Start laying out the cash for the booze because it's time to make some eggnog. A little early you say? Ah, but you didn't try the old but not lethal eggnog recipe from CHOW last year, did you? You were too afraid to mix together a dozen eggs with a lot of bourbon and milk and then let it sit in your refrigerator for three weeks before you drank it, weren't you?
I was not afraid. Instead, I was tired of slowly, laboriously whisking the milk and the eggs in the cooked eggnog recipe from Cook's Illustrated (which is very good by the way) I usually make. I realized I just didn't have up to thirty extra minutes to contemplate the meaning of Christmas while watching eggs not curdle (hopefully) over a very low flame. I needed to take some risks, take some shortcuts, maybe put my fate in the hands of perhaps better informed food writers paid real money to do what they do. What did I have to lose?
Odd behavior, you might say, for one as averse to salmonella and all the other pesky bacteria that can poison your food as I am. Or claim to be. I mean, I eat barnacles and so does my daughter.
However, this recipe (here's a link to it, finally), is the smoothest, creamiest, most noggiest of nogs ever thrown back by an exhausted woman drained of holiday cheer. I don't know about you, but I like my seasonal treats in the season, not shortly thereafter. So, you better get cracking, because you really do need to let it alone for the full, allotted time (although it's not too bad after a couple of weeks) in your consistently 40º F and below refrigerator so that the egg yolks and the cream and the liquor can all intermingle and become more than the sum of their parts. Sometimes, you just have to plan ahead, whether you like it or not.
of her, I had to post it, even though it's not food!
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