Two recipes and death on the threshold

... of our balcony, that is. The death. Winterwizard and myself are still unhappy with what we had to do yesterday: kill a whole people. Of wasps getting too comfortable on said balcony, just before the door... *sigh*
We have this Swedish house with the typical entrance porch in front, topped by a balcony. This balcony has a wood panel double floor, open on top like a patio, closed underneath, forming the roof of the porch. Some weeks ago we saw some wasps staring a nest just before the balcony door underneath the balcony floor, clinging to one of its floor planks. Since it was the common, small, yellow jacket wasp and we're usually much for friendly coexistence, and since we don't use the balcony except for airing (two windows open on it that are constantly ajar), we wanted to leave them for the summer, since wasps only use a nest once. Turns out that this has been naive - starting mid June, the colony begun breeding, building and flying out in earnest, and now coming in every window of the whole house and jeopardizing the front door as well.
The nest had doubled its size in two days, then having the size of a football squeezed flat, and research told us that it would grow rather large and fast and the whole thing would be going on until the end of October. Sh******
So we did the bad thing, bought a can of extra poisonous insecticide and had them extinct rather fast. Shockingly fast, to be honest, particularly since we used it outside and we couldn't reach the nest, just spray in the relatively open space between the balcony floor and the porch roof. And we're both still feeling bad about it, particularly since the species is protected.. *sigh*

Now, the two promised recipes:

( Pickled Pumpkin )

Kelly, this is for you: "Cherry Michael" - a traditional German variety of the French toast theme, or rather
( Kirschenmichel )

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