Life: Idiotropic

Turkish night is always popular, may be because Turkey is the most unique of the IWC countries, but also because they always have something very special planned.

This year they were supposed to have whirling dervishes which many looked forward to, but for some reason they didn't show. Still, they made up for that with art and belly dancing.

Strong cheese, sesame covered biscuits, and little sweet bits of candied fruit sat on our table for us to snack on while we watched an artist create beautiful marbled papers right in front of us. He worked quickly, yet precisely making his work look easy. A Turkish man from Roermond, NL sat for almost an hour churning out one beautiful marbled paper after another. Applying color to the opaque water surface, moving it around, adding more, then laying the paper on top and pulling it up for us to see. The backgrounds didn't have the traditional marble look like I would have expected - these definitely weren't the Italian designs I'm more familiar with. But he did lovely, simple florals on various colored backgrounds.

I am getting better now after a couple years to remember to snack a little before these events. You never know how much and when you'll be fed. Tonight we ate very well, but only after the long paper marbling demonstration. After that we had absolutely delicious doerners (Turkish gyros) and a anise flavored liqueur mixed with rosewater from the earthy smelling Terra cotta pitchers sitting on our table. It smelled delicious, but even with the rose water, no one at our table could finish it. It was much to strong.

Food was followed by belly dancing both by a Turkish woman and then by some unsuspecting ladies who were brought up for lessons. Then dessert -- a crunchy donut shaped dessert and a mild lemon cookie with coffee.

The door prizes were very nice with a lot of winners of traditional foods. Everyone left with a little gift as well - a small figure of a whirling dervish. I didn't win with my tickets, yet I went home with two prizes due to the generosity of my Turkish friends - one gave me the pistachios that she'd won and another let me take home one of the earthy Terra cotta pitchers that they used to decorate and serve that night.

This place has changed me - and for the better. When I got here I was terrified to dance. It wasn't comfortable and I was horribly self conscious. I won't lie and say that I feel completely at ease, but thankfully, from the beginning of my time here, I've pushed myself out of my comfort zone realizing that one of the best places to meet and connect with these ladies regardless of any language barriers is on the dance floor. I still feel strange and a bit aware of how awkward I must be, but these ladies can teach a lot in their confidence and the way they embrace their femininity. All sizes and shapes come together to dance in all different ways. They laugh, they act silly, they act sexy, and they have fun. Tonight Dilek and Hale pulled me to the center of the circle to dance and I did and it felt great. Until 11 we sung and danced to Turkish rock and roll - myself, a couple Italians, and a couple French Canadians the only ones left in the group of Turkish at the end of the night. It felt like we were lucky participants in a private party. I'll miss this most of all when I go.

One of my greatest joys in living here is the opportunity that I have to share with friends, the cultures, and, of course, the food. We have a treasure here now, a beautiful friend of mine who is from Hungary and loves to cook. On this day a couple friends and I had the privilege of spending the day in her kitchen. We brought breakfast food (she particularly loves eggy breakfast casseroles - something that she didn't grow up with) and she provided the lunch. Below are the recipes for our lunch. I have cooked this since, but didn't have the paprika paste and oh, that does make a difference. Still good without it, but the paste would be well worth the effort to find. (More photos following the recipes)

Rita's Hungarian Beef Stew with Dumplings

Ingredients:
4-5 pounds chuck roast trimmed and cut into bite sized pieces
2 onions coarsely chopped
1 red bell pepper coarsely chopped
2 tomatoes quartered
1/3 bottle of Merlot
1 cup beef broth
1/3+ cup Hungarian paprika
1 whole dried Hungarian paprika
2 T. Hungarian paprika paste
vegetable oil
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
In a hot dutch oven or heavy cast iron pot put in a little oil, then add onions and cook until they are wilted. Add 4T (or more, to taste) ground Hungarian paprika and keep stirring to prevent the paprika from burning. Cook for 3-4 more minutes. Add the beef back to the pot with some more paprika and stir. Add 1/2t. of black pepper. Cook for 5 minutes over medium heat until the beef is slightly browned on all sides. Add the chopped red bell peppers and beef broth. The mixture should not be too soupy. Add the Merlot - more or less to taste. Cook very slowly over low heat - 60-90 minutes until the beef is tender. Add 2-3T. paprika paste and the seeds from one dried Hungarian paprika. Stir and let rest, then serve with spatzle or dumplings. This dish is particularly good with a vinegar salad of some sort or pickled vegetables.


