IT WORKED!!

My big Christmas project was a genuine Bûche de Noël, or Yule Log for those of you who didn't have the privilege of having Brother Donan beat French into you.

The French have a tradition of making a rolled cake decorated to look like a log. I saw Jacques Pepin do this last year right before Christmas and I gave it a shot. The cake itself was OK, but the chocolate frosting I made was pretty bad.

This year I used semi-sweet chocolate for the for the frosting instead of bittersweet, and voila!!

Cool Toy

Debbie made her annual Holiday picks last week, now it's my turn. A few weeks back Megan went to a birthday party at MetroMall in Middle Village. I had some time to kill and decided to wander around BJ's.

My parents have a BJ's membership- we actually got a free membership from Debbie's Aunt, but I never cared for the place. I used a free trial to shop for our annual Belmont party and even though I was trying to feed thirty people, the damn portions were STILL too damn big. Does anyone except Warren Jeffs need to buy ten-lots jumbo sized jars of Skippy?

Still, mooching at BJ's was a better choice than watching five year olds hula hoop to Hannah Montana, so off I went. After drooling over the flat screen TV's, I ran across the AeroGarden.

AeroGardens are tabletop hydroponic gardens that can produce salad greens, herbs, (or if you're a complete loser, flowers). According to the AeroGarden people NASA actually tested the thing, though I'm not sure if that impresses me anymore. It has a computer and the growing medium is some kind of soylent green-like substance, that's gotta be better than plain old dirt. These things appeal to both my inner geek and my inner chef.