Online kringel baking and Christmas party
dets. 25, 2020 Estonian Life No. 52 2020
Over a dozen Albertans baked kringel on Sunday December 13, receiving instructions via Zoom directly from from baker and cook extraordinaire Krista Ehala in Tartu. Arranged by Alberta Estonian Heritage Society vice-president Evelin Fodor, the pre-registered bakers received the recipe ahead of time so everyone had measured quantities of flour, sugar, choice of filling, etc. ready for the mixing and kneading. Participants included pre-teens experiencing their Estonian heritage to a retired home economics instructor and experienced kringel baker looking for different techniques, plus several parent/child pairs. Not only did Krista Ehala lead each step, she also supervised each particpant’s dough at the different stages advising whether it was ready for the next step or whether it needed a bit of fixing. Her daughter Laura Ehala and Evelin Fodor provided translation.
By evening, everyone’s dough had finally risen enough to roll it out, add filling, cut, braid and bake. We saw several of those at the evening AEHS online Christmas party, jointly organized by president Kelly Schuler, vice-president Evelin Fodor, with musical section under the guidance of Martha Munz Gue. The evening event began with an interesting set of multiple choice questions about Christmas and other aspects in Estonia, followed by singing along to online cartoon versions of Jingle Bells, Silent Night and Aisakell in Estonian and a cowboy style Christmas song in English by prairie singer, song-writer Connie Kaldor. Janne and Toomas Kuuskla of Kehra, who had performed at the AEHS Jaanipäev and Estonia centenary in 2018, sent a link to special folkdances they videod in advance especially for the AEHS Christmas party. Kelly Schuler introduced aspects of the revised AEHS website and pointed out the 2-minute video overview of AEHS on the Estonian Foundation of Canada Christmas website, among the many others by various Canadian Estonian organizations. There was time for a bit of chatting about traditional family Christmases before wishing everyone good wishes and signing off until 2021.
Helgi Leesment