Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Schwartswalder Kirschtorte


We have a 0% chance of a white Christmas this year. In fact, it feels like spring. We may see 50°F or higher today. The ground was sufficiently thawed yesterday for us to secure the bottom of the chicken netting with earth staples. We’ll see if that works. I’m not sure what we will do if it doesn’t.
The girls are enjoying the lovely weather. I tried to get a picture of the Black Australorps that would show the lovely iridescent green of their feathers in the sun. Sadly, the camera doesn’t see it.
Black Australorps--just take my word that their feathers shine green in the sun.

Everyone looks so good compared to last year. The Dominiques have all their feathers, and all the hens have fully developed tails. There’s a lesson here, I think. If we get another mean hen, we should just get rid of her.
Hens with all their feathers

I decided to make a Schwartzwalder kirschtorte (Black Forest cherry cake) for Christmas dessert this year. I haven’t made one in 10 years at least. We first got the recipe when my brother was spending a year in Germany after he finished college, c. 1979. At the time it seemed impossibly fussy, but that was before America’s Test Kitchen. [In their defense, they are making simpler recipes these days. When I first started watching, most recipes had at least 15 ingredients and took hours to prepare.] Also, I am a much more experienced cook now. When I read the recipe over to assemble the shopping list, it seemed relatively easy.
The first step was to clarify 10 tablespoons of butter. Clarifying butter is a nuisance, which causes people to try to find an easier way. I had a distant memory of one method in which one adds water to the melted butter, chills the mixture, and lifts the clarified butter off the top after it sets up. In theory, the water-soluble milk solids will dissolve in the water, and all of the butter fat will rise to the top.
Beyond the underlying concept, I had nothing to go on. I had to guess at how and how long to heat the butter. I began by melting the butter in the microwave. I added the water, but the butter refused to coalesce. Perhaps I had not gotten it hot enough. I have taken chemistry. I knew that steam would build up in the water beneath the butter and that when it got hot enough, it would “bump.” “Bump” is a code word for “explode.” I put the butter/water back in the microwave and watched it carefully. As soon as I saw the first bubble, I put my hand on the door…. WHUMP. I was too late. I opened the door to stop the microwave. There were exactly 3 molecules of butter and all of the water still in the measuring cup. The remaining 10 tablespoons of butter covered every surface in the microwave, pooling on the bottom, dripping from the door, hanging like nascent stalactites from the top.
Do over. I put another 10 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan on the stove and started cleaning. And cleaning and cleaning. I hate it when I make so much work for myself.
I let the butter get thoroughly melted this time and added hot water. I hoped that the whatever caused the bubbles on the top would be dissolved in the water along with the milk solids at the bottom. The droplets of butter didn’t form a nice layer as much as I would have liked. I put it in the refrigerator and hoped it would sort itself out overnight.
Butter on top, milk solids and water underneath

Yesterday, I took off the top layer and put it on a paper towel. There were still many little spheres of butter floating on the top of the milky water. I fished them out with a tea strainer. I melted all the butter again. The foam on the top reappeared. I skimmed it off. I let all the water boil off, which took quite a bit of time. There were very few milk solids, and they almost all adhered to the bottom of the pan, making it easy to pour off the clarified butter. I am not ready to recommend this method, although I think it has potential, provided one avoids the microwave.
Heating the butter a second time

Clarified butter! Hooray!
The cake is leavened entirely with egg. I beat eggs and sugar with a stand mixer until light and fluffy.
Folding in flour and cocoa
I folded in cocoa and flour by hand. Finally, I folded in the butter, two tablespoons at a time. The recipe cautioned against overmixing. Flour and egg can get tough in a hurry. When I poured the batter into the cake pans, I discovered that I had erred on the side of caution—there was more butter at the bottom than the top. I tried to distribute the butter evenly among the three pans and hoped for the best. The cakes looked fine when they were done. I put them in an airtight container overnight.
The other prep I did yesterday was to make “curls” from 8 ounces of dark chocolate using a vegetable peeler. Dark chocolate, having a low fat content, doesn’t curl all that well. To help the process, I had this idea that I would put a heating pad under my largest and thinnest cutting board. Some cooks recommend heating the chocolate with your hands, but my hands are almost always cold. The heat did help, but I had to rewarm the chocolate frequently. At first, I planned to finely chop the little ends that were too small to peel. When I was done, I just ate them all. I had plenty of curls/shards to cover the cake.
Making chocolate curls by warming chocolate on a heating pad. Leftover nubs are on the cutting board at the top.

