A sticky-sweet Christmas

 For my last new-to-this-blog book post before Christmas, I decided to go with The New Way to Cook Is with Karo! (Best Foods, 1963) because I associate Karo syrup with cracking out the candy-making supplies in the pre-Christmas rush. (Incidentally, I have a nearly-full container of Karo syrup I bought maybe half-a-dozen years ago when I had the misplaced optimism to think that I had the time and ambition to make my childhood holiday favorite-- peanut butter balls!-- and discovered that I was wrong.)

So just for the holidays, here's a Karo-centric holiday menu that I'm not even going to begin to pretend I'd make.

Since ham is a popular main dish, we'll go with a sticky-sweet Pineapple Baked Ham.

Okay, I also partially picked it because this book has the best pictures. I simply could not resist a recipe accompanied by a pig driving around in a pineapple-wheeled car.

Look at the tiny driving hat! And the pineapple hood ornament! No reasonable human could resist such charms. (And yes, I plan to post an entire entry about the pictures in this booklet in the future. The pineapple-car-pig is barely enough to represent the military-grade whimsy in this booklet.) (And also yes, I chose the phrase "military-grade whimsy" because it made me laugh. I know it doesn't really make sense.)

Of course, we'll need a veggie side. Even if it's a holiday meal, we need vitamins. And more carbs from corn syrup. 

I am not at all thrilled by the thought of picking up a shiny whitish chunk of Swiss Potatoes Lucerne and trying to guess whether it will be potato, onion, or apple before popping it into my mouth, but your mileage may vary.

For dessert, how about something fruitcake-adjacent?

The great thing about the Frosted Fruit Cookies is that they need to be stored "in tightly covered container to mellow," so that means you can make them ahead of time instead of having to fuss around with dessert while also trying to cook the ham and potatoes. (It also means that if you make them far enough ahead of time to completely forget about them, no one will be saddened by their absence.)

And, to tie everything together, how about a nice Karo-centric centerpiece? Behold, the Peppermint Popcorn Tree!

Complete with gumdrops, plastic flowers, birthday candles, and a dove on top to shit over the whole majestic scene!

If the bounty of syrup at dinner is not enough to beat your taste buds into submission, then you have an extra dessert on hand, too! Just don't eat the plastic flotsam in the rush for that sweet, sweet syrup. There's no fun time to try to pass a plastic dove, but the post-holiday blues will make it even worse.