Rita's Hungarian Dumplings
Mix 2-3 cups all-purpose flour with 2 eggs, salt, and 2T vegetable oil. Add water slowly (around 2 cups) until the mixture is softer than pizza dough and though stretchy, will fall off of the spoon when scooped up.

Now you need a special tool from Hungary although a cheese grater (big holes) worked ok. Put a spoonful of dough on top of the horizontally held cheese grater or tool and while holding this over a pot of salted boiling water, used a spoon to push the dough back and forth across the holes so that bits of it fall into the water and cook. Continue until all the dough is used. Cook for 5-10 minutes. Drain and rinse well. Add a little olive oil and toss. Serve with Rita's Hungarian Beef Stew.

Finish the meal with a couple ounces of slowly sipped (or quickly shot if your palate dictates) herb liquor like the one pictured below, a Jagermeister, or krauterliquor.


Rita brought out this Unicum bottle chilled and beautiful after our meal. She poured us all a little glass of it. It smelled like a powerful cough drop. Herby and potent. Holly asked if this was to be sipped or shot. Rita, who is quite accustomed to this drink, suggested that we sip it. She sat sipped. The rest of us each took a sip and looked at each other while our eyes went buggy and we all politely choked on the intensity of it. Whoa - a lot stronger than I'd expected. I pondered it for a moment or two, then threw it back in one gulp - so much better. And, quite good when taken in quickly.

The dessert that Rita brought out is something that I can't quite describe. Cold, and moist. Layers of shredded pastry, small curd cottage cheese, and cocoa powder. The consistency of a firm tiramisu with a flavor I can't pinpoint. All I can tell you is that it was delicious.

Four of us sitting around the table in a small neighborhood of Geilenkirchen. Nothing could be more luxurious a feeling. Amazingly rich food with complex flavors that were elegant and earthy, warm filling comfort food yet exoticly Old world all at the same time. The food, the wine, the friends. Rita herself is a gem. Her voice at the table soft - not cutting into the air, but flowing with it. The lilt of her English is enchanting and poetic. I could listen to her for hours. She told us about working for a Jewish couple when she lived in London keeping a Kosher kitchen and of living in Hungary at a time with communism ruled and the image of the worker with a hammer were unavoidable in print and portrayed in large statues in the cities. And now it's gone - without a trace. We saw pictures of the lake near her home and the chapel where she was married - the lake a popular vacation destination for Germans after the war where family members from the East and the West could meet together in one place.

As busy as my days are in Germany... I think I'm learning to relax a little and treasure these special times with friends. Sharing is a beautiful thing.

Today's quote from Elise said as she was coming out of her bedroom this morning after getting dressed into clothes that fit her just perfectly:






Yearbook crunch time... these posts of my girls is about all my wee little brain is capable of at this point, but there is an end in sight!

The photo is from Tiara's camera. She has her MySpace page now, so she and her friends think it's the greatest thing to take a zillion pictures of themselves being goofy and posting them online. I think it's really healthy. At that age, I would have never ever sent out a picture that wasn't complimentary. These girls make silly faces and look downright strange in half their photos and they still post them for all their friends to see. They allow themselves a more carefree attitude and sense of humor than I ever had. Here are a couple - my girl on a bale of hay in the fields behind our house looking cute and then a silly face photo from the same area at the base of a windmill.

Here's to keeping a vivid imagination well into the twilight years and holding onto just a bit of that youthful innocence.

Yesterday Arianna lost her tooth, washed it, put it in a baggie, then got out a pen and a paper and asked me to write a letter to the tooth fairy. Here it is:


Elise - while sitting on a step stool in the office upstairs, gazing out the window into the starry evening sky -

Springter - meaning, spring and winter, or, this strange time of year when we are walking with one foot in each.

All the daffodil bulbs in the medians and roundabouts in the area are blooming. And, we've actually had sun. But even with the sun shining and the flowers blooming in the trees and traffic circles, it's cold. Painfully cold - so much so that yesterday it snowed 20 whole flakes while I was walking through the Geilenkirchen centrum.

It felt like someone was playing a trick on us. Macaira asked - what was that? I didn't know what she was talking about, but then I felt it too. Huh? What was that? Couldn't be snow. But it was. And then I started mentally counting them. One, two, three.... 20 flakes in about 10 minutes of walking.

