I’ve never been much of a cook. There are a few things I can make pretty well (only a few) but I follow directions really well, so I can fake my way through just about anything with a good recipe (the simpler the better). It’s always been the eating part of cooking that I enjoy the most, so if someone else volunteers to do the actual cooking part, I’m happy to oblige. Really, the only time of year I get excited about being in the kitchen is Christmastime.
Category Archives: Adventure in Vienna
Oh, Christmas tree
It’s really starting to feel a lot like Christmas here at our house. We went out and got a Christmas tree today. We’d been a bit concerned about acquiring one — we don’t have a car, so we wouldn’t be able to transport it very far (although we do have a wagon). And we’d also heard they do Christmas trees as a very “last minute” thing here (they typically aren’t put up, or at least revealed, until Christmas Eve) and we wanted to have ours a bit sooner. Really, we didn’t know how the experience would be different, and I knew we’d end up with a tree one way or another.
Ooh, sparkly
I like sparkly things. In fact, a significant part of my enjoyment of ballroom dancing came from the sparkly dresses (and I’m not entirely kidding about that). As a dancer, the more sparkly the dress, the more beautiful it is, and the best sparkly dresses were adorned with rhinestones made by Swarovski. Swarovski makes all manner of crystal things: jewelery, knick-knacks, keychains, Christmas ornaments, chandeliers. They are all really sparkly. (Have I mentioned that I like sparkly things? I often catch myself looking at various items around our house — clothing, furniture, children — and trying to decide how many rhinestones I could get away with applying to them . . . usually 0).
A field trip . . . this time, on purpose
A couple of weeks ago, after completely missing that the kindergarten was going to take our child on a trip for the morning, the teachers at the school gave us a detailed and carefully translated list of upcoming school events. (Which we then promptly misunderstood. . . or thought we did. It appears that St. Nicolas actually WAS at the school — we’ve seen pictures — but B still says he wasn’t. He keeps saying, “He wasn’t there, he was just a surprise when we came back in from the garden”, so there’s some nuance we’re missing, but I have no idea what it is.) For today, there was a note about an excursion to a children’s theater to watch a play.
Ho ho ho!
Just call me Santa — today I got the last of my Christmas packages for the States packed up and shipped out. Whew. Only 10 days until Christmas Eve (yikes) and nearly a full week after my “very latest day” I wanted to send them, but they’re out there, in the Austrian postal system and out of my hands. (It’s very much like the feeling I get when I’m on a plane and it starts rolling down the runway — whatever’s going to happen, there’s nothing I can do about it now.)
Raclette
We hosted a dinner party, of sorts, this evening: Dan’s French officemate, Samir, came over and brought a contraption called a “Raclette” so we could all have dinner together. I had never heard of Raclette, but I’m a quick learner — it’s basically like fondue except that rather than cooking your food in the cheese, you melt the cheese and pour it over a variety of meats, breads and vegetables.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, and now I know of yet another way to prepare and ingest cheese (just what my waistline needs). But, as with so many culinary experiences, the real pleasure comes from the social experience, not the eating experience. We ate, we drank wine, we chatted. Dan & I taught him at least one word (“melted”) to augment his already excellent English, Samir & I chastised Dan for words he doesn’t yet know in German (“später”), Liam ate Raclette with enthusiasm, while Benjamin all but abstained. We all laughed about the period in recent American history where we ate “Freedom Fries” instead of French Fries, and Samir assured us that the French hadn’t gotten their feelings hurt about the name change, since there’s nothing French about them anyway.
It was, in short, exactly the kind of evening we’re so fortunate to have here in Vienna — learning about another culture, enjoying each other’s company, helping the world feel a little smaller. And, as it turns out, we all like Raclette, as well as Samir’s company, so I imagine this is an experience we’ll repeat again before too long.
My horses make me a better mom
Liam got a nasty splinter in the bottom of his foot tonight. (I actually don’t know when he got it — I found it while he was in the bath tonight.) He’s walking and running now, and we have wood floors — it was pretty inevitable. So, after bath time, Dan held him as still as possible, and I removed the splinter from his foot.
I’m dreaming of a peppermint candy cane
The candy cane is right up there on the list of major iconic Christmas images: sleigh bells, wreaths, holly, gingerbread, cookies, snow . . . and candy canes. Peppermint ones, red & white striped. They go on the tree, they go in stockings, they go in my hot chocolate.
Add those, then, to the list of things that just aren’t the same here: I’m having a really hard time finding peppermint candy canes. They like candy canes here, certainly. They come in a rainbow of colors (sometimes literally) and a variety of flavors: apple, cinnamon, strawberry. But, no peppermint. I’ve been looking all of the Christmas markets. At first, I thought I must just be missing them — surely, they MUST have peppermint candy canes (and I even know how to say peppermint, so it’s not a translation problem) — but then another friend of mine said she was having trouble finding them. (Now I know why they don’t have Peppermint Mochas at Starbucks here — peppermint doesn’t seem to be a Christmas thing in Austria.)
I came close today. I found a candy shop at a market that sold all kinds of candy canes, even lemon and “root beer” (written just like that, in English) flavored. The did have big, white peppermint candy sticks, but they were all while, straight (no hook end) and about twice the length and width of a candy cane. Not close enough. I’m still looking.
Surreality at Starbucks
We went out to do some more Christmas shopping this morning (the fact that I have yet to send any gifts back home is really starting to concern me, so my goals for this weekend were to get as much shopping done as possible on Saturday and get as many things wrapped and packed to ship on Sunday). On our way back, we walked past a Starbucks and decided to go in for some warm, caffeinated, holiday goodness.
We stood in line, placed our order and waited. I absentmindedly started humming along with the “muzak” that was playing . . . and then suddenly realized that I was humming a muzak version of “My Favorite Things” . . . from the Sound of Music . . . while standing in Starbucks . . . in Vienna.
There was something very strange about that. Hearing a muzaked version of a song from an American musical about Austria while standing in a very American establishment located in the heart of the Austrian capital.
It was very disconcerting. It was exactly the experience I think I would have if I were having a dream about going Christmas shopping in Vienna, but not something I would actually have expected to experience. It was weird. It freaked me out a little.
(I think Dan failed to appreciate why I found this so strange, so maybe it’s just me.)
My favorite gift
Reply
I know, Christmas isn’t (or shouldn’t be) about the gifts. It’s hard not to fall in to that trap — there’s SO MUCH to shop for, so many gifts to buy. Most years, my “favorite gift” is one I buy for someone else — one I can’t wait for them to open, to see the look on their face, to see if they’ll smile or laugh or cry like I thought they would. Sometimes it’s something I’ve had in mind for ages, sometimes it’s a gift that kept me stumped throughout the shopping season, only to occur to me as an “Aha!” at the last minute.