Happy New Year, 1950-1951

I’ve recently found some non-recipes among my grandma’s recipe collections.

To distract myself in the evenings when I have trouble getting to sleep, I’ve been sifting through the cigar boxes, looseleaf cookbooks, and other places Grandma stored her recipes. I’ve been trying to organize them, transcribing them, too.

One of these sources is Grandma Schroeder’s copy of My Own Recipes: Loose Leaf Cook Book. It must date to the 1920s or 30s. The pages are exceedingly brittle (especially considering it’s a looseleaf binding), and the binder itself fell apart. Grandma fixed it together with strapping tape. That, by now, is not able to hold it together, either.

The printed pages of this volume are brittle and falling out of the two rings. So fragile.

This notebook, however, is chock full of handwritten recipes, written on index cards, note paper, the backs of envelopes, you name it. Grandma added to this collection her whole life (though later recipes mostly wound up in the aforementioned cigar boxes).

But at the very back of her copy of My Own Recipes: Loose Leaf Cook Book, I found a cute little handmade Christmas/New Year’s card made by my uncle Tom in late 1950, perhaps as a school art project, or perhaps in Sunday school. I think it’s obviously a gift for his parents.

It’s a winter scene, with a church, a night sky, snow, and a full moon. The snow effect was created by spattering white paint using a toothbrush, I’ll bet. The moon in the sky is rather fanciful, since it’s usually not visible when snow is falling, with the sky thus cloudy. In the upper left corner is a miniature, commercially printed calendar for 1951, sewn together in actual pages.

There’s evidence that this little artwork was tacked up onto a bulletin board, or something. Maybe the tack was only used for the creation of the piece, since there’s no white-snow-spatter where the thumbtack had been.

Uncle Tom, born in 1944, would have been six when he made this. And it’s clearly his, with his name written on the front and the back. (It’s hard to write your name in pencil on a piece of black construction paper.)

So even after 1951 came and went, and the little calendar was out of date, Grandma kept this little artwork all these years, tucked into the very back of her looseleaf cookbook.

So, being curious, I had to look up some things. First, the moon amused me. It’s so small. Generally speaking, I think I expected it to be about the diameter of a bottlecap, but instead, it’s not even half an inch wide.

Then I remembered what it was like to try to cut a perfect circle out of a piece of construction paper, using kindergarten scissors, and having no plan for how to cut a circle. My circles got smaller and smaller, as I rotated the paper and trimmed off all the offending pokey-out bits. If I’d traced a circle first, it would’ve been easier.

But it’s clearly intended to be a full moon in Uncle Tom’s artwork. I doubt anyone would have intended it to be, say, a gibbous moon.

And this got me wondering. Was there a full moon at the end of 1950, when these children were all making their little nighttime scenes of the church, snow, and the moon?

With the Internet, you can get this kind of information pretty quickly. And sure enough! The last full moon in December 1950 was on Christmas Eve: December 24, at 10:24 a.m. UTC, or around 4:24 a.m. here in Missouri.

So . . . this was an actual scene from Christmas 1950. How about that.

I’m also tickled at all this line of thinking, because for several years at Christmas, Uncle Tom has mailed us Moon Over Me Magnetic Moon Calendar, Almanac Card, and MoonMaggy Fridge Magnets. The fridge magnet shows all the phases of the moon for the calendar year.

The chart itself, in its geometric form, has an aesthetic beauty to it. And it’s good to know what the moon is up to, even if you don’t believe in astrology. When is the night darkest? When is it brightest? When do you get to see those beautiful “fingernail” new moons hanging over the western sky in the evenings, with the earthshine on the dark portion, revealing its true spherical shape? When will the lunar eclipses be happening?

And that’s really about all on this subject. It was just fun to discover, among all those recipes for cinnamon coffee cake, chow-chow, oatmeal cookies, and Christmas fruitcake.

I’ve found some other interesting non-recipe items, too. Maybe I’ll find time to blog about them, as well.

Haben Wir Zusammengewesen!

. . . But wait, there’s more!

I’m still talking about our New Year’s Eve traditions. Here’s another one: We have a family theme song! I’ll bet you think I’m kidding—but I’m not!

Actually, it’s a “parting song,” and we sing it not just on New Year’s Eve, but at the end of potentially any family gathering. Indeed, we sang it out at Riverview Cemetery in 2000, after Grandma Schroeder’s interment ceremony—undoubtedly confusing to any who were unfamiliar with our customs!

