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Getting ready...
In preparation for our Trollsmas Market dishes, I already got some appropriate tableware.
I got some dishwasher safe stainless steel versions of those little fork things you'd get at a fries stall, and also porcelain versions of those paper bowls.
It may not be too noticeable in the picture above, but they came in two different sizes.
Also some porcelain versions of other common paper plates.
Looking forward to using them soon. 
Some Inspiration
...and to get some inspiration for our Christmassy Troll cooking, I visited my hometown's little "Christmas Market" of sorts today, which is running this weekend. 
I put Christmas Market in quotes because it is really just a shadow of what it once was. I believe it started in the 70's, when many local clubs and just regular inhabitants got their own stands to show off their stuff. It got a little more commercialized by the time I was young, but it was still big and varied enough to span pretty much the entirety of the historic town center with its beautiful half-timbered houses. Even just about a decade ago, it was much larger than today.
Nowadays, this is all we're going to get, just a couple of stands on that big square between the Protestant church and the town hall.
It's not just the Covid lockdowns that are to blame, I remember the 2018/19 markets to be similar in scope, for example. Many small businesses in that town center were unable to stay afloat either, it's just the way things go.
I suppose we can be grateful that we still get a version of a Christmas market at all, and it still got some of those mainstay stands, including the one for crêpes which is there every year. Also a little carousel for the kiddies.
Here's an idea, how about some tarte flambée as one of our challenges (known as Flammkuchen here)? I've seen it on a bunch of Christmas markets.
Arguably one of the most important things on Christmas markets is mulled wine, and my hometown happens to have a partner town in France called Dieulefit. Those French people know a thing or two about wine, so our friends from Dieulefit are another mainstay that is not missing at any of those Christmas markets.
I had some of their mulled wine myself, of course. These glasses with the handle are common, but not ideal. The glass itself will get very hot to the touch, so you need to be careful handling it. In the cold weather, maybe you can use it to warm your fingers for a bit, but my well isolated coffee and tea glasses should be a better pick at home. 
Also, some grilled goods tend to be a good purchase.
The people at the stand had their hands full when I first arrived, they were still setting things up. After waiting for a while, they got their first sausages and steaks ready, though. And they had quite a number of people to serve at once. 
Their bratwurst was usually served in a bun, but I got mine cut instead, because that's how I intend to serve it during our Troll challenge. Those guys had a little machine were you could insert the sausage and it would come out completely cut at the bottom, but I guess I will have to do it myself.
Those paper plates and wooden forks will obviously go straight into the trash after one use, unlike the ones I got at home.
Then finally some crêpes for dessert. The sign at this crêpes stand gives a few more ideas, though not all of them are to my liking. They have crêpes with Nutella, applesauce, egg nog, plum butter, whole bananas... and also savory ones with cheese, sausage, ham and roasted onions, or another version with tomatoes, oregano, cheese, garlic, jalapeños...
My favorite so far was one with "Russian chocolate" I got four years ago, I believe I even posted about it in IDC back then. It was simply chocolate infused with vodka, which was a surprisingly good combo. Grand Marnier is a more common choice for crêpes with booze there now, though they had Cointreau today instead. That's what I got too, with some added sugar and cinnamon.
Here I'm enjoying some of them in front of that town tower, where I had to run up the steps as part of some firefighting drill two years ago...
It was a nice little Saturday afternoon spent there, even if the scope still leaves a lot to be desired. It would have been nice to have some Christmas music in the background, at least.
Still, it should have given us plenty of inspiration for our Troll challenge. Will we do as well as those professionals? Possibly even better, in some regards? Let's see...
No HORSE race today... but some Trollsmas cooking instead.
I started out with some mini donuts. The local Christmas markets from my youth used to have some stands with automated machines where the uncooked mini donuts would swim down a canal of frying oil, then be flipped down onto the next canal to be fried on the other side, and then be flipped into the packaging. It was actually quite fun to watch.
Of course, I don't have one of those at home. But I do have this donut maker that I got on eBay about a decade ago.
I have some recipes saved up, and the instruction manual contains one too. But it looks like the previous owner has scribbled one below the printed recipe as well, with similar ingredients, but a different ratio and much less volume.
How about we just use that scribbled one for our first try?
The dough was easy enough to prepare. Just some flour, baking powder, vanilla sugar, regular sugar, milk, oil, a pinch of salt, and an egg.
