Beyond Rivalry

People keep asking me for this recipe, so here it is, from Pioneer Press (MN) Christmas Cookie Database, with my notes and additions:

Jeweled Mix Nut Bars

submitted by: KathyZieman of St. Paul, MN. Kathy got the recipe from her mother, who used salted peanuts, which I also used in half the batches I made. They taste great, too. (Photo shows the peanut bars, not the mixed nut bars.)

Serves 24 (or however many you want depending on how big you cut the squares)

Ingredients

1-1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter

2 cups deluxe mixed nuts (salted)

2 Tbsp butter
1/2 pkg. (6 oz) butterscotch chips
1/2 cup white corn syrup
1 tsp vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine flour, salt, and brown sugar. Cut in butter thoroughly, dump into greased 9x13 pan, and press down into pan. Bake 350 degrees for 10 minutes. [I just line the pan with parchment paper to make cutting and removal easier.]

While baking crust, melt over low heat or microwave for one minute or until melted: butterscotch chips, 2 Tablespoons butter, vanilla, and corn syrup.

To Bake: Spread mixed nuts over crust and pour melted topping evenly over the nuts. The topping may not cover every inch of nuts, but when it melts, it will. Bake this for 10 minutes -- press the nuts down with a spatula halfway through -- or until sides start to bubble. Cool thoroughly, then cut into squares. If using parchment paper, lift the whole thing out of the pan at once, move it to a cutting board, and cut squares.

Marginal Revolution points to two tinsel-tinted selling opps:

(1) Crapwrap: Have your package wrapped as badly as you would do it.  The service costs $9 and more than 500 people have signed up for it. "We're not given any instructions. I'm just asked to make a hash of it using lots of brown tape and making sure there are rips and untidy folds." (This wouldn't work for us; my spouse wraps with more care than I do.)

(2) Auctioning off the best seat at the family get-together.  Daughter-in-law Alexis won the eBay auction with a bid of £13.50, outbidding 17 other family rivals for the prime seat in front of the TV, with a conveniently placed side table for drinks. Otherwise, there would just have been another Boxing Day row over this 'perfect seat.'

Welcome to the festival of Christmas goodness!

The Astonishing BetaMax Christmas: Click on the TV Guide to see the bazillion Christmas ads, Christmas shows, Christmas cartoons from days of yore, including ads by Folgers, Nyquil, McDonald's, Atari, Kodak, Tesco, Cabbage Patch kids, plus clips from Perfect Strangers, Teddy Ruxpin, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, the Muppets, One to Grow On, Will Vinton's Claymation, the annual CBS Christmas card, a Hall and Oates 'Jingle Bell Rock' video, some Max Headroom, ETC! Click the remote's channel buttons to change channels, and click on the TV Guide to see what's coming up in the next hour and a half or so.

If nostalgia from the 1970s and '80s isn't nostalgic enough for you, listen to Voices of Christmas Past, humdingers from 1898-1922, including Santa Claus Hides in the Phonograph, 'And the Glory of the Lord' from the Messiah, Christmas Morning at Clancey's, Uncle Josh Plays Santa Claus, Angels from the Realms of Glory, and 18 more!

Santas Working Overtime is a chaotic link dump of all things Xmas, from recipes and crafts to videos, audio clips, lists, quizzes, reviews,  podcasts and mix tapes, charity links, classical music, Christmas customs, cartoons, and on and on. For instance: John Cleese reading a somewhat updated and rather violent version of 'The Night Before Christmas' ("On Keith! And Banana! And whatever you're called.") Also: 10 Christmas Songs I'm Already Sick Of (and 10 Geeky Alternatives) at Wired. The one not listed here, which I'm sick of just thinking about, is 'The Little Drummer Boy.' OMG.

For Better or Werts' Yule Tube: Watch Christmas TV Shows Online! at freebies Hulu, TV4U, In2TV. Hulu has current Christmas shows from 30 Rock, The Office, ER, Psych, et al., and nostalgia from Barney Miller, Father Knows Best, Bob Newhart, Mary Tyler Moore, Married With Children, Chicago Hope, Picket Fences, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Family Ties, Bewitched, Spongebob, et al.

The classics Angels We Have Heard Are High, Cavalcade of Bad Nativities, and It Came Upon a Midnight Weird: Cavalcade of Bad Nativities II.

Similarly, Bad Gift Emporium. Rate each giftrocity; some are even available for purchase! Examples: Candy corn mouse butterknife set. Flipflop cheese plate ("Feet and cheese: could there really be a better match?"). Decoupaged fur-lined trash can. Submissive Jesus. Chanukah party music. Deer meat. A 'Butt Face' towel. Sea monkeys. You get the idea.

Classic Holiday Music with the Original Golden Artists. It's a radio show. Turn it on and hear what's playing. It's an eclectic mix of classical, country (All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth by Buck Owens), highly produced boys' choirs, Burl Ives, The Andrews Sisters, etc. But "No Rap or Rock."

Paperless Christmas advent calendar. Odd multimedia expectation.

The Five Most Terrifying Local TV Christmas Commercials

Make you own eggnog -- in 18 easy steps.

One of my favourites: Karen Carpenter singing Merry Christmas, Darling on Bruce Forsyth's show.

We got ice, sleet and freezing rain last night. We never lost power but apparently many people in surrounding areas have. The temps are around freezing now (mid-afternoon) and there's a layer of slush atop the ice. I had to go out early this morning, wearing metal treads on the bottom of my hiking boots to keep from slip-sliding away.  It all looks winter-wonderlandy.

I remembered to photo the cappuccino star cookies (I also made them in Christmas tree shapes) and the four loaves of orange-poppyseed bread I made yesterday.

Below is the grey squirrel who's been hanging out in this tree for months, taken a few moments ago in our light falling snow.

Yesterday I made apricot crescents and jeweled peanut bars (photo shows them uncut).

The day before, 4 little loaves of orange poppyseed pound cake (photo shows cross-sections on part of one loaf).

In the last few days, I've made:

the dratted Windmill cookies (which actually baked up nicely)

Almond Macaroons drizzled with dark chocolate

Elaine's Famous Sugar Cookies

Neapolitan cookies

Jeweled Mixed-Nut Bars

Cranberry and Fig Rugalach

and

Holiday Biscotti with Cranberries and Pistachios, dipped in Ghirardelli white chocolate

I only remembered to photograph the biscotti (on parchment paper), which I made today. Doh.

You've probably heard about the Wal-Mart worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, who was trampled and crushed by a stampeding crowd of early-morning shoppers at a Long Island Wal-Mart on Black Friday -- shoppers who then "went on to scour the shelves for sales, even after being told a man had died." Damour died apparently of a heart attack of asphyxiation after the sliding glass doors he was holding shut shattered under the weight of the crowd of 2,000 or so who were trying to get in as the store opened at 5 a.m. for after-Thanksgiving sales. (Ludicrous comment by a Wal-Street employee in the store's electronic department: "'It was crazy. .. The deals weren't even that good.'")

Here's a bit of Damour's story, and here: "He loved to chat about movies, Japanese anime and politics. ... [H]e had a great sense of humor. ... He was the guy who was always lively." He was "an easygoing literature buff -- a fan of poetry and the late novelist Donald Goines -- who would put himself out for friends."

Had Thanksgiving leftovers tonight for dinner. Served the crab au gratin on English muffin, the last of the Pommes Anna alongside them, and a fresh batch of baby spinach sauteed with garlic in olive oil. With the rest of the Beringer's chenin blanc. And more pumpkin pie. Mmm.