Ok Mr. God, you've had your fun. First you try to drown us, then you shake our house about and now you dump all that white stuff on us. What is next? Pestilence? Locusts? Ronny the Milkman and 5th rider of the acopolypse.. alocopyspse...? We've had gail force winds and snow for the last 18 hours, just as we thought winter was going to be cancelled this year! It is to last for about 10 days!
In the absence of a camera to record the event here some archive footage of last time it snowed. Meet some of my crazy neighbours:
Should we decide to leave here, there are some people from this village I'm really going to miss. The following is a concert held last Christmas involving Mauro on accordeon and pipes as well as Iacobo (an Italian who teaches Irish to the Irish) and Corrado. Unfortunately we had missed the concert ourselves as we were in the mountains over Christmas. Thank God for You Tube!
Right, enough of all that. I'm going to hibernate now. Someone wake me up in March... ;)
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
Monday, 21 December 2009
Today it was mostly...
...raining. Over the weekend we went on two www's (winter wonderland walks). It was just glorious and there wasn't much else we could do. This morning it started raining and the snow is slowly melting away. The rain is forcast to continue until at least Christmas Day. How miserable! Anyway, I don't really want to go out in this, but we need to get to our land to empty the compost bin, which is overflowing with wood ash and cat litter (the cats prefer to stay indoors too), to check out the damage to the plants and hopefully to still pick some veg to eat.
In the meantime wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year with this Angel, which was part of a huge flower petal picture on the streets of Santo Stefano di Magra earlier thios year.
Sunday, 28 December 2008
I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left
Well the end of 2008 is nearing and it’s time to reflect on the past 12 months. First of all an update on the events of the last couple of weeks. The weather up to Christmas eve was glorious. We went for some walks and carried on pruning trees, something we started over a month ago but was interrupted by the bad weather. On the 23rd we had an earthquake, 5.1 on the Richter scale, with the epicentre about 50 km Northwest of here (as the mole digs) on the other side of the Appenines. We noticed a slight tremor and I don’t think anything serious actually happened. The link for more details is http://cnt.rm.ingv.it/~earthquake/data_id/2205007630/event.php.
Christmas Day turned cloudy and we had our usual quiet day, eating and drinking lots. We are now drinking our own wine, which strictly speaking isn’t ready yet, but as it was sitting in our cold cantina at Villa, fermentation had simply stopped and wasn’t likely to restart again until late spring if at all. So it’s now a semi-sweet rosé, but still at a hefty 13% alcohol or thereabouts. The highlight of the Christmas dinner was the guinea fowl stuffed with a chestnut stuffing which I made and froze when the chestnuts were in abundance. Santa brought me a the new CD by Seasick Steve, “I Started Out With Nothing and I still Got Most Of It Left”. Seasick Steve is an excellent Blues musician who seemed to have suddenly shot to fame a year ago when he made an appearance at Jools Holland’s New Year Hootenany on British TV. He plays mostly his own music in the Delta Blues fashion and he has an inimitable story telling style. Not only tell his songs stories, but he quite literally tells stories on his CDs mostly about his former life as a hoboing tramp, travelling America by jumping onto trains or hitchhiking and generally living it rough. His great sense of humour always shows through, which is something I always appreciate in any art form, whether it’s music, painting, sculpture or conceptual art. Life’s too short to take everything serious. Check him out on http://www.seasicksteve.com/
Boxing Day the weather turned seriously cold with an icy wind going. Yesterday we appear to have mislaid our kitten. She somehow escaped, but was with her mummy at the time, so we weren’t too worried, but to date she has not returned (the mother has) and with temperature around freezing outside now, and with the amount of unused cellars and hidyholes in the village a search being almost impossible, we don’t hold out much hope of her returning. Shame as we just managed to get her confidence and she was very sweet.
Anyway, to return to Seasick Steve, the title of his album: “I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left” pretty much sums up our year and my life in general (not that I’m complaining, mind). It’s not entirely true of course either. We may have been broke at the beginning of the year and still are now, possibly even more so, but we have gained experience, friends, memories and a cat. We are still here against all the odds and we are healthy.
