A blessed holiday season to you from 100 Years in America

Thanks to my faithful 100 Years in America readers who have checked back here for updates every now and then over the past year.  I have neglected to "officially" announce that I was taking a break from blogging this year because I really haven't wanted to do so.  Yet here it is almost Christmas!

I hope you'll find me here at 100 Years in America more often during 2011 than I have been in the recent past.  Have a wonderful holiday season and I hope you'll take some time to visit some of my earlier Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories articles and pay a few more visits back here in 2011!


My family's Hungarian Kifli recipe (otherwise known as "Gramma's Christmas Cakes") is one of my holiday favorites.

Kifli again: Hungarian Christmas Cakes revisited

Some of you may have read this article when it was posted last Wednesday, December 2, and are wondering why it has reappeared this week. It was posted earlier on Day 2 of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 (theme: Holiday Foods) and also submitted to the GeneaBloggers Holiday 2009 Recipe Contest and Holiday Cookbook, but I couldn't resist sharing it again this week to be included within the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 8: Christmas Cookies. And by the way, if you haven't gotten around to trying your hand at making your own kifli, here's one more reminder before Christmas Day!

One of the most enjoyable holiday treats in my childhood memory (counting all the holidays) was one of my grandmother's specialties. Everyone in our family calls them "Gramma's Christmas Cakes". When I was a child and the Christmas season rolled around we could always be sure that these delicious treats would make an appearance. Sometimes we would hear in advance that Gramma was working on them. (Later in life I learned how labor intensive they were.) Other times we would be surprised by the sudden appearance of a pretty doily-decorated plate loaded with the apricot jelly-filled crescent-shaped goodies. Every now and then Gramma's beloved Christmas Cakes would make an appearance at Easter, to the great delight of those who enjoyed them the most.

Inspired to carry on the tradition of baking these holiday goodies, I invited Gramma over to my home one day to have her teach me how to do it. I learned that day just what a labor of love Gramma had performed for her family for so many years. With my own small children causing distractions underfoot throughout the whole process, I gained a new appreciation for my dear grandmother and her patience and dedication to Christmas Cakes and her role as grandmother and great-grandmother.

Gramma had learned to make Christmas Cakes by watching her mother-in-law, who had immigrated to America from northeastern Hungary. Because of this I assumed that the recipe was probably something from that region. It was only a few short years ago that I learned, thanks to a letter from a family member of my grandmother's generation, the true identity of these goodies. Like so many of our ancestors who emigrated from their home countries and found it more convenient to Americanize their names, the Christmas Cakes had done the same. Their Hungarian name was Kifli. I was thrilled to learn this and also to find that recipes for them were found in many Hungarian cookbooks and orders could be placed for them with Hungarian bakeries even in the U.S.

Of course, nothing can replace the taste of Gramma's own version of kifli. With the understanding that written directions can never replace watching and learning from an expert like Gramma, here is my version of Gramma's recipe for those of you that are interested in giving them a try:

100 Years in America's
Family Kifli Recipe
Otherwise known as "Gramma's Christmas Cakes"Apricot Jelly3 lbs. apricots
1 1/2 cups sugar
Cinnamon

Put them in a pot with enough water to cover them plus about 1 inch more
Cook for about 45 minutes until soft, stirring frequently
Mash the apricots
Add sugar
Cook about 1 1/2 to 2 hours until very thick (the longer the better), stirring frequently
Sprinkle the jelly with cinnamon
Christmas Cakes4 cups flour
1/2 lb. sweet butter at room temperature
6 eggs - separated - at room temperature
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
8 oz. sour cream at room temperature
4 tablespoons sugar
1 packet of yeast (prepared by mixing with 1 teaspoon sugar & about 1/4 cup milk)
Homemade apricot jelly
1 lb. walnuts (add 4 teaspoons sugar to each lb. when chopped)
Confectioner's sugar

Mix flour with butter and then salt and sugar
Make a well in the middle - add egg yolks, vanilla and sour cream gradually
Mix and kneed until smooth (keep working the dough until ready)
Use flour to make it not too sticky (can freeze - wrap in freezer paper and cover with flour)
Roll out dough
Cut the dough into 4 pieces
Chop walnuts and whip egg whites
Roll out one of the 4 pieces of dough
Cut into individual 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 squares and fill with a heaping teaspoon of homemade apricot jelly
Roll each into a horn (crescent)
Top each with egg whites and nuts
Bake in the oven at 350 degrees until light brown (about 30-35 minutes)

Kifli may also be served with a prune filling (prepared similarly to the apricot filling) or a walnut filling, although the apricot kind has always been the favorite in my family. If using walnut filling, add boiled milk to the nuts until pasty, then grated lemon rind.

