After a hearty breakfast overlooking the ocean and watching the spinner dolphins (and seeing my first whale of the season), I trotted home and saw an old blog post on Facebook. The original seems to be gone, but I dug it out of my files and decided to post it as a ghost of Christmas past. From the old, old days of 2013:
Christmas Markets!
I love Christmas markets! When I lived in Hawaii, there were no Christmas markets to speak of. Instead, we went to the regular farmer’s market in the bright warm sunlight and bought mango bread and star fruit and blood oranges and ate them while looking out at the shiny blue sea.
I’ve moved back to Berlin now and I could go to a different Christmas market every day for the whole month of December and not run out. Just today I was at the market on Gendarmenmarkt, which is lovely. This picture, however, is from the Christmas market at Potsdamer Platz during the blue hour.
When I talked about the markets with James this time last year, when we were in the middle of our upcoming novel INNOCENT BLOOD, I told him about the scents of gingerbread and chocolate and burnt sugar almonds and the beautiful knitted scarves and handmade brushes and glass ornaments and he said, “You know, we could really wreak havoc at a place like that!”
He was, of course, right. This led to the scene in INNOCENT BLOOD set at the Christmas Market in Stockholm. It has all the scents and sights you would expect in a fairy tale Christmas Market, but it also has strigoi and Sanguinists. It’s a Vampire Christmas Market.
Provided there aren’t any children’s choirs full of young singers with old eyes who seem impervious to the cold, and you’re not limited to blood or transubstantiated wine, the market can be the perfect place for Christmas-related eating . Here is how I eat my way through a Christmasmarket
- Sugar-glazed peanuts are always the first thing I buy, because I believe in eating dessert first. Also because they are usually close to the door and the burnt sugar smell draws me over there like a powerful stomach magnet. Back at my first Christmas market, they only sold sugar-glazed almonds, but now you can get all kinds of nuts. Today I saw: almonds, peanuts, cashews, macadamia nuts, and pumpkin seeds. I get a small paper cone and munch while I’m shopping. It’s easy to tuck into a pocket when I need my hands to be free for touching lovely felt jackets and delicate ornaments under the watchful eye of the stands’ proprietors.
- Roasted chestnuts. I buy these more because I love the smoky smell and the feeling that I’m in a Dickens book than because I like the taste. If you’re lucky, you can buy them out of a soot-blackened cauldron. They come piping hot and are excellent handwarmers which is good because my hands are always getting cold.
- Grünkohl with sausage. At this point I feel guilty that I have eaten nothing but sweets and a few chestnuts. Grünkohl translates as kale, but it’s not like the kale I’m used to from the States. Here they boil it up with tasty German sausage and give it you in a paper bowl that is so hot you have to wear gloves to hold it. It’s filling, gives you a virtuous feeling because you’re eating greens, and tastes wonderful.
- Glühwein (mulled wine). Now the trip is coming to an end. I’ve eaten dessert. I’ve browsed. I’ve had dinner. It’s time for a cupful of warm wine.
- Chocolate covered strawberries. These aren’t specific to Christmas, but that doesn’t stop me from eating them. I count them as fruit and, if I get dark chocolate, a dose of antioxidants. Practically health food. Don’t tell me otherwise, because I don’t want to know.
Then I head home. If you go to the Christmas market, have a great time! But don’t go into the ice maze. Bad things happen in there. Rasputin is in there and *spoiler deleted.*
What are your favorite holiday treats?
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