This morning, I sprinkled simple syrup and kirsch on the cakes and whipped 3 cups of cream. Such a lot of cream! I spread ½’ of cream on the bottom layer and spread tart cherries on top. 
Beginning the assembly
I put on the next layer of cake and another ½’ of cream. Finally, I added the final cake layer and piled on the whipped cream. I pressed the chocolate curls/shards onto the cake all over and garnished with the cherries that didn’t fit on the first layer. Done!
The shard-covered cake

The kirschtorte is in the refrigerator. The ham is in the oven. Jane will be here in another hour, and we will spend a pleasant afternoon eating and drinking. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight!


Sunday, December 22, 2019

Christmas cookies


December was crazy-pants. Between December 1 and 19, I had exactly 4 days when I didn’t have to leave the house. Lunches, pot lucks, holiday activities, doctor appointments. Whew! Last Sunday we took a second trip to see the Holiday Light Show at the Rotary Gardens in Janesville. This time, we bought some of the festive glasses that diffracted points of light to make snowflakes or snowmen around each one. The snowflakes were fun, but the snowmen brought me such joy! I had to laugh. Also, by moving my head from side to side, the snowmen danced! So fun!
I didn’t even bring my camera to the light show. I learned last year that it was next to impossible to get a good shot without a tripod, and I had no desire to haul around a tripod. Here’s a selfie of the glasses.
Snowman glasses

And here’s my best attempt to get a picture of our Christmas tree through the glasses showing the snowmen. Tee hee!
Snowmen around each point of light. How fun is that?

Wednesday was Cookie Day. I had mixed chocolate and vanilla sugar cookie dough ahead of time. Jane made the dough for the sour cream pockets (and forgot to bring it with her and had to go back home to get it). I also made a batch of Mexican wedding cakes, and Hilda made ultranutty pecan bars to share.
Kate brought her six-month-old Corgi, Newton. (“As in Isaac or Fig?” I asked. “Some of both,” she replied.) Newton is as cute as can be. He was eager to smell all the new smells in the house. The boots we wear for chicken chores were especially enticing. Outside, he barked at the chickens, who promptly retreated to the coop until he went inside.
Newton

Soon I was rolling and cutting the sugar cookies. Hilda kept track of the time, switching and removing the trays from the oven. Kate and Jane frosted the cookies. At my suggestion, we agreed to skip the decorative piping on the cookies. It’s a messy, takes a long time, and wastes lots of frosting. We may never look back.
When the chocolate frosting for the bison ran out, we switched to white. White bison occur rarely in nature and were considered sacred harbingers of good fortune by First Nation peoples.
Brown and white bison in foreground; Jane and Kate star frosting the regular sugar cookies

Then it was time for the sour cream pockets. I kept rolling and cutting. Jane did the filling (apricot and raspberry) and pinching. I tried to help, but made a mess of it, as can be seen in the photo in front of Jane’s hand.
Assembling raspberry- and apricot-filled sour cream pockets

The pockets looked fine after they were baked and sprinkled with powdered sugar. We ate all the unsightly mutants, of course.
Sour cream pockets baked and dusted with powdered sugar

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the last of my pre-Christmas tasks checked off my list. Such a relief to not give gifts anymore. I’m kicking back until it’s time to start the prep for Christmas dinner.

