Shu-huuu.....

P.S.:

i love your christmas traditions. it is so nice. i guess it's really important to carry those traditions and christmas miracels from one generation to the next.

instead of becoming extreamly sentimental as i use to on the edge of this years end. i send you a snow owl. with the best wishes for yu and your dear ones

kisses
s.

Mohnkuchen am Heiligen Abend

Dear S.,

I was so happy to see your cookie-photos! Fi-na-lly you were able to bake again :)

I hope you and your family had a beautiful Christmas night yesterday.
With us here, it all went well. We all were rather nervous, because everything was different this year without my grandma, who always used to be the "master of ceremony". You know, her death is still so incredibly closeby, and it was hard on all of us that she wasn't with us. Still, we stuck to our beautiful and beloved tradtitions. First we all wished each other 3 wishes for the coming year. Every one of us gets a baking wafer (Backoblate) and tears three small pieces of the wafer of the person you are wishing the three wishes. Don't ask why exactly we have this tradition - no idea. It has always been like this in our family. Then, my grandma used to give a little speech, in which all our friends and family all over the world are thought of. This year, my dad took over this "task". Of course, Germany and Belgium were mentioned in his speech. These two traditions are the most emotional parts of the Holy Evening, many a tear is shed then. Afterwards we ate our delicious traditional christmas dinner: Steinpilzsuppe mit selbstgemachten Nudeln (porcino soup with homemade pasta). The pasta we used was the last batch my Grandma ever made. sigh. Afterwards, there were various salads, Karpfen ( carp fish - my very first time and I quite enjoyed it!), Schnitzel and rice and potato salad and bread and what not. After dinner, the 4 children (erm... aged 18-34) had to leave the room with the christmas tree and clean up the kitchen... until the little bell rang and the Christkind had arrived (=Papa incends the candles on the tree). Then we sang, beautifully, of course. Presenttime. The children (again 18-34) bring the present to the grown-ups. ah, childhood is such an expansible concept :)

Dessert follows. Here is were the pictures finally come in!
Traditionally, Oma made a Mohnkuchen, a rolled-up cake with poppy seed filling.
This year, my aunt and I made the cake together. We just couldn't imagine Christmas without it. Although we put slightly too little sugar in the filling and slightly too much filling in the cake (one of them tore up in the oven), the cake is very nice.







We are all sure that grandma watched us closely yesterday, because all the food was delicious. Before this year, we have never been allowed to do all these cooking tasks alone.

So, here's some Christmas feeling from Austria for you :)

Love, M.

Just another diamond day

my dear m.,
snow chaos in europe.
and we had such a nice idea, to pass the first hour of our trips together. my wasn't that log actually, and it almost went ok. besides we couldn't be in the same train. but at least we saw each other wil our trains were pasing each other. this was so niceand unexpected to still get a glimps of you and wave before we headded of to our homes and into the new year.

today i did all the baking i didn't do in the last month. so an oven is first priority in 2011. here are the results. I found an old notebook, i think i was 14 or 15 when i wrote it, wit the recipes of my godmother. she is the eldes siste of my granmother, and overtook her role a bit. sending every christmas a massive pakage of cookies ( like you get now from your mom). i tried out the favorites of teh family: Rum harts, nut-chocolate cookies, Spitzbuben and vanillekipferl . Plus white rum truffels ( my own creation).

I never saw so much snow in my life. and it will be my first white christmas EVER. yeah you heard right EVER. once we had half a cm snow on christmas, I was about 5 years old than, and i still rememberd the footprints of a woman in front of us, when we went to church.















that's is
merry christmas to al of you.
spend it with people who are important. just enjoy each others company.

( I ruined the handmixer!!! while making semi-fredo for tomorrors dessert)

kisses
and all the best
sophia

truffels

heyhey,

i promised to load up some craft pics.
so here are some things i made.
a little owl, some cussion covers and loats of pralines( truffels)
I don't have an oven yet so express my baking needs in chocolate.
i also smuggeld a pic of my new home in... with the advent calendar my mum made for me. it's nice to have a ittle present every morning to get me out of bed.








The easyest truffel recipe.