But especially, we sing it at the end of the New Year’s Eve party. After the food, the drink, the conversation, the singing, the bell-ringing, and one-too-many mützens, this song is the cap to the evening.

When the first departing guests start brushing the powdered sugar from their clothes and putting on their coats, it is time to form a circle, join hands, and sing the family parting song. It was taught by my great-grandpa Albert Thomas to his daughters, who always sang it with great glee and vigor:

Haben wir zusammengewesen
Haben wir uns gefreuet
Ist der Vater kommen
Hat ein Stock einnommen
Hat uns wieder mal durch gebleuet
Ist der Vater kommen
Hat ein Stock einnommen
Hat uns wieder mal durch gebleuet.

We all got together
We had a good time
Then father came
Took up a stick
And thrashed us many times
Then father came
Took up a stick
And thrashed us many times.


I would love to know more about this song—where it came from, when it was composed, and who composed it, if that’s known. Does anyone else in the entire world even know of this song? (Click on it to see it bigger!)



I suspect it’s a children’s or “novelty” folksong, kind of like “John Jacob Jinkelheimer Schmidt.” But maybe it’s a Vaudeville or beer hall song. Maybe my great-grandfather picked it up in his boyhood in Germany, or maybe he learned it when he visited his family there in the 1920s. We don’t know.

If you are reading this, and you know this song or a version of it, please, please contact me! I want to learn more about it!

At any rate, he taught it to my grandma and her sisters, and they started the tradition of singing it at the end of our family gatherings. I can't tell you how tickled they were to sing it!



The style is remarkable: It is generally sung quietly, as if by children who are sharing a deliciously fun and mischievous secret . . . but the iterations of Hat! (pronounced like “hot!”) are sung explosively, vociferously, mimicking the blows of father’s stick and heightening the song’s novelty and excitement. Yeah, we really do shout it! (Again, it’s a lot like the explosively loud “La-la-la-la-la-la-las” in “John Jacob Jinkelheimer Schmidt.”)

It’s possible that the “stick” in the lyrics could be a reference to the switches Knecht Ruprecht shows to children before Christmas, to threaten them into good behavior.

But it makes me think of the story Grandma told of how she and her lifelong best friend, Marie Korsemeyer, at about age five, were naughty and picked a bunch of green apples, ate them—then promptly felt sick!

Traditionally, our family repeats the song once or twice. After the first rendition, Grandma or one of her sisters would generally sigh, shake her head, and explain, “We have to do it over. Someone wasn’t singing that time.” We do this in part to perform some mild, Schroeder-style hazing on any new members of the group (such as girlfriends and boyfriends), who are usually entirely bewildered by the song and its German lyrics. (I feign exasperation, and make a point of staring directly at the newcomers!)

Then, after another run-through, with people at least attempting to mouth the words, the comment is: “We sang it too loudly; that’s not the way Papa taught us; we have to sing it again. Softer!” (We still always make that complaint: “We sang it too loudly—we’ve gotta sing it again, only a lot softer, okay?”)

. . . In truth, we repeat it because we have so much fun laughing and singing it, and because we want to be together just a few more moments—before we must hug goodbye and go out into the bracing early air of January the first.



A technical note on my music transcription above: I couldn’t decide if the “Ist der” of the first “Ist der Vater kommen” should be a pickup to the repeated section, or beat one of it. If the latter, then the accented Hats would fall on the first beat of the measure, which I suppose is more straightforward. Hey, I don’t know. I guess it’s how you hear it. It could go either way.

Finally, as with everything else on my blog, please don’t copy this without giving credit to me and my blog. For one thing, I really do want people to be able to contact me if they know anything about this song!

The Mützens of Elm Street: Mützen, Müzen, Mutzens, Mootsens

By any other name (or spelling!), a mützen would still taste as sweet . . .



Of course, it’s about much more than a delicious “donut”; it’s about our tradition of eating them. The pictures in this and the previous post hopefully give you a sense of how we associate them with fun and family.



I described our tradition of eating mützens on New Year’s Eve in my previous post, and I encourage you to read it first if you haven’t already.

But a quick recap: Apparently my grandma Edna Schroeder learned to make mützens from her mother, Wilhelmine Caroline Thomas, who grew up in the German-Dutch border region. In Holland, there is a similar recipe called Olle bollen (“oil balls”). In Germany, mützen are associated with Fastnacht (Mardi Gras) celebrations. Apparently the Thomases traditionally made them at New Year’s Eve.