Let’s start our review of 2008 with this blog. I started it just over a year ago and find it useful in many ways. It disciplines me into actually doing things worth mentioning in the blog, it reminds me at what we have been up to at any particular time, when we planted, pruned, harvested what and I get the occasional contact and even tip from interested people all over the world, such as what to do with kaki from someone in China. I am amazed at how many people from so many different places reach my site. On the 29th of March I installed that little world visitor map at the top right of this page. From this I gather that 2,247 visits have been registered since, that’s just over 8 hits a day, from 75 different countries. Almost exactly one third came from the UK, which does not surprise me. Number two was the USA with 23%, which does surprise me, given that I don’t know many people there. Italy is at number 3 with 15% and Germany at number 4 with 6.5%. Amongst the also rans I’m surprised to have had more hits from India than from the Netherlands (I am Dutch), and even places like Vietnam, Madagascar and the Palestinian Territories featured. How do you people find me? I’d love to know and would appreciate some comments. People who have given me feedback to this site have been all positive, so I shall carry on for the time being.
On our agricultural activities, this is the first year we have more or less dedicated ourselves full-time to them (having pretty much given up the business with the deteriorating economic conditions) with encouraging results. We keep learning new things by the tried and trusted trial and error system. Amongst the new things learned this year was that it’s generally best to plant a particular crop, such as peas or broad beans just the once, rather than staggered to increase the length of time to harvest. There tends to be a window of time which will give the best crop, whilst early or late crops won’t do so well. If you have too much produce at that time we have discovered many new ways of preserving crops, which will then come in handy when you haven’ got much else. Circumstantial evidence recently also seems to indicate that moon phases do make a difference to crop success. We sowed to beds with peas within 10 days of each other, the first during the waxing moon in ground not previously enriched and the second during waning moon a terrace down in a bed that has had compost added the previous season. The latter had over half failing to shoot whilst the former is looking a lot healthier. We have had a similar experience with onions, which are supposed to be planted during the waning moon phase, and they did do better than those planted shortly before during the waxing moon. The trouble of course is, no matter how carefully you plan your farming year, something always crops up which puts you behind schedule, the weather most notably, or equipment failure slowing the rate of ploughing or pruning and other unforeseen events.
As far as our finances are concerned nothing much has improved. My endeavours in finding a job haven’t really got anywhere. I’m registered with most job agencies in the province, but if anything at all they come with jobs I am not qualified to do such as accountant for metal company or such like. I’ve tried to get a job grape picking with some of the larger vineyards in the area but also to no avail as they already have a plentiful supply of cheap and willing Eastern-Europeans on their books. One wanted a qualified oenolgist, but whilst I have an idea of the theory, I can’t lay claim to this title. Susan in the meantime will get some teaching work again in the new year. She is going to teach a couple of classes in Borghetto Vara, a small town in the Vara valley and is likely to get her job in Sarzana back, where she worked earlier this year.
All in all it’s been a good year, if it wasn’t for the constant lack of cash. But we’re getting there and looking with some confidence into 2009. Oh and the photo on top, I have no idea what these berries are either, we saw them on a walk recently. Maybe they are the ‘fruits of our labours’… Oh and I just noticed this is the 100th entry of this blog!
Christmas Day turned cloudy and we had our usual quiet day, eating and drinking lots. We are now drinking our own wine, which strictly speaking isn’t ready yet, but as it was sitting in our cold cantina at Villa, fermentation had simply stopped and wasn’t likely to restart again until late spring if at all. So it’s now a semi-sweet rosé, but still at a hefty 13% alcohol or thereabouts. The highlight of the Christmas dinner was the guinea fowl stuffed with a chestnut stuffing which I made and froze when the chestnuts were in abundance. Santa brought me a the new CD by Seasick Steve, “I Started Out With Nothing and I still Got Most Of It Left”. Seasick Steve is an excellent Blues musician who seemed to have suddenly shot to fame a year ago when he made an appearance at Jools Holland’s New Year Hootenany on British TV. He plays mostly his own music in the Delta Blues fashion and he has an inimitable story telling style. Not only tell his songs stories, but he quite literally tells stories on his CDs mostly about his former life as a hoboing tramp, travelling America by jumping onto trains or hitchhiking and generally living it rough. His great sense of humour always shows through, which is something I always appreciate in any art form, whether it’s music, painting, sculpture or conceptual art. Life’s too short to take everything serious. Check him out on http://www.seasicksteve.com/
Boxing Day the weather turned seriously cold with an icy wind going. Yesterday we appear to have mislaid our kitten. She somehow escaped, but was with her mummy at the time, so we weren’t too worried, but to date she has not returned (the mother has) and with temperature around freezing outside now, and with the amount of unused cellars and hidyholes in the village a search being almost impossible, we don’t hold out much hope of her returning. Shame as we just managed to get her confidence and she was very sweet.
