Christmas Cookery

Madame's Nightshirt

Mrs. Peperium

Yesterday was Polar Express Day at school for Little Bertie.  He had to bring in his bedroom slippers as after geography his class was going to trade their school shoes for their slippers, lay on the carpet and watch the movie while sipping hot chocolate. Since Little Bertie is both a rail and chocolate enthusiast, this was definitely his kind of afternoon and he happily tucked his Spiderman slippers into his Star Wars backpack the night before so he wouldn't miss out on any of the planned fun. More than that, he awoke happily like a good Catholic boy and consumed his breakfast and dressed in a timely manner, not forgetting either his belt or the regulation few shakes of the Clubman talc he knows no Peperium man should ever be without and off to school he went. At pickup, and after the children had climbed in the Jeep and we were 4 wheel driving our way through the plowed parking lot out on to the unplowed Lake Shore Road* I asked Bertie how Polar Express Day went.  

"It was ok."

"Just ok?"

 "The hot chocolate wasn't hot chocolate."

"It wasn't? I asked.

"No, it was hot water they had dyed brown."

I started laughing. "Little Bertie, that wasn't hot water dyed brown, that was instant hot chocolate."

"It was?"

"Yes, now you know why Mom makes real hot chocolate for you.  Because it really does taste like hot chocolate whereas instant hot chocolate tastes like hot water dyed brown."

Little Bertie has inherited his chocolate fancying from his father.  The Peperium women are vanilla fanciers. Since Mr. P's birthday is on Christmas Day, and we enjoy a tradition of having hot chocolate with candy canes stirrers at some point during the day, over the years I have attempted all sorts of hot chocolate recipes in my never-ending attempt to make Mr. P the contented birthday boy. Not that he's always been the contented birthday boy as he'll be the first one to tell you and then he'll start recounting all the reasons why beginning with the year someone made off with his chocolate mousse birthday cake but as usual, I'm digressing.  Anyhoo, I can honestly say after exploring Dutch Cocoas, French chocolates, the varying degrees of cocoa solids (60%, 70%, and even the Lost Weekend caliber - 85%) contained within the better French, Belgian, and Swiss chocolates plus the different levels of richness of milk, and then, naturally, the varieties of sugar you can add as well as the additions of pure vanilla, bourbon vanilla, or a schosh of rum or a finger or three of schnapps, the most drinkable drinking chocolate recipe out there is the one that is staring you in the face on your pantry shelf; the one on the tin (which these days is plastic) of Hershey's Cocoa.  Not the Special Dark cocoa but just the plain and age tested Hershey's cocoa.  In other words, the recipe your great-great grandmother always made when your great grandfather came in after an hard afternoon of sledding or polishing the boots and knives of the local Squire.

Favorite Hot Cocoa

1/2 cup of sugar

1/4 Hershey's cocoa

1/3 hot water

4 cups whole milk

3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla

dash of salt

I must note here that Hershey's, being an American company is exceptionally litigious-minded because they have to be.  They've learned the hard way (read law suits) that most American women these days are incompetent at best in the kitchen.  And because they are so very incompetent, have no understanding that milk is as incendiary cooking ingredient as any apron Sophia Loren ever tied around her unWASP-like waist.  Most kitchen fires in America start from the boiling milk over the sides of their sauce pans and this is why all recipes which call for heating milk say use a low temp.  Except for Italian recipes.  Italian women, like Sophia Loren, understand that to cook milk over a low heat is the most surefire way to curdle it.  And since all of us should try our best to emulate Sophia Loren when in the kitchen, ignore the complicated instructions on how to make the drinking chocolate as those have been written for incompetent American women : Dump all of the ingredients into a heavy sauce pan and whisk together, slowly, over good solid heat until smooth and the temp you enjoy.  If you take your eyes off of it, the resulting housefire was not my fault.

I have another recipe for toasted cocktail toasts the Peperiums and their friends enjoy during our annual Christmas Eve Open House.  Hopefully I will be able to add it here sometime in the next few days.  It calls for slices of roasted peppers, olivada, fresh goat cheese or fresh ricotta on toasted baguette slices.  Actually, if you are like Sophia Loren in the kitchen, since I've given you the ingredients you can do what she would do and wing it from here.  

Enjoy. 

* Lake Shore was unplowed because it is a Wayne County road and the order is no secondary roads in Wayne County shall be plowed this winter as there is not enough money in the state coffers for either salt or overtime for the workers.  Why the workers cannot just omit the salt and plow the roads during normal working hours remains a mystery.

Comments

[Fear and Loathing in Georgetown]

I love hot chocolate. Mrs. FLG got some fat free/sugar free/chocolate free instant hot chocolate the other day and I spit it out. My exact words: "This is awful. It tastes like brown and water"

[The Maximum Leader]

I just bought El Cid for my dad for Christmas. I cheated and opened it and watched it.

Now I am thinking of Sophia Loren (c 1961) standing in a Spanish Alcazar in nothing but an apron trying to make hot chocolate over a open fire pit for me (in the role of El Cid).

Thanks for the distraction.

[The Bovina Bloviator]

Love the still from "Christmas in Connecticut." Evrytink eez hunky-dunky!

[Mrs. Peperium]

El Cid,

I did add that Sophia bit intentionally for you. Your little Christmas gift for putting together the D.C. shindig. The one where Robbo was the potty mouth. Of course Robbo's defense now is that it was the yam-yam talking, not him...

FLG, you must have a son...

BB, I adore Uncle Felix. I've always thought of Elizabeth Lane as the original Martha Stewart. Except the wounded soldier melted Elizabeth's ice.