Mausi

Happy Canada Day!

2011-07-01T21:40:00.001+02:00

We waved our flag today, just like every year.

I can't believe it's July 1st already. Homemade pizza and strawberry shortcake were part of our celebrations.

These past few weeks have been interesting as well as quite exhausting.

- We celebrated our 21st anniversary in the middle of June

- On the same day Boy15 forgot how tall he was and smacked his head on a door frame in a fit of youthful exuberance. Lots of blood and three stitches. Thank you.

- Three days later he left for Outward Bound in Schwangau with the rest of the 9th grade with instructions to get the stitches out 7 days later.

- The weekend before his brother left, Boy18 and a few of his friends got beaten up by some drunken punks at our local Stadtfest. They were all fine, just a bit bruised. The police are on the case.

- Boy18 graduated from high school the following Friday. The world is now his oyster but he's still looking for a sharp knife to pry it open with.

- We are re-doing his room completely and there are tools, building materials and dust bunnies spread all over the house. Vacuuming is an exercise is futility Boy15's room is next. Help.

- Both of our printers gave up the ghost in the same week.

- Vancouver's crazy, crazy house prices and insane buyers turned my parents into homeless millionaires for a couple of weeks when they sold their big house for even more than they were asking. Go figure. Last week they bought a smaller house and were able to put away a bit of spare change for a rainy day.

- Boy15 returned from Outward Bound in one piece. He loved it. We'll look at the 600 pictures he took tomorrow.

- I caught one of my baby toes on a chair leg today and it (the toe, not the chair)has turned interesting colours.

- My head hurts

I think I need a rest and I know just the place.

We finally (finally!) did something about this overgrown swing thingie that no one ever used.

Before

After

My clever, clever husband made those Adirondack/Muskoka chairs with his own two hands (plans from Lee Valley). They turned out beautifully and are so, so comfortable.

Just right for a loooong nap. Wake me up on Monday, OK?

Oh, and Happy Canada Day to all my Canuck pals out there!

a good day starts and ends with cake

2011-05-25T23:59:00.004+02:00

You know something's up when your husband serves you cake for breakfast...

your peonies are in full bloom...

your very best friend in Vancouver sends you nail polish that matches your petunias...

and you receive one of those docking station thingies for your ancient second generation iPod Nano. Because certain family members have noticed that you always seem to be at least five years behind the times and feel that it is time for you to move into the new millenium before it's too late.

(something old (like me) and something new)

And then you suddenly remember that it's your birthday (48! Sheesh!) and that you better go make some cake because that's the way they do things around these parts.

Strawberry Cheesecake

Blueberry Lemon Pound Cake

It was a good day. Wish you could have been there.

necessity is the mother of invention ~ Plato

2011-05-08T20:35:00.002+02:00

This mothering gig is not always easy. I do love it, but sometimes you just wonder how you kept them alive and out of trouble all these years. You trust your instincts, you do what you have to do, and most of the time they turn out all right even if you're just making it up as you go along. We've been so blessed with our boys and we love them dearly.

This was what I saw first thing this morning. With a little prompting from their dad, my sweeties remembered that it was Mother's Day today.

They also remembered how much I love getting flowers.

The weather was so lovely that I ended up having my breakfast outside. A slice of brioche with delicious Danish butter and strawberry-rhubarb jam and large Milchkaffee.

We got home from vacation a week ago and I still have Denmark on the brain. Mother's Day always makes me think of a dear family friend, a wonderful Danish woman who passed away many years ago. She left me this keepsake, given to her by her daughter, her only child. It hung on her living room wall along with her collection of Royal Copenhagen plates. Now it hangs on our wall and reminds me how kind and nurturing she was even if she wasn't my mother. Read more about Auntie Joey in this post from several years ago.

My own fabulous mother in Vancouver is still as full of beans as ever and obviously talking someone's ear off on the phone since the line has been busy for ages. That's a good sign, I guess. I'll try again later.

Happy Mother's Day!

oh, hi!

2011-04-15T23:04:00.000+02:00

Hmm, let's see. Since I last posted we had two more birthdays, four 12th grade final exams for the big guy, a spot of "am I going to make it through the 9th grade?" panic for the smaller guy and me feeling a little worse for wear throught the stress of it all. Not good for someone whose gut is already in a twist, I tell you. Lots of deep breathing going on.

What do YOU do when you feel stressed? I eat cake. No, actually I surf the net, but you can have some cake anyway if you like 'cause it's all I got today.

Mandarin cheesecake. Same procedure as every year for Mr. M's birthday.

This is a German recipe I took off the internet. Chocolate, hazelnuts and cinnamon were a nice combination.

Boy15 turned, well, 15 in March. He requested a N*intendo 3DS cake to go with the present he bought himself with his birthday and pocket money.

I tried my best.

He also asked me to try making a homemade Bienenstich - sweet yeast dough filled with vanilla cream and topped with caramelized flaked almonds. There are lots of recipes out there if you want to give it a try. I looked at about five and sort of combined them all. Very tasty. You won't need to eat for a couple of days after a piece of this baby.

So, that will have to do you for another couple of weeks because it's Easter holidays and we are heading off to Denmark tomorrow. Internet connection is still an unknown but the odds are against it. I may have to read a book or walk on the beach or something.

I'll tell you all about it when we get back. I promise.

I feel so old

2011-03-01T23:41:00.001+01:00

You know our first born? The one I used to call my tiny sweetheart when he was only a little bit of a thing? He turned 18 on Monday and is now officially allowed to drive by himself. Here he is many years ago practicing for the big day.

Boy15 decorated a cake for his big brother to commemorate this blessed event. You can bet he'll be hitching a ride from now on.

Despite being knocked out by a high fever on Sunday, the birthday boy managed to recover somewhat on Monday and ate his fair share of cheesecake, his favourite. Here's what's left of it. It was really, really good. I should know, I had two pieces.

Balloons were blown up, cards and money arrived from overseas and a brand new laptop was connected to the internet. Who could ask for more? It's exam season for those in their last year of high school so the Pac Man stress ball is going to come in handy, as are the Nintendo Power Mints should there be any cute chicks in the vicinity when all the stress is over. Little brother thinks of everything.

If you've been following my blog for a while you'll know that this is just the start of birthday season. We've got two more special days coming up in the next week and a half. I guess I better get baking...

buy the book

2011-01-29T23:00:00.000+01:00

Attention bilingual and multilingual families world-wide: Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert, teacher of English as a foreign language, independent researcher and writer on bilingualism and multilingualism and mother to three bilingual children has just published her second book.

Bilingual Siblings: Language Use in Families

Some time ago Suzanne asked me and many other parents of bilingual or multilingual siblings if we'd be prepared to provide information on language use within our families. I said yes, of course, so you'll see several (names changed slightly to protect the innocent) comments from me about our experiences raising two bilingual boys.

I must admit I have not yet bought the book, but will do so in the next couple of days and tell you what I think.

Here's a little peek at the contents for now.

Introduction
Chapter 1 – What do we know about Bilingual Families?
Chapter 2 – The Growing and Evolving Family
Chapter 3 – The Sibling Relationship
Chapter 4 – Age Difference, Family Size & Language Orders
Chapter 5 – Gender & Language
Chapter 6 – Birth Order: A Child’s Position in the Family
Chapter 7 – Individual Differences: Same Languages, Different Language Histories
Chapter 8 – Bilingualism and Twins, Adoption, Single parents & Step-families
Chapter 9 – Five Themes on Family Language Use

Bilingual Siblings: Language Use in Families is available directly from the Multilingual Matters website with a 20% discount and through amazon.com and amazon.co.uk.

Suzanne also has a blog about her family's adventures with a couple of book reviews - Notes from the OPOL Family

Another site I've been meaning to mention for ages is Multilingual Living. The site's founder, Corey Heller, lives in Seattle with her husband and three children and has put a tremendous effort into providing learning resources and advice for families dealing with two or more languages. Read more about Corey and her crew here.

You might be wondering how my boys are getting along. Well, at 14 and 17 they still speak English-only to their mum so I guess we must be doing something right!

joy to the world

2010-12-25T16:50:00.007+01:00

After a visit with the in-laws yesterday afternoon to exchange a few little presents we headed home for a Swiss Raclette and some serious lying around on the couch and watching the snowflakes fall. Best winter ever.

Today was equally laid back. Just the four of us for dinner. The wee turkey is in the oven and we'll be having this for dessert. A mandarin orange trifle that I've been making for years and years. So easy and everyone seems to like it.

