Today’s recipe: Copper Penny Salad / Carrot Salad

I had almost forgotten how beautiful South Africa is and I am so proud of how well the country has jelled together. Yes, there is still a high crime rate, but we are a unified SA so now all nationalities can’t pronounce their vowels! Racism is still rife in all ranks, but the communal cackling of nations going on in this bus doesn’t seem to be aware of it.

Today’s recipe: Elephant stew

In light of all the miserable weather in the northern hemisphere, I am almost ashamed to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the summer sunshine in the southern hemisphere. If it makes you feel any better, I have had a spot of bother with sunburn, food poisoning and hate mail from freezing Europeans…

Thank you to all who have written to moan about my long absence and SORREE about it! Life has been totally crazy here in Africa with lots of things going on all the time, like: family and wild animals, food and food poisoning, luxury breakfast and warthog sausages and I'm only talking about the first day...

But never fear when Crystal's near - in 3 days I will be in Germany and all will be revealed. Sorry for not writing and please stay loyal to me - soooon I will be bothering you with more anecdotes about life and its food and we will never again have a month without one another.

I am sitting in Port Elizabeth, my hometown in sunny South Africa, sipping a cup of coffee and looking out of the window at clear blue skies and I can feel a gentle breeze on my pale European winter skin that must be 25C...sorry folks, but I am in heaven! We arrived in Africa on the 31st and have been travelling a bit since then, so I am a little behind, but SOOOON I will post again and tell you all about it. For now, I just wanted to wish all the best for 2010 and to remind you to enjoy each day to its fullest - it"s worth it. Lol

Thank you for reading my blog! I hope you get as much pleasure out of reading it as I get out of writing it. I intend to continue bothering you with my ranting and raving, and have some cool new ideas for next year...

Today’s recipe: Christstollen (The recipe is at the very end of the post. Da ist auch ein Link zu einem Deutschen Rezept ganz unten.)

I had hoped to get to another Christmas market of an evening to practice my night (naught) photographic skills, but (lucky for you) I have been unable to get to any of late (and late) so day views of how it gets set up (with German efficiency) and clearer photos are on today’s order. Phew, that was a long self-interrupting sentence.

Of all my wonderful memories of England, steak and kidney pie is way up there as a fixed favorite. Friends and family would try to have me eat other foods, but I just HAD to try the steak and kidney pie wherever we went. With LOTS of gravy and NO peas.

I continue with my series on German Christmas biscuits and want to tell you about the most famous cookie in Schwaben or Schwabia, the area in which my in-laws, Karl and Leni, live. Any housewife who has any self-respect whatsoever puts a lot of effort into her Springerle and it is a highly talked about cookie. As always, the recipe is to be found at the end of this post.

Today’s recipes: Hazelnut meringues and Coconut meringues

I saw it up ahead. It was something I had never seen before and I raced forward to get a better look. And sure enough, my worst fears were confirmed. Driving in the slow lane was a BMW sports car, its taillights tucked beneath its bumper. I kid you not. I mean, would one joke about something as serious as this?

Today’s recipe: German Christmas cookies / Vanilla crescents / Vanillenkipferl

Today I send you greetings from Germany where I will be spending the next 5 weeks and where I hope (WILL) to catch up on this blog. The last couple of months have been so hectic and I have neglected my beloved blog something terrible. But all that is bad history and the future holds all things good – including German Christmas cookies/biscuits. My mother-in-law makes 10 to 20 different types each year and each one is a little masterpiece.