I am always happy to hear that family members are baking a batch of Christmas Cakes and continuing to keep them in the family for the future generations to enjoy and remember.

We join with generations of Hungarian families that have made and enjoyed these goodies. In fact, the origin of kifli may go back to the 17th century. According to The Urban Fakanál by Andrea Miklós on The New Hungarian Voice webpage, legend has it that Budapest was threated by Ottoman Turks at the end of the 1600's. Supposedly the Turks intended to capture the city by building tunnels under the city wall. Hungarian bakers, who worked the early shift, caught the Turks in action and the attempt failed. To remember their success, the city's bakers baked bread in the shape of the Turkish Empire's emblem: the crescent. Kifli immediately became popular in Budapest and Vienna. In the 18th century, Marie Antoinette may have brought kifli back to Paris, inspiring the French to make their own version: the famous French croissant.

If you're pressed for time or not brave enough to try making your own kifli, here are a few bakeries in the U.S. that offer them for purchase:

• Dobo's Delights Bake Shoppe of Piqua, OH
• Hungarian Bakery of Earlysville, VA

Kifli image copyright © 2007 by Smallest Leaf Press. All Rights Reserved.
This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It is included this year as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 2: Holiday Foods and Day 8: Christmas Cookies. Make a visit to Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article originally appeared here at 100 Years in America and was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

From the corner of my grandmother's kitchen (Advent Calendar: Holiday Foods)

Images of my grandmother's kitchen work like a slideshow timeline in my memory. I remember as a young girl sitting in the corner at the table in her tiny kitchen while she, aproned and always beautifully dressed, worked busily to prepare a meal for visiting family members (including me). Gramma worked miracles in that tiny kitchen which was hardly bigger than the closet in my bedroom today. In later years, she moved to a newer home and a larger kitchen - and more family. What a joy to bring my own children to my grandmother's home to enjoy her warm hospitality and delicious concoctions.

I was well into adulthood when I made a realization: the foods that I thought were just Gramma's specialties were not just her own. She was a Hungarian chef - and her menu could be found in many other Hungarian homes. Imagine my surprise when I picked up a Hungarian cookbook for the first time and found Gramma's cucumber salad, stuffed cabbage, cottage-cheese-filled crepes, apricot-jelly-filled crepes, apple pie and apricot-jelly-filled Christmas Cakes. There they were going by names such as uborka salatá, töltött káposzta, palacsinták, almás pite and kifli! (In that particular order, in case you're wondering.) I had always thought that they were Gramma's distinctive menu - now I knew that her dishes had a much longer history and a much wider appreciation than only our extended family.

Since my amazing culinary discovery, I've enjoyed a couple of Hungarian cookbooks in particular. Earlier when discussing szaloncukor, I mentioned Anikó Gergely's Culinaria Hungary. It is a wonderful resource for recipes, culture, traditions and all things Hungarian. According to Gergely, a Hungarian Christmas celebration would not be complete without borleves (wine soup), rántott ponty (breaded fillets of carp) or halászlé (fish soup), mákos guba mézzel (poppy seed pudding with honey), karácsonyi pulykasült (Christmas turkey), or roast pig or töltött káposzta (stuffed cabbage), párolt alma (stewed apples) and diós és mákos bejgli (poppy seed and nut rolls). I'm personally not familiar with all of these dishes, but they sound delicious.

Another good book for Hungarian recipes is Susan Derecskey's The Hungarian Cookbook. Derecskey did a wonderful job converting the traditional recipes of Hungarian grandmothers into forms that modern day American cooks can easily use in their kitchens. Perhaps the best part of the book is her substitution of hard-to-find Hungarian ingredients with items that are more readily available in America. Although The Hungarian Cookbook does not have a Christmas section, many of the recipes found in it are traditional foods that are often found within Hungarian holiday feasts.

