Autumn ramble.. and celebrations

Next to Spring, Autumn is one of my favorite time of the year. The kids would probably say "winter" because of the highly anticipated Christmas presents. But Autumn is definitely more fun even if we do need to do a bit of raking in our own backyard! Everywhere is a jumble of glorious gold and brown chaos. There'll be chestnuts to gather and beautiful leaves to collect. And there is no sound more delightful, than the sound of leaves crunching under our feet as we ramble through the woods. Autumn also means a lot of festive celebrations. 

A ramble in the woods

In Germany, we celebrate the "Erntedankfest" on the first Sunday of October. It closely resembles Thanksgiving. Although we do not actually celebrate this at home, most kindergartens and schools generally make a special day of it. Baby M made apple juice from the apples harvested in the kindergarten's orchard, then all parents (grandparents and guests) were invited to a lunch of vegetable soup accompanied  by homemade juice. Baby A's school did something similar, combining that with Halloween. 

In November, the children will be looking forward to St. Martin's Day. The highlight is a procession of children with candle-lit lanterns. Although St. Martin's Day falls on November 11, the procession in our town has been fixed to the nearest Saturday, thus November 10 this year. With the route arranged before hand, all street lights along the way will be turned off punctually at 18:00. Led by a horse rider dressed as St. Martin, we will be accompanied by a couple of marching bands. There will be a giant bonfire and sweet buns for all children made in the shape of St. Martin at the end of the procession. At the moment, everyone is putting on finishing touches on their lanterns. (More of this in the next Blog).

Kaya and Gruyère

Fusion food doesn't come more extreme than this...

Kaya is a rich "coconut egg jam", made primarily of coconut milk, eggs and generously flavored with screw pine leaves (or "pandan"). This "jam" has its roots in the South East Asia. It is most popularly found between buttered toast, often taken at breakfast or tea time. 

As it was something I had enjoyed as a child, I had made sure to have a continuous supply of them since residing here in Germany. So it is no surprise that both our kids find it as a delicious, creamy spread, that is heartily devoured for breakfast. 

This combination however, it entirely Baby A's. With her weekend Brezel, she'll spread a thick layer of Kaya (imported, naturally) over butter, and have it topped up with layers of Gruyère. For us, Gruyère is considered to be the best Swiss cheese. It is slightly sweet yet slightly salty, with a flavor that varies widely with age (we like it aged!). But put them together... WOW! Baby A really enjoys the explosion of taste... Yup, this means, she eats and we stare...:-)) 

Creamy Kaya on buttery Brezel

The ultimate breakfast topped with mouth watering Gruyère

Scary muffins for School Buffet

Baby A had a Halloween/Autumn party in school this week. In Germany, Halloween was generally unheard of before 1990. Later, like Valentine's Day (or Grandparents Day for that matter - I bet you've not heard of this one. It's sort of vaguely "celebrated" on October 14) it's now a commercial success. For children, it's just another reason to dress up and party.

Some German families, normally in new residential areas, do organize among themselves for a couple of hours after dark of "Treat or Tricking" (Here, they'll say "Süßes oder Saures"). It's pre-arranged, so the children would actually know which house to go to. The area where we live in, we are not very much into it... yet. (So ask me again next Wednesday).

Yesterday, I baked 2 dozens of chocolate muffins for Baby A's party at School. In class, they'd carved pumpkins and made pumpkin soup. Other mums volunteered to varied the buffet. As Baby A wanted chocolate, she got 24 gooey chocolaty muffins. We don't do scary.. so sticking eye balls or amputated fingers were out of the question. Instead, we went "funny-scary-yummy".

A quick google later, we came up with this simple to do combination. You can download the spiderwebs template from the Country Living website. The kids loved it, especially the webs and the funny toppers. (And I'm pretty sure they've gobbled down the muffins too.)

Muffin toppers

Ready for the party!

Old (BIG) box, new toy

A recycled AMAZON box (and egg cartons)

We got a delivery of something huge last month. As usual, the kids were completely ecstatic, excited with the  implication of its size, and what we could actually make out of it. First, there was a loud discussion on what it could possibly be. I told them we could only make one thing out of it, so that led to the second heated discussion. Then it was decided that I'm going to turn it into a little house, complete with two garret windows. While I was busy with a pair of very sharp scissors and a hot glue gun, I got the kids started on creating pink flowered creepers out of old egg cartons (painted in pink acrylic paint), and some colored pipe cleaners.

And here's the end result. It's now sitting in the playroom, sometimes used as a reading house.. but more often simply as a place to hide.