Silk Nog, Holy Nog

Can I just tell you one thing I love about this time of year? Egg nog. Really, can you get more decadent than egg nog? Okay, having lived with a roommate in college whose mother created baked goods with such combinations as M&M fudge marshmallow pecan brownie caramel coconut peanut butter squares (or something along those lines), and having a childhood which included a dessert consisting entirely of whipped cream, oreos, butter mints and tiny marshmallows, I am familiar with decadence. Cheesecake? Yes. Cheese croissant? Definitely. Chocolate mousse, mm-hmm. But perhaps because these items are available year-round (and many just a short walk across the street from 7 am to 11 pm), I find it necessary to resist them, as I wish to button my pants on the first try. Egg nog, on the other hand, just magically appears sometime around or after Thanksgiving, and then by the time I am getting a bit sick of it, makes its merry way out of the refrigerated section by New Year's at the latest.

I am not a straight-up egg nog drinker, not a spiked holiday drink sipper, or even a grande extra hot no-whip egg nog latte guzzler. I am a soy latte with a splash of nog, a chai tea sweetened with nog, an afternoon decaf with nog instead of half-and-half fan. And, while the real stuff is excellent in these capacities, let me just give a shout-out to what is normally my least-favorite brand of soy milk, Silk. I am not a fan of their soy milk in general but this time of year they have Silk Nog, which basically is the sugar and flavor of egg nog without the arterial plaque. I don't know how it would be straight up (but then again, if you like straight-up egg nog you and I probably don't overlap on this issue anyway), but as a hot beverage holiday cheer booster it rocks.

Must sign off now and put the water on for tea.