Croatian Christmas feasts do not differ greatly from the traditional Hungarian fare. The Best of Croatian Cooking by Liliana Pavicic and Gordana Pirker-Mosherg has a nice chapter on Croatian Christmas traditions. Traditional Christmas foods include bakalar (cod fish), honey cake, Christmas breads, sarma (stuffed cabbage), mlinci (turkey with pasta), odojak (roasted pig), orehnjača (walnut roll), makovnjača (poppy seed roll), loza (Grappa) and more.

I guess it is never too early to begin planning a Christmas feast, especially if you decide to try creating some new dishes.

I'm getting hungry just thinking about it...

...and wishing I was that little girl again sitting in the corner of my grandmother's kitchen.

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It will be included as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 2: Holiday Foods. Make a visit to Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article originally appeared here at 100 Years in America and was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

Kifli by any other name (Advent Calendar: Holiday Foods)

One of the most enjoyable holiday treats in my childhood memory (counting all the holidays) was one of my grandmother's specialties. Everyone in our family calls them "Gramma's Christmas Cakes". When I was a child and the Christmas season rolled around we could always be sure that these delicious treats would make an appearance. Sometimes we would hear in advance that Gramma was working on them. (Later in life I learned how labor intensive they were.) Other times we would be surprised by the sudden appearance of a pretty doily-decorated plate loaded with the apricot jelly-filled crescent-shaped goodies. Every now and then Gramma's beloved Christmas Cakes would make an appearance at Easter, to the great delight of those who enjoyed them the most.

Inspired to carry on the tradition of baking these holiday goodies, I invited Gramma over to my home one day to have her teach me how to do it. I learned that day just what a labor of love Gramma had performed for her family for so many years. With my own small children causing distractions underfoot throughout the whole process, I gained a new appreciation for my dear grandmother and her patience and dedication to Christmas Cakes and her role as grandmother and great-grandmother.

Gramma had learned to make Christmas Cakes by watching her mother-in-law, who had immigrated to America from northeastern Hungary. Because of this I assumed that the recipe was probably something from that region. It was only a few short years ago that I learned, thanks to a letter from a family member of my grandmother's generation, the true identity of these goodies. Like so many of our ancestors who emigrated from their home countries and found it more convenient to Americanize their names, the Christmas Cakes had done the same. Their Hungarian name was Kifli. I was thrilled to learn this and also to find that recipes for them were found in many Hungarian cookbooks and orders could be placed for them with Hungarian bakeries even in the U.S.

Of course, nothing can replace the taste of Gramma's own version of kifli. With the understanding that written directions can never replace watching and learning from an expert like Gramma, here is my version of Gramma's recipe for those of you that are interested in giving them a try:

100 Years in America's
Family Kifli Recipe
Otherwise known as "Gramma's Christmas Cakes"

Apricot Jelly

3 lbs. apricots
1 1/2 cups sugar
Cinnamon

Put them in a pot with enough water to cover them plus about 1 inch more
Cook for about 45 minutes until soft, stirring frequently
Mash the apricots
Add sugar
Cook about 1 1/2 to 2 hours until very thick (the longer the better), stirring frequently
Sprinkle the jelly with cinnamon

Christmas Cakes

4 cups flour
1/2 lb. sweet butter at room temperature
6 eggs - separated - at room temperature
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
8 oz. sour cream at room temperature
4 tablespoons sugar
1 packet of yeast (prepared by mixing with 1 teaspoon sugar & about 1/4 cup milk)
Homemade apricot jelly
1 lb. walnuts (add 4 teaspoons sugar to each lb. when chopped)
Confectioner's sugar

Mix flour with butter and then salt and sugar
Make a well in the middle - add egg yolks, vanilla and sour cream gradually
Mix and kneed until smooth (keep working the dough until ready)
Use flour to make it not too sticky (can freeze - wrap in freezer paper and cover with flour)
Roll out dough
Cut the dough into 4 pieces
Chop walnuts and whip egg whites
Roll out one of the 4 pieces of dough
Cut into individual 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 squares and fill with a heaping teaspoon of homemade apricot jelly
Roll each into a horn (crescent)
Top each with egg whites and nuts
Bake in the oven at 350 degrees until light brown (about 30-35 minutes)

Kifli may also be served with a prune filling (prepared similarly to the apricot filling) or a walnut filling, although the apricot kind has always been the favorite in my family. If using walnut filling, add boiled milk to the nuts until pasty, then grated lemon rind.