Monday, December 16, 2019

Christkindlmarket


We have A Situation with our hens. They have discovered the bird seed, and they like it a lot. It started when one of the Australorps flew over the fence and wandered over to the seeds scattered beneath the feeder. I saw her go over the fence with my own eyes. We didn’t know which of the Australorps it was, so we clipped all their wings. We also put on different colored leg bands, which sort of gave them names: Blue, Violet, and Poppy (orange). “When you see a hen out,” I instructed my family, “check the leg band so we will know if it’s the same one or different ones.”
And every time Hilda or Terry put a black hen in, they said, “I didn’t see her leg band.”
Then there were two hens out. Then four. “I found one clear down by the mailbox,” Terry reported, which answered the question I had about what would happen if we just left the fence open. If they didn’t play by the road, maybe we could just let them roam. Guess not.
I’m sure they are getting out under the fence. Friday after I let the girls out, I put a block in front of a gap between the fence and the ground. One of the Australorps was soon out, and she had knocked over the block on her way. Evidence. I caught her by the coop and tossed her back into the run. I didn’t see her leg band. Dang it!
I put the block on top of the netting and made a note to come back in the afternoon to clean out the PVC pipes that hold the stakes of the end post. It’s been wet; water pooled in the pipes and froze. We couldn’t get the post all the way into the ground.
But by the time I got back from my morning errands, Terry had done it! Hooray!
Except it didn’t work. They were out again on Saturday and Sunday. More evidence that they were getting out under the fence was when I saw all the Australorps lined up at the bottom of the netting with their heads stuck through, eating the grass that was greener on the other side. It would be as easy for them to get their heads under the net as through it. Hopefully it will thaw some next week, and we can put earth staples though the net between the posts. Always something.
Earlier in the week, Terry and I went to Chicago on Wednesday. We drove through a few flurries on our way to the train station. By the time we got to the city, the sky was blue, but it was still quite cold and windy. Terry had brought along some handwarmers, which we tucked in our gloves.
We had lunch at Christkindlmarket. I’d seen on Facebook that they had a place selling raclette this year. I hadn’t had raclette since I was in Switzerland in 1980. The stand was right on the corner as we got to the market, and it seemed mobbed with people. It wasn’t really. It was just that a busload of teenagers was entering the market right at the moment. They soon moved on, and I put in my order for a “traditional.” The other choices were with jambon (ham) or salami. Raclette is made by putting cheese under a heating element. When the surface of the cheese gets bubbly and starts to brown, the melted cheese is whisked off with a knife and, in this case, smeared on a baguette. 
Half wheels of cheese under a heating element at the raclette stand
I thought it was pricey at $13, but that was before I knew that the baguette measured a good 18”.
“You want that with everything?” the young man asked.
“Sure,” I said, without asking what that meant. I wanted to have the traditional experience.
The young man scraped off the cheese and schmeared it on the baguette. While the cheese melted more, he drew of wavy line of Dijon mustard on the baguette, sprinkled on sliced scallion greens, and embedded several cornichons in the cheese. He closed the baguette, wrapped the bottom six inches neatly in waxed paper, and put another schmear of cheese on the top and down the outside.
When I found Terry, he was just getting two beers at the beer tent. We went inside where it was warm, but there was no place to sit. We found a place to sit outside, but it was cold. Still, I wanted to sit down and put my beer on a table while I wrangled my half-yard of raclette. It was good at first. If I had it to do over, I would not get the mustard. I ate and ate and ate. I contemplated not eating all of it and wrapping the leftovers in the waxed paper. I hadn’t brought a purse or backpack, and all my pockets were full of essential things I had taken out of my purse (phone, wallet, driver’s license…).  I ate it all. It sat in my stomach like a brick for the rest of the afternoon. Even now, I can’t think of it without getting nauseated.
Terry put his beer on the table and went off to get weisswurst and a pretzel. He wanted his sausage on a bun but his only choices were potato salad or a pretzel. It was a good pretzel, he said. I was disappointed with a pretzel I got a few years ago. It was so dry as to be nearly inedible. Terry’s pretzel was still soft. He ate all of his sausage and half the pretzel. He wrapped his leftovers in waxed paper and stuck it in one of his coat pockets.
We walked up to the store formerly known as Marshall Field. We admired the Tiffany ceiling in the perfume department, wishing that it was located in a less odoriferous area. We rode the escalators to the seventh floor to see the Christmas tree in the Walnut Room. There used to be a viewing area on the 8th floor, but a couple years ago, they moved the furniture department from 8 to 7 and closed access to 8. Terry thought they were using the space for offices, but it looked dark from the Walnut Room.
The tree in the Walnut Room

