T is for This and That

 

Foggy December sunrise

Hello T gang - last week I had to pass Bleubeard and Elizabeth's T Tuesday because I was summoned for jury duty. Usually I don't mind being called for jury duty, but this time it really bugged me since it was so close to Christmas and I was very busy fulfilling Christmas orders for my shop. You can't knit in the courthouse (they don't let you through security with knitting needles, those murderous weapons!) in order to fill all those times you are waiting. And there is a lot of waiting involved. It's such a poorly managed process. Nevertheless, in the end I was excused on Thursday afternoon and could return to my knitting needles. I had published an early deadline for Christmas orders, but still many orders for Christmas were put in after that, most of them by men who realized that Christmas is on Decmber 25th (indeed!) and they were looking for a gift for their wives, mothers, lovers... and thought hand knitted socks and hats are the ticket. The socks are made to order, but the hats are ready-to-ship - of which I almost ran out! Only a couple are left. I am determined to have a bigger inventory next year.

The weekend before my jury duty we had our "Winterfest" at the German School. Since we are only a tiny satellite campus - the other one is in Marin County and way bigger - we had a small celebration. Everybody came together in my classroom and we just sat, eating cookies that our administrator had made (she is a wonderful baker), drinking spiced cider and having good conversations. Here you can see the display of the cookies, and to the right there are "gebrannte Mandeln" (roasted almonds) that are my all time favorites.

The hallway in our school (it actually is a church where we rent rooms in their school) was decorated with these cute reindeer. I couldn't help myself, I had to take a picture of one of them.

I brought some leftover cookies home which the Geek really appreciated. We were in a German mood that day and had a German, or better say, Swabian dinner - Kässpätzle. Spätzle is a Southern German kind of noodle made from flour and eggs. They're mostly eaten in Baden-Württemberg (where Swabia is located) and Bavaria, but the Swabian and Bavarian Spätzle are different from each other. The Bavarian ones are small lumps whereas the Swabian ones are longer and thin and actually look more like a noodle. In my completely unbiased opinion (ahem...) I think the Swabian Spätzle are better. Real traditional Swabian Spätzle are handmade - when the dough is done you scrape it bit by bit from a wooden board into boiling water. This sounds much easier than it actually is; unfortunately I have never managed this art. "Käs" means cheese, so these are cheese noodles, a bit like maccaroni and cheese; the most important part though is the slowly sautéed onions on top.

A glass of wine was the perfect companion and this, of course, is my contribution to this week's T Tuesday.

When I'm not knitting I'm taking walks in the neighborhood (usually to the mailbox to mail my orders) and am still finding autumn leaves on the sidewalks - pure poetry. Today Liz and I walked around the lake - she has a new dog that I had to meet, he's super cute - and we saw this beautiful Great Egret who landed next to the trail.

Last week I received mail from Kathy in Ozarks who sent me a beautiful handmade Christmas card. She put a gorgeous wax seal on the back of the envelope - look at the deer!

Inside was a very beautiful card - look at that:

And the back of the card - the kitty is drinking the milk for Santa - I so love this! Thank you very much again, Kathy!

Things are slowing down in the Bartz household. After tomorrow the Geek will be off work until after New Year - the company is shutting down over the holidays and I am very happy about that. They have been doing this for several years now, but this year the break is longer than usual. I don't mind, I love to spend time with the Geek. After almost 25 years of marriage I still love my husband very much.

I wanted to display our angel orchestra - these are little handmade wooden figurines that are made in the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) in East Germany. They have been with us for a long time, but unfortunately we couldn't find them. I know they are somewhere, I am sure we put them in a "safe place" which is always a bad idea. But while looking for them we came upon this jigsaw puzzle that we bought 25 years ago when we were in Oxford, UK. So instead of putting up the angel orchestra, we sat down and assembled the jigsaw puzzle of Christ Church, one of the colleges in Oxford.

Do you like to put together jigsaw puzzles?