Anyway, to return to Seasick Steve, the title of his album: “I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left” pretty much sums up our year and my life in general (not that I’m complaining, mind). It’s not entirely true of course either. We may have been broke at the beginning of the year and still are now, possibly even more so, but we have gained experience, friends, memories and a cat. We are still here against all the odds and we are healthy.
Let’s start our review of 2008 with this blog. I started it just over a year ago and find it useful in many ways. It disciplines me into actually doing things worth mentioning in the blog, it reminds me at what we have been up to at any particular time, when we planted, pruned, harvested what and I get the occasional contact and even tip from interested people all over the world, such as what to do with kaki from someone in China. I am amazed at how many people from so many different places reach my site. On the 29th of March I installed that little world visitor map at the top right of this page. From this I gather that 2,247 visits have been registered since, that’s just over 8 hits a day, from 75 different countries. Almost exactly one third came from the UK, which does not surprise me. Number two was the USA with 23%, which does surprise me, given that I don’t know many people there. Italy is at number 3 with 15% and Germany at number 4 with 6.5%. Amongst the also rans I’m surprised to have had more hits from India than from the Netherlands (I am Dutch), and even places like Vietnam, Madagascar and the Palestinian Territories featured. How do you people find me? I’d love to know and would appreciate some comments. People who have given me feedback to this site have been all positive, so I shall carry on for the time being.
On our agricultural activities, this is the first year we have more or less dedicated ourselves full-time to them (having pretty much given up the business with the deteriorating economic conditions) with encouraging results. We keep learning new things by the tried and trusted trial and error system. Amongst the new things learned this year was that it’s generally best to plant a particular crop, such as peas or broad beans just the once, rather than staggered to increase the length of time to harvest. There tends to be a window of time which will give the best crop, whilst early or late crops won’t do so well. If you have too much produce at that time we have discovered many new ways of preserving crops, which will then come in handy when you haven’ got much else. Circumstantial evidence recently also seems to indicate that moon phases do make a difference to crop success. We sowed to beds with peas within 10 days of each other, the first during the waxing moon in ground not previously enriched and the second during waning moon a terrace down in a bed that has had compost added the previous season. The latter had over half failing to shoot whilst the former is looking a lot healthier. We have had a similar experience with onions, which are supposed to be planted during the waning moon phase, and they did do better than those planted shortly before during the waxing moon. The trouble of course is, no matter how carefully you plan your farming year, something always crops up which puts you behind schedule, the weather most notably, or equipment failure slowing the rate of ploughing or pruning and other unforeseen events.
As far as our finances are concerned nothing much has improved. My endeavours in finding a job haven’t really got anywhere. I’m registered with most job agencies in the province, but if anything at all they come with jobs I am not qualified to do such as accountant for metal company or such like. I’ve tried to get a job grape picking with some of the larger vineyards in the area but also to no avail as they already have a plentiful supply of cheap and willing Eastern-Europeans on their books. One wanted a qualified oenolgist, but whilst I have an idea of the theory, I can’t lay claim to this title. Susan in the meantime will get some teaching work again in the new year. She is going to teach a couple of classes in Borghetto Vara, a small town in the Vara valley and is likely to get her job in Sarzana back, where she worked earlier this year.
All in all it’s been a good year, if it wasn’t for the constant lack of cash. But we’re getting there and looking with some confidence into 2009. Oh and the photo on top, I have no idea what these berries are either, we saw them on a walk recently. Maybe they are the ‘fruits of our labours’… Oh and I just noticed this is the 100th entry of this blog!
Wednesday, 26 December 2007
Christmas 2007
I wonder how you have all spent Christmas? Let us know. I tell you what we did. Christmas day I woke up early with a bit of a sniffle, sort of a hint of a cold. First one in about 3 years. It seemed to be getting worse during the day, but seems to already have passed. All this freshly squeezed orange juice we have every morning seems to have done the trick, building up my immune system. After breakfast we lit a fire in the kitchen and slowly started preparations for the meal. Instead of stuffing ourselves with mountains of food in one sitting, we tend to cook a bit, then eat a bit, cook a bit more, eat a bit more, maybe go for an energetic walk and cook a bit more and eat a bit more. Thus spacing out Christmas lunch from about midday to midnight.