I hesitate to call this “Grandma Schroeder’s Mützen Recipe,” because it’s only an approximation. Grandma Schroeder never seemed to use a written recipe for mützens; she generally cooked “by feel,” but for years we all knew that mützens were incredibly special, so some of us had made notes, following Grandma around the kitchen, during various years. Fortunately, then, I had someplace to start when Sue and I first tried to make them in 1997.

Particularly, we had three different versions of Grandma Schroeder’s “recipe” that were all written by different people at different times: My aunt Carole Schroeder, my mom, Pat Schroeder, and my brother, Paul, who was a kid at the time (his notes are especially entertaining). All these recipe notes were made approximately in the middle 1970s.



These recipes all differed (greatly!) in the relative amounts of various ingredients, particularly in the amount of flour. (Of course, flour is the one variable that changes the most, depending on humidity, how you spoon or scoop it out, etc.; you will just have to develop a feel for how much flour is sufficient for obtaining the “gukky” consistency young Paul described in his notes for the recipe.) Because of the meticulousness of her notes, we mostly followed my mom’s version.

Mützens

Small batch; good for about ten people, with plenty of leftovers to send home with them for breakfast.


Scald 3 cups milk, with

• 1/2 stick of margarine (or butter), and
• 3/4 cup sugar, and
• some salt.

Let cool. (Allow time for this to happen; it can’t be too hot, or it will kill the yeast when you add it.)

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Dissolve 1 package of dry yeast with

• a little warm water (ca. 1/4 cup), and
• 1/2 tsp. sugar.

This will get foamy.

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Slightly beat 2 eggs, and add

• about 1 tsp. of ground mace to them. (Mace quantity varies depending on how strong or fresh your mace is. It is probably better to add a little too much than not enough.)

--------------------------------------------------------------

When the milk part is cool enough, combine the milk, yeast, and eggs mixtures in a big mixer bowl. Using a hand mixer, start adding flour gradually, about a 1/2 cup at a time. (Have plenty of flour on hand; you will need approximately 4–6 cups.) The batter should be sticky and thick enough to not be runny. It should be cohesive enough so you’ll be able later to nudge it off the spoon in globs or blobs and not in runny strings.

Fold in the currants: About one cup, more or less, to taste.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Set the dough aside in a big bowl someplace warm and preferably humid. Cover with a damp clean dish towel. We put it in our oven, whose pilot light keeps it nice and warm. In the past, with small batches, we have heated a Pyrex measuring cup with water in it in the microwave to make it humid, then put the bowl of batter in beside it. With the microwave door shut, it made a nice environment for the yeast to work.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Let rise until double in bulk; then stir it down and let it rise again. You can repeat the rising and “punching down” until it’s time to fry! Thus, you can prepare the dough in late afternoon before your guests arrive. Just check on it every once in a while and punch it down.



Frying. Grandma used a big pot on a burner, but we recommend using a FryDaddy or other frying appliance that will keep the grease at a constant temperature. We started using one of these in 2006 or 2007, and it makes deep-frying a lot easier. Or you can do it the old-fashioned way:

Get a big pot. A thermometer will help, if you have one that can clip to the edge of the pot. You’ll want the Crisco to be between 350 and 375 degrees F. You’ll need about 2–3 inches of hot grease so the batter can bob around, so you will probably need an entire (large-sized) can of Crisco.

Nudge the batter off of a spoon and into the hot grease, taking care not to splash. Remember, the dough will puff up a lot as the mützens cook. So smaller blobs are better: They will cook faster and more evenly, and they will serve more people; larger blobs will become “belly bombs,” especially if they are still doughy in the center.

It’s good to cut into one of the first ones to make sure it’s cooking right.

Drain mützens on paper towels or paper grocery sacks. (I hoard paper grocery sacks in December for this purpose!)

Take one large paper grocery sack and dump a bunch of powdered sugar in the bottom.

Batch by batch (about 6 at a time), shake the hot, drained mützens in the paper sack with the powdered sugar in the time-honored tradition. This is a great job for young people. Make sure they understand they need to roll the top of the bag and hold it closed while shaking it! Watch for holes developing in the corners; but then, hey, resign yourself to having powdered sugar dust everywhere. It always makes me smile the morning after.

Of course, you could try sprinkling on the powered sugar with a sifter or sieve. But what fun is that?



We have an enormous circular platter that we pile the finished mützens onto. At midnight (after we’re done outside making all kinds of noise), we carry the platter of mützens into the living room for everyone to enjoy with their champagne.

