Domestic Thursday: Rye Beer and a Christmas Tree

My evening classes are finished for the semester, so I celebrated with some beer.

Not this beer, though. My celebratory drink was a tulip glass full of Trappistes Rochefort 10, which knocked me out for the night. This was from a few days before, but I have only had time to write about it now.

Forked River is a new-ish brewery from London, Ontario. This is their Riptide Rye Pale, which at first I found to be as pleasant, but also as discreet, as its very tasteful label. However, the more I drank, the more I liked it. It doesn't slap you with hops, but there's a pleasing roundness, with a bit of spice from the rye to keep you drinking. By the end of the bottle, I was a fan. Oh Riptide. If I could take back my initial middling Untappd review, I would. Let's be friends forever.

And, in non-beer news, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas 'round the apartment.

I feel like a December is incomplete without a Christmas tree in my place, turning the whole apartment into a giant fire hazard. I don't know why--I'm not even religious. I had to fight for this tree too. Dan hates Christmas and all of its related ephemera (decorations, cards, music, holiday specials, eggnog); with the exception of cookies. I out-stubborned him though, and this glorious tree--more asymmetrical than my haircut circa 2008--was sourced from the Kitchen Table, Forest Hill's Finest (and only, in the Village) Food Shop.

I guess I was sort of crafty in frugally fashioning the tree topper out of glitter glue and aluminum foil, but let's be honest. That's some sub-kindergarten artistry right there.

I also didn't notice until later that the colourway has a certain mustard and ketchup vibe to it. Oh well. Season's/Condiment's Greetings to all of you.

The Time Grinch Who Stole Christmas

Hey hey hey, ho ho ho, it's Christmas time, and I almost missed it. Actually, if my office party hadn't been last week, I probably would have. I've been busy enough that the first cup of straight-up eggnog has yet to be consumed. 

Okay, there was an eggnog latte somewhere in November, back when I thought I would still have the time to buy a tree and decorate it. Please don't judge me. Occasionally I'll indulge in a ridiculous, expensive whipped cream and flavouring concoction from the 'bucks, like I own an Audi and send my kids to Mandarin class. 

I don't have an Audi. And my kids are really just one cat with boundary issues. 

Anyway, I need some Christmas spirit pronto. Obviously Christmas cards are no longer a possibility, but I think if I can cut some snowflakes while watching Die Hard, I'll be okay. 

What I Did On My Christmas Vacation

I spent my Christmas full of goodwill towards men and snot. I got a cold over the holiday, and provided a handy memento mori to my family, as a kind of short Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. "Ye too shall wither and die," I implied, while sitting in my room going through tissue after tissue. And also reading through that olde Yuletide favourite, Joan Didion's Political Fictions. Maybe a series of icy essays about the American political climate from 1988-2000 will never replace A Christmas Carol, in spite of their flawless diction. But with Newt Gingrich threatening to bring the worst parts of 1994 into the still-innocent 2012, it was timely. My cold is nearly gone, but a strange nostalgia for Bill Clinton's presidency remains.

Happy Holidays!

Pick your seasonally appropriate greeting.
Smitty and I wish you all that and more!

O Tannenbaum

The 'Tron tree has been purchased and put up. Look at the awesomeness:I walked to the tree lot that's at the corner of Frontenac and... Sherbrooke, I think? Anyway, it's open 24h and run by these two delightful men who were hilariously surprised that someone had come walking up to buy a tree. I was surprised that they were, because they were tons of houses around, but maybe I'm the only shiftless sort without a car. One of them told me to come back and buy my tree there next year.

I wonder if I will be.

The Early Reindeer Gets The Candy Cane

I don't believe that Christmas music should be an after-Halloween, or worse, post-American Thanksgiving thing at all. Once the first snow hits Montreal, my holiday music comes out. And that could be in August. So if you ever want to re-create part of my daily routine for the next two months, here's the step-by-step guide:

1. Place a breakable object near the edge of a desk. A water glass works well for this.
2. Kill any natural sense of rhythm and gross motor control you might possess.
3. Play this:
4. DANCE DANCE DANCE
5. Sweep up shards of glass

Repeat until you've been filled with the Christmas spirit, or at least a love of synthesizers.

