Father Christmas Smileth On Me

I usually make a Christmas pudding every year, from my grandmother's recipe---it's all very figgy and festive and Englishy and all that. Needless to say, this year, no pudding was made, but Gene reallyreallyreally likes them. Good news is, you can buy pre-made ones; they aren't the best puds in the universe, but if you pour enough hard sauce on them, they fit the bill just fine. I called the local British food store to discover that they were sold out (natch); thought, well, maybe we'll try our luck at one of the more esoteric markets around---but needed to hit Safeway first for the bulk of our Christmas groceries. Hidden in the depths of one of the aisles was this strange little kiosk with, well, I don't know what to call them. Items of a non-typical American nature? Some were British, some were other foreign items, some were probably American but it was hard to tell. Anyway, I made a quick pass and saw no figgy pudding, but that wasn't really a surprise; as Gene was standing in the checkout line I thought I'd go back and see if there was another kind of dessert item that might fill the gap.

Being the klutz that I am, I knocked over some cookie cutters or something, and as I bent down to pick them up...what is this? Tucked in behind the foremost items was ONE pre-made pudding.

!!!!!

There was plenty of hard sauce being offered, so I snagged the pudding and some accompaniment and bolted back to checkout triumphantly. The other good thing is that these pre-made jobs are a reasonable size. Unlike say, the results from my recipe, which generally run to one very large pudding and at least one smaller one, sometimes two. We have been known to eat figgy pudding well into the new year, and it does sort of lose its appeal after a few months.

Gene is happy.