The seventh floor had a wall of pictures commemorating the history of Marshall Field. I was touched by what we would now call their mission statement. It starts with, “To do the right thing” and includes “to act by reason rather than rule.” 
The Marshall Field mission statement
I grew nostalgic for a time a century ago when a retail business would not only put “the right thing” ahead of profits but also empower its employees to break rules if it made sense to do so. It also suggests that there was a consensus on what the right thing was. That does not seem to be true anymore. It feels like all people do is throw viscous anonymous tweets at each other. And the fact that I am so convinced that I’m right and others are wrong that I won’t even engage in the conversation suggests that I am part of the problem. Sad times. At least I don’t tweet. Enough with politics.
Terry bought a pair of dress gloves that were on sale. He lost a glove at the Rotary Gardens in Janesville last Christmas and has been pining for it. Now he has two gloves that match for the few fancy events that we attend.
We continued our trek eastward to Millenium Park. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Bean in more glorious weather.
Blue sky reflected in the Bean

We went down to the skating rink, getting there just in time for the Zamboni break. Skaters hung around outside the rink while the Zamboni went around and around, spreading a thin layer of water over the scratches and divots. I was surprised that some of the deeper divots remained. I thought that the water would naturally fill in all the low spots. Apparently, there wasn’t that much water.
The Zamboni grooming the ice

After two times around, four rink staff (as identified by their yellow coats) opened a gate.
Opening the Zamboni gate

The Zamboni driver lifted the grooming equipment and drove through…
The Zamboni leaving the rink
And parked the Zamboni in the Zamboni garage. We’d never seen inside the garage before.
The Zamboni in its garage

The skaters took the ice. There was a group of teenagers that we assumed were on a field trip. It was easy to see who knew how to skate and who didn’t. Beginning skaters tip the skates toward the outside, bending their ankles, and push off with only one foot. The better skaters did their best to avoid collisions. Two rink staff members skated slowly around. We didn’t see them do anything else, so I don’t know if they were there to keep a lid on rowdies or to help fallen skaters get up. Maybe both.
I was cold and tired, so we headed back to the train station. Arriving an hour before our train left, I sat down with a latte from Starbucks while Terry went back out to explore a sculpture of a giant baseball bat that was one block west of the station.
The train was more crowded that I anticipated for the 3:45, but we found seats together upstairs. I nodded off soon after the train started moving. Two hours later, we were home again. It was a fun day.


Sunday, December 8, 2019

Cheese and trees


Christmas is coming; the mail is getting fat. Every day brings a bundle of catalogs for things we neither need nor want. Terry once again had the honor of being pre-approved for $1000 credit to buy cheese.
How much cheese does $1000 buy?

Considering the wildly exorbitant prices in the catalog, $1000 doesn’t go as far as one might assume.
We started another jigsaw puzzle Thanksgiving weekend, but this last week was so frantic, I had no time to work on it. There it sat in the middle of Hilda’s living room. We invited Jane to brunch this morning so she and I could get it done.
I came across a recipe for pumpkin pancakes. I was skeptical because it did not call for buttermilk, which I regard as an essential ingredient for light pancakes. It did involve beating egg whites, so I thought it might be okay.
Pumpkin pancakes on the griddle

The pancakes were very good, thin and airy. We ate until we could eat no more, and there were still 9 pancakes left to be microwaved for breakfast later in the week.
Let's plate this dish!

Jane and I worked for two hours to get the puzzle done. As usual, the hardest parts were the “fillers”, in this case, snow and sky. Not much to go on there. We got down to just trying every piece that had the right combinations of innies and outies.
Too much snow...

We got our trees decorated. Hilda used the tiny baskets (which she made back in her basket-making years) and white doves with multi-color lights.
Hilda's tree

We also used multicolor lights and put up our collection of mismatched ornaments, because that’s how we roll.
Our tree

Soon it will be time to bake cookies!

