Ziemassvētki klāt!

No baznīcas braucot Ziemas svētku vakarā

-Jānis Poruks

Balts sniedziņš snieg uz skujiņām,

Un, maigi dziedot, pulkstens skan;

Mirdz šur tur ciemos ugunis,

Un sirds tā laimīgi pukst man.

Man ir, it kā kad paceltos

Gars augstumos, kur debess telts

Ir pulcējusi eņģeļus,

Kur āres spīd kā spožais zelts.

Es saprotu, es sajūtu,

Ka šeit uz zemes spodrība –

Tas augstākais, ko mums var dot,

Un skaidram būt ir godība.

Ai, māmiņa, cik laba tu:
Tu mani baltu mazgāji,

No acīm skūpstot asaras,

Man svētku drānas uztērpi.

Ai, māmiņa, vai mūžīgi

Es varēšu tāds skaidrs būt,

Jeb vai būs liktens nolēmis

Man citādam virs zemes kļūt?
Balts sniedziņš snieg uz skujiņām,

Un, maigi dziedot, pulkstens skan;

Mirdz šur tur ciemos ugunis,

Un sirds pukst aplaimota man.

Novēlam ikkatram spožus, skaistus Ziemassvētkus, un visu to labāko 2012. gadā!

Our family wishes everyone a warm and magical Christmas, and best wishes in the coming year!

December in the Auvergne - piparkūkas!

The Latvian Christmas cookie is without a doubt the piparkūka. The direct translation would be “peppercake” and they can be compared to gingerbread, but I’ve always thought that they taste more of the molasses and other spices and have a much different texture. The recipe I’ve used the past ten years that my mother gave me calls for cinnamon, ginger, pepper, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, coriander as well as cream of tartar, baking powder and baking soda. Of biggest concern to me (as I had checked and double checked the spice rack to guarantee that I could find all the necessary ingredients I still needed) were the required dark molasses, dark brown sugar and lard. For those familiar with the French brown sugar, it is very light and very granular, and this would take away from the dark brown color of the finished product. The molasses is another tricky ingredient, some cooks swear by a certain brand of unsulphered variety I have only seen in the States, and although my mother promised me Crisco would suffice in place of the lard, I have yet to find anything of the sort in the stores here.

As luck would have it, I stumbled upon Lyle’s Black Treacle in the Irish store nearby, “made from cane molasses… add(ing) a distinctive rich, dark flavour to traditional recipes like... gingerbreads.” I’m not sure if it is unsulphered, but being the closest thing to dark molasses I would find, I decided to take the risk. Then a fellow mom arrived bearing the dark brown sugar and lard I had been searching the past three weeks for; she says she got them at her local supermarket! The lard I understand why I have not seen, I had been searching near the butter and cream, instead it is located in the charcuterie aisle. However, the dark brown sugar I still have not found – I don’t believe any of the stores I frequent carry the brand she brought. But thanks Sue; you saved my yearly cookie ritual!

 A labor of love, the dough takes me more than an hour to make, and then once it is allowed to rest for a few days the real work begins. The dough is not the easiest to work with, it takes a lot of muscle to roll it out as thin as I prefer it and this year I found my ginormous pregnant stomach was interfering with my leverage. But as the ratio of thinness is directly proportional to crispness, taste and cook’s reputation, I labored on. Another shortcut can be taken with size of the cookies, I have cookie cutters in a variety of shapes and sizes, but again, I prefer the bite-sized morsels which just happen to take three times as long to make. Once they are on the pan, they are glazed with egg yolk and then decorated. Traditional decorations include chopped or sliced almonds and rough sugar, and I added in a little chocolate since I had some on hand.

The final and most dangerous portion of the process is the oven. Being so thin they burn to a crisp in an instant, and no two pans take the same amount of time to cook. Being on unfamiliar territory with an oven that had yet to bake its first batch of piparkūkas added to the challenge. The end result was that they took anywhere between 4 to 15 minutes to cook, and often I removed the cookies from the outer edges that cooked faster before returning the rest of the pan to the oven. But I can proudly say, this year’s batch is finished and you are more than welcome to stop by and try one!

Ziemassvētku gaidās – Vilis Plūdonis

„Māsiņ, vai tu zini ko?

Nestāsti tik citiem to!

Eglīti jau rūķītis

Mums uz svētkiem atnesis.

Nejauši to ieraudzīju

Vakar es, kad laukā biju:

Malkas šķūnītis bij vaļā,

Skatos – eglīte stāv zaļa.

Nu vairs, māsiņ, šaubu nav:

Ziemassvētki klātu jau.”

„Nu tu tiešām redzēji?”

„Vai tad tu vēl netici...

Tad vēl citas jaunas ziņas:

Māte ceps ar’ zaķaustiņas!

Piparraušu necepšot:

Tie tik zobus maitājot.”

„Man gan piparrauši garšo...”

„Jā, un cik tie jauki smaršo!...”

„Brālīt! iesim palūgties

Māmiņai, lai cep ar’ tos!”

And here is a quick translation that in no way does this famous Latvian poet justice...

Waiting for Christmas – Vilis Plūdonis

“Sister, did you know?

Only don’t tell anyone else!

A Christmas elf has already brought

Our Christmas tree.

I accidentally saw it

Yesterday, when I was outside:

The woodshed door was open,

And I saw the green tree.

Now there is no doubt:

Christmas is very near.”

“You really saw it?”

“You still don’t believe…

Then more good news:

Mother is cooking zaķaustiņas!