I am always happy to hear that family members are baking a batch of Christmas Cakes and continuing to keep them in the family for the future generations to enjoy and remember.

We join with generations of Hungarian families that have made and enjoyed these goodies. In fact, the origin of kifli may go back to the 17th century. According to The Urban Fakanál by Andrea Miklós on The New Hungarian Voice webpage, legend has it that Budapest was threated by Ottoman Turks at the end of the 1600's. Supposedly the Turks intended to capture the city by building tunnels under the city wall. Hungarian bakers, who worked the early shift, caught the Turks in action and the attempt failed. To remember their success, the city's bakers baked bread in the shape of the Turkish Empire's emblem: the crescent. Kifli immediately became popular in Budapest and Vienna. In the 18th century, Marie Antoinette may have brought kifli back to Paris, inspiring the French to make their own version: the famous French croissant.

If you're pressed for time or not brave enough to try making your own kifli, here are a few bakeries in the U.S. that offer them for purchase:

• Dobo's Delights Bake Shoppe of Piqua, OH
• Hungarian Bakery of Earlysville, VA

Kifli image copyright © 2007 by Smallest Leaf Press. All Rights Reserved.

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It will be included as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 2: Holiday Foods. Make a visit to Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article originally appeared here at 100 Years in America and was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

Doing your Easter baking?

As you do your baking on this Holy Saturday (or enjoy the scents from the kitchen) I thought you might be interested in a few recipes for Easter breads from different cultures. Enjoy!

Croatian Easter Bread (Paška)
1 cake or package yeast

2 cups lukewarm milk
9 cups flour
1 cup butter, soft
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon salt

Crumble yeast into bowl. Add 1 cup milk and 1 cup flour.

Mix and set aside to rise in warm place.

Cream butter; add sugar and eggs and mix well.

Add remaining milk. Knead until dough is smooth and elastic.

Set aside in warm place until double in bulk. Form into desired shapes.
Allow dough to rise in double buld in pans;

bake at 350 F for 30 to 35 minutes.

Halfway through baking, brush top with beaten egg yolk to which
a little milk has been added.
Tip: If you melt 1 stick butter and knead into dough

it will keep paška soft.

From "Our Favorite Recipes" St. Anthony Croatian Catholic Church,

Los Angeles, California compiled by Karen Mintzias.

Hungarian Easter Loaf

1 sugar cube

3 cups (700 ml) milk

1 3/4 cakes (30 g) compressed yeast

8 1/2 cups (1 kg) flour

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon salt

Scant 1 cup (100 g) confectioners' sugar

Generous 1/2 cup (140 g) butter

1 egg for glazing

Dissolve the sugar cube in scant 1/2 cup (100 ml) lukewarm milk.

Crumble into the milk the yeast and leave for about 10 minutes in a warm place.

Sift the flour, and combine with the egg yolk, salt and yeast mixture.

Add the confectioners' sugar, half the butter, and the remaining milk, slightly warmed.

Knead to a smooth dough, using the dough hook of a mixer.

When the dough begins to come away from the sides of the bowl, add

the remaining softened butter, a teaspoonful at a time.

Knead in firmly. Sprinkle with flour, then cover with a

kitchen cloth and leave to rise in a warm place until doubled

in size (about 30 minutes).

Divide the dough into three equal portions,

and shape each into a long roll on a floured working surface.

Braid them together. Place on greased baking tray to

prove again and double in size.

Preheat the oven to 400 F (200 C).

Brush the loaf with beaten egg, and bake for 45-50 minutes.

Allow to cool completely before slicing.

From Anikó Gergely's Culinaria Hungary.

