S is for Speculaas

One of Fred's favorite things of the winter/Christmas season is speculaas. It comes in small pieces, big pieces, soft, crunchy and filled or coupled with marzipan. For some reason, I have enjoyed the speculaas quite a bit this year. Usually it's just one of those things I shrug at. If you find a speculaas recipe on the Internet in Dutch, it usually says, "Brown sugar, milk, eggs, flour and...speculaas herbs." Presumably, you can get the speculaas herbs in a packet at the grocery store.

A little further research led me to a website that broke the code and told me that these herbs are a mixture of all or some of the following: cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg.

So it's a spicy cookie that has no equivilant in the US - and probably not in the UK either. And here I leave myself open for people to comment and tell me that it's very common where they're from.

Other runners up for S were Sinterklaas, sneeuw (snow) and steeking.

I'm bound and determined to do the rest of these letters before the year is out. There are seven to go. Stay tuned.