Happy New Year!




Mützens: Doubled Recipe for a Larger Group

This is a thumbnail recipe; see above version for important notes regarding dough consistency, etc.

1. Scald together, and then let cool:

• 6 c. milk
• 1 stick margarine
• 1 1/2 c. sugar
• some salt

2. Dissolve together:

• 2 packages dry yeast
• ca. 1/2 cup warm water
• 1 tsp. sugar

3. Slightly beat together:

• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp. [actually, more like 2 Tbsp.; see note above] ground mace

4. When milk is cool enough, combine all of the above. Then starting adding the flour, 1/2 cup at a time, to desired consistency. Fold in currants.

• ca. 6–8 cups flour, added gradually
• ca. 1 box of Zante currants

5. Set aside in warm moist place to rise; punch down occasionally, until time to fry.

6. Fry in hot grease, ca. 350–375 degrees F; drain on paper grocery sacks; shake with powdered sugar; serve immediately.

• Crisco
• powdered sugar

Hey, if you make these, I hope you’ll let me know how they turn out!


Finally: This is a very special recipe that belongs to my family. Please do not copy it and pretend that it’s yours, or republish it without crediting my blog and this post. Thanks!

New Year’s Eve on Elm Street

Hello, friends—happy new year! It’s a little belated, but I wanted to write a bit about the process of starting a new year, and bidding adieu to the old. I realize if I don’t post this belatedly, then I’ll never post it at all, because each year, I’m far too busy before Dec. 31 to spend time writing about it.

In our diverse American culture, the phrase “happy holidays” has become the most useful and inclusive way of articulating the joy of our mutual year-end celebrations. Yet whether we observe the winter solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas, or Kwanzaa, nearly all of us do something on December 31 to recognize the night—the instant—that we cross over the bridge spanning the past and the future.



I’ve found an intriguing diversity in the ways people celebrate New Year’s Eve. Some people don’t do more than get out a new wall calendar. Others watch the “ball drop” on TV, or go to parties (private or public). Often, people eat special foods, supposed to bring luck or money, such as black-eyed peas or bean soup, hoppin’ John . . . or black bun, oatcakes, and whiskey (as they do in Scotland).

I’m partial to pickled herring, because everyone knows you need to eat that on New Year’s Eve in order to have some money in your pocket!



My family has a tradition of having a New Year’s Eve party each year. In many ways, it’s a fairly normal party, in that we have an array of snack foods and beverages, and amicable and animated conversations develop and overlap as people move about, mixing, sharing one another’s news and ideas.



By the time New Year’s Eve rolls around, the bulk of the holidays—the decorating, the gift-giving, the churchgoing, the entertaining—is over, and everyone is relaxed and ready to have a good time. But what really distinguishes my family’s New Year’s Eve party from all others is the mützens.



The Thomas/Schroeder family of Elm Street in Jefferson City has been celebrating New Year’s with mützens for at least four generations. My great-grandparents Albert and Wilhelmina Thomas came to Jefferson City from Germany around 1895 and raised their family (a son and four daughters) on West Elm Street, in the little “Germantown” of Muenchberg, or Old Munichburg. In 1930, the youngest of their children, my paternal grandmother, Edna Thomas, married my grandfather Walter A. F. Schroeder, and the couple moved, with Albert and Wilhelmina, into a duplex created for them by Albert. This home—formerly the German Methodist Episcopal church the Thomases had been members of—still stands at the northeast corner of Broadway and West Elm. It’s where I live today.

This house has been the setting for the family’s New Year’s Eve mützen celebrations for about seventy-five years. The tradition apparently started in the 1930s as a gathering for Walter and Edna’s bridge club, which had formed in the 1920s.



As the couple’s children grew and married, and as grandchildren came along, the New Year’s party evolved into a family-and-friends gathering. Serving mützens at midnight has been a part of the celebration all along.



What are mützens? As far as I’ve been able to tell, mützen are a festival food, a kind of fritter or donut, eaten in Germany the same way we in America enjoy funnelcakes. I understand that German mützen are enjoyed particularly at Fastnacht (Mardi Gras) celebrations. I’ve seen similar goodies called Fastnachts, which are sometimes rolled out, then sliced into diamond shapes before frying.

Indeed, there are some basic similarities between mützens and funnelcakes: Both are made with a sweet dough that is fried and served topped with powdered sugar, and both are especially good when they’re hot and fresh. Mützens, however, are made with a much thicker and stickier yeast dough than funnelcakes, and in my family they are flavored with mace and currants.

