FUD

In the computer industry, that's the acronym for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, which for years was the assumed intention of IBM relative to all other comers -- make the customer afraid to use anything but IBM, make them unsure that changing was the right thing to do (assuming it was even possible), and make them doubt that the change would get them what they wanted. Some people say thats what Microsoft does now.

But in this case, it refers to three things:Chocolate Covered Pretzels. Chocolate Crunch Toffee. Christmas Cookies. The first two are purchased every year around this time, while the third is baked. I'm not sure if you can get CCPs during the year -- I recall looking once, without success. I know you can get recipes for CCT (I just looked), and I know you can buy it -- two catalogs that we get, which have nothing to do with food, nonetheless include a food section, this time of year, and both of them offer it. In fact, one of them, Crate and Barrel, leads off with CCPs and CCT. Given how rarely we buy from them, I think those two things are the primary reason we're still on their mailing list. As for the cookies, last year I started doing some recipe gathering, and now I have about a half-dozen that I consider to be 'Christmas Cookies' (ie, not the standard chocolate chip/oatmeal raisin stuff). These are things like chocolate shortbread, which is a little bit of work but very nice. When I think of Christmas Cookies, I think of two things -- those delicate cookies that you can get in very good pastry shops, and a cookie that I got once as a kid that I've always wanted to replicate, and never quite have -- it was a ball, with (I think) a cake filling, and chocolate sprinkles coating the exterior. I've occasionally looked for recipes that sound like that, and, to my surprise, found some that might be it on pages talking about desserts for Purim, of all things.

I'm not doing any baking this year, because of this dental thing, and it's really irritating me!