Check out my awesome trifle bowl. Talk about weird things to bring back in a suitcase - I got it at the thrift store for $4.00 when we were on vacation in Vancouver this summer. It survived the trip in one piece and will come in handy for future celebrations.

That's all I got for ya this year. Still feeling a bit cheesy. More doctors, more suggested treatments to come in the new year. Oh joy. I AM hopeful, though, that 2011 will find me with a bit more engergy than 2010 did.

Wishing you and yours all the best and for those who are celebrating this weekend...

Merry★* 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
•。★Christmas!★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚｜田田｜門｜ ˚

jolly old st. nick

2010-12-07T23:13:00.001+01:00

Yesterday was St. Nicholas Day in Germany. Nikolaustag, they call it here. You put your shined shoes or boots outside the door on December 5th and St. Nick fills them with all sorts of goodies.

We use stockings instead of shoes because you can fit in way more of the good stuff. The kids now have enough treats to last until January.

Nick actually manage to squeeze this cutie into my stocking. I'd been coveting him for a while.

(Mr. M got ten back issues of Volks World magazine. You don't really want to see those, do you?)

St. Nicholas Day is just as much about giving as it is about receiving, sooo...

Our neighbour and several other friends got their very own fruitcake

And the Thunderbird Diner is now open for business.

Here's the old guy checking out his naughty and nice list

And the dining room chairs getting in on the act.

Today, the day after Nikolaus, was not so jolly. Remember in my last post when I said I was done with being sick? I guess I'm not. Symptoms came back over the weekend and when I visited the doctor this morning at the university clinic, he ordered yet another colonoscopy and new, immunosuppresive drugs. Arghhhh!

Ho ho ho? Not so much. But at least I have chocolate! (and the world's softest sea turtle)

it's beginning to look a lot a bit like christmas

2010-12-01T22:46:00.001+01:00

OK, I am SO done with being sick. A three-day hospital stay in August with four different septuagenarian roomates, endless time spent in various doctors' waiting rooms during September and October, and a 12-week course of prednisone that ended mid-November, complete with side-effects (chipmunk cheeks and tree trunk legs, anyone?) and withdrawal symptoms. Enough is enough. I'm feeling much better now, thanks, and it's time to get into the holiday spirit.

The Christmas season in German got off to a chilly start on November 28, the first Advent Sunday. Our Advent 'wreath' looks like this this year. Less is more, eh?

Obligatory poinsettia

A new addition to our collection of Lichterbogen

And one of the old faithfuls that has been lighting up our window every Christmas for at least a decade

Today is December 1st and you know what that means. Advent calendars all around. I got a chocolate-y one this year, as did my better half, and the kids are making do with one of these each. You're never, ever too old to snuggle with a moose!

I also ventured into a spot of cookie baking this morning but have not yet reached my full potential.

Most of Germany has had record breaking freezing temperatures and quite a bit of snow this week. Now it's our city's turn. Snowing like crazy out there, not expected to stop until Friday. Whoo! Or maybe not, depending on how you look at it.

So how's your winter been so far?

scary stuff

2010-10-31T23:59:00.000+01:00

If you were looking to be scared out of your wits this Halloween, our house was not the place to be.

There was a wee pumpkin patch

some bat wings

and rocky road caramel apples for the kids, (OK, I have to admit that these are quite frightening due to my serious lack of caramel-apple-making-skills)

And any evil spirits spooking around outside were kept at bay by these guys

Actually, the scariest thing about our Halloween this year was the slug infestation on our deck. I have no idea exactly where they're coming from, it must take them days to climb the stairs from the garden, but they all arrive at the same time only to be flung right back into the compost heap. The other night I found one of the little beggars in our living room right on the door sill, half in and half out. Eeew. He got flung extra far. Must remember to hang out the no vacancy (for slugs) sign.

Happy Halloween!

Mmm...pie

2010-10-11T23:59:00.002+02:00

(It's way after midnight here but I'm pretending it's still Monday)

To a Canadian, the second Monday in October can only mean one thing - Canadian Thanksgiving. We celebrated today with our usual turkey dinner. A ten pound bird served with apple and sage and cranberry stuffing, bacon-wrapped green beans, maple-glazed carrots and roasted potatoes. Leftovers await.

For dessert I made two pies, one pumpkin, one apple. Can you believe there are some people who don't care for pumpkin pie?

I'm one of those people who LOVES pumpkin pie and I had a little extra pie filling left so I put it in these ramekins and called it pumpkin custard. Guess what's for breakfast tomorrow?

As most of you know, I've been having kind of a rough year, but I also have so much to be thankful for. Here's just a small selection of things that have been on my mind today.

I'm thankful that my health issues turned out to be not quite as serious at they had originally though (more on that in another post, I need to get it out of my system but now is not the time)

I'm thankful for my family who continue to put up with me during this difficult time. What would I do without you?

I'm thankful that my mother is doing so much better on her new medication.

I'm thankful that we got all six cousins/grandchildren together this summer. Who knows when that will happen again.

I'm thankful for a wonderful holiday in Vancouver.

I'm thankful that I got to talk to my youngest brother and my niece and nephew on the phone today for an hour. I wish I could be four again like S. so I could dress up as a unicorn for Hallowe'en.

I'm thankful for the roof over our heads and the food on our table.

I'm thankful for these. Are they cute or what?

I'm thankful for the changing of the seasons and a place to sit and watch the leaves turn colour. So beautiful.

And...I'm thankful for YOU guys who keep on reading even though I've become what some would call a 'sporadic blogger'. Must try to improve, I've still got such an awful lot to say.

drip drip drip

2010-08-28T07:54:00.002+02:00

Hey, guess what? The colitis flare has morphed into something more sinister involving my liver and pancreas. Wonderful. So I'll be in the hospital for a few days getting things checked out. So much fun.

...and boy are my arms tired

2010-08-09T13:34:00.000+02:00

All of me is tired, actually. I feel like I'm dragging a hundred pound weight behind me. Jet lag will do that to a person. We got back last Tuesday and I still don't feel normal, but there are a few reasons for that other than nine time zones.

The first four weeks of our holiday were great. The last two not so great.

I had a wicked, wicked colitis flare-up that continues to make me miserable. Of course we were camping at the time which made it so much fun. 25 pounds down now but not in a good way. Doctor's appointment tomorrow to get myself sorted out.

To add to that, a few days before we left to go back to Germany my mother had a small stroke and had to be hospitalized for two nights. She is doing well but had another episode on our day of departure (we were already in the air at the time and only found out later) and had to go to hospital again for several hours. Now we just need to make sure she takes her medication as prescribed and stays calm. Thank goodness one of my brothers is there to look after things or else I might not have come back as scheduled.

So as you can imagine I am not in the best of blogging moods although I suppose it would be a good distraction from all the stressors going on right now. I have lots of pictures and will try to get some up some time soon.

the Great White North is calling my name

2010-06-18T23:55:00.001+02:00

Our flight leaves at 11 a.m. tomorrow morning. Am I excited? Well, exhausted is more like it. I hate, hate, hate packing. But I am really looking forward to seeing my Canadian family again and meeting my three-year-old niece in person for the first time. Super duper family reunion planned. It's going to be a zoo. Good stuff.

I'll be back as soon as the jet lag wears off.

old as dirt

2010-05-25T23:58:00.002+02:00

I turned 47 today and you can bet I was feeling pretty darn old when I woke up in our guest room this morning after only 5 hours of sleep. You see, our waterbed mattress decided to spring a leak at about 10:45 p.m. last night. Luckily we weren't in bed at the time. I'm sure you would have enjoyed the frantic scrambling to pump 800 litres of ancient waterbed water out of the mattress, over the balcony and onto the lawn. So much fun. A new mattress has been ordered and in a mere ten days(!) we will once again be enjoying a super waveless slumber. Until then we're making do with the crappy old sofa bed aka Instrument of Torture that we've been meaning to replace for ages. I apologize to all guests who have had to sleep on that thing.

Anway, it turned out to be a good day after all. How could you not smile after being greeted by this

or this

lily-of-the-valley (Maiglöckchen) - my birthday flower and also one of my absolute favourites

or this

salad bouquet from our funny neighbour who never forgets our birthdays

My sweet boys gave me this pretty planter with a gorgeous hydrangea in it.

Don't be fooled - that tea cup is as big as your head!