South of us near Spangdahlem the snow came down much heavier. They actually had real snow. Still, we can claim a small bit here and it compliments the daffodils quite nicely.

So, springter in and of itself is strange which seems to fit here where nothing is normal - at least by my ever dwindling definition of the word.

Today I was leaving my Spanish morning where my friends were all talking in warp speed making comprehension more of a task and the ability to jump into the conversation near impossible. Kind of like taking a walk in a tornado. Interjected comments into rapid conversations are gone before even getting out there.

Anyway... I turned the corner out of my friends' street to see a woman in her late 70's standing on the sidewalk facing her fence. She was wearing black wellie boots, a knee length blue skirt, a jacket, and a little knit cap. In her hand was a flimsy looking electric saw on a long extension stick "thingie" (we had a conversation about this at Spanish morning - they don't have words like "whatchamacolit" and thingie - instead they point and say this, that, or there). This little gray haired German lady was reaching as high as she could with her long saw, leaning into the fence, and pruning the upper branches of the tree in her yard. Amazing what meticulous workers the old generation here is. The younger generation is not the same. The do not work as hard. The ethic is not the same. They want to relax and drink the beer or eat the cake. But Tante Tinny works first. She spent three hours on Tuesday making the yard "shoene sauber." Beautifully clean.

The radio: This afternoon on the way to Schinnen I was flipping through my radio stations. The first was in Dutch. The second, a Belgian station in French. The third was a German station playing a classic American 50's tune (the title eludes me), traslated horribly into German and sung by a less than stellar singer. It was a bit odd. Kind of like The Lion Sleeps Tonight that I heard once in French, but at least that one sounded pretty good. It's hard to find consistent good music here. The stations play too much variety. More American music than local and the local German is, well, exactly what you'd expect at a tacky Octoberfest celebration with the old folksie OomPaPa music. I did hear a modern German tune recently, but it was a ballad to cake as far as I could tell. The entire song described different German desserts in detail. That's strange. One fun thing that has happened in this tri-border, multi-tongued world I live in, is that I can hear the differences between languages that I could never hear before and even in French - a language that is still really foreign to me, I can now hear where one word stops and the next one begins. It's fun.

The oddest thing: Today, post Schinnen, I stepped outside my front door onto the busy main street in my tiny little village to see not one, but two gaggles of German conscripts in full uniform with the German flag patch on their shoulders, their drab green packs full on their backs, and their big scary weapons swinging in one arm. I see them walking with their packs quite often here, but this was the first time I've seen a big group. When the second group got closer I could see feet. Each group carried a man laying in a sling - may be the squad leader? Who knows. In any country, seeing uniformed soldiers with weapons strikes me. Here, they just struck me as being very young. Their cheeks were all ruddy and full. Service in the Bundeswehr is obligatory for young men of age here. I've even seen an occasional female marching with them, but not today. They looked different than what I would expect though. Germany still holds onto a fleeting reputation. A hold over from wounds not yet healed. And with some Germans - the older generation and the police here, there is still that respectful fear. With these boys, there was none of that. They were children in green. Youth without even a glint of that which makes makes most of Europe still hold onto a general distrust of Germans and their Vaterland.

Some weeks, I blog ferociously in a futile effort to catch up...

Some weeks, I barely see the internet.

Now, if you'd like, instead of checking every now and then to see if I finally posted something new... you can subscribe and my new posts will magically appear in your inbox for your deleting pleasure. Unsubscribing if I get too annoying should not be hard. This is all new for me.

Anyway... there it is. Look to the left of this page for a link where all you have to do is enter your email address and voila! It's done.

Do you know that in parts of Southern Italy and around Naples, you actually have to pay the Mafia if you want to live there "safely?" Seriously. Now. Today in the year 2008, it is still a truth. I learned this today from a Spanish friend who was going to move to Naples with her husband but were told that they would have to pay first for their protection. It seems so unreal.

I've also learned living here that we do not speak English as we thought, but American. Other nationalities make distinguish the two and I've been told many times that I speak "very nice American." Why, thank you. I suppose if I want to speak English, I'll have to start speaking like Miss. Marple and use words like loo, rubbish, and whinging.

Today I did two strange things.