First we boiled and peeled the chestnuts that we collected last week for the stuffing. Then we sat around the fire having tea and biscuits. About 1 o’clock we tucked into a mixed platter of smoked fish and a glass of Prosecco to wash it down as antipasto. The primo consisted of a creamy cauliflower and leek soup, one of my specialities, with a slice of wholemeal bread. After that we needed a walk to work up an appetite again. We just wandered around the village shouting “auguri!” at everyone. Various neighbours had already called at our door to wish us a happy Christmas and deliver wee presents.
For a main course I cooked a guinea fowl, stuffed with chestnuts and sage, cooked in a casserole on a bed of carrots, celery and mushrooms and dowsed in white wine. The wine came more as an afterthought, as one of our neighbours very kindly gave us a bottle of their homemade stuff. Now I don’t want to appear fussy, but the trouble with the homemade wines here is that after a year or so they turn to vinegar as they don’t use any additives whatsoever. This year’s vintage is not bottled yet, so last year’s vintage is good with chips, but not to drink. Also as an afterthought, I picked a pomegranate on our walk through the village and added it to the sauce and the bird. I did not quite realise how sour a pomegranate is and together with the sour wine, whilst it kept the bird nice and moist, it made for quite a sour sauce. So we added some of our own apple sauce, which we made from the last apples from Villa. All in all that worked really well. And to drink? One of the treasures out of my cantina, a 1999 Brunello di Montalcino Donatella. The winery make point out of the fact that this wine is made entirely by women. After a few hours in the decanter, this turned out a rather classy wine, possibly a bit to big for the fowl, but hey, so what?
We skipped the cheese course, had some Panetone (also a gift from the neighbours) with a Moscato Spumante and relaxed around the fire for the rest of the evening listening to some music. As far as musical accompaniment to the day was concerned, we started slow and easy with Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Handel’s Messiah, moving on to folky music such as Tandarandan and Irish music, finishing with upbeat soul and blues, which finally prompted me to get my harmonica out and dance in the middle of the kitchen.
The weather? The 3 days of rain forecast did indeed happen, finishing on Christmas eve. Christmas itself was dry, cloudy and quite warm. Now today, as you can see above, it’s been glorious, spring-like sunshine, which drove us straight to the seaside. We had a walk around the small fishing village of Tellaro on the Gulf of La Spezia. Tomorrow these frivolities, like eating all day or going for pleasant walks, are going to stop. Back to work. I’ve set up a to-do calendar for the new year and the next couple of weeks the list includes pruning vines, apples and olives as well as digging beds for spring sowing. So onwards and upwards!
First we boiled and peeled the chestnuts that we collected last week for the stuffing. Then we sat around the fire having tea and biscuits. About 1 o’clock we tucked into a mixed platter of smoked fish and a glass of Prosecco to wash it down as antipasto. The primo consisted of a creamy cauliflower and leek soup, one of my specialities, with a slice of wholemeal bread. After that we needed a walk to work up an appetite again. We just wandered around the village shouting “auguri!” at everyone. Various neighbours had already called at our door to wish us a happy Christmas and deliver wee presents.
For a main course I cooked a guinea fowl, stuffed with chestnuts and sage, cooked in a casserole on a bed of carrots, celery and mushrooms and dowsed in white wine. The wine came more as an afterthought, as one of our neighbours very kindly gave us a bottle of their homemade stuff. Now I don’t want to appear fussy, but the trouble with the homemade wines here is that after a year or so they turn to vinegar as they don’t use any additives whatsoever. This year’s vintage is not bottled yet, so last year’s vintage is good with chips, but not to drink. Also as an afterthought, I picked a pomegranate on our walk through the village and added it to the sauce and the bird. I did not quite realise how sour a pomegranate is and together with the sour wine, whilst it kept the bird nice and moist, it made for quite a sour sauce. So we added some of our own apple sauce, which we made from the last apples from Villa. All in all that worked really well. And to drink? One of the treasures out of my cantina, a 1999 Brunello di Montalcino Donatella. The winery make point out of the fact that this wine is made entirely by women. After a few hours in the decanter, this turned out a rather classy wine, possibly a bit to big for the fowl, but hey, so what?
