CHRISTMAS AT DAS HELWIG HAUS B&B

I have been blessed by the arrival of a useful young Korean man called Jerry, who majored at a Korean University in tourism. When he returns to Korea he plans to work for an Uncle who has a resort on the hills overlooking the eastern sea towards Japan. Jerry told me that I was the ‘busiest’ grandmother he had ever seen. I think he was referring to the amount of work I do. I have found him helpful at cleaning bathrooms, hanging out washing and pressing sheets. He is excellent with meal service too, cleaning up the kitchen and packing the dishwasher after meals. He is a Wwoofer - a Willing Worker on Organic Farms and came to me expecting to undertake garden work. www.wwoof.com.au There will be plenty of that! Now he says he is delighted to be here as he has found himself gaining experience in a tourism business. The photo below shows Jerry emptying compost onto a garden patch where I’ll plant potatoes and sweet-corn next spring.

Korean Jerry

I’ve had an exhausting time since my brief days of rest and recreation in Hong Kong as I’ve been preparing for our winter season when every Saturday night I serve a German style, roast goose Christmas dinner to our in-house guests. This is our 17th year of providing Bed and Breakfast, plus a Saturday night dinner for our guests at Das Helwig Haus B&B who come to visit the sixty wineries of the Granite Belt.

Fourteen geese had to be killed. We breed our geese to serve as our main course meal, knowing that they will enjoy great lives as free-range geese and at nine months of the year will still be young and tender meat without excess fat.

Geese flock in October 2008

All the goose livers were made into goose liver pate – enough for the whole winter tourism season. The Brandied Fruit which I serve with homemade ice-cream were prepared and stored – again enough for the season.

• BRANDIED FRUIT
• 425. (15oz) tin each of crushed pineapple, cherries and peaches.
• 1 cup prunes
• 1 cup seeded raisins
• 1 cup sultanas
• 1-1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup brandy
• Drain juice from tinned fruit. Remove pips from cherries, dice peaches, stone and cut up prunes. Add sugar to the juices in a saucepan and simmer for 5 minutes. Pour over the fruits and add brandy. Cool and store in the refrigerator in a screw top jar. I used my own bottled cherries and peaches. I doubled the quantities in this recipe.

Other items like the steamed rye bread which I serve for ‘happy hour’ with the pate will only have to be baked after the third weekend, as one batch of dough makes six loaves and I only use two loaves for each dinner. There is enough Pea and Ham soup for one more weekend. There is sufficient red cabbage for one more weekend.

The Christmas tree was erected and decorated by my little granddaughters. It can stay in place until August.

Christmas tree

I had twelve guests here for Friday and Saturday, most of whom had previously visited with us one or more times. It is always great to welcome back friends and as I say, no one can pay us a greater compliment that to repeatedly return to our home. This hilarious group entered into the festive spirit and asked me to snap a group photo.

Then I was asked to join the group and Jerry became the photographer. Imagine my surprise when one of the men decided to kneel at my feet and give praise in anticipation of the dinner I was about to serve.

Fay in the red shoes

The dinner was served at two tables for six.

I received an email from my literary agent Sunday morning. He wrote – Your book has now been specially listed by Lulu on the Amazon.com website. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002ACXQ0M/sr=8-1/qid=1244294755/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1244294755&sr=8-1&seller=

Lulu gave it a 5 star ranking ***** and 94% of readers have given Wildflowers, wilderness and wine a POSITIVE review.

When in Hong Kong I placed an order for books with a Chinese printing firm. I expect to have copies of my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine here in 3-4 weeks. I plan a Stanthorpe book launch about the end of July.

Das Helwig Haus B&B is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for summer stone-fruit, autumn apples,  Christmas in July, wildflowers, wilderness and wine.

Technorati Tags: Amazon Press, Christmas, Das Helwig Haus B&B, free-range geese, geese, German, Glen Aplin, Hong Kong, Korean, Queensland, stanthorpe, Wildflowers wilderness and wine, WWOOF

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