a christmas story. or two. or three.

you know that i am a sucker for christmas. though it usually gets stressful around this time of the year, i love presents and always have ever since i got a barbie that came with her own bottle of fragrance. a bottle with a pink bow on top to close it and a heavenly smell. well, at least for a ten year old.

another year, i remember well, i got a new bed for christmas. it was a bunk bed for one person with a desk attached and enough space underneath to play. my parents had set it all up in the lounge for me and how excited was i when my mother allowed me to sleep downstairs. thirty-something stuffed animals had to be brought down in addition to pillows and blanket and when i was finally happily sitting on my bed it … squeaked. loud enough to concern my father who had built it and no, i couldn't sleep in that bed, something was wrong! how i convinced them, by tantrum or smiles, i don't know, but he and my brother took the entire bed apart and rebuild it in my room the same evening.

 

 

these days it is not so much about presents for myself, but i actually love giving gifts. i think there is nothing more wonderful than finding that perfect gift for someone you love and you can already see what their face will look like when they open it. this year i have already declared to 3 different people that they are getting the bestest gift of all and i mean it.

we had beautiful christmases when i was little. well, of course there were the odd ones out like the year when ariadne, our dalmatian, ate the entire goose. or the year when my dad forgot to buy champagne and then decanted a beautiful 20 year old bottle of red which was corked. there was also the year when my brother and i were left in charge of decorating the tree and decided to make a chic, all black, gucci tree and hung black cassette tapes instead of tinsel on it. let's just say gucci is not a good look for a christmas tree.

but overall our christmases were wonderful. i would watch the last unicorn, we would go to church, and then my parents would ring a bell in the lounge, announcing that the children could come inside for presents. first there would be some singing, then a champagne toast, and then i would be led to my pile first because back then there were no grandkids around yet and as the nesthäkchen i was entitled to go first.

my parents made us never wait and sit through dinner before presents. i'm still grateful for that. it also meant more peace on the dinner table afterwards. our traditional dinner is a bit of a funny one and i actually don't know how it came along but we would always have herring salad and smoked salmon with baguette. eventually foie gras was introduced and in recent years my dad always makes a ragout fin in pastetchen as a starter.

after dinner lazy family that we are, we would change out of our holiday finest and put on our pjs and watch tv. i wish i could tell you that we played board games and told stories and danced around the tree or whatever else other families do, but that would be a lie. we would eat chocolate truffles and watch sissi reruns. it was fabulous.

the morning of the 25^th i would usually be the first up and sneak downstairs. the lounge would be cold with a nice smell of candles hanging in the air. i would snuggle up next to my new toys and watch cartoons and probably eat some more chocolates too. after all anything goes for christmas breakfast.

the same ritual each year… until my parents got divorced. then everything changed. mind you i was a grown-up and i guess it shouldn't have mattered. but you know what? it always matters regardless of your age.

my brother started to celebrate christmas with his own family and my mother, well, turns out she doesn't care all that much about christmas after all. i went back home every year to celebrate with my dad. one of my sisters would join us, sometimes an aunt, usually one of his friends who was also alone. it would be a somewhat odd assortment. and while i know that it is probably a good christmas spirit to bring people together who have nobody else and my dad made it really nice for us, it never felt quite the same again for me.

i started to long. to long for a christmas like kevin, home alone minus the kevin being actually home alone part. a christmas with big chaotic house full of a gazillion people, full of family – laughing, fighting, eating on long tables.

i found this here in cape town. the big chaotic house, the long tables, more kids than one can keep count of or possibly name the family relation to, the laughing, the fighting. i loved it.

my dad who has visited me a few times loved it too. this year was supposed to be no exception but then everything changed with his heart surgery. we are returning to a small christmas at home. part of me still longs for that big celebration in the sun. the other part of me is exchanging recipe and gift ideas with my brother and my sister. my dad has ordered a christmas tree and told me i am in charge of decorating, he can only watch and drink wine this year. this part of me has bought and wrapped all the presents just in time and is now praying for the suitcase gods that it will close. this part of me is happy to have a dad to celebrate christmas with, because that is the one thing i have learned this year, that actually nothing else matters.  

