Tiger” video.  I don’t know about you, but I’d pay folding money for that little puppy.  And wouldn’t it be cool?  Want to lose weight?  Get a montage.  Learn a language?  Montage.  Write a novel?  Build that kickass social network?  Organize the photos from Italy?  Montage, MONTAGE, MONTAGE!  Just think about it.  You could do the crap work before breakfast and all the cool stuff lying by the pool in the afternoon.

Wait a minute!  Earth to WD!

Unfortunately, we live in barbarous times, and all those Google fools can think about is automatic cars.  Hey, folks! I know how to drive; what I need is pants that fit.  Find me an app for that, Google, and I’ll put you back on my Christmas list.