Ten minutes.

[mrissa]

I'm trying to order from Otto's: some chocolates for Mikulas, and some sour cherry preserves, some wine, plum halves, good garlic powder, smoked paprika garlic sausage, and did I mention chocolates for Mikulas? I think Otto himself answered the phone -- anyway some fella in his late middle years with a rather thick Hungarian accent -- and he is to call me back and "mark it down" for me. "You can order a million dollars worth if you like!" said Otto-or-not, "but in ten minutes, okay? There are one hundred high school kids right here, and they will run over the store if I don't take their money." So I gave him my phone number, and in ten minutes I will hear from him.

We all know the Hungarian Ten Minutes, which ranges from two minutes to two hours. But I will try again tomorrow if I can't get through today. There Will Be chocolates for Mikulas. We have birch rods aplenty in the back yard, and anyway I don't think anyone has earned them this year. We are taking as many light-in-darkness festivals as we can get away with this year. Mikulas around the house, Saint Nicholas separately with my Catholic not-really-cousins, Santa Lucia around the house again. Light up the candles, punch the saffron dough into submission, pass out the chocolate, because it is dark out there, but it won't stay dark forever.

Comments

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Is this your first personal experience with the Hungarian Ten Minutes?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yep. Heh.

[orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com]

Oh! Poppyseed filling! That's so good to know for Purim next year.

What's Mikulas? The rest I know, but I don't remember/can't find that one. And have you told about your saffron dough (bread? buns?) before?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Mikulas is celebrated in Hungary and the Czech Republic and probably Slovakia as well. St. Nicholas's Day, basically.

My saffron dough is for lussekatter, and I can't remember what I've said about it before. They're for Santa Lucia Day, December 13, but you have to make the buns on the 12th or else get up ungodly early, because you need lussekatter for breakfast on Lucia Day. With songs, and ideally with coffee and/or really good bitter dark hot chocolate with whipped cream.

I make my lussekatter with dried blueberries instead of raisins, because I am newfangled like that.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Re light-in-darness holidays: do you have a menorah?

Sadly, I won't get to light mine (I stored the big glass one, but packed the cool woman-flying-biplane one) because it turns out we will be away all the days of Chanukah.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We have no menorah, but my parents have one. We have the really good Hanukkah song on the BNL Christmas album, though.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Light a candle with the song playing nad call it close enough, maybe.

[orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com]

You can make a menorah out of anything. I've used a piece of wood and some glue and some tinfoil, you just scrunch it into a ball. I have six (!!!) extra boxes of the cheap Hannukah candles, would you like some? That's eight days of light! (I realize they're 99 cents at the supermarket. But really, six is too many.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the offer, but we do have candles. Little candles, even. But they're the Swedish kind.

[zalena.livejournal.com]

I love the Otto posts. Do you think that man with the accordion on the website is Otto?

I also like the idea of you in Minnesota ordering from him in California.

I love this country.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I love living in the future. The future, where I can get walnut rum chocolates through the simple expedient of bellowing at a Hungarian man half a continent away! It is a good future.

[brooksmoses]

It seems likely; the history page on the website says he plays the accordion....

[brooksmoses]

Heh; I just had a look at his website. (Sadly, it seems he's in The Other Part Of California, or I'd organize an expotition.) I suppose the blink tags are the HTML equivalent of the bellowing? In any case, they seem to fit the website, which is rather a remarkable thing in a blink tag and a site I want to visit!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, for once I find the blink tag just part and parcel of the experience rather than a damned annoying thing that must be suppressed.

But nobody else should think they can get away with that.