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Christmas and sauerkraut
Jan. 9th, 2007 11:15 pmIt was demolition time in the village today. All the villagers made it safely back in their boxes, even the fiddler who lost his head (it's glued back on). Christmas tree denuded and thrown out (actually, it's on the front porch and is going to be chopped up for mulch). All holiday decorations carefully packed away for next year. All done, in a single late afternoon and evening. We pat ourselves on the backs.
You may laugh, but when it was time to put up decorations up in December, all I could think of was how tedious it would be to put them all away again. I don't know why, it's not how I usually approach things. Bad memories of some past year when the task seemed to drag on forever? So I'm trying to cement this positive memory, that putting everything away was really pretty easy. Message to future vgqn -- don't stress in Dec '07. It'll all be fine.
Dinner last night was choucroute garnie, Alsatian-style sauerkraut and sausages. You rinse the sauerkraut so it's not quite so sour, then cook it for a couple of hours with onions, bacon and other pork products, various spices like juniper berries, cloves, and bay leaf, and lots of white wine. Add potatoes and various sausages towards the end. Yum! This is a far cry from the wieners and sauerkraut of my youth (which I despised).
In Austria, we lunched once on sauerkraut and sausages from the local butcher, washed down with gruner veltliner wine. Delicious. The sauerkraut was a dark golden brown. Wonder what they added to get that gorgeous color.
You may laugh, but when it was time to put up decorations up in December, all I could think of was how tedious it would be to put them all away again. I don't know why, it's not how I usually approach things. Bad memories of some past year when the task seemed to drag on forever? So I'm trying to cement this positive memory, that putting everything away was really pretty easy. Message to future vgqn -- don't stress in Dec '07. It'll all be fine.
Dinner last night was choucroute garnie, Alsatian-style sauerkraut and sausages. You rinse the sauerkraut so it's not quite so sour, then cook it for a couple of hours with onions, bacon and other pork products, various spices like juniper berries, cloves, and bay leaf, and lots of white wine. Add potatoes and various sausages towards the end. Yum! This is a far cry from the wieners and sauerkraut of my youth (which I despised).
In Austria, we lunched once on sauerkraut and sausages from the local butcher, washed down with gruner veltliner wine. Delicious. The sauerkraut was a dark golden brown. Wonder what they added to get that gorgeous color.
