Holiday recipe for you - Liquore di zabaglione

This recipe showed up in last Sunday's ChiTown Trib just in time to be used for part of an Italian dinner for friends and family. In August TPP made zabaglione, an liquor flavored egg custard & whipped cream combo for a topping on fresh mixed berries, and we had it for breakfast no less!  Pure decadence. So this is basically a hooched up version of the same complements of Italian cookbook author Domenica Marchetti. 
Part 1: 1 cup whole milk, 1 cup heavy cream, 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract (or use 1/2 of a vanilla bean slit open and scrape the seeds out and cut into several pieces).
Stir together the milk, cream, and sugar in a sauce pan over medium heat. Add the vanilla and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Keep stirring until the milk just begins to simmer. Do not let it boil. Remove from heat.
Part 2: 4 large egg yolks, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup dry Marsala, 1/2 cup vodka, 1/4 cup brandy (a dark aged rum or bourbon could be substituted).
Whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until thick and lighter in color. Add a dribble of the milk/cream mixture and whisk vigorously to keep the yolks from curdling. Continue adding the milk/cream mixture little at a time and whisking thoroughly until it is all incorporated. Whisk in the 3 liquors.  If you used the vanilla bean remove the pieces.  Pour into a stoppered bottle and chill thoroughly. This will last up to 4 weeks in the refrigerator. Shake before serving especially if you used the vanilla bean.
This is one seriously sweet, egg-noggy, high octane concoction. 

Dinner club

For almost 35 years now the Phactors have been members of a dinner club.  The year starts with an appetizer/tapas and wine social to plan themes for the year, and it always ends with a brunch.  In between there are 6 dinners, each with a theme.  The hosts and co-hosts for each dinner plan a menu and then each participant (not all are couples) cooks one of the items for the group and the costs are divided evenly among the diners.  Right now a magnificent pan of osso buco is simmering on the stove and filling the kitchen with a wonderful herby, Italian aroma.  The taste tests indicate that something wonderful is cooking.  This is a wonderful way to spend an evening, and we certainly encourage people to consider forming a similar social group.  The hosts usually don't cook, but they supply the seats, the wine, and the bread.  The menus are sometimes ethnic, sometimes other themes, and you get to try a lot of dishes, a lot of recipes that you would not probably try by yourself.  This is a classic Italian dish, and having grown up in Italian NY, this is quite familiar.  My point is quite simple.  Life is short, we have to eat, so why not make it into a social event once a month, and don't give me this crap that you're too busy.  Our dinners are often quite spectacular and at a fraction of the price you would pay to get similar fare in a restaurant, and then without the company and socializing.  Of course the Phactor is forbidden from discussing, however intellectually, religion or politics.  Good thing the food is good.