I provide a special Christmas treat for my readers

Last night, your wellbeing and happiness as always paramount, the French-Canadian veterinarian histopathologist with whom I share my life (and fleas) and I drove for an hour to look at the astonishing lights of Dorval* in order to select a few 'choice examples' to share with you today, i.e. Christmas Day.

As you will see, they are all short films; you may have to turn the sound up - and in one, as a special Christmas bonus, you will hear the pathologist snort like a pig!

Happy Christmas, one and all!!








(I cannot say what the good people of Dorval thought as we crept up and down their streets in our Subaru stopping to film and photograph - suffice to say that as we were leaving, the police arrived!!!)


* Like Heathrow, i.e. suburban, next to the airport and under the flight path, but with nicer houses.

I decorate my Christmas cake

As you can see, my Christmas cake 2009 is in fact a depiction of - or visual metaphor for, perhaps? - this web-blog, i.e. I speak (protected by trees), and people gather round and listen in awe. In some cases (as depicted by one of the mushrooms), listeners (a.k.a. 'readers') remove their hats as a mark of respect.

I am joining the hunt for the Co-op bum sniff deviant

This is the best story I've read all year. I love The Sun.*

* True fact: they were my client, with the News of the World, for about three years, and I loved every minute of it.

I give you a recipe for astonishing 'cookies'

I am not going to start the whole biscuit vs. cookie debate nonsense again, as God only knows it was painful enough last time, but I AM going to give you a very, very good recipe that I found by mistake the other day in a Quebec 'homelady' magazine called Coup de Pouce. Oddly they haven't got the recipe on the site, so here you are: here is a translation done by me. I am only doing this because I think everyone should eat these: it's the salty-sweet thing. Dirty. Dirty good. Uh-huh.

The ingredients and the basic method are accurate even if the translation is not super-elegant, and I have been kind enough to put measurements in both cups (i.e. North American) and grams (i.e., Europe - I do not know about for e.g. Australia).


Salty-sweet almond and chocolate biscuits

1/2 cup (125g) ground almonds
1/2 cup (125g) toasted sliced almonds
6 tablespoons (180g) soft butter
1/2 cup (125g) sugar (general, white)
1/2 cup (125g) brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3 tablespoons of milk
1 1/4 cups (310g) plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 teaspoon salt - 'fleur de sel' if you have it, or Maldon - the big stuff, NOT cooking salt
1 cup (250g) semi-sweet chocolate chips (I use good dark chocolate and chop it up with a big knife, chop chop)

Pre-heat your oven to 350F (180C).

Butter two baking sheets or put a bit of greaseproof/baking paper on it (not wax paper, Americans!!). (I used non-stick baking sheets and it's fine).

Get out your KitchenAid or similar. I am sure you can do it by hand but it will be less easy, yeah?

Beat together the butter and sugars until well combined and pale. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition; fold in the vanilla and milk.

In another bowl, mix lightly together the ground almonds, flour, bicarb, baking powder and salt.

Once combined, add them gently to the butter and sugar mixture until well combined. Stir in the chocolate chips and flaked almonds gently by hand.

Dollop teaspoons of mixture on the tray about 2 inches apart. Cook for 8-10 minutes, turning the tray round halfway through, until they are lightly golden, like the muzzle of a favourite golden retriever.

Put the trays on a cooling rack for 5 minutes, then take the biscuits off and leave them on the rack to cool down completely. Stuff them down your gaping maw making the noises of a hungry cat having a go at the kitty crunch.

Makes about 30 biscuits.

North Americans do things like drink glasses of milk with cookies (amazing!!!), but these are good at all times in all ways, e.g. with tea, in the bath, for breakfast, skating, walking to work, at the gym and before a Weight Watchers weigh-in.

I get an early fucking Christmas present

Hand-made by my friend Andrea, who a) I work with and b) is my friend who I also c) work with, meaning that she is quite well aware of my 'little foibles' etc!!!