We skipped the cheese course, had some Panetone (also a gift from the neighbours) with a Moscato Spumante and relaxed around the fire for the rest of the evening listening to some music. As far as musical accompaniment to the day was concerned, we started slow and easy with Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Handel’s Messiah, moving on to folky music such as Tandarandan and Irish music, finishing with upbeat soul and blues, which finally prompted me to get my harmonica out and dance in the middle of the kitchen.
The weather? The 3 days of rain forecast did indeed happen, finishing on Christmas eve. Christmas itself was dry, cloudy and quite warm. Now today, as you can see above, it’s been glorious, spring-like sunshine, which drove us straight to the seaside. We had a walk around the small fishing village of Tellaro on the Gulf of La Spezia. Tomorrow these frivolities, like eating all day or going for pleasant walks, are going to stop. Back to work. I’ve set up a to-do calendar for the new year and the next couple of weeks the list includes pruning vines, apples and olives as well as digging beds for spring sowing. So onwards and upwards!
Saturday, 22 December 2007
Olive wood, Christmas and Tandarandan
The forecast was for 3 days rain in a row, starting from today. Looking out of the window we saw it threatening over the sea, but that gave us a few hours to gather a bit of wood that we would be needing if the weather would keep us indoors. Whilst there is piles of wood over at George’s in Villa, it’s not of the highest quality and not quite dry enough. So we went over to our plot, where a few overgrown olive trees were waiting to be reduced significantly in size.
In the last few years we have been doing this by hand, but whoever has ever tried cutting olive wood will know: it’s a job and a half! A trunk of say 12 inches in diameter will take the best part of a week to saw and hack through and will blunt your saw and axe into the bargain and leave you with blisters on your hands. Now, thanks to George, we have a chainsaw. We bought it on the opening sale of the new hyper-market at the bottom of our hill. It copes with clearing the weed trees off George’s land no problem, but olive wood… Every few minutes the chain needed re-tightening and the job was still a bit of a struggle. However, it was way better than by hand and we managed to fill a couple of baskets before the rains arrived. Olive wood is the best wood for burning even when slightly green. It burns slowly and gives off a lot of heat. And there is a lovely smell coming off the smoke. It should be enough to keep us warm over the holidays.
Last night we saw our neighbour Mauro with his band at Pegaso in Arcola. It was a great evening. They play traditional music of the Lunigiana region. Now this might not sound too exciting, especially if you have attended the odd village dance in the region, where the ‘duck song’ seems to be an eternal favourite. They officially launched their new album ‘Adalgisiana’ yesterday (although I’ve had a copy since my birthday last month). It is all instrumental, the instruments being a guitar, an accordion, 2 violins (or 1 violin and 2 bagpipes) and, my favourite, a hurdy-gurdy. Now until a few weeks ago you could have hit me over the head with one and I wouldn’t have known what a hurdy-gurdy is. You sort of turn a handle on the bulbous looking instrument on your lap and press some keys down. The result is a sort off rhythmic sawing sound.
The music they play is really, after much research, a revival of an ancient, almost extinct, music tradition, which has Celtic influences as well as some almost gypsy-like leanings, but is essentially dance music: polka, mazurka, waltz etc. And like all good folk music, you can’t help but tap your feet, fingers and all to it. Shame Pegaso is too small a venue to have started a dance in the middle of the hall.
One final word comparing Italian Christmas to Christmas in England. Whereas of course you get the inevitable commercial spin, supermarkets with flashing decorations, Jingle Bells out of tinny speakers etc, it’s not nearly as bad as the UK. Today, I know from experience, is the most important shopping day of the year in the UK, Saturday before Christmas, and you’ll come across multitudes of very stressed looking people and queue endlessly at the checkouts. Here on the other hand, we needed just a few bits for the weekend and tried a medium-sized supermarket in Arcola, hoping on the last Saturday before Christmas they would for once not shut for lunch. How wrong we were, lunch is sacred! So we went to another supermarket, which we knew normally opened over lunch in the centre of Sarzana. To our amazement it was almost empty (of customers not merchandise), no queues. Now I can’t think of a shop in England, which wouldn’t be pandemonium pretty much all day today and extending their opening hours.
