…………………The dining room table has a large oval silver tray in the center….two candelabra, two silver biscuit jars at each end and two large silver leaf dishes from Buccellati. When the decorations are put away I have a very old Chinese Rose Medallion large bowl on the tray filled with faux lemons.
……………………..There is very little in the house I don’t decorate! I love to decorate the the Dining Room chandelier. It came with the house, and it’s quite elaborate….At a certain time of year, at a certain time of day….the sun rays stream through the room at just the right angle hitting the prisms which in turn create little rainbows all over the room!!!…It’s magical….For that reason alone I never changed the chandelier, but you have to be lucky enough to see it at the right time ……..Some people decorate their chandeliers with bows or greens, but I like my chandelier hung with lots of GLASS ICICLES………It’s very DOCTOR ZHIVAGO!
………………………Some people collect Santas, and Nutcrackers, but we collected SNOWMEN! We have always displayed them in the kitchen on glass window shelves…..Where ever we went we would always find a snowman 0r snowwoman, and add it to our collection. What you see in the pictures is just some of our little family of snow people. I usually keep them on display until there is absolutely no chance of a snow fall!
……….The photos, left to right, show the raw braided Stollen after its’ final rise and ready for the oven…..You can tell the size of it from the cookie sheet in sits upon…….The middle photo is the Stollen right out of the oven given a generous wash of melted butter……The photo at the right is about 15 to 20 mins later, after the bread has cooled. It is then sprinkled with powder sugar…………or as Jac used to say…..”SNOW ON THE MOUNTAIN”…….I had a generous piece for breakfast and it was wonderful……I didn’t over do it because a little voice was in my ear telling me to “TAKE YOUR SELF IN HAND!”….I could have easily been naughty…but I was good……….Merry Christmas everyone.
…………………..Some of you have asked me for the Stollen receipt again….so here it is! ….Don’t forget step #5 to take the dough out of the bowl….spray it with PAM, put the dough back into the bowl and then flip the dough so both sides have PAM on it……..It may be too late to make one for this Christmas, but there is always NEW YEARS MORNING!…..you just have to prepare it on the day before.