If you celebrate it, I wish you a happy Hanukkah.

What is German Food?

 

Left: Schnitzel "Wiener Art" (pork instead of veal) with fries and lingonberrry sauce; right: breaded schnitzel with potato salad

You have probably heard the term "German food" and maybe you thought of schnitzel and bratwurst. Both are certainly typical German food - but actually the term "German food" is quite misleading. Germany has several local cuisines and depending in which region you are, you will get the special food of that area. Even food that you can get all over Germany like bratwurst is not the same in the different regions - a Nürnberger Bratwurst is quite different from a Thüringer Bratwurst. In the following picture you can see three foods that are typical for certain regions in Germany, but are differently made in those regions. Of these three, Currywurst - originally from Berlin - might be the most popular one. It is a typical fast food (and way better than McDonalds, Burger King etc. It actually tastes like food.). I wrote about it here.

From left to right: Sauerbraten (marinated and braised beef) with potato dumplings and red cabbage; Zwiebelrostbraten (onion beef roast) with Bratkartoffeln (fried potatoes); Currywurst with fries

In this post I will show you Bavarian food and a little bit of Swabian food - both are favorites of mine. Most (but not all) of the Bavarian food photos were taken in a Biergarten (beer garden).

From left to right: Leberkäs (a type of meat loaf) with fried egg and bread; Obatzda (a spread made with very ripe camembert, butter, beer, onions and spices) with bread; Kaiserschmarrn (cut-up and sugared pancake with raisins)

The Leberkäs is also called Fleischkäs which is essentially the same thing. We often eat it sandwiched in a roll. A roll has several names in Germany, depending in which region you are. In Bavaria they're called Semmeln, in Swabia they are Wecken or Weckle. The short form for Leberkäswecken is LKW - which is also what we call a big truck. Welcome to the confusing peculiarities of the German language.

One of the biggest food seasons in Germany is Spargelzeit - white asparagus season. This is the time when many Germans kind of lose their minds foodwise. It only lasts a few short months - the start of asparagus season depends on the weather, but the last day traditionally is June 24th. My preferred way to eat white asparagus is as Spargelcrèmesuppe (creamy asparagus soup).

Two more very popular Bavarian soups are (on the left) Brezensupp'n (pretzel soup) and (on the right) Leberknödelsupp'n (liver dumpling soup). Both are delicious.

We also love to eat fish. Most fish here comes from the lakes and rivers, but also from the sea. I love Zander and I was very happy that I found it on the menu in a restaurant in Würzburg. The rainbow trout I had came from the Königssee, one of the most romantic lakes in Germany (blogpost will follow, I promise).

Clockwise from top left: Fish and chips; Zander with potato salad; pollock with potato cucumber salad; rainbow trout with herb butter and potatoes

You may be surprised that I include Döner in this post. Not a German food at all, it is one of the most popular street foods in my native country. Germany has a large population of Turkish people and they brought us the Döner (teşekküler, Türkiye!) When we're in Germany we need at least one Döner.

It was SO good!

Let's take a little break and have some gelato, shall we?

Now let's go over to Swabia and explore three of their local dishes. We had them when we stopped for lunch in Tübingen where I used to live.

From left to right: Fried Maultaschen (kind of Swabian ravioli); Saitenwürstle mit Linsen und Spätzle (the Swabian version of Vienna sausage with lentils and Swabian noodles); Schupfnudeln or Bubaspitzle mit Sauerkraut (potato noodles with sauerkraut)

Maultaschen has always been my favorite Swabian dish. You can prepare them in many different ways, the filling can be meat or vegetarian - they are so versatile. A glass of Trollinger (typical red wine from Baden-Württemberg) completes the meal.

We need dessert! What about (on the left) Dampfnudeln (a usually sweet yeast dumpling) or (on the right) a slice of Käsekuchen (cheese cake)? This is a Swabian Käsekuchen - it is not made with cream cheese like cheese cake in the US but with Quark which is very popular in Germany (I was looking for a good translation but couldn't find one; it's a low-fat dairy product, in France often called "fromage blanc" or white cheese; it is not like cottage cheese since it doesn't have any curds).

