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A little about Martha Wyss-Gerber, who passed away in the early dawn of December 26th.

Martha, Max’s mother, passed away quietly in her sleep last night.

We were prepared for it, I suppose, but you can’t really be fully prepared for the passing of a parent either.

There are a few articles that I've already written, which will be posted here and on Just Bento over the next few days but replying to emails and comments etc. will be slow. Thanks for your understanding.

This is the very last day you can donate to Menu For Hope! And a nice bonus - take a look at the beautiful poem about Lesotho <a href="http://sotho.blogsome.com/2007/02/08/my-country-my-home/'>here by Rethabile. (Yes, if you also read Just Bento you're getting this in double...but it's a poem worth visiting more than once!)

Just Bento and Just Hungry (which is mostly me anyway) are taking a few days off to take care of a ton of offline duties. (Thank you for your nice emails...we're hanging in around here.)

We decided not to get a tree this year, so the only Christmas decoration of sorts we have up is this wallhanging/advent calendar, that I finally finished last week.

In this day and age when things I have made or worked on exist only in digital form, it's really grounding and satisfying to create something that has a physical form and presence, that I can touch and hold. That includes food too. There's nothing better than the warm feeling you get when your friends and family's faces light up when you present them with delicious food that you made with your own hands. Especially around the holidays.

Happy Holidays everyone!

We received a PR release the other day from LeShop, Migros' home food delivery web site, that they are no longer going to be selling traditionally raised (with the _gavage_ method of force-feeding) foie gras to German speaking Switzerland. This didn't come about because of government legislation, but apparently was a decision made by Migros, following the results of customer surveys which were overwhelmingly against gavage.

The nuttiest TV food show I've ever seen aired last night. Despite the rather somber mood around here these days, we were laughing out loud several times as we watched it. If you missed it you'll want to catch a rerun.

Some time ago, I realized that I was often using food to deal with anxiety and stress. I can't say I've gotten out of that habit totally, but I know the symptoms now and can deal with them a bit better. One way is to read about food instead. I'm sure I'm not the only one who takes cookbooks to read in bed.

A look at preorder New Year's feasts in Japan.

I realize that compared to a lot of other food blogs, I don't get that personal on this blog most of the time. I just wanted to mention though that posting may slow down a bit for a while. I know that I've promised some articles such as one on pressure cooking, and I had planned some festive Christmas-y recipes and such. However, yesterday we heard that Max's mother Martha, who is in a nursing home, has suddenly taken a turn for the worse. So, it will be a rather somber Christmas around here.

My pressure cooker actually used to belong to Martha, until she went into the home a couple of years ago. Except for replacing the rubber gasket, it's as good as the day she bought it more than 20 years ago. She used it all the time, mainly for steaming potatoes, but for a few other things too. I hope to put those recipes up here in due course.

In the meantime, here is her authentic Swiss cheese fondue recipe, which is the absolute best I've ever had. A cheese fondue with crusty bread was always one of our favorite meals to have together.

As I've mentioned her before several times, I'm not a diehard locavore. But I do try to keep an eye on how far my food has travelled to get to me. Admittedly, many of my seasonings and such have travelled a long way, because I need my Japanese food and I'm here in the middle of Europe. For fresh produce and meats and things like that I do try to buy things that haven't travelled too far as much as I can. I think I've fairly typical in that respect these days.

I've been following a certain story in the UK with interest. A rich old lady died recently there, and in her will, she left her £10 million estate to the owners of her favorite Chinese restaurant. The family (actually her nieces and nephews) contested the will, as you might expect. On Friday, the High Court upheld the will.