Mama Jeepfreak's Egg Nog:

Pour a gallon of milk in a large heavy pot (preferably Magnalite) and add about 2 cups of sugar (to your taste) and 1 tablespoon of vanilla; stir to dissolve sugar.

Separate the yolks and the whites of a dozen eggs. Set the whites aside. Beat the yellows with a whisk and add to cold milk. Always add egg yolks to cold milk. If you put them in hot milk, you'll end up with scrambled eggs in your egg nog.

Cook the milk and yolk mixture over a medium fire, stirring often. If you put the fire too high or if you don't stir it enough, the bottom will scorch.

After the milk has cooked for about 30 minutes, dip some out with a cup or bowl. Add a couple of heaping tablespoons of corn starch to the eggnog in your cup/bowl and mix it until corn starch is dissolved. Add slowly to milk and stir constantly. If you add cornstarch too fast and don't stir as you add, the cornstarch will be lumpy and you'll have a mess. If the eggnog is not thick enough, dissolve more cornstarch (1 T. at a time) in cup of eggnog and add to milk mixture slowly while stirring constantly.

Once the milk mixture is as thick as you want it to be, beat the egg whites with a mixer until stiff. Slowly add about 1/3 cup of sugar to egg whites, while continuing to beat.

Drop stiff egg whites by the heaping spoonful into eggnog and spoon eggnog over each "cloud" of whites. If you're going to make eggnog ahead of time, don't put egg whites in at this point. If you put the egg whites in, you'll break them all up when you're re-heating the eggnog. It'll ruin the appearance of the fluffy clouds.

Put the unbeaten whites in the fridge. When ready to heat the eggnog, take the whites out of the fridge so they can come to room temperature and heat the eggnog until hot, stirring constantly to keep from scorching the bottom of the pot. If it sticks, don't scrape it! Transfer it to another pot if you have to. When the eggnog is hot, beat your whites, add sugar, and add to eggnog as I said above. If you use a Magnelite pot, it should stay hot enough to serve when you get to the party.