Meanwhile, I prepared a low-carb sugar free chocolate sauce. The recipe would have yielded much more than I needed, so I only made a third of it. I wonder if the ratio was off, as a result... it seemed really thick.
Now, time to make those donuts. Each of those little cavities has enough room for about a tablespoon of dough.
Each batch cooks for about three minutes. Some donuts got stuck on the top part here. 
But that's okay.
First batch came out nicely. Those holes in the middle are filled with a thin layer, but you could easily poke through it, or just ignore it. Sorry about those indentations, I was using wooden chopsticks to get the donuts out.
Second batch was a lot browner on one side. Some people might prefer it.
I need to be careful while filling that machine up, though. I almost turned a part of my third batch into pancakes.
The entire dough was enough to yield three batches of six donuts each, but some of them were eaten right away to test their quality.
Here they are with that chocolate sauce and one of my new forks.
But how do they hold up?
The donuts themselves would have easily gotten two stars at least, but I'm really not sold on that chocolate sauce...
One problem was the thickness, it almost seemed like icing. It was also really sweet.
All things considered, I was torn between one or two stars... but no, I think we need to have some standards here. I say the sauce dragged it down to one star.
Better luck next time!
Crêpes (standard) 
Variation: with chocolate
Variation: with booze
Mulled wine
Mini Donuts (standard) 
Variation: with "Christmassy" flavoring
Waffles (standard)
Variation: with "Christmassy" flavoring
Churros
Lumumba (cocoa with rum)
Bratwurst and fries
Variation: Currywurst
Cinnamon stars
Cheese fondue
Reibekuchen (potato pancakes)
Bonus:
Christmas Stollen
Tarte flambée
Live Challenge No. 13 - Ancient Board Games
The Trolls managed to fit a slightly shortened meetup into their busy schedules today, to take a much needed break - and get an excellent steak dinner. And for our Live Challenge, we got out some board games for the history buffs among you.
We played Senet and the Royal Game of Ur, thought to be some of the oldest board games in the world, dating back to several millennia BC. They don't make them like they used to, do they?
In both cases, the rules of those games are actually largely lost to history, but archaeologists and other experts have made an effort to reconstruct sets of rules to at least give us an idea of how they could have been like, which is what we used for our challenge as well. Let's just get started, shall we?
Round 1: Senet
An ancient Egyptian board game, likely dating back into the Predynastic period, with references to it being found in sources dated to as early as 3100 BC, and fragments of what appear to be game boards being found at burial sites from that period too. It evidently continued to be a popular pastime throughout the land for thousands of years, lasting well into the first couple of centuries AD.
More than fifty Senet boards have been found through archaeological expeditions. They were a popular gift for the burial sites of Pharaohs, and one famous mural, pictured below, from the tomb of Queen Nefertari, the first wife of Ramesses II, even depicts the queen playing the game. There is evidence, however, that this game had been enjoyed by people of all social classes in ancient Egypt. Some crude carvings of the game board, for example, have been found in sites of old stone quarries, suggesting that they were made by workers to use during their breaks.
We were using a version of the reconstructed ruleset by the American Egyptologist Timothy Kendall, with some house rules to speed the game up. Senet is thought to have been a "racing game" where the goal is to get your playing pieces of the board, similar to backgammon - in fact, both this and the Royal Game of Ur have been suggested as possible precursors to that game. Both sides follow the same route across the board, which is as follows:
Dice were not known when this game was invented. Like the ancient Egyptians, we used "casting sticks", with one side black and rounded, and one side white and flat. You throw those sticks, and get to move your pieces one square for every white, flat side that is up - unless all four sticks show the black, rounded side up, which would count as 5 instead of 0.
If you land on top of one of your opponent's playing pieces, your piece and the one from your opponent get to swap places. Connected groups of two or more pieces are safe, though.
Here's our game in progress. In order to get your pieces off the board, you first need to land on that fifth-last square with those three symbols on it, known as the "house of beauty" or "house of happiness" (though Primrose called it "the sauna" :f_ugly:). You are prohibited from moving beyond it before you land on it. Then, you would be able to move your piece past it on your next throw. If it lands on one of the three last squares, it is stuck there until you get the exact roll to bear it off, as they say in backgammon (i.e. if it's on the third-last square, you'd need a 3 to get it off the board, etc).
