Jar of Goodness 1.12.25: Shelda’s Chocolate Party

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for friendship and community.

The chocolates were just the focal point to gather us together, the way a candle, a cross, a mandala, or a swinging watch on a chain serves to draw one’s attention.

The invitation arrived from our friend Shelda via text:

“Chocolate party: Some time back, my friend Jaye and I were discussing how dispirited we were feeling in this new political reality. How could we gather our friends together and have more fun and community? We remembered themed parties we used to have in the 90s and early aughts. And we came up with an idea for having serious (and not so serious) fun. Maybe monthly or thereabouts, but with no obligations to attend each time.

“About that time Jaye remarked that it was time to taste test Whitman Sampler chocolates and compare them to Russell Stovers. Fun on! So being the over-the-top person that I tend to be, we’ve expanded the chocolate field. We have the aforementioned as well as See’s Factory.

“So let the tasting begin! This coming Sunday, January 12 [at specific time and place]. There will be coffee, hot tea, hot cocoa and horchata for your drinking pleasure . . .”

Subsequent texts expanded the competitive field to include See’s (representing Southern California), Fannie May (from Chicago), Lindt (which was imported from France), and Columbia, Missouri’s own Candy Factory.

Shelda had the chocolates all displayed to their best advantage, and she got out her beautiful pink rose-of-Sharon Depression glass plates for us to use.

The chocolates were really lovely, and they all tasted great, each with their own layers of goodness. Of course, some of them were definitely higher quality, with smoother texture, depth of flavor, nuances of fillings, balance of sweetness to bitterness, etc. But others—like the Whitman and the Russell Stover—had different levels on which to base my appreciation.

Like, I’m not a regular consumer of chocolates, but when I was a child, it seems that Grandma Renner, or my mom, would ALWAYS receive a Whitman’s sampler each year at Christmas, and the box would be passed around the room, with everyone getting a piece or two. When I was a kid, that was a huge treat, those grown-up candies. And we all remember the first time we grabbed that colorful Jordan almond, thinking it would be a delectable super-sweet candy, and it turned out to be a nut. Children quickly learn not to make that mistake twice! And I remember being rather skeptical about all the “weird” cream candies. At the party, I made sure to have a few of those, and I lucked out with a strawberry and an orange. Orange! They still taste kind of weird to me, but I appreciate them a lot more.

And it brought back so many pleasant memories. Later, at dinner, Sue and I reminisced about how our families approached boxes of chocolates when we were children. Sue talked about the Valentine-shaped Valentine’s boxes we all enjoyed as children. And later, as teens and adults.

Anyway, I didn’t mean to write this much about candy, because I’m not even that much of a fan of candy. The real reason I’m celebrating was for the community. This group of friends are people I appreciate and admire so much . . . these are women who were just a little older than me when I was in college. They feel like the older sisters I never had. As feminists, they were trailblazers who showed me the way, the ones up ahead in the tunnel, holding the flashlights, taking risks that I didn’t have to take, because they were a few steps in front of me. And they’re still doing it today: Come on, let’s get together and solidify our community and have some fun.

The time passed much too quickly! I hope that by writing about it I can help cement the positive energy into my being. We’re not alone, my friends. We’re not alone.

Shelda had made up score sheets for us and handed out pens, asking us to rank the chocolates, and indicate whether creams, nuts, or caramels are our favorites. But when it came time for an evaluation, we all pretty much said, Who cares? Most of us had lost track of which chocolates were from which company, and we aren’t serious connoisseurs, anyway. We all knew why we were there, and it wasn’t precisely for the chocolates.

It was for each other.

Thanks, Shelda, and bless you for hosting this gathering!

P.S. It was not a category for judging, but for presentation, Columbia’s Candy Factory gets first place in my book: the chocolates were beautifully decorated and had a nice sheen. Second place is Lindt (in part for the packaging and arrangement within the package). Since all the chocolates basically tasted fine (I’m not that snooty about chocolates), the presentation and the “wow” factor is kind of the difference maker for me, since I only buy chocolates as gifts.

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.)

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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.

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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.

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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!

My Superbowl Predictions!

I have an astonishing success rate for my Superbowl predictions! Every year, I get it perfectly right! Here, let me gaze into my crystal ball . . .

—There will be a lot of potato and tortilla chips eaten.

—A lot of Velveeta and Ro-tel mix will be eaten, too.

—Lots of men will sit in front of the television. They will yell.

—Professional football players somewhere will clunk into each other over and over again, the ball will be passed and intercepted, kicked and caught, and whatever.

—Serious-faced coaches will talk into their little headsets.

—Scantily dressed cheerleaders will bounce around on the sidelines, grinning despite the cold.

—People wearing coats at the stadium will stand up to yell and clap and stuff. Some will hold up signs.

—And lots of beer (and football fans) will be drunk. Don’t forget your suitcase of Bud Light!

—There will be commercials that rival the game for entertainment value.

