Tradition! and my recipe for Ofenschlupfer

As I write the word, tradition, I'm somehow channeling the Fiddler on the Roof, although this post has nothing to do with brokered brides, or Jewish traditions.  Nevertheless, the song is there.

As time marches on, traditions come and go.  For most of my life, we had a tradition of gathering the family together for Christmas at the old homestead.  The family grew from my sisters and my parents to my sisters and their spouses and my parents, to my sisters, their spouses their children and my parents . . . well you see where this is going.  A few years ago, my parents  moved from the old homestead, and with that move, the tradition that survived for all those years necessarily had to change.

Our children have grown and now have children of their own, and as this progression takes place, the tug of war that goes with who gets to spend time with which in-laws on which day has grown exponentially. And with the addition of the grandchildren/great grandchildren, it becomes increasingly more difficult to gather our families together for Christmas. Nevertheless, the initial group of us (my sisters, their spouses and my parents) still try to make the effort, a monumental feat some years.

During the writing process of Mist on the Meadow, I tapped into my German heritage which, like Christmas traditions, has become diluted with the number of years my ancestors have spent on this side of the ocean. Traditions have to change as circumstances, and locations, change. The main character, Marissa, is a baker, and she carries forward a traditional German dish for Christmas. For years, my family  made cinnamon dinner rolls, but I didn't feel that was German enough for the book, so I went in search of a more German dessert.  The result was Ofenschlupfer (you may have seen my guest post with fellow writer, +Terry Odell on one of her "What's Cookin' Wednesdays" posts about a month ago).

This year, gathering my family together has been a challenge. We are creating new traditions with our children and grandchildren, which makes it more difficult to celebrate the old traditions with my sisters and parents. But for the couple of hours that I saw my sisters and my parents, I decided to celebrate our German roots, and made Ofenschlupfer - Rockin Around the Christmas Tree in a New Old-Fashioned Way. Who knows? Maybe this will be a new tradition, either with my sisters and my parents, or with my children/grandchildren.  So here is my Christmas present to you: Ofenschlupfer.

Do you have any traditions that you hold onto? New traditions to accommodate the progression of time?

Prosit!

A German recipe for apple and bread pudding from Southern Germany. If you have apples and some stale bread, then bake this recipe for bread pudding.

Ofenschlupfer literally means sneaking into the oven. So if you are looking for an easy German dessert recipe, sneak my Ofenschlupfer into your oven. 

Recipe For Ofenschlupfer

(Apple Bread Pudding)

1-2 golden delicious apples, chopped
4 slices of bread (I used 4 Hawaiian rolls, sliced into thirds)
2 Tbls butter
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup raisins
3 eggs, slightly beaten
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla
dash of salt
2-1/2 cups milk, scalded

Heat oven to 350 F. Toast bread slices lightly. Spread slices with butter (margarine).   Peel apples, cut in fine slices and toss with brown sugar and cinnamon. Arrange bread slices buttered side up in a 1-1/2 quart buttered casserole dish.  Top with apple mixture and raisins.  Mix eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt. Slowly stir in milk.  Pour over bread. 

Place casserole dish in a square pan, 9x9x2, on oven rack. Pour very hot water (1 inch deep) into square pan. Bake until knife inserted halfway between center and edge comes out clean, 65-70 minutes. Remove casserole dish from pan of hot water.  Serve warm or cool  6-8 servings.

Enjoy this easy bread pudding recipe on its own or with a thick creamy vanilla sauce.

Let it snow

I live near Chicago, a city notorious for wintry weather, especially around Christmas. We haven’t had any “measureable” snow so far this year, in fact Tuesday was the first sign of flurries I’ve seen. We’re setting records for the longest time between snowfalls (going back to the beginning of the year) and the latest first snowfall of the season. Some people are good with that. Happy. Me? Well, if it’s going to be cold outside (granted, the temperatures have also been mild), I want the snow to go with it. And then there’s Christmas. Cue Irving Berlin.