Watch out for that water square, though - it's a trap. If you land on it, you get "flushed back" all the way to the "house of rebirth" (which Primrose called "the restaurant" :f_ugly:) in the middle of the board. To up the stakes, we included the rule that by overtaking one of your opponent's pieces that was standing on one of the three last squares, you get to knock it back into that water square, and therefore back to the middle of the board.
Our game boiled down to a battle between our last playing pieces for a spot on the last three squares, but a bad streak of "rolls" for Primrose prevented her from advancing, allowing me time to get a close win.
Round Two coming up next...
Round Two: The Royal Game of Ur
This ancient Mesopotamian game has been found in the 1920's by Sir Leonard Woolley in the royal tombs of the old Sumerian city of Ur in present day Iraq. The two boards that were found there are generally dated to about 2600 BC. The actual name of that board game remains unknown, hence the somewhat awkward title based on the place were it was discovered. It is likely that several similar versions existed, possibly with differing rules.
The original version of the excavated game board and the associated playing pieces can still be observed in the British Museum in London.
What can also be found there is a Babylonian clay tablet from the 2nd century BC describing the rules of a similar game, which was useful for later reconstructions of what the rules of the game could have been, including the rule set suggested by the British Assyriologist Irving Finkel, which we were using for our challenge.
As an interesting side note, according to Genesis 11:27-31, the city of Ur was the place were Abraham grew up before moving to Canaan, back when he was still known as Abram. I wonder if he ever encountered that game or possibly even played it...
Once again, the goal of the game is to move your pieces across the board and bear them off. Finkel's suggested path is pictured below, with one player's path marked in purple, and the other player's path marked in green.
My version of the game came with eleven playing pieces per side, but we only used six of them each to shorten the game.
Instead of casting sticks, this game uses four tetrahedron-shaped dice, but the principle remains the same. Two corners on each die are painted white, the other two are left black. You throw the four dice, and move your pieces according to the number of white corners that are up. Zero actually counts as zero now, though.
The game board may look intimidating, but the reconstructed rules are simple. If you land on an opponent's piece (note that the paths of both players overlap in the middle section), it is kicked out and must start over from the beginning. If you land on a square with one of those blossoms on it, you get to play again. These squares are also safe squares, where any piece that is staying on it cannot be knocked back to the start, though this rule is only relevant for that blossom square in the center, since your opponent won't be able to land on the other two on your side anyway.
Play the game online for yourself here.
Below is a picture of our game in progress. We took turns knocking each other's pieces out and it was not always clear to see who was ahead.
In the end, I finally managed to get a streak going when it mattered. Soon, I was only a 2 away from bearing off my final piece, which even happened right after I took the picture. Fair enough, in both this and Senet, a 2 is actually the most likely roll, which does matter as a strategic consideration in these otherwise mostly luck-based games.
It was another lovely meetup, and we hope that we can get another final one going this year before our Christmas break.
It is easy to win by causing "traffic jam" in front of the "restaurant", Harrier! 
And now it´s perfectly clear why my last figure couldn´t manage it to get into the house of beauty (or how I call it: "the sauna"): because I am already beautiful! *trollolololol* ♠_ugly::f_ugly:♠_ugly::f_ugly:♠_ugly:
and by the way: Question!
Do international Christmas markets count for the challenge? ♠_ugly:♠_ugly:♠_ugly:♠_ugly:♠_ugly: Because I made a wonderful Swiss Rösti. Actually, I was attempting to make those "Reibekuchen" and the potatoe pieces did not stick together, so, it somehow turned out to be Rösti. ♠_ugly:
Actually, it´s delicious! ♠_ugly:
Okay, there it is!
Should have been "Reibekuchen", but the potatoe pieces did not stick together - no idea why! But that Rösti is really delicious!
Actually, it´s a big fail, but it tasted really good, so I would say: one star?
Originally posted by Primrose6789
Do international Christmas markets count for the challenge? ♠_ugly:♠_ugly:♠_ugly:♠_ugly:♠_ugly:
Sorry Prim, only the items on our list.
Yes, I agree about handing out one star. Zero stars for the reibekuchen fail, but one as a bonus because it still turned out nice and tasty.
