No oliebollen this year

My sister in law with her zalm slaatje

Wheelie last year with the last oliebollen
(that's powdered sugar on them, not snow)
:>)

For the first time in I don't know how long (at least 27 years) I did not make the traditional Dutch oliebollen.

Just didn't feel like it.

Last year I did (picture), and we ate about 5 of them, then I threw the rest in the freezer only to toss them out a few months later because they just don't taste the same after they've been frozen.

Chalk it up on my lousy disposition these past weeks, but I am not going to put on a brave front and pretend I feel terrific!

So there!

I did boil a bunch of eggs, to make deviled eggs later on. Plus I made a red cabbage dish with a meat sauce called Hachee (kind of like goulash) for dinner tonight.
For munchies I made that Knorr spinach vegetable dip stuff you pile into a hollowed out round loaf of french bread.
And I also bought a couple of tiny bottles of champagne, just in case we do make it to midnight tonight.

Called Holland this morning to wish the old folks a Happy New Year. I think I woke Mom from her nap, she sounded dull at first, but after a minute she got her engine going and it was yap yapitty yap like usual.

She didn't make oliebollen either, hasn't for years. Her reason being she doesn't feel like cleaning the entire kitchen afterwards.

In the olden days oliebollen bakken (frying those damn fritters) was quite a production number.
No matter how cold it was, the kitchen windows were opened. We would wrap ourselves in old sweaters and scarves around our heads. Mom was rather ambitious when it came to oliebollen bakken. She made buckets and buckets of them.
Of course the oil we used wasn't as refined as the oils we use nowadays, so yes, the entire kitchen would get greasy, and indeed we needed to clean EVERY surface afterwards.
She mentioned this morning that when we would go to church that night (I forget we did) every woman in church would stink of oil from oliebollen bakken.
Anyway...

In the days before we had television, we spent new years eve in front of the radio. Sometimes we had visitors, aunts and uncles, but for the most part it was just us. We would play a few board games, ate oliebollen, and appelflappen (apple beignets) and all sorts of snacks. We did some serious eating on a night like that because it was a long haul until midnight and we had to stay awake and alert.

The radio programs were always special on New years eve. There was this political comedian who had his special 'conference' that night. Something all of Holland would listen to. Apparently he was hilarious. His name was Wim Kan. His wife's name was Corry Vonk. He performed his New year's radio programs staring in 1954 and did so every year until TV became his venue and in 1973 he did his conference on the tube the first time.

So we ate our way through the evening until it was time to count down the seconds. My brothers would get their coats on to fly out the door. They had some serious fireworks to get rid of and some MORE serious Christmas trees to burn. But we had to stay until the ball dropped.
At which time my mom and dad would KISS each other.

And I mean....K I S S!!!

They were never very affectionate (in the sexy sense) in front of us kids, and this damn K I S S always embarrassed the heck out of me. I HATED it. It was just too personal, too intimate.
*lol*
So I would be right behind the boys, out the door.

We would spent a few hours freezing our butts off, and tossing firecrackers into the bonfires, it was great fun. Everyone went outside, neighbors, big and small, kids, old people, we all went outside and wished each other a Happy New Year.

When all the firecrackers were gone and the fires doused, we would go back inside where my mother would present her piece de la resistance. The salmon salad!!! Zalm Slaatje.

BLECH!

Let me try and explain this dish. It's basically a potato salad with something red (beets?) in it and salmon. Made into a dome on a large platter. Mayonnaise would cover the whole thing and it would be decorated with slices of hard boiled egg and sweet pickles topped with little tufts of more mayonnaise. And by the looks of it on the picture, the entire thing was on a bed of pretty lettuce.

Of course by that time no one was hungry anymore. My mom always insisted we eat JUST a bite. But to this day, the thought of this dish still makes me gag.

So I had to laugh when I got an email from my sister in law in New Zealand this morning with a picture of her proudly presenting the damn salmon salad, which my brother made.
I guess it stayed his favorite.

The next day, we would troop down to Mass (of course), after which again some more-special-than-other-Sundays-kind-of-breakfast, and visits to grandpa and or aunts and uncles.

Since we didn't have a car, we usually walked the 4-5 miles (the streetcars were too expensive I guess), but my brothers loved that because they were on the hunt for firecrackers that hadn't exploded along the way. The would come home with their pockets stuffed.

It amazes me that no one in my family ever got hurt. Especially my younger brother who was quite the pyromaniac. (ducks! hehe)

In later years the bonfires would really get out of hand, to the point where people started tossing old tires and furniture on the fires, sometimes blocking entire intersections. The fire department having to come and put the fires out and the neighbors waking up the next morning with pitch black walls and windows.

And then there were the tree hunts, and gangs of kids climbing onto your balcony or breaking into your basements to steal the trees that were being 'saved' for New year's eve.
To the point where the gangs of kids would use chains and sticks to fight each other.
It got a bit ridiculous.
But by that time we had all grown up some, and the old ways were already a thing of the past.

Still, I do have fond memories of New Year's eves in my family.

Except for that K I S S

SGMKJ!