More Holiday Traditions

A little over a month ago, I wrote about my family's ravioli making and the tradition that it comes from. Another tradition that my grandmother started (and one that died when she passed away) was her candy-making.

I have to admit that Gramma was an artiste in the kitchen. She could make the most ordinary of ingredients turn into something fantastic. I would like to think that I got some of her almost magical ability, but I know that I still have a long way to go before I am as good as she is. Every year, for Easter and Christmas, she would make hand-dipped chocolates and other candies to serve with dessert. Her candy grew quite famous among family and friends, and it became a much-anticipated part of our large family gatherings. My mother tells me that she began making her own hand-dipped chocolates in 1980 (when she was 61). I'm not sure where she got the idea, but she perfected it over the next 27 years before she died. She was also very picky when it came to the ingredients she bought. Her chocolate had to come from Ghirardelli. Her other ingredients came from a little shop not too far from where she lived (surprisingly, the shop is still there). She made the candy fondant herself.

At the peak of her candy making, she was rolling out and hand-dipping upwards of 50 pounds of candy. It was given out to family, and friends, and friends of friends. She gave it to her dentist (funny enough, the office loved it and looked forward to their box every year). My sister would take it to work and share it with her boss and her department. Neighbors got some, old neighbors got some. The candy was spread far and wide. Flavors included raspberry, mint, orange, strawberry, coffee, vanilla, chocolate, and more that she would add in as whimsy and taste dictated. Her most famous candy by far, however, were the brandy cherries. Sadly, I have never been able to find any candy anywhere that comes close to these most revered of her candies. This particular candy was not a child-friendly one (lots of alcohol!), and it was almost a rite of passage when you were allowed to finally have one of Gramma's brandy cherries.

After Gramma died, the candy-making tradition seemed to die with her. We never pursued it, although we mentioned often enough how we wished we could make her candy and bring it back. Finally, this Christmas, more than three years since she passed away, we've reignited the tradition. My sister, my mom, and I tried out a couple of her classics using recipes we made up or found online. We put out a batch of English toffee and 24 peanut clusters.

So for you, I will be posting the English toffee recipe we used. The original recipe we used was Paula Deen's English toffee recipe, which can be found here. However, we did change a couple of things.

What you'll need:
14 Tbs. butter
1 c. sugar
2 Tbs. cold water
1 tsp. vanilla
1 dash of salt
6 oz. semisweet chocolate chips or baking chips (Ghirardelli chocolate preferred, of course)
1/2 c. chopped pecans or walnuts
a candy thermometer

What you'll need to do:
1. Generously butter a cookie sheet. This will keep the toffee from sticking to it.
2. In a medium-sized heavy saucepan, add the butter, sugar, and water and heat it over medium-high heat. Bring to a bubbling boil while constantly stirring.
3. Remove the spoon, lower to medium-low heat, and slowly cook the mixture to a very brittle stage. On the candy thermometer the temperature would read 300 to 310 degrees. If you don't have a candy thermometer, a cold water test will work (when dropped into cold water, the candy will separate into hard and brittle threads).
4. Remove from heat and add the vanilla and salt. Stir together and pour the mixture onto the prepared cookie sheet. Spread it around quickly, as it will start to form. Cool slightly, then top with the chocolate and spread it around as it begins to melt. After the chocolate is melted completely, sprinkle the chopped nuts onto the top.
5. Cool the toffee completely. Use a spatula to pry the toffee off of the cookie sheet. Break it into pieces and store in an airtight container.

We may try another batch before Christmas, and we may be doing hand-dipped chocolates next week as well. Unfortunately, since the hand-dipped chocolates are a "family trademark" as my mom calls it, I will not be posting a recipe for those.

Enjoy the toffee!

St. Lucia Day

In the US, many people do not see this day as any different from the rest of the week. To them it's another Monday, the start of another work week, and another day to get through the work load as they wait in anticipation of the upcoming Christmas holiday (or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, or even Festivus). For Sweden's 9.3 million citizens, and the immigrants and descendants of Swedish families that live in the US and other parts of the world, today is not just another weekday. December 13 is St. Lucia Day, and in Sweden it is a huge nationally-celebrated day with its own special traditions.

To give a little history of the holiday, St. Lucia (or St. Lucy) was an Italian saint who died as a Christian martyr. How she came to be celebrated in Sweden is explained in various ways, but Swedish tradition tells of a woman appearing to starving people in Sweden in the Lake Vänern region and bringing them food. She was dressed in white and wearing a crown of burning candles on her head. The woman was believed to be St. Lucy, and this initiated the celebration of her feast day in that region. Eventually, the tradition spread to the rest of Sweden.

As part of the tradition now celebrated, the eldest girl in the family will wake up very, very early before the coming day begins to lighten the sky and dress in a white gown tied with a red sash. On her head she'll put a crown--commonly made of evergreen or lingonberry leaves--with lighted candles in it (the daring will use real lit candles). She'll go around to her family, singing as she goes, to wake them. Often, she will carry food with her, traditionally Lucia buns (called "Lussekattor" in Swedish) and coffee. In Sweden, this tradition takes place everywhere, and even businesses and public buildings like schools and hospitals will participate in their own rendition of the Lucia Day tradition, including having a girl as their own St. Lucia with a train of girls also in white who are her handmaidens; boys join the train too as the "star boys." Do an image search for "St. Lucia Day celebration" and you'll see how big the trains get.