Some recipes I’ve seen for mützen incorporate raisins, apple chunks, cinnamon, and/or nuts. The mace and currants, however, combine for a unique flavor, which for me powerfully recalls New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Anyway—nudged off a spoon into hot oil, the dough bobs, rises, and puffs out into a ball, but often taking bizarre shapes with odd “appendages.”



Across the German border, in Holland, a similar treat is made called Olie Bollen (“oil balls”; sometimes called Dutch donuts). Edna—again, my Grandma Schroeder—lived under the same roof as her German immigrant parents and therefore learned to prepare their favorite foods. It makes geographical sense that she learned to make this pastry from her mother, who was raised in northwestern Germany, where German and Dutch cultures form a gradient. To our knowledge, Edna never used a written recipe for mützens.

Edna’s reputation for her mützens grew. Albert and Wilhelmina passed away in the 1940s; Walter, my Grandpa Schroeder, passed away in 1966, but Edna’s sisters and their families, her sons and their families, and a number of dear friends continued the New Year’s Eve tradition of getting together and having mützens at midnight.

At some point, the job of applying powdered sugar to the outsides of the freshly made mützens (that is, shaking them in a paper sack with the sugar) became the general responsibility of any grandchildren who were old enough to perform the task. It felt like a great honor to be enlisted to help in the kitchen—especially since kids can get kind of bored with hours of grown-up conversations as the clock ticks toward midnight.



Grandma was an enthusiastic entertainer. In between punching down the dough and, as the evening progressed, frying batches, she would dance through the living room, singing “Here comes a duke a-riding, a-riding, a-riding . . . !” She also circulated among her guests, making sure everyone had enough to eat and drink.



There was always plenty to drink!

At midnight, Grandma would bring out a huge platter full of mützens. By this time, the deliciously sweet mützen smell was all over the house, so getting to finally eat them has always brought a climax to the evening, which is a climax to the year. In a sense, mützens are like a dessert to the year passed, and breakfast for the year to come.



Yes, we continue this tradition—and yes, in my next post I’m gonna tell you how to make mützens yourself!

A New Year—2012

Apologies for my absence! My guess, however, is that you, too, have been busy playing “catch-up” with all the activities that got sidelined during the holidays. I’ll bet you haven’t had any more time for reading blogs than I’ve had for writing them.

Anyway, I don’t have much to report. I guess I could tell you about our holiday travels and the icy roads in Indiana, or I could describe the weather we’ve been having (up till yesterday, unseasonably warm; now it’s frigid with snow on the ground) . . . but that stuff’s old news, or boring, or both.

Still, I ought to report to you about something—if only to post a first entry for 2012!

Okay, here’s one thing: I realized this year, as we were taking down our Christmas decorations, that even though I often feel tired of seeing all that holiday stuff, I can’t help but enjoy seeing, and handling, all those pretty things again.




In other words, I never really get tired of them.

However, my body has about had it with the food. Honestly, I didn’t overdo it this year at all, but I did get off my oat bran muffins! At this point, we’re eating really lightly, and it feels great!

The “fun” oranges are back in season—blood oranges, Cara Caras, good grapefruits, and so on—and I’m having a blast with them. Schnucks had a bunch of temple oranges on sale. These, apparently, are a tangerine-orange hybrid. They’re excellent for making juice!




And my frugivory is continuing in other ways: We’ve been eating prunes! Prunes, I tell you! I need to do a post about them—they are an Opulent Opossum food, if ever there was one. Undersung, maligned, and forgotten, yet exquisitely delicious and good for you. What’s not to like? They need a cheerleader.

So, my 2012 is off to a slow start, blogging-wise, but stay tuned. I’ve got a lot of posts rumbling around in my head, and we’re going to do a lot of interesting things this year. I hope you’ll come along for the ride!

Moving Right Along

It’s 2011 now, and I’ve gotten behind in telling you about stuff. Here’s an update.

First, happy new year! As I told you last year at this time, New Year’s Eve is my favorite holiday. It is both fun and psychologically substantial. I love how crossing over that randomly determined Gregorian boundary forces me to consider myself truly in the moment, standing in neither past nor future.

We host an annual party, in the tradition of my Grandma S. Although most years, it’s a “family and friends” party, this year it was only family, a smaller group than usual, and a bit more laid back than it’s been in some previous years. Fortunately, my cousin and his wife brought their two young grandkids, and their liveliness prevented us all from sitting around like a bunch of mummies.