First, I went to an hour-long fat-burning aerobics class on the base. This may not seem strange to you, but I am a girl who does not like sweat. I will ski. I will swim. I will even dance at a carnival party. But, I do not exercize. Nope. Not for me. I love the idea of being athletic, but just can never seem to get the shoes on. But, I was coerced by a dear Spanish friend to go to this class with her (but did she show up? No, but another Spanish friend came)... so I went and though I was ready to crawl to the local bakery after the first 10 minutes, I actually made it through the class and had... fun. Was it me who just said that? Strange. Doesn't sound like me. Did I actually tell the instructor that I'd be back on Monday? Yep... I think I did. So, this may be the start of something, possibly. It could be a whole new me - one who wears blue. That was the other odd thing... I wore a blue shirt today. That's almost stranger than sweat.

Anyway... on a high from successfully completing an entire hour of exercize, I savored a lunch that was absolutely perfect and decided that I live in the most amazing deli. Seriously. In the states, you can get most anything if you shop around, but here, it's so easy. I had a thick slice of a dark nutty German bread, generously drizzled with the Italian olive oil that Kirk brought back from Sicily, then topped with Spanish grown tomatoes, and a bit of creamy Greek feta cheese. Hmmmm. Simple, delicious, healthy, flavorful. And eating post work-out takes away the guilt factor from eating my oh-so-perfect lunch... that in and of itself could be incentive to go back.

Tiara's nickname around here is "moose," so on one of our websites, I called her "majestic moose." Tonight she was online and asked me what MAG-estic meant (pronounced with a hard G). I told her to look it up in the dictionary. Too lazy to do that, here was her response...


"I keep trying to think of words that sound like it and I all I can think of is maggot."

And she's a 7th grade honor student.

Taken from random chocolate related items on my desk...
I need to write down these chocolates and throw away the scraps...

• Last Thanksgiving, my friend, Maria, brought the most delicious bags of truffles. Both were by J.D. Gross, a brand that is sold by Lidl. The white chocolate champagne truffles are the best and the greatest part is that Kirk doesn't like them and the kids can't have them, so I don't have to share!
  

• Albert Heijn has an excellent selection of toast sprinkles (ruitspekken, venz vlokken, and draagtas). In Germany, they have Nutella on their toast. In the Netherlands, they put chocolate sprinkles on their toast. The sprinkles at Albert Hein come in many shapes, colors, and flavors. And, they are really fun.

• In Paris, along side one of my cappuccinos was a little chocolate by Bouchard. OH, and WOW! Yum! I wanted more. So I can't seem to let go of this tiny chocolate colored wrapper for fear I'll forget. So, here it is: Bouchard Belgian Chocolate. Dark 72%. Noir 72% (I know it means dark, but it's still pretty... French is another pretty language). www.bouchard.be
  

busiata
gnoccoli

arnacini
cuscusiera


it's poetic, isn't it? And I feel just a little bit prettier when I say them. Italian. As delicious to say as it is to eat. Which will be put to the test tomorrow when I cook up my busiata e gnoccoli for my famigia.

My amazing Italian friend just taught me to make two beautiful Sicilian pastas by hand this evening and in exchange, I taught her to make pancakes - half plain and half with chocolate chips which her daughter devoured. I also sent her away with maple syrup which she'd never tasted.

Doesn't sound like a fair exchange, does it? Sicilian pasta versus pancakes? And pancake isn't as fun to say unless you're Italian and you can say it with just the hint of an e on the end that makes it sing. But she was as excited about the pancake as I was about the pasta.

So to 600 grams of durum semolina flour - a very fine pale yellow flour, we put in 1.5t of salt and probably a cup or so of water... kneaded it, then let it rest under a bowl for about 30 minutes. [At this time it would be appropriate to sit with a strong Italian espresso and some tiny round crunchy almond flavored Italian cookie whose name currently escapes me. It would also be an appropriate time to sip a large glass of aromatic Italian red wine.] We rolled it to 1/4" thickness, cut strips, then rolled those strips thin. For the busiata, you place a skewer on one end of the pasta, then roll the skewer so that the pasta spirals onto it. Then you slide it off and you're onto the next one. If you make gnoccoli, you take that same strip rolled thin, then quickly pinch down on the edges of it with your fingertips rolling it slightly towards you. Marilena could do this absolutely effortlessly pinching, tearing into smaller strips, setting aside, then starting over on another strand. I, on the other hand, couldn't get mine to look remotely like hers. Not even close. So, busiata it will be at my house. If you want gnoccoli, go to Trapani. The pasta can be cooked right away in boiling water with a little salt and a little olive oil for 4 minutes, or you can dust it with flour so it doesn't stick together and let it sit under a towel until the next day. She says it's delicious with sauteed eggplant and fresh tomatoes. Mmmm.