Crêpes (standard)
Variation: with chocolate
Variation: with booze
Mulled wine
Mini Donuts (standard)
Variation: with "Christmassy" flavoring
Waffles (standard)
Variation: with "Christmassy" flavoring
Churros
Lumumba (cocoa with rum)
Bratwurst and fries
Variation: Currywurst
Cinnamon stars
Cheese fondue
Reibekuchen (potato pancakes)
Bonus:
Christmas Stollen
Tarte flambée
How about that?
Crêpes (standard)
Variation: with chocolate
Variation: with booze
Mulled wine
Mini Donuts (standard)
Variation: with "Christmassy" flavoring
Waffles (standard)
Variation: with "Christmassy" flavoring
Churros
Lumumba (cocoa with rum)
Bratwurst and fries
Variation: Currywurst
Cinnamon stars
Cheese fondue
Reibekuchen (potato pancakes)
Swiss Rösti with cheese 
Bonus:
Christmas Stollen
Tarte flambée
:coolface::coolface::profit:
*trollolololol*
Okay, double post, I should write here something, so ...... urm, well ..... my Swiss Rösti was REALLY GOOD! :coolface::truestory:
I'll just let the rösti stand as some foreshadowing of the next stop in our Burgers Around the World tour.
Originally posted by Bettingsocks
This looks so cool. I need to look it up
I guess they can be compared to hash browns, but they're not quite the same. Don't ask me about the differences, though - I have yet to make either dish from scratch.
Reibekuchen is commonly served with applesauce, but that one isn't for me at all...
Rösti, on the other hand, are usually a side dish.
I found this in the freezer in the basement:
It won't count for the challenge, because we have to make our dishes from scratch, but it expired in September and can therefore be considered "mussgo". It would also give me something to compare my own cooking to.
Churros are usually deep fried. I intend to make mine (the "real ones" for the challenge) in the air fryer, and I guess I could have tried the same with these frozen ones too. The package didn't come with any instructions for air frying, so I just put those churros in a pan.
Maybe I should have used more oil, but they looked all right already from the outside after a couple of minutes.
I still had some leftover chocolate sauce too.
Again, these would have been good for one star, I think. They were probably still a little too soft in the center - once again, I may have not used enough oil. But they don't count for our challenge anyway.
I still have over half of my package left, maybe I could try air frying the rest after all, and just play it by ear.
Introducing the Troll Calendar 2022!
It is here. After being hosted on my own blog in 2020 and 2021, and having originally been introduced in a private Skype group in 2019, the Troll Calendar returns for its fourth season.
In case you're not familiar, it's quite simple. I got myself 24 Kinder Surprise eggs, and every day until December 24th, I am going draw one egg at random and do a show and tell with what's inside. Sometimes it's cute, sometimes it's weird, sometimes it's actually kind of fun, and sometimes you have no idea what's going on... kind of like with the Trolls.
Normally, I would make sure that one third of the eggs are those so-called "Girly Eggs", which feature trinkets specifically aimed at a young female audience, but this year, since it is hosted on our shared blog and we have one male and one female troll in charge, I decided that it's going to be half and half instead.
At least I assume that those pink ones are girly eggs, and the other ones aren't... I don't know, I grew up during a time when the concept of gender still made a tiny bit of sense.
The eggs are filled into a glass which would make for a fine gulp of booze for Harrier after a particularly bad Badugi session, and each day, I am going to draw one at random.
The Trolls are ready.
Troll Calendar - Day 1
We drew a regular (i.e. non-girly) egg to start off this year's Troll calendar. Look, it even has a picture of me on it.
Ready to find out what's inside that capsule?
It's... some kind of figurine? I see it comes with a string so you could hang it up on your Christmas tree or somewhere else, as a decoration. That is usually a theme with these Christmassy Kinder Surprise things.
Here are the instructions...
We didn't draw a girly egg... but the figurine looks a little girly to me? Maybe I was mistaken about the outside of those eggs, but then again, I remember last year's Troll Calendar coming with a fair bit of "gender confusion" in that regard too.
So we get this pigtail-wearing chick practicing her telemark skiing, but what is this red thing supposed to be? A toilet? A throne? Both?
Oh, I see... it's a backpack. It comes with a hat, too.
Then there are these stickers...
The instructions say that you can fit them in that backpack. Fair enough, I stuffed them a little bit in there. It's not like I plan to use them.
Well, that's cute, I suppose. Not very guyish, though, it seems. I wonder what those other eggs will hold in store for us.