December 2019 - Ski & party time

The 1st day of December was our first ski day of the season. It's our last ski season here, so we're planning to get as much out of it as possible!

Every Sunday, the least busiest day in the weekend as the Mormons are in church that day ánd are not allowed to do anything that makes people work for them, I go with Geert and Willem, and during the week I try to go at least one time with friends.

 

 

 

 

Last summer we bought ourselves a portable grill that is perfect for tailgating, which is a popular 'party' here in the States that occurs on and around the open tailgate of a vehicle in the parking lots at stadiums and arenas, before and occasionally after games and concerts. But it's also a perfect way of having lunch when you go skiing!🌭🍻

Another traditional 'party' here in the states, is the time when people come together to feast on a huge Turkey. It's a typical way of celebrating Thanksgiving, but we did it in December when there was a big Belgian delegation here for meetings. It was my first time  to prepare such a meal, and I had no idea it takes so much planning!! You have to start a week before the actual dinner! It goes as follows: 

1) Defrosting of your 🦃 in the fridge (I had a 20 lbs turkey, so that already took 4 days)

2) Brining (= putting the bird in a salty water 'marinade' to get a more tender turkey) for 24 hours.

3) Drying the bird for 24 hours in the fridge

4) Seasoning of the inside of the bird 

5) Stuffing the bird with veggies and oranges

6) Before putting it in the oven I poured a bottle of champagne and some chicken broth over it and sealed the whole thing with foil. 

7) It took about 4 hours covered + 1 hour uncovered in the oven ... 

8) ... before the bird came out looking like this: 

9) And it only took about 1 hour before it looked like this:

And this was the crowd that devoured it:

It sure was one juicy bird!!  I always thought that turkey meat was dry, but boy was I wrong!

And I also made the most traditional side dishes that go with it: gravy, sweet potatoes with marshmallows 😱, green bean casserole, corn casserole, mashed potatoes and stuffing 😅

And we finished it off with their typical Thanksgiving desserts: pecan pie and pumpkin pie. 

I believe It's safe to say that nobody went home hungry 😜.

And now that I'm at the topic 'parties', I guess I'll just continue. With Christmas and New Year's Eve, December is already guaranteed to be a festive month, but when a good friend who moved to Florida a few months ago, is coming over for a few days, you just have to have 1 extra party!

 

And then you have all the Christmas parties and happenings of course. We had an 'Ugly sweater run', an 'Ornament exchange party', a 'White elephant gift swap*' book club gathering, an 'Ugly sweater coffee get-together', a 'Christmas poker night', a 'Hanukah' celebration ... and then the one and only Christmas Eve of course!

     *'White elephant gift swap?' I hear you say 😏. It is said to come from the historic practice of the King of 

        Siam (now Thailand) giving rare albino elephants to courtiers who had displeased him, so that they 

        might be ruined by the animals' upkeep costs. Today, a White Elephant exchange focuses on crappy gifts 

        that are meant to be silly or somehow burdensome to the recipient. This gag gift theme has fallen 

        somewhat out of fashion, though, and most people give inexpensive gifts instead. Given how nasty the 

        original white elephant story is, this may not be such a bad strategy. The holiday season is all about 

        generosity and kindness, after all, and the idea of continuing the king’s legacy of trying to ruin people 

        with a gift, doesn't really fit this season! 

 

Ugly sweater run on base

Ornament exchange party with the Hill Air Force Base spouses club

Book club

Ugly sweater coffee get-together

 

Participants of the ugly sweater contest

And the well-deserved winner ... Trude, from Norway! 🤩 

Since a few months, we come together once a mont with some of the internationals and Americans for a poker night. Well, the guys play poker, and the ladies do whatever they feel like doing. This month, it was also a bit of a Christmas party.

 

 

We have 1 family from Israel in our community, and as Jews, they do not celebrate Christmas, but they celebrate 'Hanukah'. This eight-day 'Festival of Lights' commemorates the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, where according to legend Jews had risen up against their Greek-Syrian oppressors during the second century B.C. The celebration is completely oil-oriented, as the oppressors had attempted to defile all the oil in the Holy Temple, but after the defeat a small jug of oil was found, which miraculously burned for eight days. That is why the celebration is marked by the successive kindling of eight lights of the menorah (Hebrew candle), and eating oily foods such as doughnuts.

