Oliebollen -- Maressa Mortimer
In the Netherlands, the rule is that up till the 15th of January, you can still wish people a Happy New Year. You can see people shaking hands, or waving at friends from their bikes, calling out, “Best Wishes for the New Year !” It also means people are still serving guests from their carefully stored stack of oliebollen: dough balls with raisins, cooked in very hot oil. They’re made on New Year’s Eve, the smell in your kitchen reminding you for many days afterwards. Some are better organised, and they bake them in their shed or garage. Now, you might wonder what oliebollen have to do with writing, apart from providing sustenance. But it suddenly occurred to me, as friends sent me pictures of golden brown balls, usually covered in icing sugar. (You buy special shaker tubs of icing sugar in the Netherlands, to sprinkle liberally over strawberries, mini pancakes called poffertjes as well as oliebollen). There are quite a few unwritten rules about oliebollen, especially when ...