Well, it wasn’t that bad, but I was a little let down at the attendance. It worries me a bit about my social currency. I’m starting my third year of working at home, and I have very little social life. It makes me wonder if I’ve losing any social aptitude I might have acquired in the past. But I tell myself it’s just that some years The Party is going to be less of a “deal.” And there were few out-of-state family in Missouri for the holidays, anyway, and that didn’t help the attendance. Oh, well.

We did have a great party, and the mutzens were wonderful (in my humble opinion). We had lots of leftovers, so we have been eating them for breakfast. I’ll be glad to get back onto the oat bran muffins.

We have lots of other leftovers from the party, and it’s been just hell eating all those delicious tidbits. New Year’s Eve is when I buy the really good cheeses and cut up lots and lots of veggies. Oh, the agony of “having” to eat that delicious eleven-year-aged white cheddar from Cheese Haven. We had some tonight with our supper. Ooh-la-la.

This year we did something we’ve never done before: We collected all our party dishes and glassware and washed them at 2 a.m. January 1. Yes! Thus we woke up to a not-completely-bombed-out house. We did have powdered sugar everyplace, but that’s part of the fun.

Each January 1, Sue and I try to go on some kind of outing. This year, we drove to Spring Creek Gap Conservation Area (down by Rolla) and did a brief hike. It was very fun, and it was great to be out in the sunshine of a new year.

On our way there, we stopped at the Fire Tower near Freeburg (not the one that’s right at the Spring Creek Gap parking area—that’s the Vichy Fire Tower—this one is different).




Gotta climb those things when you can, y’know? Even when it’s cold. This fire tower appeared to be situated near some kind of dog kennel. Maybe a dog-breeding operation? Lots of barking down below.

Here’s a picture of the creek bed at Spring Creek Gap. We messed around at the creek for a while, poking at pretty rocks. The Ozarks have some gorgeous rocks!




The MDC’s been thinning out the forest in places. Here’s a view from one of the gladey areas they are apparently trying to promote.

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Okay, and then there’s the end of Christmas. You know how I like to keep the decorations up through Epiphany (January 6); therefore, this was the weekend we took it all down.

Actually, in the case of the Weihnachtspyramide, it’s technically “taking it up,” since we store it in a special closet upstairs.

I’ve talked a lot about the traditions of setting up the tree—how we sing “O Tannenbaum” as we carry it down the steps to the living room, etc.—but I haven’t said much about putting it away.

It’s a little less nostalgic. We pull the ornaments off and each year try to figure out some sort of “system” for storing them in their boxes so we can find them more easily next year. Meanwhile, we have to keep an eye on Earl (the cat), who is endlessly curious about the boxes and the paper.

Sue and I have been threatening to teach ourselves how to sing “O Tannenbaum” backwards, so we can reverse ourselves as we carry the tree upstairs.

We took some pictures as the tree was in states of disassembly. Maybe you’ll find them interesting. (Next post. Stay tuned.)




And then, naturally, once all of “Christmas” is packed up and tucked away in the closet, the living room looks big enough to do a square dance in. Does that happen to you? It makes me kinda happy I have some of that sharp cheddar left over to help fill the absence. Because it’s not the crowdedness I miss—it’s the specialness.

Yeah, we’re officially into the winter doldrums. I suppose the busy-ness of Christmas preparations helps us overcome the psychological effects of shortening days, and I’m glad for that—but even though the days are getting longer, this is the coldest time of year, and it can be the snowiest. Cooped up in the house. This is the time of year I’m most apt to ask myself why I ever moved away from the Southwest.

So today I’ve been working on freelance (please don’t ask for details), and when I’m through posting this, I’ll work on a different freelance project. Writing this is my reward for plugging away all afternoon on a weekend on an index.

The weather forecast says that, now that it’s bitter cold out there, tomorrow and the next day we’re supposed to get snow. I’ve got my boxes of tea lined up and ready, and the kitties are here to show me how to keep warm.




And that’s pretty much how we are tonight.

The Moment

I hope I’m not writing about “old news” here. It’s already January 3, and I have a backlog of holiday things I’m still mulling over, wanting to share. But I suspect most everyone is ready to move on to the next thing, whatever that is. January. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Getting back to the job . . .

But each year, I find myself appreciating New Year’s more and more. I think it’s become my favorite holiday. Not just because it’s “fun”; I find it full of significance, and I grow simultaneously reflective and projective.