We're almost done! Just one more thing - cinnamon roasted almonds. They ae often sold at Christmas markets and at fairs, but in Munich's pedestrian zone I found a booth that sold small bags of them, they were still warm - the best way to eat them! So darn delicious!

I'm linking up to Kathy's Food Wednesday.

T is for Totally Al Fresco

 

 

One of my dreams has always been to have friends over and sit with them at a long table in the shade of a big tree. This dream was nurtured by many French movies where people always congregate in someone's beautiful but artfully messy garden behind a big old French house with shutters on the windows and huge trees casting their shadows on wide lawns. Sunlight was filtered through the rustling leaves of the trees. People sitting at the long tables seem carefree, eating the most delicious food (it's France after all) and drinking wine. Of course there were loaves of freshly baked baguette (I remember one French movie in which Romy Schneider comes out of a boulangerie and she immediately bites into the baguette - oh heaven!) and baskets overflowing with fresh fruit. Above all there was this air of Mediterranean lightness.

I thought I would never be able to achieve this dream. 

But then I thought, why not?

There is a big tree in my garden.

It's a privet, so it's quite messy. But it's loved by the birds and it gives great shade and therefore I just take it with all its messiness. Under the tree is the sad, totally dried up remains of the lawn that used to be there (that I never watered in the nine years we have been living in this house since I never wanted a lawn in the first place). It's the perfect place to set up a table or two, chairs and invite friends over for a meal al fresco.

Even though we're having an exceptional drought, I was still able to pick some flowers from my garden and put together a little bouquet as a centerpiece. This was the only decoration I used and it worked well.

I had invited the students of my German class. Every summer we get together for something typical German - either food or drink -, but of course, last year we had to skip. Everybody turned up this summer; it was the first time that we all saw each other again in person since March 2020 when we changed our class to online learning. It was wonderful to see everyone again - and yes, we had this feeling of lightness, joy and laughter.

Everybody had brought something to eat and I had made a German Erdbeerbowle ("drunk strawberries"), a typical summer party drink in my native country. This, of course, is my contribution for Elizabeth's "drink post" - thank you so much for hosting!

Prost! - as we say in German.

San Francisco Pride

June is Pride month and last weekend the Pride Parade took place in San Francisco. Kaefer wanted to go, and so we took her and a friend of hers down to the city and watched the parade and the festivities.

It was a joyful affair. Of course it was crowded which I don't particularly like and even tend to panic, but the "panicky moments" were fortunately only few and most of the time I could simply enjoy this colorful event. It was rather cool in the morning with a chilly wind - rather typical for San Francisco - but it warmed up eventually and became a sunny day.

The mood was joyful and I felt a very positive vibe. I loved people watching, taking in the creativity many people showed. Of course it was colorful, rainbows everywhere!

The parade was fascinating, full of great music and laughter.

Here are some more snippets that represent the color and joy of this festival:

I especially enjoyed these two guys with their colorful dogs!

Even some of the police officers carried pink handcuffs. I loved this little detail.

While the girls enjoyed the parade on their own, the Geek and I strolled around the Civic Center where all the booths (and the food!) were until we ended up near the dance floor. The dancing was fabulous, and we even ventured onto the dance floor ourselves and learned some line dancing. How fun!

This definitely was my favorite part of the day!

After we had met up with the girls again it was late in the afternoon and we decided to bring the day to a tasty end by visiting our favorite German restaurant in the city, the Suppenküche (soup kitchen). The food is very authentic here and absolutely delicious.

We had Wiener Schnitzel mit Bratkartoffeln and the Geek and I enjoyed some Erdinger Hefeweizen - the dark one was mine. Their selection of beer is so good - you can check it out here. Prost!