On my Friday after a busy week, I was almost hoping that she couldn't come and cook today, but now I feel lighter and refreshed. So much so that if I had more flour now, I'd spend the rest of the evening rolling out and twisting up tiny busiatas until my fingers ached. Spending time with Marilena is fun anyway. We laugh at silly words as we try to communicate. She speaks English well and the words she doesn't know, I can usually figure out via Spanish. And every Italian word I have to repeat a few times, savoring slowly each syllable and slight inflection like a connoisseur would taste a fine wine.

Next time I will learn to make arancini which, I'm sure will taste just like they sound - delicious balls of rice stuffed with meats, ragus, or spinach, then fried. Can't be bad. Nothing she makes is bad. Marilena owned and ran a pasta shop when she lived in Italy. She can do anything!

Oooh, oooh.... and today... I went to Aachen with a friend and enjoyed a fabulously relaxing non-obligatory day when I didn't really have to do anything and tossed any sort of must buy or must see lists that I would normally have in hand when going to Aachen. I only knew I must sit and infuse myself with Starbucks- the coffee and the comfy chairs. So I had a triple Venti caramel latte (I think) non-fat, with whip... and it was good, though a bit sweet. It's been too long. I used to rattle off tongue twister coffee orders with pride. Every specification had a place and the rattling of those words were in cadence - almost poetic in it's own caffinated way.

ANYWAY... that is where Holly pointed out our oddest visual of the day: A beautiful raspberry marbled cheesecake looking thing sitting, all by it's lonesome, on a large dingy black cart - you know those big carts that you would use in a Costco to move heavy boxes? Yep. One big cart and one cheesecake. May be the cart is for the one who eats the cake.

Oh... that, and the wind-up sushi that I was oh-so-tempted to buy for Kirk just for a chuckle. I thought, how funny. I'll make up some sushi and then let this little one roll right off his plate.

The high for the day aside from the coffee and the delicious gruenkohl mit mettwurst I had for lunch, was finding a pair of jeans that not only fit, but were also on sale. Yippee! And, to watch a woman go from absolute stony coldness to slightly friendly and almost warm just by switching my words from English to German was really quite funny and sadly typical. Still... I got jeans, a cultural oddity, and a half smile all in one store!

Found a really cool French table at an equally cool Dutch chocolate shop - the Chocolate Company - where I again managed to salivate over everything and not buy one eensie weensie item. Am I nuts? Yeah! This is just not right. Next time, I'm buying chocolate... and may be one of those cookie cream things with the raspberries on top and a ring of marzipan holding it all together... mmmm...

You'd have photos, but I forgot the camera. :( Left it at the school on Wednesday after a yearbook meeting and there it sits. Now I have to go an entire weekend without a camera... don't know if I can make it... withdrawal is imminent.

One of my favorite restaurants in the U district of Seattle was a small Greek restaurant that served all my favorites. And, I think of all cuisines I've tried, I'm especially proud of my Greek dishes. It is amazing food.

The people are wonderful too - always positive, smiling, optimistic.

Tonight was Greek night at the IWC - an evening that I could just relax, eat, and bask in that happy optimism.

Their theme this year was the Greek diet which, to my surprise, has it's own pyramid. I should have known better - really. Why would the USDA food pyramid be the only one in the world? It wouldn't. The Greeks have one that is really interesting. And, unlike ours that changes every few years, theirs is based on the dietary habits of rural Greeks before 1960 - a time when the Greeks had heart disease rates 90% less than Americans.

So, in their pyramid, red meat is at the very top, consumed less than sweets, only 1-2 times each month. Sweets, poultry, eggs, and fish are consumed 1-2 times a week. But daily, they eat moderate amounts of cheese and milk, olive oil, 1-2 glasses of red wine, and plenty of grains, fruits, and vegetables.

The appetizers were a thick, hard seedy bread covered with tomatoes, a little bit of feta cheese, and a generous drizzle of olive oil and freshly made tsaziki with french bread. For dinner we had phyllo pockets with feta cheese, potatoes, baked tomatoes stuffed with rice, and giant beans.

