Adventures in Switzerland

My apologies

to everyone that I didn't send a Christmas card to this year. Which would be, well, everyone.

See, somehow Christmas snuck up on me this year. While in previous years I insisted upon buying the tree the minute December rolled in, this year we got the tree up last weekend. Which, I must say, is beneficial to the tree at Christmas. By now it's usually a "look but don't touch or it will fall apart" tree. But this year, we have a nice, green fresh tree. We've also (somewhat) minimized Christmas decoration, I've not kept up with the Advent calendar, and I'm even deviating from my traditional Christmas ham.

Then there's the Christmas cards. I've always been bad at Christmas cards, but usually manage to at least send them before Christmas, even if I knew most of them wouldn't arrive until after the actual date. This year, even though I bought the cards and occasionally thought "I should write these", suddenly it's Christmas Eve and I still havn't. What can I say. Better luck next year.

What I am doing though is that this year I'm finally trying to make my granny's nut rolls. See, my granny was a master of nut rolls in the same way that she was a master gardener. She could throw a stick toward the earth and it would grow into indestructable vegitation. In the last few years that she was able to live on her own, she couldn't lift the heavy plants to take indoors for the winter and left them out to perish in the frosty snow of Pennsylvania winter. The next fall she faced the same problem, she complained, since they were bigger and in full bloom the next year and she just "couldn't kill the buggers". But I digress.

Nut rolls. An Eastern European Christmas tradition. The smell as you walked through her front door and the "te-tong" of the bells attached to her door greeted you. They were her contribution to the great Baked Goods Trade-Off that took place on the Hungarian side of the family every Christmas, which between all the aunts in various kitchens had us eating sticky buns, nut rolls, and other baked goods for weeks. Who am I kidding, they were so good that between my parents, siblings and myself eating them for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks we finished them in about two days flat.

I've had her recipe for a few years, but never got as far as trying it... maybe because I am a bit intimidated. See, I know I'm never going to be able to match granny's. And I'm nearly as fierce a critic on these as my mom, who refers to store-bought nut roll as "sawdust roll". As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm working on it but am just not a very good cook. I'm afraid of turning out a sawdust roll.

But this year, I'm giving it a try. The dough got elasticy, it rose, the nut mix alone tastes good, and it's in the oven now. Or rather they, as Granny was cooking for the Hungarian Crowds with her US oven and therefore her recipe was more than my Swiss oven could handle in one shot. We'll see how it tastes.

I just may start to feel Christmasy yet.

Let it snow...

... or at least that is what we are all hoping. I had thought of maybe getting in a weekend of skiing before Christmas, or maybe just a day trip, the disconcerting news is that to get down a slope right now I would have to bring a 4x4. Or hike. See, even though it's December and the Alps should be getting all Alpine, there is no snow in Switzerland. Although the Swiss ski resorts are in denial and have opened anyway (they are even holding ski jumping competitions), it is actually not snowing but raining in the Alps.

November is always kind of an in-between month, too cold and dark for hiking and no snow for skiing. But now, it's December. Come on now. We got the snow tires for the car. We even bought snow chains. It's time to get back into the shuss of things.