Who else grew up in the era where Disney was king and nothing was a better mark of promising intellect than whether or not you could sing all of Bert's rap-style flattery from "It's a Jolly Holiday With Mary"? Like any other 90's kid, I wore my fair share of primary colors, horizontal stripes, and mysterious things such as "jelly shoes" and “stirrup pants.” And like any other 90's kid I watched Disney movies till I could quote every line and sing every song. Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, and Beauty & The Beast were stock favorites, but I also wept my heart out with Fox & The Hound, was mildly disturbed by Dumbo, shouted the lyrics in a gravel-y voice to all the Oliver & Company songs and watched The Jungle Book and Robin Hood religiously to see all the reused voices and dance scenes. Yes, Tumblr. We knew about those before you. There's a distinct reason that the casting of all Robin Hoods ever since have failed to satisfy me. Say what you will, none of them look quite enough like a red fox – can I get an amen? I know I am not the only Disney kid who always wondered what “the gray stuff” (it's delicious) tasted like. My vote was always something remarkably like gray pudding flavored like artificial grape soda. Apparently the “delicious” bit of that description failed to make any impression. Fanta-flavored pudding it was and I planned to opt out.

Creme de la crème a la Edgar, however, was a different case entirely. For as long as I can remember (and I can't remember a time when I had not seen The Aristocats) I wanted dibs on some crème de la crème a la Edgar. I didn't really care that it had sleeping powder or that it was not exactly culinary genius. I didn't care that it was made for cats or that it looked for all the world like peppered milk. It had to be delicious because A) its name was French, B) duh. Marie loved it. And while it seems kind of ridiculous for a girl who's almost twenty-five to develop a recipe based off an attempted murder weapon from a favorite childhood movie...I gave it a go anyway.

 The inspiration for this rendition of Edgar's creme de la creme comes from eggnog and a simple childhood drink called "hot vanilla" which is essentially a hot chocolate, sans chocolate. The resulting drink is smooth, rich, and perfectly "aristocat-ic." And the most important bit? It is thick enough to film over the back of a spoon which means it's definitely thick enough to film over the back of a cracker or cookie just like Roquefort. Maybe the biggest requirement of all! I love the fact that this is free from refined sugars, full of milk and honey (sleep-inducing things apart from the omitted sleeping pills!), and can be made dairy-free by substituting full fat coconut milk for the milk + cream.