The Tackiest Thing Ever

Please Note:

1. Lavender and teal colour scheme
2. Stills from the movie around the base
3. Arch
4. Quotes on the arch
5. The fact that one of those quotes is "I carried a watermelon!"
6. That there is a button you can press which then plays audio clips of those clips, as well as this monologue: "Look, spaghetti arms. This is my dance space. This is your dance space. I don't go into yours, you don't go into mine. You gotta hold the frame."

Reader, I purchased it. But only at 50% off, and only to plug the hole in my heart after my nascent tradition of "Buying a Batman ornament after Christmas" was quashed.

Pud!

Bread pudding does not get a lot of respect. Any time I tell anyone that one of my favorite desserts is bread pudding, I get a raised eyebrow. But I decided I would go ahead and make bread pudding for my friend's potluck anyway. Screw the naysayers! Bread pud forever!

This bread pudding is an unholy, university student-ized chimera of about three different recipes I found online, along with my own experiments. I followed the body of this one, mainly, except I used plain white bread instead of cinnamon challah because it's cheaper, and instead added some cinnamon to the milk mixture. Then I substituted a cup of eggnog for some of the milk, on a suggestion from some other recipe, and reduced the sugar a tiny bit. Then I ground chocolate, cinnamon, and sugar over the whole thing because the spice grinders that President's Choice makes have always intrigued me, so I finally bought some to entertain myself. I also made the vanilla sauce from this recipe because I didn't want to go and buy bourbon.

Oh, and there's a ring, thimble, coin and button in there too. I'm not trying to support the dentists of the greater Montreal area- I warned the kids before I served it to them, I swear. Rather, I thought it would be nice to engage in the old Christmas pudding tradition, where the one who gets the ring in their slice will be the next wed, the one with the coin will have wealth, and the one with the thimble will have a life full of luck. Conflicting stories tell me that the latter may stand for spinsterhood, but since I'm keeping the button (which supposedly means bachelorhood? Stupid conflicting traditions) in we'll keep that one happy. Totally outdated custom? Hell yeah. But that's what Christmas is for! Why else would I watch the early 90s commercials on all of my Christmas tapes? I want to re-live the time, no matter how backwards, when the GST was new, Eaton's still existed, and mullets were de rigueur at DeVry.
Here it is baking in the oven. I know it's a crappy picture, but I wasn't about to risk my life and limb (I have a phobia of heat, mmkay?) to get a better one.


I was supposed to take pictures of it before serving at the party, but alas... I forgot. It turned out much better than I expected. Here's the recipe, if you're interested in recreating my experiment:

Martha's Bastard Bread Pud For the Holidays

Pudding:
8 eggs
1 loaf of day-old white bread
1 cup eggnog
2 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups whipping cream
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 pinches salt
1 cup of raisins
President's Choice Cinnamon, Chocolate and Sugar Grinder*
Sauce:
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup whipping cream
President's Choice Cinnamon, Chocolate and Sugar Grinder*

*optional

1. Butter 9x13" baking or casserole dish, and set aside.
2. Tear bread into small pieces about 1" in size, place in large mixing bowl.
3. In another large mixing bowl, whisk eggs together to blend. Add eggnog, milk, whipping cream, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and salt. Whisk until-blended.
4. Pour mixture over bread pieces. Stir in raisins, making sure that all bread pieces are well-soaked in the mixture.
5. Spoon into prepared baking dish. Cover and refigerate for 2 hours.
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. If desired, grate PC Cinnamon, Chocolate, and Sugar generously over top of pudding. Bake uncovered for 1 1/2 hours, or until pudding is puffy and golden.
7. As pudding cools, mix sugar, vanilla and cream together in saucepan over medium heat. If desired, grate in a fair amount of PC Cinnamon, Chocolate and Sugar to the sauce.
8. Serve pudding warm with sauce.