As we would wait for Hendrik to be back home to do our Christmas Eve party, and since the Norwegian couple who lives here wanted to share the Norwegian looove for Christmas (aka 'Jul') with us, we gladly accepted their invitation to have a real traditional Norwegian Jul celebration. Their whole house was decorated in a way that just breaths Christmas (they even change their curtains for the occasion). Apparently Norwegians always use a lot of lights, but during Christmas the love of lighting goes to the next level – probably because this is the darkest time of the year. 

And then the food!! Oh my God!! 

During the apero we were treated with their 'White Gold': unsalted (not even a pinch!) dried (for months!) Norwegian cod, served with butter. 

For dinner we had 'Pinnekjøtt' (lamb racks soaked in a salt solution, then hung to dry for 2 months after which they are soaked again for hours to remove the salt, and only then they are steamed over birch branches before these intensely delicious and savoury pieces of lamb can be devoured ... which all of us did 🤤), served with a puree of rutabaga (aka turnip) and shots of aquavit* (the national spirit of Scandinavia). And all this yumminess was finished off with 'Multekrem': whipped cream with vanilla and cloudberry (aka 'arctic gold', the most expensive wild berry of Norway!) toppings, served inside a crispy conical wafer-like cookie (krumkakes).

      *Let me tell you a bit more about that 'Aquavit': it's a spirit distilled from grain or potato (much like vodka), and caraway is its dominant 

           spice. It is derived from the Latin 'aqua vitae', meaning “water of life”. The spirit supposedly helped ward off disease and old age, and it 

           appears that it was commonly used as medicine during the Black Death period. By the 15th century, aquavit was (ironically) considered a

           cure for alcoholism, and today, it’s still believed to help digest rich food. But I can assure you that experienced none of these healing     

           powers when I did 'beer pong' with this spirit on my surprise birthday party the year before.

 

The apero table with the dried cod 

I don't have pictures of the main dish, nor the dessert. Probably because when we weren't fully occupied devouring this delicious food, we were probably licking our fingers ... hence no time for pictures! 

Afterwards we were treated some more ... this time with a trillion presents! One of the presents Trude gave to BA (her husband), was a train track with a riding train with flashing headlights and all to put in the Christmas tree ... these Norwegians sure know how to bring Christmas to another level.

Our gorgeous host and her trillion presents

 

Installing the train 

This was definitely a Christmas Eve to remember!

2 Days later, Geert and I headed to Sundance Ski Resort to celebrate my birthday (December 23th) in style. 

The Sundance Ski resort is known for its owner, Robert Redford, but also for its good restaurants ánd the Sundance Film Festival (which was founded by Redford and is taking place while I'm writing this)! The resort and film festival are named after the role Redford played in the 1969 film 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'. There's also a very charming & cozy bar in the resort, The Owl Bar. It has the original 1890s Rosewood Bar, that was once frequented by Butch Cassidy's Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, and which was restored and moved from Wyoming to the resort. You're not allowed to take pictures when you're in the bar, but I did find this on on the net:

We arrived in the evening and enjoyed a drink in the bar before going to 'The Foundry Grill', the most casual (but still pretty fancy ... and expensive 😱) one of the 2 restaurants on the resort. We got the most romantic table, right in front of a fire place! The food was delicious ... and the company even better 😊. Definitely a nice way to celebrate your birthday!

The ski resort is small, and the lifts are crazy slow, but it's definitely a charming place. 

 

 

With a cute fire place at the base, where people (or will turkeys 😆) gather around to warm up.

 

From the slopes, you get a gorgeous on Timpanogos, the second highest mountain in the Utah's Wasatch Range (11,752 ft or 3,582 m). It was particularly fun for us to get this view, as we climbed the Timpanogos in July 2017.

 

Our view on Timpanogos from the Sundance ski slopes in December 2019

Our view on Timpanogos (from the other side) when hiking to the top in July 2017 

We were lucky to be there during their weekly night skiing evenings, because that was something we had never done before. And as it is our last winter season here, it definitely is the time to ✅ our boxes!

Before 2020 could start, one last party had to take place ... New Year's Eve! 

Like last year, we were invited at Simone and Gerard's (one of the Dutch families here) place, and together with some more Dutch, Italian, Norwegian and American friends, we started 2020 ... the year we will be going back home!