Class of 2021

Still a bit emotional from the unexpectedly touching graduation ceremony of my son’s class yesterday, I’ve been smiling all day, reliving the 2 solid hours of Waldorf spirit I absorbed yesterday. The kids had organized the event at the last minute, and everything was a bit improvised but charming, heartfelt and happy. It so happened that it was also Summer Solstice yesterday, which for many is quite a spiritual night. It felt very fitting because the grounds of the Steiner School have this extremely rich atmosphere with old trees and buildings, lots of animals and music and art all over the place, positively dripping with anthroposophic history. I felt blessed to be a guest there, and thought how cool it must have been to be a student.

For those who don’t know, our little Waldorf school ends with the Waldorf graduation in the 12th grade, which is not the same one you get from a regular school, which you need for applying to university. If you wish to acquire that, you go to a different, larger, Waldorf school in the 13th grade in order to acquire the equivalent of high school graduation. Our school partners with the esteemed Berlin Steiner School, so my son and his classmates migrated there for their final year.

Everyone passed, which is quite the achievement in and of itself in times of Covid and 4 months of online classes. But not only that – one of the teachers announced that the class of 2021 managed to score the highest grade point average in the school’s history. They must be quite the bunch, right?

So, there they were, leaning against the railing, holding their precious graduation certificates in their hands, big, big smiles on their young faces. There were moving songs, there was a touching poetry slam, and there was a wonderful speech by one of the German teachers, which ended with everyone reciting the famous morning verse together, which in English goes like this:

I look into the world
Wherein there shines the sun
Wherein there gleam the stars
Wherein there lie the stones.
The plants they live and grow.
The beasts they feel and live.
And humankind to spirit gives
A dwelling in the soul.
I look into the soul.
That living dwells in me
God’s spirit lives and weaves
In sunlight and in soul-light
In heights of worlds without
In depths of soul within
To thee O spirit of God,
I seeking turn myself
That strength and grace and skill
For learning and for work
In me may live and grow.

It was an uplifting experience, a crowd of about 150 people murmuring those familiar words :-).

Tonight, the class is partying on the big field near our cottage, which will hopefully be a memorable final get together, before they all disappear into their respective vacations and summer projects:

So. That happened! Other things happened also. Made a dent in the substantial dessert chapter of my translation of Julia Child’s Art of French Cooking, volume II. Ordered aqua shoes for Croatia, because sea urchins, ouch! Rented out our cottage to a British couple who are coming out to kayak for the time we’re traveling. Finished another pair of socks, because the European soccer championship lends itself to watching and knitting:

Pretty, huh? Couldn’t resist the color sequence! It gives me great joy.

And I made a coaster for this ridiculously cute teapot I got for a friend who said she needed a small teapot for work. I hope this isn’t too small for her?! It’s supposed to be for 2 cups. I promise it’s not a toy. But, I did keep the receipt, so we can return it in case she wants a larger one after all.

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Food has taken a back seat the last week, because we experienced a sudden heat wave, and all I was capable of was cutting up water melon, throwing together a salad, and defrosting the occasional pizza. Thank goodness, the temperatures have dropped again. Not sure how I’ll survive 2 weeks by the Adria coast – oh right, we have a pool. That’s how ;-).

On this happy note, let me wish you a good rest of the week, and as always, thank you for reading :-).

Do you Have a Food Blog?

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That is a question I’m frequently asked when I give in to my urge to snap a picture of my food, or something that looks like it has the potential of becoming something good to eat, or when I send or show my friends something I made. It’s not a coincidence that this is one of the more important categories on this site, here in my little corner of the Internet.

It’s the lovely month of June, and for 2 weeks now, the weather has been seasonally appropriate. This also means two blooming edibles I’d like to talk about today: elder flower and acacia blossoms.

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From the former you can make a sweet and fragrant drink, elder flower cordial. I’m not sure I ever said how to do that on here, but I’ll tell you, if you’d like to make it – it’s easy, and delicious. From the other, you make yet another dish from my childhood. In France they go by the fancy name of beignets d’acacie, but we just called them acacia flower fritters.