Today, we are expecting an ugly storm which should dump 2-4 inches on us later today. Reports from the great white north (a.k.a. our neighboring state of Wisconsin) are that the snow is falling. Five inches reported from one source, eight-ish reported from another. Haven’t checked in with the Minnesota rellies, but news reports they’re getting feet as opposed to inches. I’m ready for a little of the white stuff – enough to make it feel festive. No, I don’t like driving in it, but yes, I like looking out, holding a cup of something warm and watching a blanket of white shroud the earth. Especially for Christmas. There’s something so peaceful about it. Quiet. Clean. Fresh.

The holiday is less than a week away. With my latest completed work sitting on the agent’s desk (or, in her email), I’m taking a break from writing something new. I still have Epitaph on my radar, so there is a project to keep me fresh until the new year. For now, I’m going to sit back, relax, and enjoy the holiday season. I wish the same luxury to you.

Merry Christmas!

It's the end of the world as we know it

Today, I'd like to extend my sincerest sympathies to the familes who have lost children to violence.  Waking up this morning to the horrors in Connecticut, yesterday to the horrors in Vermont, I can only wonder when it will end.

I have friends who own guns.  They trap shoot.  They hunt. They use those guns for a purpose.  I know people who have guns in their homes for safety.  I don't necessarily agree with having a gun for the sake of having a gun, and for those people who own one for safety, my view is that it is more likely to get them killed or be used accidentally.  Is that going to stop the crazies who go on shooting sprees?  I don't think so.

I'm a pacifist.  Can't we all just get along?  Gun control controls guns, but not the crazies that use them.  I DO NOT UNDERSTAND what could motivate someone who is mad at a particular person to storm a school and kill dozens of innocent children, but then I don't suppose someone hell bent on murder cares much about who his victims are.

So my next point of contention is why the news continues to report these things.  Because it's news?  Yes. But when you publicize the killer's name, now you've given other people looking for that five minutes of fame an outlet. 

I can't watch the news anymore.  Pretty soon I'm going to be agoraphobic (that means I won't want to ever leave my house).

Someone mentioned that this is happening because people are stressed that the world is going to end next week. Okayyyyyy, so if you believe that, can't you wait for the world to kill off the people that you're mad at?

Peace on earth, goodwill to men.  God bless us, every one.

Grimm!

My husband is not a very imaginative fellow on the whole. Very smart. Very logical. Everything should make sense on some level. And yet, when he does exhibit those sparks of imagination, he can be very imaginative. Creative even.  Me? I have a very vivid imagination. I like ghost stories and things that stretch belief, things he often makes fun of me for. Can I just tell you how surprised I was when he told me that Grimm is one of his new favorite television shows?

And speaking of Grimm. Have you ever read Grimm's fairy tales? Many of them are the basis for old familiar stories we've all grown up with, but like many of those familiar stories, the original stories are much darker than the stories we know. This is where the TV show goes. Grimm's fairy tales are often bloody and frightening. But let's focus on the light-hearted, frivolous ones.

I mentioned a few weeks back that I'd pulled out my copy of said book. I was looking up the story of the Shoemaker and the Elves, which is actually a very short story and titled simply "The Elves." It is included in another group of similar stories which feature the little guys, and it plays a role in my latest flight of imagination. Yes, while I wait to send off Mist on the Meadow to my editor, I've discovered that even though I'm still fatigued with the efforts of editing and creating, there is no stopping my imagination.

Authors often go through bouts of self-doubt and are easily able to convince themselves that they have no talent and they are wasting their time, Yours Truly included. And yet, there's this bug inside that refuses to be ignored. So maybe my writing sucks. Maybe I'm stretching beyond my limits. (Making a point here, and let me thank those of you who have been so very complimentary and would contradict me.) That bug inside sees the world through a different filter (as has also been addressed in previous ramblings on this very blog). Something triggers my imagination and a story insists on playing in my head.

It's the dawn of a new day, and tired, fatigued, full of angst about my abilities to create a story, I can't resist the allure of a bright, shiny new idea. Like the sunrise this morning, there are clouds to  battle, but there's no denying the sunshine that always wins out.

And so begins the new book.