And of course there was cake!

lemon roll

apricot cranberry cake

chocolate pound cake

(There was also Chinese take-out but I'm sure you don't want to see pictures of that. It got kind of messy.)

here, you can finish off this chocolate bunny, I'm going to need something stronger

2010-04-26T11:52:00.000+02:00

I'm thinking of re-naming this blog. Downward Spiral or So What's Wrong with You This Week? come to mind.

Remember last spring when I was really happy to discover that the "digestive issues" I'd been having after my operation would go away by themselves? Well, they did, and I was doing just fine. Up until late February of this year, that is, when it all came back with a vengeance. Off to the gastroenterologist for another colonoscopy. Yippee. The diagnosis I got a week ago last Friday was not very encouraging. Dr. S now thinks that since this is the second time this has happened that it's very likely to be a chronic problem - mild ulcerative colitis, to be exact. Ugh.

Along with Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis is a form of IBD - inflammatory bowel disease, not to be confused with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) which can be annoying but is not generally a serious condition. UC is not much fun at all. Go look it up if you're not the squeamish type. It's not caused by diet, stress or emotional issues, although all those can worsen the symptoms. Despite an official consensus, UC is generally considered to be an autoimmune condition in the same category as type 1 diabetes, lupus, rheumatid arthritis, psoriasis, MS, thyroid disease etc. If you already have one autoimmune condition, your chances of getting another one are increased. I've had autoimmune thyroid disease for over 40 years so I guess it's not suprising that my immune system has now decided to attack somewhere else.

Anyway, for the next 8 weeks I'm taking Mesalazine, the standard anti-inflammatory medication which comes with its own set of side effects. Twice a day I'm choking down these little granules that look (and probably taste) just like the sand you spread in the bottom of a bird cage. Apparently the granular 'micro pellet' form is very effective because it bypasses the stomach and goes straight to where the problem is. So far I have seen an improvement. I don't exactly feel good, but I do feel a bit better and can actually leave the house now.

While I was dealing with all that I also developed a horrible dry cough just before the Easter holidays. My regular doc said my white blood cell count was very elevated, indicating an infection somewhere. He thought I might be developing walking pneumonia so he put me on antibiotics for a week. Just the thing when your innards are already in a tizzy, but he felt it was necessary. The cough lingered on for a month, finally (almost) disappearing this week. Along with that I had puffy eyelids, swollen ankles and a fever that spiked in the evenings and broke during the night. I also lost 17 lbs without even trying. That would normally be a cause for celebration, but this was *not* the right way to go about it. I spent most of the Easter holidays lying on the sofa feeling very, very sorry for myself. Mr. M and the boys were angels and did everything that needed to be done to keep the house from imploding.

After the 8 weeks are over, I'm scheduled for yet another colonoscopy. I know. I'm as thrilled as you are. But you know what? There are worse things. Way worse. A week after the colonoscopy we leave for Vancouver for 6 weeks. I'm assuming I'll still be on medication then to keep this thing in remission. It may stay in remission, it may get much worse. No one knows. Right now I'm trying to stay positive and focus on the good days, letting the not so good days slide.

Right now I'm doing extensive research into nutrition and supplements. There's no cure for this disease, you can't just pop a magic pill or take some exotic herbs, but there are ways to make things easier and ensure that one is getting the proper nutrients while minimizing flares. This book - What to Eat with IBD - has been a huge help to me as far as 'hurting' and 'healing' foods are concerned.

All of my energy has been centered inward lately, but I think I may have a little bit left over for blogging in the near future. Stick with me, huh?

with glowing hearts

2010-02-14T23:55:00.001+01:00

The 0pening Ceremony of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics moved me to tears. Tears of pride for my home country and hometown and also tears of sympathy for a family who lost a son during luge training on Friday. With that tragedy in the back of our minds we are still trying to enjoy the Olympic games as best we can.

During the ceremony I was pleased to see the involvment of some of British Columbia's aboriginal peoples, known as the First Nations. The Four Host First Nations , the Lil'wat, the Squamish the Musquem, and the
Tsleil-Waututh worked together with the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) to make the games a reality.

An inukshuk was chosen as the Olymic logo as a symbol of hospitality and friendship. The figure is based on the statue that has had its place at Vancouver's English Bay since 1987.

We have our own little inukshuk right here at home.

We're also enjoying the adorable Olymic and Paralympic mascots - Quatchi the sasquatch, Miga the sea bear and Sumi the animal spirit. And let's not forget Mukmuk the wee marmot who comes all the way from Vancouver Island. He's a sidekick, not a mascot, but I think he's my favourite.

If you're into arts and crafts, you can download these guys (except for Mukmuk, sadly) here. They are just so darn cute!

During the festivities and competitions you may have noticed an awful lot of people wearing chunky red mittens. And not just any red mittens, the official Olympic mittens with the Olymic rings on the back and a white maple leaf on the palm. And guess what? Thanks to some very thoughtful grandparents we have two pairs! They are soft and warm and such a nice souvenir of the games. Here they are pictured with a very fluffy Quatchi, a present to Boy13 from his grandmother when we visited Vancouver in 2008.

The (English) Olympic motto this time around is "With Glowing Hearts", part of 'Oh Canada', the Canadian national anthem. I think it's a wonderful choice and really symbolizes what the games are all about.

And speaking of hearts, let's not forget that it's Valentine's Day. Everyone around our house was spoiled with treats and we had this pretty pasta for dinner with a smoked salmon cream sauce. Yum.

Yes, my heart is glowing today. I hope yours is too.

winter's icy grip

2010-02-12T12:36:00.001+01:00

I like winter, I really do. But could it be over soon? Please? Freeze, snow, thaw, freeze, snow, thaw. It's getting kind of old, you know? We had another bunch of snow over the past couple of day and people are slip sliding all over the place.

One interesting aspect of the continual freeze/thaw thing has been the wonderful icicles at our house

I've heard that this is a sign that your roof is poorly insulated, but I'm in denial because these are so pretty

defying the laws of gravity

I like the contrast in these two pictures...

Remember our little snowman family? Well, they also became victims of the big thaw that took place a couple of weeks ago.

Before they started melting for real, SnoDad leaned in to share a secret with SnoKid

and SnoMom got a fluffy new hairdo.

Several days later they had all been reduced to these sorry lumps. Wahhh!

Humans aren't the only ones who have it tough in winter. When the ground is completely covered in snow, birds can have a hard time finding food. So make sure you put out some nice snacks for your feathered friends.

Blackbirds looove apples and nuts. Chickadees will do anything for sunflower seeds.

I tried making my own suet cakes this year with vegetable fat, oatmeal, chopped nuts, mixed bird seed, raisins and cranberries. The birds don't seem to be all that enthused but have slowly been eating them, mostly out of desperation, I think. Oh well.

The streets have been icy, very icy. There have been small snowplows out and about clearing the roads as best they can, but our cul de sac never gets plowed. Well, hardly ever. Some time in January a guy with a plow came in, pushed all the snow to one side and left us with our own little mountain right where people used to park. How convenient. I have no idea if a neighbour hired him or if he was sent by the city, but really, this thing has frozen into a 5 foot tall chunk of ice and will probably be there until May.

Since you're obligated in Germany to make sure no one slips on or around your property, we've been pretty busy. If you own your own home, you have to keep your walkway and the sidewalk in front of your house free of ice and snow as best you can. If there's no sidewalk, it's a one metre strip of the street that must be cleared and kept clear from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. on weekends. No excuses. If you're sick or on holiday, you have to ask someone else to do it for you. If the mailman or the paper boy wipes out, it's ALL your fault. If you rent, snow clearing duties will be spelled out in your rental contract or your landlord may choose to do the job him/herself.

Well, I've done my duty for today. Time to build a new snowman!

spread the word

2010-02-05T19:25:00.000+01:00

Well, trust World Nutella Day 2010 to get me up and blogging.

Hosted by Bleeding Espresso and Ms. Adventures in Italy, it's a great way to see what creative souls all over the globe are doing with everyone's favourite chocolate-hazelnut spread.

The last time I participated was in 2007 when we were right in the middle of remodelling our kitchen. Can't believe it's been three years already. This year I'm busy de-cluttering our weensy house but I still found time to dig my knife into that big ol' jar.

I'm calling this one Nutella Cinnamon Swirl.