Sunday, December 1, 2019

Thanksgiving weekend


Over the years, I’ve streamlined my Thanksgiving menu so it almost seems easy. To be honest, any meal that centers on roasting a big ol’ hunk of meat seems the least fussy thing you can do. On Wednesday, I made the pie crust, rolled it, and put it in the pie plate to chill overnight. I made the cranberry sauce and mixed up the stuffing. I measured the sugars (brown and white) and spices for the pumpkin pie. Hilda was in charge of the mashed potatoes and green bean casserole. All that remained on Thanksgiving day was to bake the pie early enough to get the turkey in the oven at 9:00.
The pie was done in plenty of time.
Baking the pie was the first order of business Thanksgiving morning

I started the turkey breast side down so the legs and thighs would get cooked before the white meat turned to sawdust. Doug and Pam arrived at noon, just as I was getting ready to flip the bird, so to speak. I put on clean rubberized gardening gloves, grabbed the turkey by the tail and the wishbone and turned it breast side up to finish baking. Apparently, I did not get a picture of the bird when it came out of the oven. You’ll have to take my word that it was a thing of beauty.
Jane arrived soon after Doug and Pam. I had put out a jigsaw puzzle for us to work on while we waited for dinner to finish. I didn’t exactly remember that Pam loved puzzles, but she certainly does, just as much as Jane. We worked on the puzzle while Doug prepared hors d’oeuvres of an assortment of charcuterie (capicola, salami, prosciutto) and cheeses along with a heat-n-eat loaf of bread. He also brought a bottle of champagne. Terry took off the foil and the wire and, setting the bottle on the counter, and walked to the trash can to throw them away. The champagne uncorked itself with enthusiasm. Champagne seemed to go everywhere, but actually, very little was lost from the bottle. Good thing! We would have had to lick it up from the floor.
At 1:00, the turkey was done. It was a bit ahead of schedule, since I planned service at 2:00. Turkey stays hot a long time, though, and I was unconcerned about letting it rest for an hour. Jane got busy on the gravy.
Jane makes gravy

I carved the turkey in my kitchen downstairs. You have to be really confident to carve at the table. In any case, there is no way to do it without making a mess. I consider the kitchen the better choice. No one knows when you just start ripping the legs off with your (impeccably clean) hands. It’s the easiest way. Hands are the cook’s best tools.
When I got upstairs, Hilda was putting the crispy onions on top of the green bean casserole (made from scratch, BTW—no canned mushroom soup here!).
Hilda puts the finishing touches on the green bean casserole

We tucked in, eating too much as the occasion required. We were at table an hour, talking, eating, and drinking fine wine from Doug’s cellar. It was good to have everyone together.
The holiday spread

We took a short break before dessert while Hilda made coffee and I ran downstairs to whip the cream and get the Bailey’s. Jane and Pam went back to the puzzle.
After pie, Pam was reluctant to leave the puzzle undone. Just a few more pieces… But they had to get back to Chicago, and the traffic was only going to get worse. Jane, Terry, and I finished it up. I took a picture and texted it to Pam so she would have closure.
The finished puzzle

Friday was tree cutting day. Pat and Nancy picked up pizza and wings on their way from Mundelein, arriving at 1:30. Jane came up too. After lunch, we turned our attention to Christmas trees. Hilda had picked out her tree earlier. It was growing in a pot out by the creek. Terry dug it out and brought it to the house in the Gator. He and Pat brought it into the house.
Pat and Terry bring Hilda's tree in from the Gator

We went out to consider our options. Terry was wound up tight for some reason. He got his measuring stick and launched into explaining our options. We could cut two short trees or cut the tops of two tall trees. The tall trees had diameters that seemed unlikely to fit in a Christmas tree stand. “I can cut that down,” Terry explained. And then he started over from the beginning in spite of the fact that we had made our decisions. It seemed to me that he was intent on talking until the trees died and fell over on their own. I finally impressed upon him that maybe he should get a saw.
Terry explains our tree options (repeatedly)

I was surprised when he got a chainsaw. In past years, he’d cut trees with a handsaw. Well. It went quickly, that’s for sure.
Terry, his chainsaw, and Pat and Nancy's tree

And here we are with our trees.
All of us with our trees

Jane does not put a tree inside because her cat, Skippy, chews on wires. Terry gave her a pot of Michigan holly. She cut some pine boughs to dress it up for her front porch.
Jane adds pine boughs to her pot of Michigan holly

Pretty soon it was time to leave for Janesville for the holiday lights at the Rotary Gardens. Last year we went to a fancy dinner in a special members-only event and had the place to ourselves. The dinner was a financial loser for the Gardens, however, so this year we had to go with the rabble. I left my camera at home and just enjoyed the experience. It was spectacular, even with the rabble.