When dinner was over and the raffle was finished, the music went on and we started dancing. The Greek dancing is simple with steps that many of us learned in elementary school and it's easy to learn because the music starts out slow. You watch and move and once you have the steps down, the music gradually speeds up until you're dancing in fast forward around in a circle like a record player on high speed feeling like you're going to fly off at any second. Then the music ends and you take a deep breath before starting slow into the next song. The timid have no chance. The Greek ladies will reach out and grab your hand and pull you to the dance floor patiently teaching you the steps until you are doing it beautifully. They must have taught well.. a nice German lady asked me if I was Greek. Such a nice complement.

So, I did leave with a recipe - one for the giant beans. If you can find the beans, the recipe is a must make.


Giant Beans in the Oven

Ingredients:
1 packet of giant beans
1 cup of olive oil
4 big ripe tomatoes or 2 cups of canned thick tomato juice
1 big onion
3-4 garlic cloves
finely chopped parsley
1 small chili pepper (optional)
salt and pepper

Directions:
1. Soak the giant beans overnight or at least for 10 hours before cooking. Then, drain them out before boiling.
2. Boil the giant beans in salted water for about an hour. Drain them out again.
3. Saute the chopped onion, cloves of garlic, and parsley in half a cup of olive oil. Add the grated tomatoes with just a dash of sugar and let it boil over medium heat for half an hour. Season with salt and pepper. Add chili pepper (0ptional).
4. Mix the tomato sauce with the boiled beans in an oven proof pan. Cover with a sheet of aluminum foil.
5. Bake the bean in the oven covered with aluminum foil for 15 minutes. Uncover and bake for another 30 minutes. Serve with fresh bread and feta cheese.

Tsaziki
Combine fresh yogurt, diced cucumber squeezed, garlic pressed, olive oil, salt, and pepper... all mix to taste.

Another Paris post: http://estrogenpalace.blogspot.com/2007/12/rue-mouffetard-saturday-morning.html


The recap:

• On Monday I discovered that the zoo of humanity that fills the enormous costume shop is Heerlen the week before Carnival vanishes completely once carnival is over. They were; however, dressing all the mannekins in bunny costumes, I suppose in preparation for the big Easter rush? I also spent a couple hours painting pottery for Spaghetti Fest donations and rediscovered a love for the paintbrush.

• On Tuesday my day was an absolute whirlwind of 1001 activities that are way to mundane to put here, BUT, Luci went to the post office and mailed me a letter. This wouldn’t be quite so exciting, but because of our circumstances here where the school is DOD (Dept. of Defense) and the post office is run by military and we all have PO boxes, Luci and her classmates not only WENT to the post office with their Valentine’s... but they went INSIDE where the workers are and were able to put their Valentine into their own PO box. Kirk checked the mail later and, surprise! There was a Valentine from Luci that she’d put in our box herself!

• On Wednesday, I had another flurry of activity, but a very kind German computer guy came and got my internet hooked up on my new computer! Yeah! The problem was that US computers only look for channels 1-11. In Germany, they have 13 channels, so our internet system was programmed to channel 13 and my computer couldn’t find it!

• On Thursday I enjoyed a much needed Spanish morning here at my home during which I tried to explain the US election process which is difficult in English let alone Spanish. And, I had to smile when my friend, Noemi, looked at me strange for eating cheese and apples together. They did like the cheddar cheese, though which surprises me... it’s good, but nothing like the stuff here. The grass is always greener...

• Thursday night was the Spaghetti Fest at the school where we served 350 people, entertained, and raised $3000 for this year’s yearbook! I had gone to the classes last week with my paints, brushes, and an assortment of bisque and allowed each class to collectively paint one piece. I embellished, then we raffled those off too! The pottery raffle brought in over $300! And, the kids loved to see the finished product. The most popular item was the ladybug platter - the kindergarten kids did big red thumb-prints on the white background and I did the rest. Simple, but cute.

• On Friday I relaxed in Beeck over breakfast with a friend, then finished my day with 8 girls at my house.

• And... on Sunday we took a walk to the local Cafe. 5 cups of hot cocoa and 2 large slices of delicious cherry fladen cost me only 8 euros. When we arrived a horse drawn cart was going by. It turned around, much like a car would, then parked right in front of the restaurant. The woman stayed with the horse for a moment and the man ran in to pick up cake! In my next life... I would love to travel via horse drawn cart. Too fun.

