The real excitement of the weekend in Hamburg was to celebrate the festival of Santa Lucia. Santa Lucia is a Sicilian saint and martyr from the early 4th century. The festival is widely celebrated in Sweden where our host, Michael, lived for a time. Upon his return to Germany, he brought with him the tradition of celebrating S.L. and he and his family have been holding an annual celebration ever since.
This year we were lucky enough to be staying with them the very weekend of the party. We met many of Michael and Emi's friends and extended family and enjoyed a wonderful feast complete with a number of traditional Swedish (and German) dishes.
Michael and Emi taught me a few things in the kitchen as I watched (and helped a little) them make homemade gravlax, some amazing steelhead, pate, cookies, gluvine, etc, etc. On top of that, most of the guests (about 40 of them) each brought a dish of their own. It was a real treat. As you'd expect, I pulled a "Thanksgiving" and hurt myself with food, but that's the price you pay to party.
Here are some shots of the spread.... check out the steelhead presentation.
Rudy got fat, too. Who's mommy's little piggy?
After eating we had some Chrismas Caroles to sing and some dessert to eat -- Lexi's cake was good enough for us to bring back to Lux.
No comments:
Post a Comment