So, the drink first. If you live in the vicinity of a park, go scavenging, and collect about 20 flowerets. Watch out for critters, as they tend to huddle on the stems. But you’ll be cutting those off anyways in order not to have a bitter aftertaste, so you should be protein free without much of a fuss.

1 kg sugar

1 l water

4 lemons

1 orange

In a large pot, boil down the syrup, stirring until sugar has dissolved. In the meantime, wash and slice up your fruit. Throw the largely stem free blossoms and the fruit in the hot syrup, let cool, cover and walk away for about 3 days.

Find some bottles with well fitting lids. I bought these when we needed them for the school bazaar a few years back. You can wash and reuse them, no problem. Remember to sterilize them right before you pour in your finished syrup.

Stir the concoction every once in a while, tasting the flavor. When you feel happy about the way it tastes, strain through a sieve in which you’ve placed a clean cheesecloth, to filter out unwanted particles. Pour the liquid back into the cooking pot and bring to a rapid boil. Then pour into the sterilized bottles and let cool. Dilute to taste, with either sparkling water or Prosecco. Chin-Chin!

The acacia flower fritters are, as many of my childhood foods, also a memory of my dad. To this day, acacia honey is my favorite, and this may well be the reason why: When I was little, we lived on a quiet cobble stoned street in a provincial city in Romania. Our street led to a tiny square, the Piata Schiller, which was, in those days anyway, flanked by acacia trees. They couldn’t have been very big, because my dad was able to reach the blossoms, which he collected in a basket. At home, he made some sort of pancake batter (no idea how, exactly), dipped the whole stems, blossoms and all, in and pan-fried them. There may have been powdered sugar on top. I never really connected the dots to trying this out myself, but this year, when walking Charlie at the community forest, I suddenly found myself with a few of these blossoms literally in my face, and happened to think of it. I brought a small, sweet smelling bag home with me.

Online investigation led me to beignet recipes, which call for separating eggs and beating egg whites, also lemon zest. Feeling too impatient for that, I just made a rather thick pancake batter of 2 eggs, flour, 1/4 l milk, a pinch of salt, and a few TBSP of sugar. Also, I zested a lemon and added the zest, because why not.

After careful washing and patting dry on paper towels, I heated a generous amount of oil in a frying pan, and then did what my dad had done like 4 decades ago. It was very exciting!

I’ll admit the shape could use work – but I was so happy with the result anyway. I let them rest on a paper towel to soak up the fat, and rather than adding extra sugar, I squeezed some fresh lemon on mine, yum!

Since it seems to be that kind of day today, I started cooking this morning, making my own version of eggplant puree, melitzanosalata in Greece, or as it’s called in Romanian, vinetesalata. This is also something my dad used to make, and it was a complicated process of roasting the whole eggplants on the stovetop, wrapped in aluminum foil, salting them when done, letting them cool, scraping off the charred peel, and chopping them up with this wooden tool, on this wooden board:

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The wood is for avoiding oxidation – which would happen when you chop the vegetables with an iron knife, or something. This is a historic tool, no clue how old, a family heirloom, I think. So, vinetesalata is also a dish I never made before – until today, as you can see above. I live in a place where Greek restaurants, Turkish shops and Lebanese eateries are abound, so it never really occurred to me, I suppose. This morning I found an eggplant in the veggie drawer, and was inspired.

I did not roast the whole thing, but instead did this:

Vinete My Way

1 eggplant

1 green onion

1 clove garlic

sprig of fresh dill

salt, pepper, sugar, paprika powder

olive oil

lemon, a dash of white balsamic vinegar

Cubed the eggplant and fried it in olive oil with a bit of garlic, until the pieces got really mushy. Then I pureed them with a tiny bit of fresh green onion, some olive oil, a dash of vinegar, a pinch of sugar and some dill (because I did not have any fresh parsley), diluted with 125 ml yogurt, seasoned the creamy paste with some more lemon juice, salt, pepper and a tiny bit of paprika, added a good slosh of olive oil, and called it good.

The bread happened this afternoon. I’m really looking forward to a nice Balkan dinner tonight :-).

So, there you go, an all food blog post!