The above title was an actual headline in this Sunday's Super Sonntag - the weekly Sunday paper. It means, "Clothing forgotten?" or "Did you forget your clothes?"

This last Sunday was the first Sunday after the crazy Carnival Sunday and Monday when most of this region was celebrating with dual beers in hand... and shots of who-knows-what from those crazy costumed folks in the parades. Given that many Germans here try to take in at least 5 if not 8 or more parades and often go to the parties that follow... they do end up with a little bit to drink, thus, the headline.

So... here's the article (loosely translated):

Since the movie, Ratatouille, and her Leapster program in which she can "cook" and make up new recipes, Arianna is, well, a little obsessed. It's good, I guess. Her brain is working and she's being creative and excited about trying new things. So, I will oblige her, a little and we will try her newest recipe, but I think I may have to make a couple moderations... suggestions?

Here it is:

Recipe by Arianna (original written with black felt tip marker on a paper towel)

14 oranges
1 eggs
9 cups of milk
5 cups of egg betr (she means beaters)
9 appels
1 cups of flowre (flour)

oevin 1=12-1=11 (She translated this last part to mean - put it in the oven for 11 hours)

Today after Spanish Morning and the ever-dreaded trip to Schinnen, the base where I go for groceries that seems to suck the life out of you, I made ice cream with the girls!

Not that we needed the ice cream or that it was in any way a warm day - I did have to scrape thick ice off of my windows this morning... But, after being mildly ill and very tired all week, I was feeling guilty for being boring.

So, armed with a bunch of ice and some zip lock bags, we made up some rather yummy home-made ice cream that all 4 of my girls LOVED.

Here's the recipe:

In a gallon sized ziplock bag put 6 T rock salt and an entire tray of ice.
In a snack sized ziplock bag, combine 1/2 cup milk or cream (we used 2%), 1 T sugar, and 1/4 t. vanilla.

Put 1 or 2 filled snack sized ziplock bags into the gallon-sized bag with the ice and salt. Seal well and shake gently for 5 minutes or until it reaches the desired consistency.

*In one baggie, we added 1/4 t. coconut extract (instead of the vanilla) and a pinch of shredded coconut. It was delicious. Peppermint extract with crushed candies would also be yummy. The combinations are endless.

** This can also be done using different sizes of coffee cans instead of the baggies and rolling the cans across the floor for 5 minutes.

A friend sent me this quote not to long ago... I don't remember if I've posted it here before or not, but it pretty much sums up living here where my days almost always include at least one odd thing like the man in the jogging suit with two little terriers walking by with a ginormous parrot on his shoulder, or the man riding a recumbent bicycle past my house while walking his dog, or the chicken handing out shots of Bailey's at the carnival parade, or the boy riding a bicycle and "walking" his horse.

Today I found an egg on my stairs. I suspect that my 20-year old cat must have laid it for there is no other explanation. We were out of eggs. I had just come home from the store with a new batch, then after putting the groceries away, I went to walk up stairs and found a warm, hard-boiled, brown egg sitting on the bottom stair. Tiara had no idea how it got there. Arianna looked just as clueless. Luci had been shopping with me and was also completely befuddled. Elise told me that someone was trying to get into the house and put that egg there. I did check my new eggs and none were missing. There were no miscellaneous eggs rolling around my fridge. Which leaves me to the cat unless some stranger did somehow sneak into our house unseen or heard by anyone other than Elise, and put an egg on our bottom stair. Either way, it's strange.

If you're checking in, we're fine. Carnival put us on this party high with activities and events. Even when we were home, the streets were busy... traffic, parade floats, music, balloons. Now the season is over and Lent has begun. The streets were dramatically quieter today and the dreary gray skies seemed to match their mood. Rain, gray, quiet. Gillrath was a ghost town. And I'm sick and miserably pathetic, so that isn't livening things up one bit. I did start on the Paris blog today while uploading yearbook photos for my students... but the computer is so slow it makes it difficult. I should be able to finish another day tomorrow. If nothing else, I'll throw some photos up there for ya.

Photos: 1) The first tractor "float" of the parade followed by group of Robin Hoods 2) A group of kids behind the Hansel and Gretel float. If you enlarge it, you'll see the one boy is smoking and the other is drinking beer. Not illegal and quite typical.