I used Lynsey Lou's recipe from last year, but made a loaf instead of buns and just slapped on some butter, Nutella and cinnamon sugar as a filling. Sure smelled great coming out of the oven and I love the texture of the dough - almost like a French brioche.

Guess how many pieces are left? I may have to make another one (or two) tomorrow. I may also have to buy larger pants if this keeps up.

got snow?

2010-01-07T11:32:00.001+01:00

It's -7°C/19°F out there, snowing lightly with the chance of a lot more of the white stuff tomorrow. We're loving it.

the countdown starts

2009-12-31T20:14:00.001+01:00

New Year's Eve and we're just about to have dinner and start our celebrations. Let's see if we have everything we need.

Tons of snow? Check!

Fondue pot? Check! (I will spare you pictures of raw meat)

Fresh oysters (for Mr. M, not for me!) and non-alchoholic "champagne"? Check!

Dessert with 5,000 calories per serving? Check!

Enough fireworks for the whole neighbourhood? Check! (Never fear - my three sanitation engineers will be cleaning up every scrap off the lawn tomorrow morning.)

Marzipan piggies and lady bugs? Check!

Yep, looks like we're all set.

But before I go I'd like to wish everyone health and happiness in 2010!

See you on the flip side!

January 1, 2010 - 1:00 a.m.

Happy New Year!

Enough partying for me. I've got a touch of bronchitis so I'm going to bed now and leaving the rest of the fireworks to the experts.

joyful

2009-12-25T22:00:00.000+01:00

How much snow do you need to call it a white Christmas? Right now it's kind of a rainy, slushy, windy Christmas, but earlier in the week, our terrace looked like this. Snow and lots of it! So pretty.

On Christmas Eve afternoon we met the mother-in-law at father-in-law's care facility for a short visit before coming home for a nice meal of Raclette and the opening of the presents. The latter just for the kids, mind you, because the adults already have Too Much Stuff, you know? We've decided to spread our gift giving throughout the year.

Lately I had been feeling all nostalgic for days gone by and had a craving for mincemeat tarts and Christmas pudding, desserts I enjoyed as a child and that my mother made year after year. My grandmother was English so I guess it's in the genes. The Germans around here won't touch the stuff. All the more for me.

For the tarts I had two options - it was either trek downtown to the British store to buy a jar of overpriced mincemeat that I'd never use up, or make my own.

Guess what? Making your own mincemeat is really easy. Lynda kindly directed me to Nigella's recipe. Yes, that Nigella really knows her stuff. I halved the recipe, making a smallish jar, and varied the ingredients a bit, using what I had on hand and it still turned out wonderfully.

The pastry, a pâte brisée from the Joy of Baking site, was so simple to put together and very easy to work with. I'll be using it again and again for all sorts of things.

I made twelve regular size tarts...

...and twelve wee ones, just one bite each.

Can you guess how many are left?

For the pudding I chose a steamed carrot pudding with hard sauce, my mother's favourite. She always made a large one but I reduced this recipe and used four custard cups to make individual servings (which I will be eating all by myself, thank you very much!).

I also got to try out my brand new snowflake cookie cutter. You can never have too many cookie cutters. Ask me how I know.

This evening we enjoyed roast turkey with herbed bread stuffing, green beans and bacon, red cabbage and cheesy mashed potatoes. We are all so full we can hardly move, but there may still be room for dessert, an English trifle, by the time Die Hard 2 starts. Bruce Willis and his dirty undershirt are (unfortunately) a Christmas tradition at our house.

So from our house to yours, a very Merry Christmas!

'tis the season

2009-12-08T00:25:00.000+01:00

Well, well, well, it's been a while hasn't it? I don't know what's gotten into me. So much busywork, so little time and it's almost Christmas!

December in Germany is all about bringing a little light into the darkness. We still have a couple of weeks until the shortest day of the year and it's already dark by 4:30 p.m. That can get a bit depressing.

The first Advent Sunday was November 29, time to light the first candle on the Advent wreath. We took a less is more approach this year, dispensed with tradition and made do with a simple arrangement of four candles and some shiny things. It looks nice on our coffee table.

Can't do without the Lichterbögen, though. We have three now and I love the way they look in the windows. Lichterbogen or Schwibbebögen, as they are sometimes called, originated in the Erzgebirge, the Ore Mountains between Germany and the Czech Republic. The candles are supposed to light the miners' way home after a hard day's work.

One thing we usually do on the first Advent Sunday is to visit our town's teeny tiny Adventsmarkt. I love the old church as a backdrop.

And of course no German December is complete without an Advent calendar. We're well into the chocolatey goodness!

And here's something I had hidden away and just found the other day. My very first Advent calender. It must be over 40 years old now, I can't remember when I first got it but I know my younger brothers had the same one with little boys on it. So sweet.

This past Sunday was Nikolaustag when St. Nicholas fills boots or stockings with all sorts of treats. Bearing cookies, we went to visit my father-in-law in his care facility and had a little celebration there.

Vanillekipferl (vanilla crescents)

Really happy gingerbread man

Sugar cookies

The Hannover Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) is on until December 23, so while we were in the neighbourhood, we decided to take a look.

The market is divided up into several areas...

The Medieval market is home to many fascinating hand-made items

At the Finnish market you can buy a wooly hat

and feast on reindeer sausage or cedar-planked salmon

Mmmm! I thought I was back in B.C. for a minute there!

The more traditional part of the market offers lovely Christmas decorations and sweet treats

And let's not forget the wild and crazy places where you can eat to your heart's content and get all sorts of warm drinks to warm you up on a cold day.

The Skihütte sells something called Jagertee (Jäger means hunter in German and this is a variation on the spelling), black tea mixed with rum and spices. Sort of like a German hot toddy, I suppose.

Glühwein (mulled wine) is always popular and this place will also make you up some Tiger Milch (tiger milk) if you so desire. Not quite sure what that is, but it's guaranteed to contain copious amounts of alcohol.

The market wasn't as crowded as it has been in the last few years and I really enjoyed it, coming home with a few treasures for our tree.

Since Sunday we've been burning two candles which means we're halfway to Christmas already. Wow, time flies when you're making cookies! And I've been making LOTS of cookies because these large and hungry people I live with keep eating them. Which keeps ME from eating them. And that's a very good thing, believe me.

7,000 calories later

2009-10-31T23:34:00.000+01:00

It's after 11 p.m. and I've given up on trick or treaters tonight. Oh well. Not really surprising since it's not a German tradition. But it has caught on in some areas, just not in our dark and scary cul de sac. That means more candy for us. Not a good thing. One more mini Mars Bar and I swear I'll explode.

Boy13 designed our pumpkin this year. I love it.

We had our usual Halloween dinner, including a very scary serpent

(no venom, just ham and cheese - recipe here)

and a candy corn cake for dessert

I'm going to go to bed now and try to sleep off the sugar shock.

Happy Halloween!

regular folks like you and me

2009-10-30T23:50:00.000+01:00

Is it the end of October already? I haven't even finished talking about summer yet.

This was a great year for plums and my mother-in-law dropped a metric ton of them on us about a month ago.

We ate some, we froze some and there were still a whole bunch left.

Many got turned into cake

I think I made about four of these in the course of a few days. 1 1/2 times the old faithful recipe from this post was just right for my larger baking pan.

Still more went into muffins. I made blueberry ones as well from berries we bought at a roadside stand. So good!

And let's not forget the Zwetschgenknödel, the plum dumplings I've been making every summer for years and years.

The recipe and detailed information can be found here.

It suddenly occured to me that these might be freezable so I did some research and yes, indeed, you can freeze the raw, filled dumplings and then simmer them for 20 minutes in boiling water before serving. We enjoyed a batch from the freezer last night and they were very nice.

It's a bit late in the year for fresh plums now, but if you're still in a baking mood my mother recently sent me a recipe for a cake made with the next best thing - prunes. Don't be afraid, prunes are delicious and not just for old people!

This is not a fancy, fluffy cake. It's dense and a bit chewy and all those nutritious prunes and walnuts in there really keep things running smoothly, if you know what I mean.

Spiced Prune Cake - Mausi's Mum

Note: Even if it looks done, be sure to bake this cake for as long as the recipe specifies so that it can caramelize and easily release from the pan.

Unsalted butter, room temperature, for the pan
2 cups all purpose flour plus more for the pan
1 cup pitted prunes
2 cups granulated sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
½ tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup low-fat buttermilk*
3 large eggs
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans
Confectioner’s sugar for dusting.

1. preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter and flour a non-stick Bundt pan (12 cup capacity) tapping out excess flour, set aside.

2.Bring a small saucepan of water to a boil, remove from heat and add prunes. Cover and let soak for 10 minutes. Drain prunes and finely chop, set aside.

3.Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk together flour, granulated sugar, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, salt and baking soda. Set aside. In a medium bowl whisk together oil, buttermilk, and eggs. Add oil mixture to flour mixture. Mix just until combined. Stir in prunes and nuts.

4. Spoon batter into prepared pan, and bake until a toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean and the cake has pulled away COMPLETELY from sides of the pan. 1 hour and 45 minutes to 2 hours.

5. Immediately invert onto a cooling rack. Let cool completely and transfer to serving plate. Dust with confectioner’s sugar, if desired. Makes 12 servings.

* If you can't find buttermilk, put 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar in measuring cup and add milk to equal 1 cup. Let sit for 10 minutes before using.

so much to be thankful for

2009-10-12T22:35:00.001+02:00

It's the end of the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend (second Monday of October, mark your calendars so you don't forget like I did!) and here are a few of the little things I've been thankful for lately

Roses in fall hues...

A burst of colour from the mother-in-law's allotment garden

A flower with my name on it...

Sage, rosemary and thyme still going strong...

Beautiful autumn leaves...

A bountiful harvest...

(Apples and tiny white gourds from our garden, the rest from the market)

Homemade pumpkin pie and cranberry pear crisp...

Hedgehogs!...

And here are the three not-so-little things that I'm thankful for all year long...

My boys. Summer 2008 - Cape Disappointment, Washington State

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving to all you Canucks out there!

the patter of little feet

2009-10-08T13:57:00.000+02:00

What a terrible blogger I am. I have an excuse, though. Aside from a weird cold that just won't seem to go away and is making my head feel like Krakatoa before the big bang, I've been really, really busy looking after one of the things I like best about Germany - hedgehogs! And we've got tons of them this year.

This little female was the first one to show up in the evening and sometimes even during the day. That's unusual for a hedgehog since they are nocturnal, but apparently some of them do come out when the sun is shining even if they are not sick or injured. She looked just fine so we let her do her thing.

Isn't she pretty?

We know there are lots of creepy crawlies in the garden for her to eat but just to make sure she gains enough weight to make it through the winter we've been feeding her cat food

from a dog bowl

We have neither a cat nor a dog, so no one is getting his or her nose put out of joint by our new guest.

A couple of weeks ago I spied something small walking around on the grass. A baby! And another one! Six in total and the cutest things you've ever seen.

They definitely needed snacks

nom nom nom, we ♥ scrambled eggs

A mother hedgehog suckles her babies for about 6 weeks, but at 3 1/2 weeks they are developed enough to leave the nest and start learning how to forage for food on their own. The ones we keep seeing are certainly bright eyed and bushy tailed and look very healthy. I've read that it's unlikely that more than four out of a litter will survive but we're hoping for the best and letting nature take its course. As of now, we only see three or four babies at a time. Hopefully they're just eating in shifts!

So what do hedgehogs eat besides scrambled eggs and cat food? Well, they are omnivores and their diet can include all sorts of insects, worms, snails, frogs(!), bird eggs, mushrooms, grass roots and fruit. Sounds like they'll eat just about anything, but please don't give them a bowl of milk. Although they would probably love it, they are lactose intolerant and could get very ill.

I was lucky enough to get close enough to take a few pictures, but hedgehogs are usually shy creatures who will scuttle off as soon as they see someone approaching. It's hilarious to watch them assume what we've come to call the "I can't heeaaar you!" position, tiny nose towards the wall, back towards the supposed enemy, quills up.

As well as being completely adorable, hedgehogs are great as a natural pest control, eating the nasty bugs and leaving the good ones behind.

They've told me what they like best about our garden is:

1) undisturbed piles of leaves, old branches and dark spaces to hide out in
2) a big ol' composts heap teaming with insects and other delicacies
3) a ground-level bird bath to slurp out of
4) a sucker who will make scrambled eggs on demand and spoon feed them if asked nicely

At the rate we're going, we should have the babies fattened up before the first frost. We'd really like to see them emerge in the spring as young adults ready to start their own families.

I ♥ M

2009-09-16T15:33:00.005+02:00

Whew, I can't believe it's taken me more than a week to report on this year's Whiney Expat Bloggers in Germany Meet Up. I seem to be running on emtpy these days. But anyway, after Marburg, Bonn, Dresden and Bremen, we decided to choose something in the deep south this time. And what better city than Munich?

As usual (well, except for Bremen which is just a stone's throw away), it took absolutely ages to get there. Had I been travelling alone, I would have taken the train. But this time, surprise, surprise, Mr. M expressed interest in coming along and insisted on driving down. The BMW is pining for Bavaria, he said. Fine with me, I said. I'll just pop a travel sickness pill and pass out for the entire six hours while you and the BMW fight with the 18-wheelers. I do not love the Autobahn.

We made it just fine - lovely weather, no traffic jams and only a few annoying construction sites that prevented Mr. M from driving at the speed of light for some of the time. I didn't need to slam on the invisible break even once. World record.

After checking in to the Holiday Inn (no complaints - clean, friendly staff, great breakfast, the usual "hey, this could be anywhere" atmosphere) we did a little sightseeing on our own before meeting the others for dinner. Armed with only a city map, the official Whiney Expat Bloggers Meet Up Munich 2009 Guide for Whiners and a giant pretzel for sustenance, we managed to find our way around pretty well.

Dinner was a very German affair at the Zum Franziskaner restaurant. While Mr. M dug into his Schweinshaxe with potato dumplings, I enjoyed the Würstelplatte - five different kinds of sausage accompanied by sauerkraut, mashed potatoes and freshly grated horseradish. Very nice. Not to self: sauerkraut and Diet Pepsi don't mix. Next time drink beer like everyone else and wear your dirndl.

Halfway through the evening we all took possession of our Munich souvenir kit kindly put together by the meet-up organizers who shall be named later.

Our Munich team managed to get hold of these nifty carry bags from Käfer a fancy German delicatessen and catering company based in Munich. We were gifted with two bags,one red, one pink and before I knew it Mr. M had stolen the pink one and is now using it to shop at Aldi. This amuses me on so many levels.

Saturday found us up at 7 a.m. breakfasting in the hotel dining room with the rest of the tourists who also wanted to get an early start. And then it was off to round up a bunch of bloggers at a local cafe so we could start on our tour of the city.

Wow, what a great tour guide we had. A sweet German woman who spoke perfect English and filled us in on some of Munich's fascinating history. And boy could she walk fast!

I think you can get just about anything at the Viktualienmarkt and I really wish I had taken more pictures. Next time I'm in Munich, that's where you'll find me.

The maypole at the Viktualienmarkt

The Rathaus Glockenspiel (chimes) at the New Town Hall, Marienplatz

The National Theater

With people outside choosing to ignore culture and drink beer instead.

If YOU want to rent a beer bike, click here.

More interesting architecture

And plenty of beer gardens on our way around town.

After the tour ended, our goal was a particular beer garden in the Englischer Garten. Along the way we were entertained by the Eisbach surfers. Yes, indeed, you can surf right in the middle of Munich. These guys are incredible!

Munich's second biggest beer garden, with seating for 7,000 people, is located at the Chinesischer Turm (Chinese Tower)

This was my lunch. Did you know that beer and pretzels contain the four major food groups. No? That's because I just made it up.

Later that afternoon while everyone else was taking a nap, Mr. M and I took in a bit of the Deutsches Museum and then decided to have a little snooze ourselves. All that walking!

Saturday's dinner was at an Ethiopian restaurant, something new for us. There are no Ethiopian restaurants in Dullsville. None. Mr. M was a bit sceptical but ended up enjoying his meal, and I loved all of it and would definitely go back again.

The plan for the rest of the evening was to follow whiney expat blogger tradition and go to a gay bar after dinner. I have been on two of these excursions and had lots of fun, but this time we were so tired that we wimped out and went back to the hotel to get some shut eye before the long drive back on Sunday. I heard it was an eventful evening.

Sunday morning we got up pretty early and had breakfast surrounded by French people. A woman at the table next to ours suddenly started sobbing, but my French being what it is, I was unable to understand anything more than petit déjeuner, croissant and du café. I'm hoping she was just hungry, poor thing.

