Sylvester

A scene from Dinner For One

Today is January 2nd, and we just arrived back in Lübeck, after celebrating Sylvester (New Year's Eve) at the farm of a friend, Georg, and his partner, Angie. 

We got to Georg's farm on New Years Eve, just in time to watch "Dinner for One," about a rich old woman and her butler. This short TV show is repeatedly shown on German television on New Years Eve, and for some odd reason it's become a Sylvester tradition. I recommend watching it on YouTube, as it's very funny!

After "Dinner for One," we had gluhwein (which Angie makes with wine and black tea, to lessen the alcohol) around a small fire on the patio, with Georg & Angie's friends and their congenial wire-haired dachshund puppy, Emil. Emil (also called Email) was more than mere decoration: he's being trained to hunt foxes and badgers. 

Hunting is big on Georg's farm, where deer and wild boar are surprisingly plentiful. Emil's owner, Henrick, is a hunter and a chef, and during the course of the evening, he served up excellent, tender wild boar and deer for us. He also served liver, which, they told us, is a rare treat, as only the hunter gets to keep the liver. I'm not a big liver fan, but it was sehr good! 

In addition to the wild game, we had raclette for our Sylvester meal: we were all given a tiny frying pan, into which we could load mushrooms, grape tomatoes, mini potatoes, garlic, and/or onions, as we wished. We topped this with raclette cheese and broiled it in an electric raclette heater in the middle of the table. It was my first time having raclette, and I loved it, so be prepared to have raclette next time you come to Raspberry Island. For dessert: a raclette pan full of pineapple, garlic, a little white wine, and gorgonzola cheese. Excellent!

At midnight, we went outside to shoot off fireworks and take turns shooting Georg's shotgun over the rooftop of the farmhouse. All around us in the countryside, we could hear fireworks being set off. 

When the shooting was done, we returned to the table, where over the next two hours we we ate chocolate mousse, drank grappa and whiskey, and had a selection of local cheeses. It was, by then, about 2:00 a.m., with no sign that the party was ending any time soon. I really, really needed to get to bed, so I stood up and announced that, in Amerika, at midnight on New Years Eve we say, "Happy New Year!" and then we go to bed -- and I went to bed! The others stayed up until half past 3, and they would have had yet another course of food: a tray of Berliners (which we call Bismarks), if they hadn’t forgotten about them, which is no surprise, given the varieties of liquor being consumed that night. 

It was an excellent start to 2015. Around 10:00 a.m.on New Years Day morning, we all were back at the table — in various stages of health — enjoying a früstück of brötchen, cheeses, and smoked trout.

Georg has co-owned this large northern German farm with his two sisters since their mother passed away a couple of years ago. Their ancestors began farming here in 1248 (a mere couple hundred years before Christopher Columbus was a gleam in his father's eye) and it's been in their family ever since. The farm sits on 320 acres of land, about a third which is forested, with a large 1700-era barn/farmhouse building, Georg’s house built in the early 1900s, and a collection of old brick timber-frame outbuildings. 

To me, some of the most mysterious buildings in Germany are the huge farmhouses with barns attached. At Georg's farm, his sister Maria is currently the occupant of their farmhouse/barn, and she was kind enough to give us a grand tour, and I do mean grand. It was such fun to see what was inside one of these homes. I'll show the inside of this house in my next post. 

Happy 2015!