Christmas Day, we were honoured to be included in a family Christmas celebration at the home of Mary and Foxy (so nicknamed because he’s a Silver Fox… at least that what’s HE says). Their son Jason and his wife Ana own Sandpiper, the restaurant that’s our home away from home.
We were two of eleven people at the all-day feast. We didn’t want to arrive empty handed — although we were told to — so San Geraldo went to work in the kitchen preparing one of his traditional Norwegian holiday specialties, krumkake.
Kake is cake/pastry in Norwegian. In Spanish, caca is pronounced the same way and means … well cacka, poop, turds, etc.
So Spaniards find it hilarious whenever San Geraldo serves one of his Norwegian “kakes.” What our Spanish friends don’t find at all ironic is that peanut in Spanish is cacahuete. Why isn’t that funny? Jason and Ana’s 13-year-old son loved the krumkake, but loved saying the name even more.
Our hosts are English, but have lived in Fuengirola for many years. Their extended family is mixed, Spanish and English. They hosted a traditional English Christmas (except for the krumkake). It was a feast! (Click any image to make it even more delicious.)
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| MAKING THIS YEAR’S KRUMKAKE. |
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| MARY, BACKGROUND, IN KITCHEN. FOXY’S SPOT AT THE TABLE, FOREGROUND. |
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| FOXY, THE ‘GRUMPY OLD GIT’ IN HIS ‘BAH HUMBUG’ HAT. DOES HE LOOK LIKE A GRUMPY OLD GIT?!? |
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| FINGER-FOOD FIRST COURSE — MINCE PIES, SAUSAGE ROLLS, AND MORE. (KRUMKAKE BACK RIGHT.) |
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| IT WOULDN’T BE CHRISTMAS DINNER WITHOUT THE QUEEN. (ON TV. BUT WITH US, I’M SURE, IN SPIRIT.) |
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| AN ELEGANT TRADITIONAL TABLE. |
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| PLUM PUDDING (OUR FIRST). |
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| CHOCOLATE PUDDING FOR THOSE WHO DON’T LIKE PLUM. (OR FOR THOSE WHO LIKE BOTH!) |
Making Krumkake
I did more than clean-up in the kitchen at home this time. I had two assigned jobs during krumkake preparation. 1) Hold up the handle of the krumkake iron when it was open because it no longer stays up on its own; 2) Quickly close the iron while San Geraldo rolled each krumkake, so the iron wouldn’t get too cool. We made 50 krumkake.
A few times San Geraldo didn’t even have to remind to: 1) “Hold it up”; and 2) “Close it.”
A Christmas Tradition
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| (LEFT) SAN GERALDO 1957; (RIGHT) SAN GERALDO 2015. |