the cut.

i have gazillion things to do and pack, but let’s quickly talk about my hair.

when i was little it was cut in a neat short bob and behaved. that didn’t last very long because i wanted to let it grow. my mum used to cut my hair and whenever it was time for a trim there was lots of fighting and screaming going on in our house. she usually gave up in sheer exhaustion and only cut off about a centimetre. woe to her the one time when it ended up being two. i put the hood of my bathrobe on and refused to take it off until my dad promised me 6 tickets for the waterpark.

when i was 13 i decided to cut my hair into a bob again and it was the most unflattering hair cut any teenager could ever have. since it was my decision my mum was happy as at least she couldn’t be blamed this time.

then there were a few failed attempts at having a fringe. no need to explain further.

so you understand that i am hesitant when it comes to cutting my hair now. i go for my trims and to lighten the load (yes, i have loads!), but it usually gets tied up anyhow and i prefer it that way. end of discussion.

yesterday i had an appointment to get my hair cut before the holiday. i have been following fashion blogger karla deras for some time and i love her hair. and while i love how it looks when it’s down, i love the fact that she can still tie it up in a little bun even more. however i didn’t consider myself ever brave enough to go there. cutting hair is traumatic to me.

but yesterday morning i woke up and i remember my mother’s words. back in the day when i was in my last year in high school, we were walking through town together and ran into my ex and his new girlfriend. the new girlfriend must have been late twenties then and had long shiny brown hair streaming down her back. my mum - and i still love her for it - just took one look at her and murmured to me: “there comes a certain age when a woman should have a haircut.” and while that was a tiny bit bitchy, i still think it quite true.

so with that in mind i woke up and decided to cut it all off.

i love it and with the amount i will save on conditioner i can go on another holiday. in case you don’t love it, don’t tell me and just remember that i am not very photogenic so i obviously look amazing and very different in real. in case you love it so much, that you want to cut all your hair off too now, i highly recommend craig at thelobby. he is awesome and he will give you beer to take the edge off.  

Sunday Roast.

I must admit, I was laughing when Nicole Kidman named her baby girl Sunday Rose, which was quickly turned into Sunday Roast by some devilish funny media people. I guess she should have seen it coming...

I am probably one of the few people who usually don’t enjoy Sunday roasts or Sundays in general. It may have to do with the fact that in Germany everything is closed on Sundays. No shopping last minute or leisurely, no spa treatments, no nothing. If in desperate need and willing to pay the horrendous price, you go to the gas station and buy microwave fast food there. If you just feel the urge to go shopping for fun, you better live in a big enough city where you can go shopping at the train station mall.
Neither options were available when I was growing up plus I had to sit through Sunday lunch with my parents, which I hate to say it, was just not all that exciting. My Dad would make a roast of some sort and expect eternal gratitude from my mother for taking the cooking off her hands for a day. He didn’t realize that it would have taken my mother less time to cook and clean the kitchen than it took her to just clean the kitchen after my Dad was done cooking. That usually ended in the same argument every week.
Even when I was younger and my brother and Opi would join, the highlight was usually Stephan spitting on Opi’s bold head, telling him it was raining and being delighted when he believed him. I’m not sure if that is a true story or was just passed on in my family to demonstrate my Opi’s general gullibility better. I do know for a fact though that Opi insisted on pre-warmed plates for every meal and would test the temperature by grabbing the side of the plate. One day my mother got so fed up with his high maintenance that she heated the plates till they were scorching hot. We can all imagine how that ended and hopefully understand now, why I’m not a big fan of Sunday lunches.
Another good reason why Saturdays are so much better than Sundays, is the simple fact that they are further away from Mondays. Last weekend though I had decided to turn the usual blue Sunday around and re-introduce Sunday lunch. My way. And so the Beef Wellington project was born. Initially for the reason that I had never eaten one before, owed my uncle a thank you for jump starting my car in the middle of the night and was planning a little video cooking show for my Dad’s birthday blog.