Kifli by any other name

One of the most enjoyable holiday treats in my childhood memory (counting all the holidays) was one of my grandmother's specialties. Everyone in our family calls them "Gramma's Christmas Cakes". When I was a child and the Christmas season rolled around we could always be sure that these delicious treats would make an appearance. Sometimes we would hear in advance that Gramma was working on them. (Later in life I learned how labor intensive they were.) Other times we would be surprised by the sudden appearance of a pretty doily-decorated plate loaded with the apricot jelly-filled crescent-shaped goodies. Every now and then Gramma's beloved Christmas Cakes would make an appearance at Easter, to the great delight of those who enjoyed them the most.

Inspired to carry on the tradition of baking these holiday goodies, I invited Gramma over to my home one day to have her teach me how to do it. I learned that day just what a labor of love Gramma had performed for her family for so many years. With my own small children causing distractions underfoot throughout the whole process, I gained a new appreciation for my dear grandmother and her patience and dedication to Christmas Cakes and her role as grandmother and great-grandmother.

Gramma had learned to make Christmas Cakes by watching her mother-in-law, who had immigrated to America from northeastern Hungary. Because of this I assumed that the recipe was probably something from that region. It was only a few short years ago that I learned, thanks to a letter from a family member of my grandmother's generation, the true identity of these goodies. Like so many of our ancestors who emigrated from their home countries and found it more convenient to Americanize their names, the Christmas Cakes had done the same. Their Hungarian name was Kifli. I was thrilled to learn this and also to find that recipes for them were found in many Hungarian cookbooks and orders could be placed for them with Hungarian bakeries even in the U.S.

Of course, nothing can replace the taste of Gramma's own version of kifli. With the understanding that written directions can never replace watching and learning from an expert like Gramma, here is my version of Gramma's recipe for those of you that are interested in giving them a try:

100 Years in America's
Family Kifli Recipe
Otherwise known as "Gramma's Christmas Cakes"

Apricot Jelly

3 lbs. apricots
1 1/2 cups sugar
Cinnamon

Put them in a pot with enough water to cover them plus about 1 inch more
Cook for about 45 minutes until soft, stirring frequently
Mash the apricots
Add sugar
Cook about 1 1/2 to 2 hours until very thick (the longer the better), stirring frequently
Sprinkle the jelly with cinnamon

Christmas Cakes

4 cups flour
1/2 lb. sweet butter at room temperature
6 eggs - separated - at room temperature
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
8 oz. sour cream at room temperature
4 tablespoons sugar
1 packet of yeast (prepared by mixing with 1 teaspoon sugar & about 1/4 cup milk)
Homemade apricot jelly
1 lb. walnuts (add 4 teaspoons sugar to each lb. when chopped)
Confectioner's sugar

Mix flour with butter and then salt and sugar
Make a well in the middle - add egg yolks, vanilla and sour cream gradually
Mix and kneed until smooth (keep working the dough until ready)
Use flour to make it not too sticky (can freeze - wrap in freezer paper and cover with flour)
Roll out dough
Cut the dough into 4 pieces
Chop walnuts and whip egg whites
Roll out one of the 4 pieces of dough
Cut into individual 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 squares and fill with a heaping teaspoon of homemade apricot jelly
Roll each into a horn (crescent)
Top each with egg whites and nuts
Bake in the oven at 350 degrees until light brown (about 30-35 minutes)

Kifli may also be served with a prune filling (prepared similarly to the apricot filling) or a walnut filling, although the apricot kind has always been the favorite in my family. If using walnut filling, add boiled milk to the nuts until pasty, then grated lemon rind.

I am always happy to hear that family members are baking a batch of Christmas Cakes and continuing to keep them in the family for the future generations to enjoy and remember.

We join with generations of Hungarian families that have made and enjoyed these goodies. In fact, the origin of kifli may go back to the 17th century. According to The Urban Fakanál by Andrea Miklós on The New Hungarian Voice webpage, legend has it that Budapest was threated by Ottoman Turks at the end of the 1600's. Supposedly the Turks intended to capture the city by building tunnels under the city wall. Hungarian bakers, who worked the early shift, caught the Turks in action and the attempt failed. To remember their success, the city's bakers baked bread in the shape of the Turkish Empire's emblem: the crescent. Kifli immediately became popular in Budapest and Vienna. In the 18th century, Marie Antoinette may have brought kifli back to Paris, inspiring the French to make their own version: the famous French croissant.