However, I do feel I should add this:

Thanks for the kind inquiries! Yes, our boy graduated high school, with decent grades to boot – and now the world is his oyster. There has been quite a bit of partying going on among the class of 2021. We’re very happy, relieved and grateful he could see all the hard work pay off. It’s just a great feeling, accomplishing things, isn’t it?

We’ll talk crafts when I come back. I have been knitting, a little, finished a pair of birthday socks, and started a new pair, nothing too exciting, but pretty anyways. Making socks is gratifying because, to me, it’s quick work – but more about that next time.

Enjoy your weekend, and thank you for reading :-).

A Weekend in Bed

Last week was memorable for a number of reasons. Our son passed his oral exams with flying colors, which is amazing. Also, said son and I got our first shot of Covid vaccine on Friday, which led to a weekend largely spent in bed with the side-effects. It wasn’t pretty. Fever, joint pain, headaches – in my case, lingering, and I’m a little stupid with it, after four days in a row. It’s not alarming enough to suspect thrombosis, so I’ll just have to sit it out. Good thing I submitted my manuscript early last week. And good thing I have you to talk to, since I can’t really concentrate on work.

Since I could do little else but veg out, play with my Sudoku app and drink copious amounts of tea, I decided some knitting in bed was indicated. There were projects to finish! What you see above is the Strawberry Hat, modeled by a somewhat disgruntled Charlie. Don’t worry, we took it off of him right away. No animals were harmed, not at this house! The hat needs a pompom still, but my daughter was so happy to see I was done that she made grabby hands and wore it all Sunday, which ended up being a Pyjamas Day for all of us. Haven’t had any of those for a while now, and once the pain meds kicked in, it wasn’t so bad.

Next, I finished the socks for Cousin A in the states.

Hopefully, they will keep his feet cozy. I like the color flow. It reminds me of the ocean, which I’d dearly love to see again this year. We’ll see if it’s in the cards. Infection rates have gone down, thank goodness, so we may get lucky.

On Sunday, I started the next pair of socks, birthday socks for a young friend, who couldn’t really make up her mind about color and said darkish, maybe navy, maybe grey – so this is what she’s getting:

I’m considering giving her a navy heel and toe in case I get bored with the soft heather grey. A bit like the one on the right, obviously with a different color scheme.

Not to give you the wrong impression – I may be bitching about the headache, but I’m really happy to put up with it as I’m sure it beats the alternative, by miles. I feel relieved, grateful, and so, so fortunate to live in a place where we have access to modern medicine.

Re. food: I was asked for the recipe for a cake I made the weekend before. It was a leftovers cake, mostly, for which I used random ingredients I found in the cupboard at the cottage, that ended up tasting yummy as I threw them together. Check it out:

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Chopped Apple Cake with Hazelnut Praline

3 small, ancient apples from the veggie drawer (or 2 regular sized), peeled and chopped

300 g flour (I used spelt flour)

1 p baking powder

200 g butter, softened

150 g sugar

3 eggs

1 P vanilla sugar

Pinch of nutmeg

Pinch of salt

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

Handful of hazelnuts, coarsely crushed

100 g yogurt

Handful of store-bought hazelnut praline

First, cream the butter until fluffy. Gradually add sugar, continuing to beat until sugar crystals dissolve. Add salt , vanilla and nutmeg, and one egg at a time. Continue beating. Add yogurt, lemon zest and juice, and nuts. Finally, fold in the flour and baking powder.

Pour batter into a baking dish, top with the apples and hazelnut praline, and bake for 45-5o minutes at 170 °C.

The nutmeg was added on a whim, but I have to say it gives the cake a really nice and unexpected aroma.

Back to graduation – wish our teenager luck for tomorrow, which is the day they’ll be told their grades. It might mean he’ll get to sit a re-examination (he has the feeling he could have done better in math, and his GF knows for certain she could have). It might also mean that he’s done with school. Either way, the day holds great significance for this family and my son in particular, and we’ll take all your crossed fingers, please and thank you.

But since restaurants have finally opened for outdoor dining again, we booked a table at our favorite Greek taverna anyway. We have not had dinner at a restaurant in 6 months, I think.

Sorry if this post seems a little frazzled. At this point, I’m not sure what it reads like, as it is a precise reflection of my current state of mind. Thank you for reading it anyway!