Today the party came to our house. We'd decorated with bright balloons and streamers in our front windows and like the rest of our neighbors, we put balloons on the upstairs windows as well. I made cookies and put out a few snacks. We served hot chocolate with marshmallows and Bailey's on the side.

Photos: 1) A group of people in front of our home. 2) Luci in the crowd with Kirk as a monk in the background
And then they came. Most of the Gillrath Americans live in the neighborhood behind us, but from all corners, Americans came to perch themselves in front of our home (not because we're so special, but because our home is conveniently located right on the parade route within easy walking distance from most of their homes) to watch the first Gillrath Karneval parade in 26 years. It was an effortless party thrown by the town so we just served some cocoa and enjoyed. We had over 53 friends in front of our home most of the parade with a constant flow of people in and out of our home. A couple times I turned around to see people I didn't even know walking in our front door. Kirk told me later that he'd escorted a couple German neighbors in to use our bathroom.

So, it was lively. The kids ran in and out of the street yelling, "ALAAF!" and gathering up all the candy they could to fill their baskets, bags, and inverted umbrellas. The adults watched the parade and other spectators with amusement visiting with each other and making funny faces for the cameras. The parade was fantastic - but NOTHING like anything we'd ever see back home.

The had floats, music, and a band. They had themes and wore costumes. They threw A LOT of candy. All that is pretty normal, right?

They also walked the parade while drinking beer. Many smoked. Many had a beer in one hand and a bottle of liquor under one arm and a stack of disposable shot glasses in the other hand. Many gave out shots to the adult spectators. I even got a shot of chocolate Bailey's from a chicken. There was no rowdiness... no obvious drunken behavior. They were relaxed and smiling and having a good time. They had no trouble walking. But - alcohol was prevalent, accepted, and handed out for free. An orange faced witch gave beers to a couple of the guys in our party. Not normal? It is here.

Photos: 1) The chicken who also gave a shot of Bailey's to me 2) A couple blue bears? Notice the bottle under his arm and the Bitburger beer bottle and shot glasses in the other hand.








Another "not normal" thing -- it wasn't just candy and shots. One green bear passed out cubes of cheese. He just reached out with a bag and you had to reach in and grab one. Our local produce guy passed out potatoes. Arianna and Luci both got apples and oranges in their baskets. Popcorn was popular too. And, the cooking group passed out soup mix, heads of lettuce, carrots, and other ingredients including little cocktail wieners on toothpicks.

Photos: 1) Sorry for the sideways photo - too tired to fix. This is Tinny with her head of lettuce she got from the parade folks and a small cocktail wiener in the same hand. 2) The green bear passing out cheese






Arianna, Luci, and Elise all had a great time running all around, playing with friends, and gathering treats. Arianna yelled "Alaaf!" as much as she could thinking it would bring her more treats. Elise spent most of the time with her best friend, Hattie. And Luci, my adventurous girl, was in and out of the street grabbing any candy between groups that had dropped short of the crowd. The yellow hat came from some one in the parade, so once she got it, she wore it the entire afternoon.

The clown and the tourist are Mike and Karyn - a fabulous German couple that lived in the states for a while, own a guest house and rental home in Gillrath and are very friendly and well-known among the Americans. They were at our house too.

The talk in Gillrath is that if this parade is successfull (and I think it was), that they'll do it again next year. And, if they do it again, you know who will be in the parade??? Yep. The Americans are going to put a float together... but I won't be passing out cheese and potatoes.

Note: After writing this, posting it, then finally going through the basket of candy the kids brought in, I must laugh at the absurdity of some. Obviously not all the things thrown are for kids. I enjoyed several Turkish coffee candies. And, in this pile of odd things I'll throw away, I have several "Rooibos Tee" tea filled candies, a couple cough drops, a "Classic New York" pear flavored chew, a hard candy labelled "golf son gual," several from "WWK Versicherungen," and one called "Air Liquide."

This morning we woke up with a completely unexpected surprise that neither local German or Canadian news had predicted - that wonderful white fluffy stuff the girls hoped for in Paris but never saw - SNOW!

I was tired and tried desperately to sleep in while the girls came in every couple minutes looking for pants, a glove, or a hat. Kirk got up early with them and took them out to play in the little dusting of snow that we had and they built two snowmen before coming in.

Arianna and Luci's was the biggest with rock eyes, a hat and scarf, twig arms, a carved smile, and candies for buttons. Elise and Daddy built a little snowman, but he was too fragile to decorate.