>No problem.  Keys and I went to Best Buy and found a little better today.
>I had been looking for the Director's Cut of The Lord of the Rings (pt 1,
>of course); we found it today at BB with the National Geo. special on the
>Making of, which aired several months ago on PBS.  Nifty!
>
One of my Christmas presents (from Lisa, actually) was Gosford Park, which I
really wanted to have and am delighted to own and very much looking forward
to watching

>>> orange sweet rolls (a yeast roll, which has two risings, which
>>> accounts for  my early rising)
>>
>>three risings!
>
>Yup!  They turned out goooooood, too.
>
>>rib roast, Yorkshire pudding, mashed potatoes (because I'm gonna make
>>GRAVY), brussells sprouts (ooh, look at Laurie gag!)....
>
>Heehee.  Would make me gag, too, but Elizabeth managed to fix 'em so they
>were really good!  Just steamed a little in white wine.  Oh, my.
>
Had the Christmas dinner here Christmas Eve with some of the family and
Lisa. That one was roast pork with crackling, applesauce, mashed potatoes
and excellent gravy made by Lisa, steamed squash, peas - no brussels sprouts

Went to the Island Christmas Day for the Christmas dinner at my ex's house
with more of the family. Had roast turkey, mashed potatoes, roast potatoes,
roast sweet potatoes, stuffing, gravy, peas, carrots, my children's
stepmother's totally excellent brocolli and mushroom casserole - no brussels
sprouts. (Only thing she did that was not my absolute favourite was a
horrible thing of carrots and parsnips whipped together. What a nawful thing
to do to prefectly nice carrots) followed by old fashioned Chrstmas pudding
done Gwen's way which means leaving out everything she doesn't like, so you
end up with this sort of dark sludge. She and I made a sherry cream sauce to
go on it, which means I whipped cream, she read a recipe for brandy sauce
and left out things she didn't like and put in sherry instead, and I added
things to make up for what she left out, and it was sinful. Decadent.
Excessive. Not Suitable for Small Children.

Then there was a massive power outage (as in 300,000 homes without power -
all of Vancouver Island, plus some of the larger Gulf Islands, and Sechelt
on the Mainland) and then it started snowing with a vengance (my ex's house
is quite a ways up the mountainsides above Nanaimo) so we decided we weren't
going anywhere. We were warm, dry and safe (my ex has wood heating which
also heats his water so that he's independant of power just for times like
that) so we decided not to take our chances with trying to get anywhere.

That meant we were all in place on Boxing Day instead of being at home, so,
instead of reheating the turkey, my ex dug into his freezer and found a tail
of black Alaskan cod (sable fish) about a metre long, plus he went out in
the 4 wheel drive and came back with enough fresh local oysters to feed an
army. My ex's wife made one dish of braised oysters and one of oysters
wrapped in bacon, and my ex decided he didn't want the smell of fish cooking
in the house so he went out in ankle deep snow and fired up the bbq.
Completely, utterly, delicious impromptu dinner with no brussels sprouts

I'm home now, safe and sound, many funny, silly memories, too much good
food, far more wonderful gifts than I could ever have imagined (I made out
like a bandit) wonderful, wonderful memories, much laughter, and no brussels
sprouts
>
Laurie Happy New Year everybody Phoenix

--- Rachel's Little NET2FIDO Gate v 0.9.9.8 Alpha