She said she will not cook piparkūkas

Because they are bad for our teeth.”

“But I love piparkūkas…”

“Yes, and they smell so nice!...”

“Brother, let’s go ask

Mother to bake some of those as well!”

With all the cooking we still found time to take a ride on the Christmas train that is taking tours around downtown Clermont. Although not real trains, the little tourist trams are decorated with lovely Christmas lights, run every half an hour, have eight stops including Place de Jaude and the Christmas marché and run between 2pm and 7pm (8pm on Saturdays) every day from now until Christmas.

December in the Auvergne - home stretch!

Thank goodness for the weekend! Just as the Latvian Christmas carol sings Man atnāca Ziemassvētki, Visi darbi nedarīti: Ne krekliņi man mazgāti, Ne nāteles balinātas (Christmas came for me with all the chores undone: the shirts unwashed and the nāteles unbleached), there are many thing yet to be done before Christmas!

We were able to accomplish several things this weekend, the biggest of which was finishing gift wrapping and packing for those gifts to be sent off to family across the Atlantic. Hopefully these presents will not arrive too late!

Putting the final touches on the tree

Sunday morning came the first snow of the season. Puy de Dôme received its first dusting almost a week ago, and although nothing stuck from this morning’s precipitation, it was a nice change from the weather of the last couple of days.

In the south of France they have the Mistral; a regional wind, which usually blows during the winter and spring, lasts one or two days (or sometimes more than a week) and can reach speeds of more than ninety kilometers an hour. What we had Thursday and Friday was something else! Supposedly reaching speeds of over 120 km/hour, I was naïve enough to venture outside and was rewarded with rain in the face and a scare that I would be hit by shingles or panes of glass that were raining down across the city. The Clermont-Ferrand airport was closed, train service discontinued due to downed trees and power lines, and perhaps the saddest result of all, the top of the grand Christmas tree on Place de Jaude was snapped off…

Another item checked off our to-do list was a visit to see Santa. Last year Lauris paid a visit to Ziemassvētku vecītis in Latvija, with many tears and quite a bit of crying being the result. This year was not much different. Lauris was calm as we approached a short and skinny version of Santa in the Place de Jaude mall, and we spent ten minutes watching other children sitting on his lap having their pictures taken. But once it was his turn the previously mentioned waterworks ensued, and the only picture we were able to get of this year’s visit was one with Santa, a teary but well-dressed Lauris, and a disheveled and tired 7 months pregnant mom.

Wishing everyone a productive yet enjoyable last week before Chistmas!

December in the Auvergne - decorating the tree

One of my favorite Latvian Christmas carols, “Ak, eglīte, ak, eglīte,” is an ode to the Christmas tree. It sings of the beauty of the evergreen, and of the peace, light and happiness it brings into the home, be it a castle or a hut. Our beautiful tree has been gracing our living room for over a week now and although the lights were in place soon after its arrival, only a few days ago did we finally hang the decorations.

Lauris helped. Then he un-helped for a bit before helping again. So far there have only been a handful of casualties, and one of them occurred while a certain blogger was attempting to take a few pictures of the ornaments.

When the Christmas tree originally arrived, it proved to be a little taller than our ceiling, so a good meter was cut off. I finally used the last of the cut branches for a garland. This is our first home that has a fireplace, and therefore an ideal location for the Christmas stockings (which will possibly merit another post as I have yet to hang them), the advent wreath, a garland and our numerous holiday knick-knacks and candles.

As we listened to Christmas music, hung ornaments and drank our hot chocolate, I set aside one single decoration: our angel tree topper. It will wait patiently on the shelf until Roberts gets home to place it.

Ak, eglīte, ak, eglīte

Ak, eglīte, ak, eglīte,

Tu patstāvīga esi:

Tu zaļo ziemas aukstumā,

Tāpat kā vasar’s karstumā.

Ak, eglīte, ak, eglīte,

Tu patstāvīga esi.

Ak, eglīte, ak, eglīte,

Tu manim patikt vari:

No Ziemassvētku eglītes

Man spīd daudz gaišas svecītes.

Ak, eglīte, ak, eglīte,

Tu manim patikt vari.

Ak, eglīte, ak, eglīte,

Tavs apģērbs man ko māca:

Patstāvība un cerība

Dod spēku skumjā nestundā.

Ak, eglīte, ak, eglīte,

Tavs apģērbs man ko māca.

Ak, eglīte, ak, eglīte,

Cik skaista tug an esi:

Tu grezno pilis, būdiņas,

Nes visur mieru, līksmību.

Ak, eglīte, ak, eglīte,

Cik skaista tu gan esi!

December in the Auvergne - the Christmas party

A Latvian Christmas carol tells of "the hundred cakes I baked while waiting for Christmas, when a hundred dancing children came to visit."

Simtu cepu kukulīšu,

Ziemassvētku gaidīdama:

Simtiņš nāca danča bērnu

Ziemassvētku vakarā.

The big Christmas party I had been looking forward to for over a month now was on Sunday. As we lost a very dear member of the family last week, Roberts flew back to the US to represent the three of us and so it was only Lauris and I making the drive out to his friend Stephan’s house.

The party had it all; good food, good company, plenty of dancing children for Lauris to run around with and of course, chocolate with firecrackers. A French tradition perhaps?

A potluck lunch, but we didn’t return home until early evening, and there were soon two of us taking a well-deserved nap. Another lovely December weekend, but I am oh-so-happy that it’s over and Roberts is back home with us.