I think for me, and for many other moderns, New Year’s Eve has supplanted the Winter Solstice as the moment when we suddenly, keenly realize that we are standing not in the past, nor in the future, but in the moment.

In my head, it becomes as a professional-level question in conceptual physics, and thus far beyond my mental grasp. But when I consider this instant that serves as the fulcrum between What Has Been and What Might Be, innate faculties surpassing mentality can somehow, fleetingly comprehend what’s going on.

At times like midnight on New Year’s Eve, we realize that our lives, however long or short, exist within the tiny constriction of the hourglass, where the sand flows the fastest. And our “now” is forever an instant—not a minute, a second, or even a quarter of a second, but an instant—which, discrete and indivisible, doesn’t actually exist in time, or even in space.

Time and space are components of the natural world, the world of physics, a realm that can be weighed, measured, and possibly predicted, whereas, to my thinking, the “instant” must belong to something “beyond,” something “meta-.” Thus metaphysical, supernatural, the realm of faith and spirituality.

I can’t shake the idea that the elusive moment of time called an “instant,” or “the now,” is the only aspect of “eternity” that we living mortals can occupy, or even sense. It’s at times when we are truly “present”—as when praying or meditating, or allowing creativity, joy, or passion to flow through us, or experiencing a moment of great wonder or discovery—that time stops and we sense “God” being with us, that we sense Eternity.

This winter, in part because I’ve been seeking solace about some circumstances that deeply sadden me and about which I can do nothing, I’ve been dipping into the Bhagavad Gita, which is basically a cheerleading session from God to a human who’s so dejected he’s lost the will to go on.

One of the steady drumbeats in the Bhagavad Gita is the idea of Eternity, which of course is a concept common to all religions. We humans are defined by our mortality, locked by the one-way road of time into our inescapable ultimate demise. There will be an end to each one of us—of that we are certain. Yet human religions constantly tell us that our most cherished wish can come true: though we die, we will yet live on, somehow, some way.

Of course the notion of an afterlife and immortality might all be wishful thinking, but the Bhagavad Gita at least puts our little lives and struggles into a natural, cosmic perspective from which even a devout skeptic can find some comfort. In chapter 2, the deity consoles us, explaining things in the light of eternity:

“Thy tears are for those beyond tears; and are thy words words of wisdom? The wise grieve not for those who live; and they grieve not for those who die—for life and death shall pass away.” (2.11)

“From the world of the senses . . . comes heat and comes cold, and pleasure and pain. They come and they go: they are transient. Arise above them, strong soul.” (2.14)

“For all things born in truth must die, and out of death in truth comes life. Face to face with what must be, cease thou from sorrow.” (2.27)

“Invisible before birth are all beings and after death invisible again. They are seen between two unseens. Why in this truth find sorrow?” (2.28)

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There is nothing like New Year’s Eve to make me realize that I am standing exactly midway between past and present and forever occupy a space that is neither: the Now. Yes, I appreciate the richness of the past and rely on it as a great tree relies on its roots for nourishment, structure, and anchorage. And the pathways of the future, like the branches sprawling and dividing toward the sun, represent the directions of fate and all the decisions I will make; it is forever undetermined, alterable, ever in need of nourishment, pruning, and shaping.


It is no wonder that New Year’s is the time for formulating our resolutions, making proposals, going through one’s business and tax paperwork, and so many other cleanup and startup activities. And it is no wonder that we greet 12:00 a.m. on January 1 with a time-stopping smooch with our sweetie-pie, an intoxicating glass of Champagne, and a raucous cacophony to frighten away any evil spirits that might think of plaguing our future.

This year seemed particularly auspicious, with the full, blue moon directly overhead. And thus at midnight I piped to the future, in notes loud and broken and full of what power I possess: The future, do you hear me? It might take me a while, but I am coming to get you.

New Year, 2010: The Mutzen Report

Though I feel a bit sheepish for not having posted for a while, I have to admit without a bit of guilt that I’ve greatly enjoyed the things I’ve been doing, holiday-wise. We’ve simply been busy—and when we’ve taken time out, it’s been our opportunity to sleep.

We flew to Ohio for Christmas, to be with Sue’s family, and then we had New Year’s Eve here in Jefferson City with my clan. I know that on December 26, a lot of people think to themselves, “Whew! The holiday rush is over! Now I can relax!” But with us it’s not that way, because Sue and I have held the annual New Year’s Eve party at our house as long as we’ve lived here. For us, the holidays aren’t done until we’re completely onto a new page, a new calendar.