A stroll around the neighbourhood and along the banks of the Isar river was just the thing to walk off breakfast and we still had a little time until our brunch meet-up so off we went.

Our final destination was the Alte Messe a beer garden and restaurant close to the Theresienwiese where Oktoberfest takes place every year.

Since we had already had breakfast, Mr. M enjoyed his final Bavarian beer and I chose a little snack - Reiberdatschi - potato pancakes with a choice of either apple sauce or sauerkraut. Where I live these are called Kartoffelpuffer and you may also hear them referred to as Reibekuchen as well as a couple of other names according to region. So confusing! They were really good, though, just like Mr. M's granny used to make.

The six hours back to Hannover just flew by. Not. We were pretty tired when we got home and the kids (who had been shipped off to Oma's for the weekend) were happy to see us, especially since we came bearing yet more of those delicious giant pretzels.

Oh, I guess you might want to know who all was there. It was a large crowd, with some people attending every gathering and others just popping in to say hello on one day or the other.

Bloggers I had met before (some by blog name or nickname) :
Adam
AmiExpat
Deutschland Über Elvis (organizer)
Heidelbergerin
J
Michelle
PapaScott
Regensbloggers
Snooker

Bloggers I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time:
Dave
Elemmaciltur
Hezamarie (organizer)
Honeypiehorse (organizer)
Jentry
No Apathy Allowed
Zurika (organizer)

Various husbands, wives, significant others and one cousin were included and it was great meeting all of them, too. If I missed anyone, please let me know. What a fun group. One of these years I'll get to have a decent conversation with each and every one of you. Sort of like slowed down speed dating blogger style. And a huge thank you goes out to the organizers of this event who helped things run so smoothly and made us all feel right at home in their adopted city.

So, yes, we had a wonderful time and we really do ♥ Munich. The last time I was there I was only 11 years old, so it was about time, and Mr. M wants to go back soon and do some more exploring.

Apparently Munich also likes us back. This is the logo they came up with a couple of years ago.

So, after the meet-up is before the meet-up and I'm sure some bloggers already have suitable locations in mind for next year's extravaganza. If you want to be in on the action next time, you can register at this site and get all the important information in a relatively private setting.

you say tomato

2009-08-21T00:55:00.000+02:00

It's (almost) too hot to blog. 34°C/93°F out there on this Thursday afternoon. One of my boys officially had Hitzefrei at 11 a.m. today - that's when they send the younger kids home in the middle of the day because of the heat. The older ones have to stick it out but luckily for Boy16, Biology was cancelled so he got to leave early, too.

The heat has been great for the garden, providing we water everything before it all wilts and I had some luck with my tomatoes this year.

Seeing all those unripe ones made me start thinking about fried green tomatoes, something I've never made before. I know y'all from the southern U.S. are saying "Yawn, been there, done that" but where I come from, we only ate 'em red and ripe. I got my courage up and boy, were they tasty!

After all that down home goodness I decided to try something more fancy, a tomato tarte tatin based on the famous French apple tart. Somewhere (somewhere!) in my recipe files (and I use that term loosely, it's actually just jagged scraps of paper stuffed in a box) I had a recipe ( carelessly ripped out of the food section of a Vancouver newspaper a couple of summers ago) I'd been meaning to try out for ages. Do you think I could find what I was looking for? Nope, but as usual, my beloved internet came through and offered up that very recipe on page 24 of this book preview. Who knew?

My first attempt was made in a springform pan. Big mistake. Don't do it. It dribbled while it was baking, smoked up my kitchen and ended up a soggy, inedible mess. Another entry for Mausi's Big Book of Kitchen Disasters.

But practice makes perfect and the second attempt was fabulous. This time I made individual tarte tatins (or would that be tartes tatin?) in little ramekins. Cute, are they not?

These were intensely flavoured - sweet, sour and savoury all at the same time with the coolness of the fresh mozarella adding a lovely contrast. I can see myself making these again and again.

Now, check out Pepe, my one and only sweet pepper this year. When Mr. M brought the plant home many weeks ago Pepe was just a tiny little thing, one of many would-be peppers, his label promising that he'd grow up to be bright red some day. Unfortunately all his other little pepper friends dried up and fell off, but Pepe grew and grew.

He stayed green for so long that I'd almost given up when all of a sudden he started changing colour and transformed himself into this racy number.

The only question then was do we stuff him, put him in a salad or turn him into some delicious tomato and pepper relish?

My mother-in-law has been gifting us with jars of relish for what seems like eons. Mr. M is just wild about the it so he was pretty upset when Oma announced that she didn't feel like making any this year. Fine, I said, give me the recipe and I'll make it.

Here's how it turned out

First things first. It's very common in Germany to re-use old jars and lids for making jams, jellies and relishes. No boiling water baths or any kind of processing that I'm aware of. The goods are simply cooked up, put into sterilized jars and inverted for five minutes so they'll (hopefully) seal themselves. This is the way the mother-in-law has been doing it for years and no one has died yet, but I know the recommendations in other countries are quite different and after some extensive reading I didn't want to take any chances on this stuff since it contains some low-acid ingredients. I did in fact use old salsa jars, however for safety's sake the relish is being stored in the fridge and we're using it up very quickly.

This is a sweet, mildly spiced relish that pairs wonderfully with grilled meats. You could probably doctor it up in any number of ways after you'd tried the basic recipe. After watching my husband pick the whole spices out of his dinner for years, I decided to be a genius and put the peppercorns and cloves called for in a tea ball, removing them after cooking. So much easier. The mustard seeds, being very small, can be left in.

So, what to call the recipe? I have no idea where my mother-in-law got it so we'll just have to attribute it to her. If you speak German, you'll know that Schwiegermutter is the word for the woman who gave birth to your spouse. But the Germans love to abbreviate things and since Schwiegermutter is such a long word, they'll sometimes shorten it to Schwimu when the mother-in-law is out of hearing range. It doesn't stop there. If you're an umpire, a Schiedsrichter, they'll call you a Schiri. If you're doing an apprenticeship, instead of being know as an Auszubildende/er, you'll answer to Azubi. And if you're still wearing your hair in that short-in-the-front long-in-the-back style commonly know as a mullet in English speaking countries, the Germans will tell you you're sporting a Vokuhila - vorne kurz, hinten lang.

So now that you know the scoop, back to the recipe. I proudly present you with

Schwimu's Tomato and Pepper Relish

1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
500g tomatoes
250g onions
4 T. vinegar
200g brown sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. mustard seeds
1 tsp. black peppercorns
1 tsp. sweet paprika powder
4 whole cloves

Seed and chop peppers, peel and dice onions. Peel tomatoes* and dice. Place vegetables and spices in a large pot, using a tea ball for peppercorns and cloves if desired, and cook over medium heat, stirring often, for 30-40 minutes. Remove tea ball and spoon relish into sterilized jars. Process according to your level of comfort. Makes about 4 jars. This recipe doubles easily but adjust the salt according to taste.

*How in the world do you get the skin off a tomato? Well, first you cut a little cross in the bottom of each tomato and place them all in a large, heatproof bowl. Then you pour boiling water over them and let them sit for a minute. After that they need to be scooped out with a slotted spoon and plopped into ice water for another minute or two. The skins will then slip right off with a little help from a paring knife.

What are you doing with YOUR tomatoes this year?

life is...

2009-08-06T13:15:00.000+02:00

Cherry season is over now, but these cherries were from our neighbour's tree. She goes to Spain every year in July, so we get our fill and leave the rest for the birds.

Napoleon or Royal Ann cherries (similar to the Rainier cherries produced in Washington State) are quite delicate and sweet and best just eaten out of hand. In my search for something else to do with them I did come across a recipe that we enjoyed - a fresh cherry tart. It came out looking like this

Nothing complicated about this dessert. Just a pre-baked pastry shell (your favourite recipe), some cream cheese mixed with sugar to taste along with a couple of spoonfuls of raspberry syrup for colour and flavour. The original recipe called for Kirschwasser which I don't care for at all so I substituted the syrup. Pitted cherries top the cream cheese mixture and a glaze of apricot jam, put through a strainer and warmed a bit to make it smoother, gives them a little shine. This tart doesn't improve with age - I'd recommend eating it within a couple of hours of making it.

Now, when you've got all these cherries, you need to pit them, right? And that can be a tough job when you don't have a cherry pitter. Next year you can bring your cherries to my house, because I DO have a cherry pitter. Two in fact.

