New Year's Eve dinner

A very Happy 2010 you all of you! Thank you to each and every one who have visited Schnitzel and the Trout this year. I hope you will all come back this new year and tell me who you are.

Once again, I am sharing one of my grandfather's postcards circa 1910. Very fitting for the time.

I promised to post the New Year's Eve dinner that the Trout and I shared. It started out with shrimp cocktails, our last dozen oysters on the half shell and then we got serious. A bib lettuce salad with my mother's salad dressing. She always made her dressing with sour cream, a little vinegar, a little sugar, salt and fresh ground pepper. Mix this together, add to fresh bib lettuce and top with crumbled sauteed bacon.

And then, the main dish. We have eaten this often on New Year's eve. It is like a tradition for us. The recipe is from Bon Appetit, October 1995. We have been making it almost as long as that.

Seared Sea Scallops with Creme Fraiche and Caviar

1 teaspoon olive oil
12 large sea scallops, cut in half horizontally if too large
1/4 cup creme fraiche
1/2 ounce caviar
fresh chives

Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Season scallops with salt and pepper. Cook scallops until golden on the bottom, about 2 minutes. Turn over, saute until just cooked through, about 1 minute. Drain on paper towels.

Top each scallop with 1/2 teaspoon creme fraiche. Top with caviar and garnish with chives.

This can be served as an appetizer, but we always serve it as the main dish. It is amazing, but every time we make this, we realize how much we really love it. Oh yes, a bottle of Domaine Ste. Michelle Brut went well with this meal. Happy New Year dear friends.

Merry Christmas Greetings

For you, 100 year old Christmas cards and our German pyramid to wish you Merry Christmas from our house to yours.

The time is coming quickly

An old photo postcard from 1910, wishing old fashioned Christmas greetings to all.


My poinsettias from last year now growing outside. I have two more to add to the grouping after Christmas.

Happy Easter 2009

I am wishing each and every one of you a blessed Easter day. I hope that you will have a memorable day sharing with family or friends or just being by yourself. I am sharing with you two of my postcards from my Opa and Oma. They are both over 100 years old. I find that amazing.

It is spring, there is hope and the Lord has risen. Have faith.

To My Valentine

Today, my treat for all of you are Valentine's that are over 100 years old! My grandfather was a traveling salesman before and after he married my grandmother. He always sent postcards to her, wherever he would be for the night. I can't even imagine how long it took for the postcards to arrive at their destination back in the very early 1900's.

I have an old salesman box with attached lid that is filled. My grandmother kept them all. Usually, not too much was written on the back, but you can read between the lines and know that they loved each other very much.

And both of them had a wonderful sense of humor.