The photos above are of Tandarandan at Pegaso last night and the Christmas decorations at the entrance to Ponzano Superiore. After such a long contribution today, I think this will be me off air until Christmas. So Happy Christmas to all of you out there in Cyber-land and hopefully hear from you soon.
In the last few years we have been doing this by hand, but whoever has ever tried cutting olive wood will know: it’s a job and a half! A trunk of say 12 inches in diameter will take the best part of a week to saw and hack through and will blunt your saw and axe into the bargain and leave you with blisters on your hands. Now, thanks to George, we have a chainsaw. We bought it on the opening sale of the new hyper-market at the bottom of our hill. It copes with clearing the weed trees off George’s land no problem, but olive wood… Every few minutes the chain needed re-tightening and the job was still a bit of a struggle. However, it was way better than by hand and we managed to fill a couple of baskets before the rains arrived. Olive wood is the best wood for burning even when slightly green. It burns slowly and gives off a lot of heat. And there is a lovely smell coming off the smoke. It should be enough to keep us warm over the holidays.
Last night we saw our neighbour Mauro with his band at Pegaso in Arcola. It was a great evening. They play traditional music of the Lunigiana region. Now this might not sound too exciting, especially if you have attended the odd village dance in the region, where the ‘duck song’ seems to be an eternal favourite. They officially launched their new album ‘Adalgisiana’ yesterday (although I’ve had a copy since my birthday last month). It is all instrumental, the instruments being a guitar, an accordion, 2 violins (or 1 violin and 2 bagpipes) and, my favourite, a hurdy-gurdy. Now until a few weeks ago you could have hit me over the head with one and I wouldn’t have known what a hurdy-gurdy is. You sort of turn a handle on the bulbous looking instrument on your lap and press some keys down. The result is a sort off rhythmic sawing sound.
The music they play is really, after much research, a revival of an ancient, almost extinct, music tradition, which has Celtic influences as well as some almost gypsy-like leanings, but is essentially dance music: polka, mazurka, waltz etc. And like all good folk music, you can’t help but tap your feet, fingers and all to it. Shame Pegaso is too small a venue to have started a dance in the middle of the hall.
One final word comparing Italian Christmas to Christmas in England. Whereas of course you get the inevitable commercial spin, supermarkets with flashing decorations, Jingle Bells out of tinny speakers etc, it’s not nearly as bad as the UK. Today, I know from experience, is the most important shopping day of the year in the UK, Saturday before Christmas, and you’ll come across multitudes of very stressed looking people and queue endlessly at the checkouts. Here on the other hand, we needed just a few bits for the weekend and tried a medium-sized supermarket in Arcola, hoping on the last Saturday before Christmas they would for once not shut for lunch. How wrong we were, lunch is sacred! So we went to another supermarket, which we knew normally opened over lunch in the centre of Sarzana. To our amazement it was almost empty (of customers not merchandise), no queues. Now I can’t think of a shop in England, which wouldn’t be pandemonium pretty much all day today and extending their opening hours.
The photos above are of Tandarandan at Pegaso last night and the Christmas decorations at the entrance to Ponzano Superiore. After such a long contribution today, I think this will be me off air until Christmas. So Happy Christmas to all of you out there in Cyber-land and hopefully hear from you soon.
Sunday, 2 December 2007
Advent Baking
The weather outside is still miserable, but today is the first Sunday in Advent. That’s when the German in me is rearing it’s ugly head, or more precisely the Swabian. My mother comes from that part of Germany and every year at this time she got busy baking masses of biscuits for Christmas. Of course I was always the first to volunteer to help, as I would therefore would also become the first one to taste. My Mum would go to great lengths in hiding the filled tins of biscuits around the house, so me and my brother wouldn’t eat them all before Christmas had actually arrived. Sometimes the biscuits were so well hidden, that we didn’t find them again until Easter, when we were hunting for Easter eggs. Luckily these biscuits do last this long and they made a nice Easter surprise. Today’s batch consisted of “Cinnamon Stars” and “S” (top picture) and Swiss “Leckerli” chocolate biscuits (bottom). Recipes available on request.
And what could be better on a dark December day than lighting a fire, heating up the oven and spreading the smell of fresh baking through the house.
And what could be better on a dark December day than lighting a fire, heating up the oven and spreading the smell of fresh baking through the house.
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