Do what you gotta do

This year, my darling husband and I, bolstered by our recent success in making our house look less like a Home for Indigent Fratboys and more like a place where adults live, decided to forego big Christmas presents for each other and instead spend our resources updating our kitchen.

Not a big update, mind you. Maybe put some new vinyl tile on the floor, maybe get rid of the preexisting, bad-DIY, puke-yellow Formica countertops and backsplashes and replace them with ceramic tile. Plus let’s not forget the new old stove.

We’re understandably excited by the prospect. Except for one thing: we won’t have a working kitchen for Christmas itself. Which means that, once again, I am thwarted in my attempt to cook a British Christmas meal: roast goose, brussel sprouts, chestnut dressing, chipolata, roast potatoes. And what’s for pud? Christmas Pudding of course!

But of course, there’s no way I’ll get to do that this year. (dammit!) So, instead, this weekend I’ll be making about ten gazillion chocolate truffles* to bring to all of the parties and houses we’ll be visiting. I’m hoping to get an assist from my Mom and Aunt Nancy in this misguided attempt to fit a season’s worth of holiday cooking mojo into one afternoon.

I figure Mom can cover the important tasks of Breaking Into Song at Random Intervals, as well as Getting the Dogs Overly Excited, and me and Aunt Nancy can actually roll the ganache in the coatings and decorate them. I think that covers everything.

*I can't make cookies, because that task is ably covered by Juan. By "ably" I of course mean "the best freaking cookies ever to emerge from a home oven", so there's no point in making any of my own. So I'll make some candy, which I prefer to pronounce "caaannny".