Merry Christmas!

It's been a veritable elf's workshop here. I had the mad idea of hand-making a bunch of gifts this year. Rewarding but also incredibly time consuming. Here are some cookies I baked and decorated last night.

And I've also taken to making some bath stuff. This project, a sugar scrub, was super easy.

Just organic cane sugar, grapeseed oil, essential oils, and some fresh rosemary sprigs.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Christmas Cheer

I should be studying for my exam right now - I have a qualifying exam on the history & method of New Testament interpretation tomorrow. I just thought I'd share some of the decorating around here:

You can't see it as well, since it's dimly lit, but the little tree in the middle is a rosemary topiary, decked out with mini Christmas ornaments. It smells lovely!

The sign in the middle is a Löwenbräu beer sign. It's supposed to make the place feel a bit more like a bräuhaus.

Behold! Die Feuerzangenbowle!

Last night I had the chance to see and drink Feuerzangenbowle at a party. It was fantastic. Feuerzangenbowle (foi-yer-zang-en-bowl-uh) is a traditional German alcoholic drink usually served during the holidays. It begins with a cone of sugar (a Zuckerhut*) placed on a metal sieve above a simmering pot of wine, fruit, and spices.


Rum is poured over the sugar until it is soaked, and then it is lit aflame!

More and more rum is poured onto the flames until all the sugar is dissolved and dripped into the spiced wine. It makes quite a spectacle! You can see below that the rum in the ladle (foreground) has caught fire even before being poured onto the sugar.


This makes for a very yummy and veeeerrrrry potent drink - almost an entire bottle of rum went into this concoction! Being the caramel lover that I am, I enjoyed picking off the caramelized and rummy sugar from the sieve. What a great tradition. Just watch your eyebrows!

*Zuckerhut means "sugar hat." So, Germans believe that our Pizza Hut means "pizza hat" and the red thing in the logo is a hat and not the roof of a hut. Or so according to Lucian.