Brioche, a love story.

Isn't it a pretty word, brioche? Frankly, I find the names of all French pastries lovely, although I do not think that I am alone in this regard. My darling readers, mes petits vacherins. Or whatever. But brioche! with its darling little topknot. Its pans with baroque flutings. Its wash of egg and its many eggs, its butter, &c. Right, rich bread, you get the picture.

Once upon a time, I bought a brioche mold--just one--at Williams-Sonoma, for a far off day when I might get myself and my eggs and butter together to make this Richie McRich of breads, this extravagant dough, this homage to my longing for Frenchness. (Right, rich bread with extra rich on the side, &c.)

The day did arrive, and I did get it together, and I made the dough, lovingly, paying careful attention to the details of the recipe as if it weren't just bread which I have made a thousand times, but not with such a profligacy of ingredients, such a festival of fat! To be baked in a darling pan, but still--just dough.

I set the blessed dough to rise, and rise it did. I deflated it, and put it in its buttered tin to proof. Flour, milk, butter, eggs and more eggs, some sugar--that dough was about as gorgeous as it's possible for dough to be. I left the kitchen for the yeast to do its magic.

And upon my return, was there a fully proofed pan of brioche ready to go into the oven? And would there be brioche that day? There was not, and there would not. Instead there was a slightly gassy dog. That's right: the dog that ate my brioche.

(These are tearstained words, even at this remove: "The dog ate my brioche." Obviously, I could have made brioche again, but once I'd broken that many eggs and lost the dough to my dog, my faith in the whole process was a little bit damaged, to be absolutely honest. I just didn't have the heart.)

However, at the farmer's market this Saturday, our favorite baker had brioche. Not baked in a fluted pan--baked in a regular old loaf, all the better to slice it for toast or even French toast. French! It is lovely, and it is French, and yet it was baked in Logan, Utah. Is that exotic or what.

Christmas Day in review.

1.  We arose danged early.  7:30 a.m., with no kids in sight.  That's because (a) it was snowing and (b) we were going to visit three households with grandchildren in them by noon or know the reason why.  

2.  I needed a shower, but I also needed breakfast.  It turns out that a morning containing both was infeasible (see 1 (a) and (b) above).  I showered and wolfed down a banana, which does not by any stretch of the imagination comprise a proper breakfast, in my opinion.  Did I say "wolfed"? I wolverined it.  

3.  Watching kids open presents and get excited about the tiniest little things (marshmallow Santa, tiny colored pencils, Groucho glasses, Slinky) is too fun to describe in words.

4.  The Salt Lake Valley was a weird patchy grid of micro-climates today--my environs was blizzardy, whereas on the bench, at least all the way till noon, it was merely cold and windy.  

5.  At home we had a packed agenda:  give presents to each other, call the Scotlands, cook food to take to the family dinner, shovel the walks, collapse.  Write some cards.  Collapse.  I had to delete the collapsing, though, because of the snow!  We needed to leave plenty of time to drive down to Utah Valley, because of the snow!  I'll collapse when I'm dead.

6.  Drove down on mostly not-too-bad roads, made good time, stuck cauliflower gratin (now, with chevre!) in oven, visited.  It was a great group--both my sisters, my kids and spouses and babies, my nephew and his lovely bride, my darling auntie and her son, my cousin.  My folks, the hosts.  Fabulous dinner.

7.  We waited for running son to call from exotic lands.  He called.  We all talked forever.  I got to go last. It was a wonderful conversation which I found very, very hard to end.  

8.  We drove home in cartoonish amounts of snow.  Great billowing gusts of snow.  Sheets of sideways-slanting, light-beguiling, blinding snow.  What is the deal about the point of the mountain, you people who know stuff about Utah?  Why is it so very horrible, snow-wise?  

9.  And now, I am collapsing, even as we speak, so to speak, if you know what I mean.  What a wonderful, mad, crowded, over-packed, portmanteau of a day.  Very, very merry.