Yes, I’ll be writing about some of the Ohio trip, but I wanted to take a little time to reflect on our New Year’s Eve shenanigans, before it seems too far in the past.

It’s hard to know where to begin, because my family has a lot of traditions that, to be truly appreciated, need explanation. Otherwise, they sound just downright weird. Though I guess it’s like that for everyone. I think that’s how most everyone’s beloved family traditions end up: oddly perverse, and beloved for their sheer perversity. One family I know has a tradition of playing the card game “Screw Your Neighbor” every Thanksgiving. Weird! You know?

So in our family, we make these fried donutlike things called mutzens. In German, I believe, the plural doesn’t need the s, so they’re technically called mützen. But as I’ve mentioned before, at the closest point, I represent only the third generation born in North America, so I don’t claim to be “German” at all. I don’t apologize for it, so don’t write me and say that my stuff isn’t “traditional.” Because I’m a German American, and sometimes traditions have to change a little in order to stay alive.




Just be glad I’m not spelling them mootzins, or mootsens, or mootzens, or whatever!

Shall I give you the recipe for mutzens? No, not quite yet. Not publicly. It’s a precious family heirloom, and, well . . . you know. I intend to keep blogging for a while yet, so maybe I’ll get around to sharing it one of these years.

I will tell you, though, that they are a yeast-raised, deep-fried fritter. In Holland they are called Olie Bollen (“oil balls”). The dough is really “gukky” (as my brother described it when he was a kid), not runny but then also not thick enough to “handle,” so when nudged off a spoon, it blobs into the hot Crisco and puffs into rounded orbs with curious little appendages.

I’ve seen recipes that use combinations of things like chopped apples, raisins, nuts, and cinnamon for flavoring, but the recipe as my grandma always made it (and her mom before her) uses currants and mace. (People don’t cook with mace too much anymore. I wonder why that is. Do you think people get it confused with the stuff you spray at attackers? It's like, totally not the same!)




Anyway, this combination of flavors, which permeates the air when the mutzens are frying, absolutely conveys “New Year’s Eve” to our family. It’s as intimate an association as the scent of pine trees with Christmas, vinegar and hardboiled eggs with Easter, and roasting turkey with Thanksgiving.

After the mutzens come out of the frying grease and drain for a few moments, they get tossed into a paper grocery sack with some powdered sugar. It’s traditionally been the job of the youngest person to shake this powdered-sugar sack.




It’s dusty work, but a fringe benefit is getting to lick your fingers between each batch of five or six. It also keeps the younguns from getting bored while they wait until midnight. It gives them an important job to do! And they develop a real sense of pride in their work. (I know this gig well, having been “the youngest” for many years, until my older cousins started having kids.)




My grandma started this tradition in the 1940s as a New Year’s Eve get-together with her bridge club friends. Before my dad and his brothers came along, the bridge club ladies probably took turns hosting at New Year’s Eve, but eventually the unmarried bridge clubbers simply joined my grandma with her family at this house. Grandma would always make mutzens, from her immigrant mother’s recipe, and the tradition was started.

By the time I came along, it was primarily a family gathering, but friends, including many of the original bridge club gang and other cronies of grandma, would come as well.




Sometimes people dropped in unexpectedly—some friend-of-a friend invite, perfectly welcome nonetheless—for example, one year (well before my time) a Missouri State Supreme Court justice arrived, already drunk from having been to another party somewhere else (no, I’m not naming names; they’re all dead now, anyway). But everyone remembers how The Honorable Judge So-and-So staggered around, accidentally spilling powdered sugar on grandma’s carpet.

. . . But then everyone spills powdered sugar from their mutzens. Particularly those who have been enjoying alcohol during the course of the evening. It gets on the floor, it falls on your shirt front and gets on your lap. This light mess is simply part of the fun. This year, my cousins’ spouses Vickie and Patrick showed up wearing black. Ha ha ha! When they arrived, I pointed to their garments and cackled: “Ooh-ha-ha-ha, you have to shake the powdered sugar bag at least once!” To which they responded with good-natured groans, and a perfect willingness to help out.

On January 1, during the Pasadena Rose Parade, the coffee table always needs a thorough cleaning, and although we dusted everything very well before the party, every surface acquires a thin new layer of sweet sugar by the time we ring in the fresh new year. Maybe it’s perverse to take pleasure in such a mess, but it always makes us happy.