As one can guess, wine more helpful...

...than kittens.



Fillet or duck?

With good help from a few bottles of wine and of course the kittens we prepared on Saturday evening and off it went into the oven on Sunday for lunch. Unless you are a vegetarian, the idea of beef, chicken, and pork in their various best forms i.e. fillet, parfait, and bacon all rolled up in one dish, can’t be anything but heaven. And it was. Even the non-meat-eaters at the table, and there were plenty, had to admit – our little Wellington looked amazing. For us who had a slice, it tasted even better. I, for a change, enjoyed my Sunday since it came with lots of sunshine, family, chocolate for desert, and a Tupperware with leftovers for breakfast.

The Wellington in all it's glory.

Bubbling violets.

I do blame my mother for my addiction to Champagne. I must have inherited it from her or something. The bubbles seem to run in our blood and nothing feels more intoxicating to us than hearing the plop of a cork, the swishing sound when you pour a glass and the smell of the first tiny bubbles rising up.

She was always a snob when it came to Champagne and so am I.

Christmas tradition at our house asks for Champagne year after year. One year my Dad dared to offer us a bottle of Mumm (an okaaay German sparkling wine), which he had gotten as a present from someone. He thought it suitable for his beloved family on Christmas Eve. The family wasn’t impressed and went on strike till he forked out money and sent my brother to the store to buy two bottles of Veuve. Crisis averted.

Later my parents discovered Crémant from Alsace. Even though we all drank and liked it, it was still lovingly duped 'Elsässer Plörre' by my mother. Plörre, a slang word from the western part of Germany,  is defined as:

Alcoholic drink which sight makes you afraid you may wake up with a hangover the next day.

Highly unfair to the drink in question, but we just wanted to be snobs as the Crémant wasn’t from the Champagne and the name stuck despite my Dad’s protests. Today he goes along with it and offers me a glass of Plörre the second I step of the plane.

Ever since moving to South Africa I have been in heaven. Living in a country that has mastered the art of making Champagne, I have drunk myself through an extensive collection so far and would blame my cousin and her pool deck for it, if I needed someone to blame. I don’t.

Imagine my excitement when my new favourite wine shop The Mill offered a M.C.C. and Champagne tasting evening. I may have drooled a little bit over my desk when I signed up for it. My food poisoning left me slightly worried if I was going to be able to make it, but true to form my stomach was basically begging me for some bubbles yesterday.

Usually work is quiet these days, but Murphy’s law kicked in at around 4 o’clock and made my boss, who was coming with, and me run around like crazy maniacs till the last minute. I had no idea how I was going to manage ‘tasting’ the bubbly as opposed to gulping it down by the time we arrived. We both just needed a strong drink badly and have had no time for the usual late afternoon office G&T before. Luckily for us the day turned around the moment we stepped into The Mill. A glass of bubbly called ‘Sparkles’ was put into our hand and though the name sounded too cute to be good, we took about a sip or two to be convinced. Nigel, the owner, was a star - once our glasses were empty he had them refilled within a second. He said he is just very good at spotting empty glasses, but I do believe he can read minds.

Me (thinking):  Refill my glass, this is yummy, please someone, refill my glass, please, someone –

Me: Thank you, Nigel.

Once we spotted crackers on the table (we had been worried about that as the Murphy’s law kick in had also prevented us from getting dinner before), we were set to go and do some serious tasting. It wasn’t quite as serious due to the facts that a) we were allowed to pour our own glasses – bad idea, b) Australian jokes being told – bad, but funny, and c) a guy at our table who told a story about opening a bottle of expensive, vintage Champagne at the top of Lion Hill and how it led to holding the cork and watching the bottle fall – bad for him, but really funny.

