I am in awe that you have more than one tree at all, never mind two that are so pretty and unique! No wonder the holidays are stressful for you, Moore. I have no such excuse, lol.

Hippos, eh? My shopping guru acquaintance has collected pigs for as long as I can remember. They're all over her house, or a least they were, as I haven't been to her house in almost 15 years. For whatever reason, she has not invited me there for even so much as a cup of tea, and the last time I was ever there, it was an emergency drive for me to check up on her when she was seriously upset. It's a strange world sometimes, isn't it? (No, she isn't "ashamed" of her home. Quite the contrary.)

But I digress, again, lol. Good job, Moore!

Anyone else out here crazy mad for Scottish shortbread cookies? I bought a couple of boxes of them recently and they call to me at 3 in the morning...

As for the hippos...

When I was about four years old, my mother had taken me to the National Zoo, and I was quite taken with the hippos. I still remember the moment when I "fell in love", and it was all because one of the hippos yawned, and I thought his big, flat teeth were funny.

That Christmas, I asked for a hippo. What I meant was that I wanted one for a pet, so my request wasn't for a toy, but for an actual hippo. My mother searched all of Washington, DC for a toy hippo, and none was to be had. She called F.A.O. Schwartz in NYC, and NOone had any freaking stuffed hippos!

The following Christmas, there were stuffed hippos everywhere. Apparently, and we always speculated that it was due to my mother's search, the toy industry must have thought that there was a high demand for hippos! LOL... My sister was the one who began to give me a token hippo every year, just to make up for the fact that I never got my real one. Jim has also contributed, as have my nephews and kids. And, I've bought a few for myself too.

My largest one is from Abercrombie (not today's version of Abercrombie), and it's in leather. Jim gave it to me years and years ago, and he stands next to a chair in our living room.

My table-top tree always looks much cuter with the bows which, I'm sure, will surface when I'm taking everything apart...

(Typos -- coffee hasn't even begun to shift my brain into gear yet.)




-- Edited by Moore ideas on Tuesday 22nd of December 2009 08:50:50 AM

Shelly, do you mean a crown pork roast?

I made one many years ago, and it was delicious, and so impressive looking. You need to buy those fancy little foil frou-frou decorations for the top of the bones! They also serve a practical purpose, aside from looking really pretty.

Find a nice stuffing recipe, or use a packaged one. Something with fruit always goes well with pork. I think that I may have used apples in the stuffing when I made it before. I just bought a packaged stuffing that I haven't tried yet (I'm going to this weekend), but it LOOKs good: Marcy's Gourmet Cranberry Orange Stuffing Mix.

Another thing I recommend is to use a good meat thermometer. You want to take the meat out about five to ten degrees BEFORE it reaches the recommended temperature, because it'll continue cooking as it rests. Which brings me to part two: always let whatever meat you're cooking rest, to reabsorb the juices. You definitely don't want the pork to be dry!