The Grand Duchess Hits Another Home Run

Here is a photo of the wonderful Rosca de Reyes (next to a fresh pot of coffee) that the Grand Duchess Sonja prepared yesterday afternoon. It’s basically a sweet eggbread that is similar to Stollen but lighter and moister. It’s sort of the Mexican version of Stollen, typically enjoyed around January 6^th, to celebrate the coming of the Three Kings, following the birth of Jesus.

Bakeries all over Mexico sell Rosca de Reyes in different sizes, and many Latino groceries in the USA take orders in early January. Fortunately, we neglected to place an order with our local Latino grocery store, so Sonja whipped out her new Latin American and Caribbean cookbook and got busy. Both of us remarked later that the result was even nicer than what we’ve had previously in Mexico.

And the humorous side to all of this is. . . While we enjoyed the first pieces with coffee in the living room, ‘Rannveig’ the cat suddenly appeared with frosting on her whiskers and face. I suspect that she was closely inspecting (and perhaps sampling?) the Rosca, which was left to cool on the kitchen table after the photo was taken. Needless to say, poor Sonja will not be having any more of her Rosca. As for me, well, you know. It just looks too good to throw away, so. . . ;-)

Comments

tradgardmastare said…

Any chance of the receipe for this Mexican Stollen - sounds fascinating !
I read your E v E message more carefully (whoops!) and now realise where to send my thoughts.

1:18 PM

Bluebear Jeff said…

It does look delicious.

-- Jeff

1:21 PM

Bluebear Jeff said…

Stokes,

I showed the photo to my wife . . . and she too would like the recipe.

Would the Grand Duchess consent to your posting her recipe? I'm sure that my bride would not be the only one to appreciate it.

-- Jeff

9:26 PM

It's Early Days Yet. . .

M aking some early progress with Batch A of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment over the last several days/evenings. Nothing terribly exciting just yet, but the basic black, brown, and flesh areas are done as are the green bases, and gray undercoat. The latter two areas needed some careful retouching early in the week. Next up, the neck stocks. I might just do these in red for the enlisted men although some of my source material suggest they were black, but I always look for an excuse to shake things up a bit. Any errant splotches of red (or black) can be covered with another application of light gray before I move onto the next step. "Giddy up!" as one Cosmo Kramer might have said. -- Stokes

And We're Off!!!

Arrrgh! Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus. Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown. More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart. I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands. In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands. As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff. Depending on ...

A Little More Brushwork. . .

A little more brushwork on the first batch of (my version of) the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment yesterday (Saturday). Taking a different tack this time and addressing many of the details first before the white coats and other larger areas of uniform. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've painted the (dark) red stocks of the enlisted men. Always a difficult and frustrating item to paint, it made sense to paint from the inside out as it were and get that particular detail out of the way first rather than try to paint it in later after much other painting has been accomplished. Trying to reduce the need for later retouching of other items on the figures you understand. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to these later today after a second trip back to the Apple Store for help with a couple of new iPad issues and, following the return home, some revision of Google Slides for tomorrow's meetings with my students. -- Stokes P.S. And according t...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

Search This Blog