Oil-balls, apple-flaps and bombs

Oliebollen at the top, Appelflappen at the bottom!

It's New Year's Eve! Or as we call it in the Netherlands: Old Year! And 'Old and New' is celebrated in the Netherlands with the items mentioned in the title of this post! And you can see two of the three in the photo accompanying this post.

The Dutch name for Oil-balls is Oliebollen and basically they are some sort of dough nut. The original dough nut to be precise: before some silly person thought it would be better with a hole in the middle! It's like a pancake batter (quite often with raisins and/or apple and sometimes even containing beer) and it's thrown in hot hot hot oil using two spoons or an icecream scoop. Halfway through you turn the ball around and when both sides are golden brown, you take them out, put them on some kitchen towel, add some icing sugar and eat. Preferably while they are still warm!

The Dutch name for Apple Flaps is Appelflappen and they are made using the same batter (without raisins or apple). Peel the apple, take out the core and slice the apple so the hole is in the middle. Then dunk them in the batter and put the battered apple in the hot oil. When both sides are golden brown, take them out, put them on some kitchen towel, add some icing sugar and eat. Lovely!

And the bombs? Well, the Netherlands are mad for their fireworks. And the only time you're allowed to light them is on New Year's Eve! Between 8pm and 2am to be precise. You can only buy fireworks legally from December 29th or 30th and people spend lots of money on them. What do you mean: recession?! The people who buy them are mostly male teens, young adults and dads. They do not want the sparkly stuff, they want the deafening stuff. Even the dads, but they get talked into sparkles by their wives! All through New Year's Eve people are lighting those fireworks. Not the sparkly stuff, because that's only fun in the dark, but the deafening stuff.

Now, the 'best fireworks' are the carbide churns. They use milkchurns, put some carbide in, add a bit of water, put the lid back on, put a piece of firework in the hole and light it. Can you imagine the noise? Nowadays, the community where I live has banned them from town and assigned a few fields surrounding the community where carbide churns are allowed to be lit!

Of course I am not too fond of all those fireworks. It's loud, it's messy, it's dangerous and most of all: it upsets my monsters, since cats have a more delicate (and better) hearing than us simple humans! Ah well, I've finished the Oliebollen and the Appelflappen (they were good, even if they were already cold) and the fireworks is only for about three days a year!

Anyway, I want to wish all of you in blogland a very happy, healthy and financially secure 2010! May all your resolutions be kept. I will talk to you again in the new year!