If you're pressed for time or not brave enough to try making your own kifli, here are a few bakeries in the U.S. that offer them for purchase:

• Dobo's Delights Bake Shoppe of Piqua, OH
• Hungarian Bakery of Earlysville, VA
• Hungarian Bakery of Monroe, NY

Or buy just the apricot preserves and bake the kifli yourself:

• Otto's European & Hungarian Import Store & Deli of Burbank, CA

Kifli image copyright © 2007 by Smallest Leaf Press. All Rights Reserved.

The topic for this post was inspired by Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories at Destination: Austin Family. Check out his calendar daily this month for some good mini-memoirs of this nostalgic season. This post will be listed under Christmas Cookies on December 8.

From the corner of my grandmother's kitchen

Images of my grandmother's kitchen work like a slideshow timeline in my memory. I remember as a young girl sitting in the corner at the table in her tiny kitchen while she, aproned and always beautifully dressed, worked busily to prepare a meal for visiting family members (including me). Gramma worked miracles in that tiny kitchen which was hardly bigger than the closet in my bedroom today. In later years, she moved to a newer home and a larger kitchen - and more family. What a joy to bring my own children to my grandmother's home to enjoy her warm hospitality and delicious concoctions.

I was well into adulthood when I made a realization: the foods that I thought were just Gramma's specialties were not just her own. She was a Hungarian chef - and her menu could be found in many other Hungarian homes. Imagine my surprise when I picked up a Hungarian cookbook for the first time and found Gramma's cucumber salad, stuffed cabbage, cottage-cheese-filled crepes, apricot-jelly-filled crepes, apple pie and apricot-jelly-filled Christmas Cakes. There they were going by names such as uborka salatá, töltött káposzta, palacsinták, almás pite and kifli! (In that particular order, in case you're wondering.) I had always thought that they were Gramma's distinctive menu - now I knew that her dishes had a much longer history and a much wider appreciation than only our extended family.

Since my amazing culinary discovery, I've enjoyed a couple of Hungarian cookbooks in particular. Earlier when discussing szaloncukor, I mentioned Anikó Gergely's Culinaria Hungary. It is a wonderful resource for recipes, culture, traditions and all things Hungarian. According to Gergely, a Hungarian Christmas celebration would not be complete without borleves (wine soup), rántott ponty (breaded fillets of carp) or halászlé (fish soup), mákos guba mézzel (poppy seed pudding with honey), karácsonyi pulykasült (Christmas turkey), or roast pig or töltött káposzta (stuffed cabbage), párolt alma (stewed apples) and diós és mákos bejgli (poppy seed and nut rolls). I'm personally not familiar with all of these dishes, but they sound delicious.

Another good book for Hungarian recipes is Susan Derecskey's The Hungarian Cookbook. Derecskey did a wonderful job converting the traditional recipes of Hungarian grandmothers into forms that modern day American cooks can easily use in their kitchens. Perhaps the best part of the book is her substitution of hard-to-find Hungarian ingredients with items that are more readily available in America. Although The Hungarian Cookbook does not have a Christmas section, many of the recipes found in it are traditional foods that are often found within Hungarian holiday feasts.

Croatian Christmas feasts do not differ greatly from the traditional Hungarian fare. The Best of Croatian Cooking by Liliana Pavicic and Gordana Pirker-Mosherg has a nice chapter on Croatian Christmas traditions. Traditional Christmas foods include bakalar (cod fish), honey cake, Christmas breads, sarma (stuffed cabbage), mlinci (turkey with pasta), odojak (roasted pig), orehnjača (walnut roll), makovnjača (poppy seed roll), loza (Grappa) and more.

I guess it is never too early to begin planning a Christmas feast, especially if you decide to try creating some new dishes.

I'm getting hungry just thinking about it...

...and wishing I was that little girl again sitting in the corner of my grandmother's kitchen.

The topic for this post was inspired by Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories at Destination: Austin Family. Check out his calendar daily this month for some good mini-memoirs of this nostalgic season. This post will be listed under Holiday Foods on December 3.