Terry Pulliam Burd wrote:
>
> I've always been a fair cook, but a less than stellar baker. My pies
> always taste great, but often look as if they'd been assembled by a
> three year old. The DH had asked for a certain menu for his birthday
> dinner today, but kept changing the requested dessert. He finally
> settled on...chocolate eclairs. Now who, I ask you, actually makes
> these things? You go to the bakery and point at the sinful beggars and
> haul 'em home, right? Well, in a demented moment (I think a few
> glasses of chardonnay was involved), I boasted that I could make 'em.
> And make 'em, I did. And what astonished me was: they turned out
> *great*! Mind you, like my pies, their appearance was a bit addled (I
> didn't have the proper tip for the pastry bag, for a start), but
> everyone raved about them:

They are surprisingly easy to make, but something most people are afraid to
try.
My mother used to make them often. I had a cousin who worked in a dairy
and he
used to come by with quarts if whipping cream, and eclairs were a good way
to use
it up.