—But since we’re not football fans, we’ll be doing something else.

And those are my predictions for Superbowl 2011.

I’m Not Bragging

Okay, maybe I am, a little—but you can make this stuff quite easily yourself!

Yeah, I’m still on the subject of sauerbraten ’n’ red cabbage. Our dinner was Monday night, and everything went well—we had a great group of family and friends, and my only regret is that some couldn’t come on account of the reschedule.

Okay—backpedaling again—I have a few other things I would change, but then nobody’s perfect; I try not to be too hard on myself about, say, not having made quite enough gravy to accompany the entire bounty of beef and taters. Oh well—when you only make something once a year, you have to write down notes for improvements, or you’ll completely forget them by the next time.

I have to explain, also, that compared to other homes, ours has a relatively tiny dining room. It measures only about eleven by seven feet. Our venerable old table, however (which came with the house), though only forty-two inches in diameter when it’s a circle, expands to a majestic eight feet long when all five of the leaves are added. It creaks, and there are scuffs and chips in the finish, but I love it.

To me, that dining room table is magic. It’s as if no matter how many people you invite, there is always room for them at the table. And that’s a very cool property for a dining room to have.

So the dinner came off without any major hitches, even though I’d stayed up til five that morning working to meet an extended deadline on a project. Considering that I felt jet-lagged and loopy, it’s miraculous that I didn’t braise the kuchen and put meringue on the sauerbraten.

I wish I had some pictures to share with you of the meal, but we were so busy there was no thought of grabbing the camera. In midafternoon, when we had a few minutes to sit and relax, I did just that—and nearly fell asleep.

Needless to say, that evening I slept pretty well. I spent most of Tuesday morning washing dishes and putting serving platters and our largest heavy cookware away. Considering that I think of the sauerbraten dinner as a “Christmas” thing, it now feels like the “holidays” truly are over.

And I’m ready to start seeing signs of spring!

Jumping the gun a little bit, I ate my lunch today on our unheated the back porch, where it really didn’t feel too cold (at first). In the mornings, sun pours through the glass storm windows and heats up the room rather nicely. There’s a nice view of the birdfeeders from there, and I was surprised and pleased to see a flicker indulging in our seed—it’s the first one I’ve seen in ages, and the first one I’ve seen in this yard since we bought the house. (Welcome, friend!)

Here, I took a picture of my lunch for you: it’s a sauerbraten-and-red-cabbage sandwich. A simple, left-overey thing—and so delicious. It’s kind of like roast beef, only much tastier.




One more disjointed thought: It strikes me as strange that a nation having Germans as its second largest ethnic group is yet almost completely divorced from the flavors of the fatherland. (Hamburgers and frankfurters excepted.) Do you suppose there will ever be a rise in interest—in popularity—of German foods in our country? When it comes, it will be long overdue.

Happy Halloween!

For your amusement, a blast from the past: excerpts from Let's Have a Good Time: A Plan Book for Successful Socials, by Olive Cameron (Cincinnati: Standard Publishing Co., 1938), 91-96.




There's a section in the book for "A Party a Month," and for October, of course, one of the suggestions is a "Halloween Frolic."

A Halloween party for your society is an excellent idea, as it has long ago been proven that affairs of this nature are always beneficial, not only in a social way, but they are sure to radiate interest to the extent of an increase in membership. Don't omit the decorations--black cats, bats, owls, witches, black-and-yellow paper festoons, jack-o'-lanterns, etc.

The suggested games and activities include a game of "Halloween Similes" to act out in pantomime ("silent as a ghost"; "as blind as a bat"; "as sour as an apple"); "Toss the Ball" (into a cut-out jack-o'-lantern's mouth); and "Corn Relay" (don't drop the handful of loose kernels as you pass it from one to the next).

--Yawn!

But then there's this!

Queen of Halloween.--All guests, one at a time, must appear before the Queen of Halloween. Kneel and lift the right hand for her blessing. The queen, with pasteboard crown, sits on her throne over in the corner. She wears on her right hand a glove, which has sewed in its palm a copper wire, off the end of which has been scraped the insulation [ha ha ha!--note the grammatical gymnastics to avoid ending that sentence with a preposition!]. This wire runs around back of her to the floor, where it is connected with a battery. This battery is so arranged that the queen can throw on the current by stepping on a switch. The switch and battery, of course, are covered by her dress. As the victim kneels and extends his hand, the queen grasps it as if to shake hands, throws on the switch and the subject leaps to his feet with a wild yell.

--Yeeeooww!!




And this!

Apple Antics.--This will prove a most amusing race for the boys as participants and for the girls as spectators. An apple is provided for each boy and is placed on a newspaper on the floor. With his hands tied behind him, each boy endeavors to eat his apple first, in hog fashion.

I think this would indeed be amusing to watch!

Happy Halloween, everyone!

P.S. Please keep your pets indoors tonight. Dogs and cats don't appreciate Halloween nearly as much as we do.