The foster family just called and they are bringing Mitch to us tomorrow night (Friday) at 7 PM! Get ready for dog-picture overload. When the foster family called they said they were busy Saturday and suggested Sunday. Sheri convinced them to come tomorrow night.



We have been talking about what fun food we want for the extended Christmas weekend. (I am taking Friday and Tuesday off so I will have a full five days.) The first idea is a standing rib roast and Yorkshire pudding. I think we will do that late Sunday afternoon (Christmas Eve). That way we can have leftovers for a few days.

Then I had another fun idea. I have never done fondue. We also do not have a fondue pot. I did some looking on-line and I decided an electric pot would be better than the traditional liquid-fuel heated kind. With electric you can get really hot heat for hot oil fondue too.

I found a nice looking Rival one at Wal-Mart's site but it was on-line only. The price was great at $30. The other one I found a lot of on-line was a $50 one by Cuisinart. Hmmmm. An extra $20 for something I am not even sure I am going to use much. I did some more looking around and found that Linens-N-Things carries the Cuisinart one. We are holding on to a 20% off coupon from there. OK. I can live with $40, so we picked it up tonight.

I think I would like to do a traditional cheese fondue Friday night as kind of way to start the Christmas weekend off on a fun note. Get a nice crackling fire in the fire place. A nice treat for Mitch. A good movie playing on TV, and a nice not pot of fondue. Traditional Swiss fondue has dry white wine, Kirsch (cherry brandy), garlic essence, and two kinds of cheese. I have been thinking maybe gouda and Swiss, but I am not sure yet.

We might try a hot oil fondue where you cook bits of raw meat, seafood and vegetables right at the table. I was thinking some nice sirloin and fresh mushrooms for Sheri and some scallops and shrimp for me. There is no batter involved, and the oil is very hot, so there is almost no additional fat added from the cooking oil.

When I wake tomorrow there should be about 10 inches of snow from the winter storm we are expecting. I plan on getting out there at 6 AM to run the snow blower. Probably another 2 inches will fall after that before it stops.

A few weeks ago I read an article written by a famous (supposedly) landscape photographer on how to shoot snow scenes. If you use the camera's defaults the pure white snow will more than likely show up looking like 18% grey. His tip was to first get the "correct" exposure and then open it up about 1 to 1.5 stops. This will make the snow look white while still preserving the subtle texture details. If you open it up more than that the snow will loose all texture and just be blinding white. I am looking forward to trying that out on Saturday. Most likely there will be a Mitch in a lot of the shots too. (Don't say I didn't warn you.)

This is what I have in mind:



You can see some very subtle shading in the foreground from the waves of snow.