The larger apparatus seen here the world-famous (I'm just making that up) Kirschomat (Cherry-matic) which claims to be able to pit 15 kg of cherries an hour if you're quick about it.

Kirschen entkernen, endlich spritzfrei!, it says on the box - cherry pitting, splash free at last! Phew, what a relief that must be for the modern housewife, eh? Pits fall into the plastic container, cherries go into your bowl. Easy peasy.

The little instrument of torture on the left can be used for either cherries or plums and works well if you don't have a large amount of fruit to go through. A bit messier than the other one but it gets the job done just the same. Here's a close-up.

Ouch!

The mother-in-law also had a couple of cherry trees of a different kind. A bowl of those yielded this cake

basic white cake with mandarine oranges and pitted fresh cherries

and this cherry chutney, lovely with some goat cheese and hearty bread or crackers

I halved the recipe, which worked fine, but I had a little culinary accident when I was making this - I decided right at the end to put in a touch more powdered ginger (being lazy and not wanting to mince more fresh ginger) and the top fell off my spice jar, depositing a lot more ginger than planned. Oh well, I still think it tastes great, even if I'm the only one eating it. I knew I should have married Anthony Bourdain. He'd eat it too.

Last but not least, the beautiful apricots we bought at the market were getting their tiny noses all out of joint so we turned them into this cake made with a shortbread crust and a quark filling. The good thing about apricots is that they will surrender their pits without much of a fight.

I have to say that I didn't care for this recipe much. And good thing too because, oops, I think I threw out the German cooking magazine I found it in. It was similar to a cheesecake recipe, but came out quite dry and the taste of the lemon rind it called for was overpowering. So not rave reviews this time, perhaps a little tweaking is in order. I do like the polka dot effect though.

So you can see that I haven't just been sitting on the couch eating bon bons and watching Oprah! And there's more fruit and vegetable goodness where that came from if I evern get around to blogging about it.

The kids are back at school today, the weather is gorgeous and I can finally get this place cleaned up after a wonderful summer holiday.

Life is good. Go hug someone.

having too much fun to blog

2009-07-21T13:54:00.001+02:00

How lazy am I? I can't believe it's been over two weeks since I spent a lovely day in Hannover with fellow bloggers Dixie and Claire. In addition, Claire's German and the adorable Little Dude, both perfect gentlemen, were there to to make it even more special. Unfortunately real life got in the way for several other bloggers planning to attend. We really missed you guys, but we'll definitely make up for it some time soon, huh?

Thunder showers were scheduled and I wondered if we'd end up switching coffee shops every two hours waiting for a sunny break. You know how unreliable those weather forecasts can be, though. Instead of dodging raindrops we ended up sweaty and sunburned. Boy was it hot!

As usual I was talking too much and didn't take many pictures but the ones I did take somehow managed to make Hannover look like a tropical paradise. I should have gone into marketing. I've also included a couple that Boy13 took with our camcorder from the top of the ferris wheel at the annual Schützenfest that ended last week.

Before lunch we headed off the the Maschpark close to the New City Hall. The park, with its water-lily filled lake and 10 hectares of shade trees is an ideal place to just stop and sit for a while and the city hall itself is quite impressive.

(this is how it looks from the ferris wheel)

Here's another view over the city. Hannover is said to be one of the greenest cities in Germany. I'm grateful for that. I need green to survive.

Lunch was at the Block House restaurant. Yeah, it's a chain, but we all agreed that the food was just fine. Best cheesburger I've had in ages and those steaks sure looked good. Family friendly too, which I find really important. Little Dude seemed to enjoy himself and kept us and our servers entertained the whole time.

After lunch we made our way down to the Maschsee, Hannover's man-made lake very close to the city centre. It's a peaceful location even if it's usually teaming with visitors. Even if you're just on your lunch hour, beer gardens, palm trees and sail boats (no motor boats allowed) make it feel feel like a vacation.

Late afternoon found us back at the train station having cool fairwell drinks and an ice cream or two, totally justified by all that walking we did.

Hey guys, I had a great time. we should do that more often!

Just for fun, a couple of gratuitous roller coaster pictures courtesy of Boy13. I leave the Schützenfest visits with the boys up to Mr. M these days. You won't catch me going on those scary, scary rides.

Other fun things I did in the past couple of weeks instead of blogging:

- Went to the animal shelter to look for a dog. No luck this time. Spot, we know you're out there somewhere. Give us a sign.

- Attended the Kleines Fest im Grossen Garten, a festival of performing artists at the Royal Herrenhausen Gardens in Hannover. Very entertaining and the weather held up for us.

- Hiked up a mountain and back down again. 16 km altogether. The weather was hideous. I was cranky. I may blog about it.

- Had even more blood drawn at the doctor's. Liver enzymes are now A-OK. No more doctor's visits for the time being. I am SO sick of sitting in that waiting room staring at the wallpaper.

- Celebrated father-in-law's 80th birthday. It was very pleasant. This has not always been the case in the past.

- Finally got going on redecorating the upstairs bathroom. Did I mention that green is my favourite colour?

- Made a ton of Mr. M's favourite tomato relish. Recipe to follow.

- Worked like a devil in the garden and finally got it looking half-decent. But only half. Evil bugs have eaten my lilies. They will pay for this.

Upcoming events:

- A visit to Hamburg

- Checking out the "First Nations of Canada" exhibition at the Landesmuseum Hannover

- A massive water fight on the lawn.

- Getting ALL the laundry done for a change.

That's all for now. The kids have two more school-free weeks and Mr. M will be off next week again so we'll most likely be busy, busy, busy trying to make the most of our time together.

How's YOUR summer been so far?

the flag doesn't come down until you finish the leftovers

2009-07-06T01:50:00.002+02:00

Canada Day was too hot for anything more than sitting in the shade with a cool drink and waiting for dinner time to roll around. How's this for timing - as if by magic, the July issue of Canadian Living magazine arrived in our mail box mid morning. As usual, a bit late to try out any of the holiday recipes, but very welcome nonetheless. You can't be all that picky when subscribing to magazines from oversease. They show up when they want to and there's nothing you can do about it. Sometimes I'm amazed they get here at all.

We started with these smoked salmon and marinated red onion (so good!) appetizers.

Here are some skewered vegetables ready to be thrown on the grill

And everybody's favourite - potato salad. Bacon, hard boiled eggs, red onion, dill pickles, chives, parsley and mayo.

The ribs were done in two steps, first dry rubbed and oven baked and then tossed with a beer-based barbeque sauce and finished on the grill. The original recipe is for beef ribs. I used pork because, you know, we live in Germany. I don't know that I'd use this recipe again. It was good enough, but I had to doctor it up a little to get it to taste the way I thought it should taste.

Dessert was a giant fruit salad

The stars of the show were strawberries from two villages away, yellow cherries from the neighbour's tree and raspberries from our very own garden

In British Columbia, where I'm from, summer is all about locally grown fruit, especially the just-picked berries you can buy at roadside stands. This cake kind of reminded me of that. No recipe, really. The filling is cream cheese, yogurt, sugar, pureed berries and gelatin.

Well, the leftovers are long gone so I guess we can take the flag down for another year.

But before I do that, I have to tell you about the conversation our German neighbour H and I had on Friday.

H: (pointing to the Canadian flag) Hey, was war das für ein Tag gestern? (Hey, what day was it yesterday?)

Me: Es war eigentlich Mittwoch, nicht gestern. Canada Day. Kanada Tag. (Actually, it was Wednesday, not yesterday.)

H: Ahh, Kanada, keiner da! Ha ha ha! (Ahh, Canada, no one's there!)

Me: Ha ha, sehr lustig (because this is a standard German joke that I've heard a million times). Ja, und Sonnabend feiern die Amerikaner den Unabhängigkeitstag. (Ha ha, very funny. Yeah, and on Saturday the Americans celebrate Independence Day.)

H: Ach, ja, richtig. Und die Kanadier feiern dann mit, oder? (Oh yes, that's right. And the Canadians celebrate along with them, right?)

Me: Emm, nein, aber... (umm, no, but...)

He's been living beside us for fourteen years now and I swear he'll never get it. Oh well.

But hold on a second, this year I DID happen to spend the fourth of July with a couple of fabulous Americans and their loved ones. More about that in my next post.

oh, canada (I miss you so)

2009-07-01T13:05:00.002+02:00

Happy Canada Day!