St. Lucia Day celebrations are not held in Sweden alone, although the manner of celebrations differ in other areas. The other Scandinavian countries celebrate this day, as well as Italy and an island in the Caribbean that shares St. Lucia's name. Parts of the US where the population is heavily Scandinavian also have communal celebrations of this day.

In my family, this day is always remembered and the Swedish tradition always kept for two reasons. 1) My father was born and raised in Sweden, and we celebrate this as part of the family's culture. 2) Both of my parents share this day as their birthday, so this has also become a part of their birthday celebration.

When I was a little girl in pre-school, my mother would come to my school as St. Lucia and share this tradition and ceremony with my class. She would wear the white gown and red sash, and on her head would be a crown of greenery with battery-powered candles. Mom would come in, singing Lucia's song, and carrying a tray of goodies for me and my classmates. You can imagine how interesting this was for my classmates whose Christmas figures included Jesus, Santa Claus, Rudolph, and Frosty but no crowned woman in white. At home, she would dress me up in my own Lucia outfit (I was the oldest girl in the household), carefully help me light a candle that I would hold away from my long hair, and jump back into bed with my father to watch me walk in as Lucia's song played on the stereo (since I couldn't memorize the words yet). And of course she would gasp right along with my dad and say how beautiful I looked. This would promptly be followed by coffee (for my parents) and muffins in bed.

As the oldest of my dad's children, I still continue this tradition for them even though I no longer live with them. Years ago, I learned the song so that I could sing it without the help of the stereo. I have a white gown that I pull out of my closet once a year for this holiday, and I wear the sash and crown that my mom wore for me and my classmates so long ago. Since I don't live with them anymore, I sneak into their house very early in the morning, make a pot of coffee, gather a tray of food, and carry it into their bedroom, singing to announce Lucia's arrival (you can see the first verse of the song at the bottom of this post).

I think my mom especially loves having this birthday present every year. Someday, if I have a daughter, this tradition will be passed on to her.

Sankta Lucia:
Natten går tunga fjät
rund gård och stuva;
kring jord, som sol förlät,
skuggorna ruva.
Då i vårt mörka hus,
stiger med tända ljus,
Sankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia.

Translation:
Night walks with a heavy step
Round yard and hearth,
As the sun departs from earth,
Shadows are brooding.
There in our dark house,
Walking with lit candles,
Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!

I'll be posting my weekly recipe tomorrow.

Christmas Time Is Here

This weekend was the true beginning of the holiday season for me. The boxes with the Christmas decorations came out of storage, Scooter and I bought our Christmas tree, and the apartment was decorated with Christmas cheer. This picture is the finished product of our tree. I'm glad we had enough room (thanks to Scooter) for a bigger tree. It meant that more of our special ornaments--like my baby and Swedish ornaments and Scooter's ornaments that he got from his mom--all got to go up on the tree this year. The local radio station that plays Christmas music was playing off the TV, courtesy of our cable provider, we drank cider, and I got my tree looking very much in the spirit of the season. It was a fun way to spend my Sunday, and now the apartment looks very cheery.

Of course I still have my paper to finish, and I'm starting to feel the pressure from it with the deadline a mere six days away. I'm hoping to get enough time to work on it during the week that I'll be able to finish it up on Saturday, read back over it to edit any mistakes, and submit it with a sigh of relief. We'll see what my time at work and in the evenings looks like.

Of course with Christmas comes a lot of Christmas cooking. We have the raviolis which are already done. Next week, my mom, sister, cousin, and I will attempt to try and make the English toffee and hand-dipped chocolates that Gramma also used to make every year. Originally, tomorrow night was the planned date to try our hand at candy-making, but the weather outlook is not so good with a chance of rain. Gramma never made candy when it rained because the chocolate wouldn't set right; there's too much moisture in the air. So hopefully next week we get to try it out and I'll have much to tell about what we try (maybe I'll have pictures too!).

Another thing I'll be making this year (and something that I made last year) is lemon curd. Last year, I included jars of it in tea-themed gift baskets that also included special teas and fresh scones, a nod to the high teas my best friend and I put together every year for the ladies in my family for Mother's Day. These baskets were given out to my extended family, and I've gotten requests to do lemon curd again this year. The recipe I use is from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Lemon curd is actually a lot easier to make than I thought before trying this recipe.

What you'll need:
1 c. sugar
2 Tbs. cornstarch
3 tsp. lemon peel, finely shredded
6 Tbs. lemon juice
6 Tbs. water
6 egg yolks, beaten
1/2 c. butter or margarine, cut up

What you'll need to do:
1. In a medium saucepan, add the sugar and cornstarch. Mix together, then add the lemon peel, lemon juice, and water. Cook it over medium heat until the mixture has become thickened and bubbly.
2. Remove half of the mixture from the saucepan and add it to the egg yolks. Stir until it is mixed together. Slowly return the egg mixture to the saucepan to keep the egg from solidifying.
3. Cook over medium heat while stirring constantly until the curd comes to a gentle boil. Cook and stir for another two minutes.
4. Remove saucepan from heat. Add the butter and stir until it has completely melted. Cover the saucepan with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for about an hour.

If your curd has a few pieces of solidified egg in it from when you added the egg yolks into the saucepan, you can strain them out before putting up the lemon curd. It's not necessary, but I know some people (like me) are perfectionists. This recipe will give you about two cups.

With so many of us struggling to make ends meet, there is nothing wrong with giving others homemade things as Christmas gifts. Feel free to use this recipe for your own gift baskets. Enjoy!