I learned that I am either not such a snob after all or just plain ignorant as the bottle of a 2000 Guy Charbaut Champagne didn’t nearly impress me as much as a bottle called The Old Mans Sparkle from Groote Post. I think I tasted violets in a bottle and am surprised that the bottle I took home arrived unharmed and made it through the night. After so heroically sustaining from drinking it all by myself last night, I think I will finally treat myself to a nice little wine shelf.  The old man shall be the first bottle of little treasures on it and stay long enough so I can take a picture at least.

Codename "Mother"

A recent comment of Elizabeth got me thinking about postal services and the time my mother came to visit me in New York. You may spot the connection here later.

First question my mother asked after walking into our 30m² apartment of three (Sorry, writing in American here, there are no flats in New York, they are called apartments.): “Where is your liquor cabinet?” I was ashamed to admit that I did not have one, but quickly averted the blow by blaming the size of our apartment which wouldn’t fit one and the fact that there was a liquor shop just around the corner, which pretty much meant extended living room. So technically, no, I did not have a liquor cabinet, but a whole liquor store in my living quarters (apartment is a really long word and easily misspelled I find).

Off we went. Mother’s first purchase in New York: two bottles of white for her, two bottles of red for me. Her first argument followed shortly after when we tried to return a corked bottle. Good luck with that in New York.

The stock lasted for a day and a half and I think then she realized there is no point for me to own a piece of furniture dedicated to store alcohol. It will just be an empty something most times and that is sad.

The next day when we had run out I decided to go a bit more uptown (where they will take your corked wine back without calling you a bitch) and took her to the premier snobby Italian eatery Cipriani on Fifth. There I discovered something shockingly.  My mother is an undercover super secret spy. Almost most definitely. The conversation went as follows:

Mother: The guy over there is a bodyguard.

Me (reading the menu): Yes, mother.

Mother: No, really. Look at him.

Me (still reading the menu): Yes, mother.

Mother: No, really. Several reasons. Reason a) He is dressed all in black, very formal. Even too formal for a place like this at lunch.

Me (moving on to the pasta section): Yes, mother.

Mother: Reason b) He is sitting all by himself in the middle of the restaurant yet close to the door.

At this point it would have been just plain rude to ignore her further, so I looked up fainting interest.

Mother (triumphantly): And reason c) he is nibbling on a Coke. A Coke!

(I should explain here that you can use the word nibbling in German for pretty much anything, and in this case she meant taking tiny sips with his straw, so not really drinking, but pretending to, so no one will notice that he is in fact a bodyguard.)

Me: Okay, let’s assume you are right. Who is he body guarding?

At this point I am hooked and we both sank deeper into our chairs, hid behind the menus and looked what we thought was inconspicuously around. I couldn’t see anyone who looked remotely famous or even ridiculously rich when my mother got a predator look on her face.

Mother: It’s these two guys over there.

Some random looking men in their fifties in polo shorts. Nothing to write home about at all.

And before I could even tell her not to be silly, she had gathered all of her but few English sentences and courage and was chatting up the Bangladesh busboy.

Mother: Sir, look. This man sit over. There. Bodyguard. Yes? 

Busboy: Yes, madam.

Triumphant look towards me from mother.

Mother: And sir, who? Bodyguard with?

The busboy now looked over very discreetly to the older gentlemen in polo shirts and I of course got another triumphant look from mother.

Mother: Sir you know? Men famous, you know?

He did know. End of story my mother just saw an incognito Israeli minister. The type who is really important, but not easily recognized; one of those who actually do things, you know?

 Well spotted, mother! I would have thought she was an undercover spy if it wasn’t for the fact that she almost got us arrested outside. She took full five minutes to light her cigarette, lurking in a corner while trying to get a better view on Mr. Minister.

P.S. My Mum loved the Cipriani Bellini so much that I bought her two cans of the mix at Dean & Deluca and sent it to her a few weeks later by mail (as in postal service). The stuff is great. I thought she would just add some beautiful, vintage champagne and could feel like she was back on her secret mission at Cipriani. What did she do instead?

Mother: Oh, meine Liebe, the juice was soo delicious, I drank it all by itself.

It better be soo delicious if you pay $14 for a can of peach juice including shipping.