300 g dark chocolate
150ml cream
30 g butter

so just heat up the cream, mixe the chocolate bits in , than add the butter. let it cool in the fridge for some hours. than take scoops with a dinner spoon and rool them to balls in your cold hands. to make it look nicer role them in sugarpearls, cocoa-powder or grounded coco nut. you also can dip them into melted chocolate.

if you want to spice it up you can use some cinamon, ginger, tea, cardamom, nutmeg, vanilla... in it, just as you like it.

the thing is that the amount of cream depends on the chocolate. as more grease the chocolate contains the less cream and butter you need to use. so 300 g of white chocolate does with aproximately 80ml cream and no butter.

kisses
s

homy home + internet

dear m.,
finally!!!!
I have internet...

Christmas is in the air. and thanks to all the snow in antwerp I actually feel like it.
every year I am surprised again by the passing of time and change of seasons. when i went in november to germany all the trees were golden and lost their leafs and whoop we are covered in snow and the year is gonna end. strange strange. one question remains: is it the buzzynes of a kind of grown up life which disconnects me with the change of seasons or life in this grey grey city.

well well
anyway

i always look forward and fear christmas at the same time. usually is the most stressful time in the year. exames, jury to be prepared. presents to be bought. cookies to be baked. and this year i'm in charge of the christmas eve dinner! my mum has to work so I'll cook. I guess childhood is officially gone by that.

i send you a sneak peak of the book i do for uni at the moment.



my craft pics have yet to been taken , so a bit more patients and i send you what made during advents time.

trukloads of kisses
for you
s.

Avondsneeuw

Dear S.

december 19th, 0:28, view out of my window. It's almost as bright as daytime, isn't it?



love, M.

some decemberism

Dear S.,

quite some time has passed since the last post.
You still don't have any internet at your new place and I have been busy with all kinds of things.

My beloved grandma is gone. I went to Austria to say goodbye to her. I spent three overly busy and tiring days together with my fanily inbetween two days on the train.




sigh.
On the way back to Belgium I had a slight obsession with the electricity cables of the train, it is so strangely fascinating how they move to each other and part again...





Now I am back in Antwerp for 6 days, packed with Uni research, Christmas preparations, seeing friends and so on. And sleep of course, 9hrs is what it takes.
N. and I have made some patchwork decorations for the holidays:





I will use them as table decoration on the Holy Night dinner. The rest of the decoration I still need to buy/ make today. Also, Mum and I discussed about Christmas tree decoration: we've had a blue and golden tree for the last few years, this year we're probably going to decorate it in red and with straw stars- very traditionally. I'd love to include the beautiful old porcelain ornaments of my Grandma.

It might seem weird that I am so busy with all that Christmas stuff in these sad days, but it helps to go on. After seeing my family in such sad circumstances, I am really looking forward to a calm and beautiful Christmas celebration with them.

My dear S., that's it for now.

Love, M.

Völlig aus dem Häuschen

Dear S.

today's title is an expression for someone who is very excited about something (or very upset- but that's not the case now).
Excited about two things that have to do with Häuschen - houses.

1:COOKIES





I found this set for making cookie- houses at Dille & Kamille, and I really loved crafting those little houses with you and N.

http://www.dille-kamille.nl/nl/content/560/zandkoekjes-huis

--> check it out. (sorry, the link-feature is not doing its job)

Oh yes, and the houses also participated in the dance of the sweet treats for yesterday's early Sint festivity at the Tiki's. completely over the top but so lovely :)





2: SNOW

Antwerp was covered in soft white snow for 4 days. This is really amazing and rather unusual for early december. Last night the snow started to melt though. Hmm, don't you find that the light in the city gets so much softer when there's snow? Everything gets a little rosey shade. And also, the city is much quieter for some reason or the other. As if the snow is absorbing the sounds and cushioning the city.
Also, it was Charlie's first encounter with snow. Which made N. go completely aus dem Häuschen. She brought Charlie a snowball from outside, and of course all of us enjoyed being out of the house, no? :p

I hope you'll soon be able to fix the internet thing at your new place and then flood the blog with your entries again!

yours,

M.