We took a survey of the relatives who usually grace our table at
Thanksgiving and realized that Daughter #1 has dinner plans with the
in-laws (it's "their" year), Daughter #2, who is newly married, is
having dinner with the in-laws (the MIL from hell seems to think she
*owns* Thanksgiving and we deemed it prudent to let it ride for this
year) and her twin, Daughter #3 is flying out to be with her. Daughter
#4 is stuck in Provincetown MA on a 7 month art "fellowship" and it's
a 3 hour bus ride to Boston to catch a plane to fly 5 hours to CA,
which she will accomplish at Christmas. Son #1 has a new baby back in
Ohio and his wife is an only child whose mother isn't far away and
seems not to have any other relatives to keep her company on holidays
(AFAICS, unless we go to Ohio, we'll never see the kids on holidays
and we've certainly invited the mother out here, but she "doesn't
travel"). All that being said, the DH, who is obsessive compulsive
about frequent flyer miles, upgrades, and never again flying in the
back of the bus, found tickets through Continental on Virgin Atlantic
*first class* for $1,400 (they are now going for $10,500 last time I
looked).

Sooo, crazy kids that we are, we're flying to London tomorrow, be back
on Monday. And if you think *that's* nuts, we need 1,800 miles with
Continental to be platinum elite for 2005 (or whatever they call it)
and we're flying to Houston on the 4th and coming home on the 5th,
just to get the miles <eye roll>

OB Food: This is an amazing and excellent dessert - very visually
pleasing, too (since we had an earlier thread about pears):

@@@@@ Now You're Cooking! Export Format

Poached Pears In Phyllo With Chocolate Sauce

desserts

3 cups water
1 cup fruity white wine
1/4 cup sugar
6 Comice or Bosc pears; cored and peeled,
; stems intact
1 pound phyllo dough; thawed
1/4 pound butter; melted
chocolate syrup

Preheat oven to 400F. In a medium saucepan, bring the water, wine and
sugar
to a boil. Carefully place pears upright in the water-wine-sugar
mixture
and boil gently, covered, for 10 mins. Remove from the liquid and set
aside.

Fold a sheet of phyllo to make a square. Brush with butter and add 2
more
layers of phyllo in the same shape and brush again with butter. Place
a
cooked pear in the center of the phyllo.

Butter your hands and gather the phyllo up around the pear. The butter
will
act like glue and hold the phyllo together. Carefully place the pear
packets on a cookie sheet, sides not touching, and continue with the
remaining phyllo and pears.

Bake for 20 mins, then set aside in the refrigerator until serving
time.
Just before serving, pour a pool of chocolate syrup slightly off
center on
each dessert plate and carefully place a pear in the center of each
plate,
overlapping the sauce.

Contributor: The Denver Post

Terry "Squeaks" Pulliam Burd
AAC(F)BV66.0748.CA


"If the soup had been as hot as the claret, if the claret had been as
old as the bird, and if the bird's breasts had been as full as the
waitress's, it would have been a very good dinner."

-- Duncan Hines

To reply, replace "spaminator" with "cox"