We're flying the flag here today in Dullsville and will be celebrating later by throwing some stuff on the grill. There may be pictures. Right now, this one will have to suffice.

The kids had their last day of school a week ago and we've been very busy sleeping in and generally just lazing about and enjoying the summer. I have tons (tons!) of blog posts lined up. Unfortunately it's just too humid too sit inside and type. This sort of weather is not very kind to the frizzy-haired among us. It's presently 25°C outside and the clouds are threatening to split open at any moment. Platzregen they call it here. One minute you're dry, the next you're soaking wet. Oh well, at least we won't need to water.

You have a good day too, eh, and while you're at it, go check out Ian's great Canada Day post.

birthday fallout

2009-05-26T22:08:00.000+02:00

Curses, spoiled again!

More flowers...

Enough chocolate to last at least a week...

Can you tell I'm a bittersweet kind of girl?

And new gardening clogs! (Old ones just celebrated their 13th birthday - sheesh)

This colour makes me smile while I'm digging in the dirt.

any excuse to eat cake

2009-05-25T15:35:00.003+02:00

In case you've been keeping track, I turned 46 today. And not a moment too soon - 45 was getting pretty old. I was ready for a change. To take my mind off of being so very ancient, I made cake. Lots of cake. Which will be eaten by eager family members later on this evening after a simple barbeque on the deck.

It's a beautiful day, I've been sitting outside in the garden enjoying the weather and contemplating both middle age and my aging middle. I've decided that being fairly well preserved and pleasingly plump is not the worst thing that could happen to a girl.

My morning started with some perfectly lovely roses from my better half

It's too hot for chocolate cake and we're all too flabby to dive into the whipped cream so I went for something fruity. Fruit has vitamins, right? Just for today, we'll pretend that cake is one of the four major food groups.

Strawberry Cheesecake

Lemon Tea Loaf

Rhubarb Matrimonial Squares (as they are called in Western Canada)

Must go now. The mother-in-law will be here any minute bearing gifts. Lucky me.

P.S. The link to the Lemon Tea Loaf recipe was broken. I've fixed it now!

they don't call a danish a danish in Denmark

2009-05-18T14:20:00.001+02:00

Once again, Denmark did not disappoint. This was our second time in Ebeltoft, a small market town in a sheltered bay on the Baltic Sea.

I don't want to repeat myself too much, so here are some links to my 2007 Ebeltoft posts.

mellow yellow - Danish edition

Ebeltoft - how do you like them apples?

water water everywhere

fish and ships, language learning on the sly, and any flavour you like as long as it's licorice

This was our humbe abode for two weeks, pretty standard for this area of Denmark.

Once again we rented from a company called DanCenter and were very pleased with their service. They offer holiday homes (most of them privately owned, I believe) in Scandinavia and several other European countries and their website is user friendly, letting you choose exactly the kind of accomodation you're looking for. This house, like many Danish holiday homes, came equipped with a pool, whirlpool and sauna. We enjoyed these optional features in 2007 and decided to get them again this time. Electricity is expensive in Denmark so we also brought our own (recycled and clean-burning!) sawdust briquettes to use in the wood buring stove. Nothing like a nice cozy fire at the beginning and end of each day.

At about nine o'clock every morning this guy and his lovely wife came by looking for snails and juicy vegetation on the lawn. Mrs. Mallard wasn't with him on the day I took this photo but they seemed to be a devoted couple.

The Danish word for duck is and, quite similar to the German Ente. But while Donald Duck is still Donald Duck in German, the Danes call Donald Anders And. Go figure.

It's a seven hour drive from Hannover to Ebeltoft so by the time we got there on Saturday afternoon we were pretty tired and didn't have much more in mind than unpacking our stuff, having a simple dinner and falling into bed.

But on Sunday we went shopping! Yes, that's right. You can shop on Sundays in Denmark. I don't know if it's a country-wide thing or if it's just because Ebeltoft is a touristy area, but all the supermarkets and many of the smaller shops are open on Sundays year-round.

We found the older part of the little town just as charming as last time with its bright colours and cobblestone streets.

Lots of ornaments and curliques...

...and lovely flower shops ready for spring.

See this bicycle?

I doubt that it's in use any more, but we saw quite a few people riding newer models with a crate on the front to haul stuff around. Our neighbour even hauled his kids around in his.

Cafes, museums, antique shops, Ebeltoft has it all...

...including some wonderful bakeries with a huge selection of gorgeous pastries. So you're coming over all peckish and feel in need of a little something. What do you say? If you ask, "Hvordan siger du 'danish pastry' på dansk?" - "How do you say danish pastry in Danish?", the Danes will tell you it's called wienerbrød - literally Viennese bread. That's because danish pastries were originally brought to Denmark by the Austrians, and we all know how well they do desserts.

We ate our way through some mighty fine treats - kanel snegle (cinnamon "snails" aka buns), Dagmartærte, and something called a wiener trekant - a huge, huge, huge pastry triangle with a vanilla cream filling and a dark chocolate glaze, just to name a few. Yum.

Walks on the beach burned off all those calories. More on that in my next post.

watch me do the happy dance

2009-05-12T15:35:00.003+02:00

I know, I know, I owe y'all a whole bunch of interesting posts with pretty pictures. But before I get to that I need to tell you why I'm dancing.

I spent some time in the doctor's office today discussing the results of my colonoscopy and guess what? It's official, I DO have a form of colitis, but it is NOT (NOT!) ulcerative colitis, meaning that it's not a chronic condition and that I will most likely continue to improve (as I have been doing) until I am symptom free. Yay.

Not that you're really that interested, but the results of the endoscopic exam showed a slight inflammation of the entire colon (that's the large intestine) right down to the appendix, but nothing in the ileum, the end of the small intestine. That pretty much rules out Crohn's Disease which usually presents in a different pattern. While the histological report (that's the stuff they do under the microscope after taking tissue samples) also indicated an inflammation with yucky patches of this and that, various lymphocyte thingies and microcrypt doo dads, they feel that it isn't ulcerative colitis but rather something know as infectious colitis brought on by the 10-day course of antibiotics I took for a throat infection waaay back in mid-January before I went in for my hysterectomy. Who knew? I mean of course I know that antiobiotics can play havoc with your digestive system, killing the good bacteria along with the bad, but this thing appearing more than a month after I stopped taking the pills and giving me the German version of Montezuma's Revenge (minus the holiday!) for a whole ten weeks IS pretty weird. I have a feeling my entire system was weakened by the operation and just decided to take a little break without telling me. Losing those pesky tend pounds without even trying was great and I hope I can keep it off, but it wasn't really the right way to go about it now, was it?

I HAVE been feeling a whole lot better these past couple of weeks, though, and my doctor believes that this will indeed go away on its own with the help of probiotics to build up and maintain the intestinal flora. Just today I was reading that non-chronic colitis can take up to three months to heal (Thursday will be exactly three months since this thing reared its ugly head) and six months to really get back to normal. The only caveat they had for me was that sometimes, just sometimes, a first- time bout of ulcerative colitis can masquerade as a self-limiting colitis and that if my symptoms persist or reoccur, that I MUST go and get evaluated again.

I'll be on the lookout, but I really feel that I'm in the clear and ready to get on with it, already. Enough with the sick, I've got a life to live!

where I've been

2009-05-05T16:08:00.001+02:00

Oh, hi. Just came by to dust off my blog.

I've been wearing my "if it's not one thing it's another" t-shirt for the past few weeks. Yep, I WAS recovering well and then suddenly got hit with a new complaint that may or may not be related to all the other stuff. Let's just say I've been having, um, digestive irregularities since mid-February. Things have gotten much better, but they are still not quite right. Every had a colonoscopy? I had one for the first time last Tuesday. Tons of fun, I tell you. I find out the results next week and I'm thinking there could be two possible outcomes: 1) something harmless that will eventually go away by itself, or 2) ulcerative colitis. Ugh. Which one would you choose?

Anyway, I'm not feeling that bad, but I'm also not feeling that good energy-wise. I do have some nice pictures of Denmark to show you so I'll be getting to that later on today, OK?

spring has sprung!

2009-04-14T11:41:00.002+02:00

We got back on Saturday evening from a wonderful, restful holiday with beautiful weather and lots of time to walk on the beach, relax and do nothing at all if we chose. My kind of vacation.

And coming home was like a vacation too, 23°C and a riot of colour in the garden all weekend. We fired up the barbecue and spent Easter out on the terrace in t-shirts and shorts. The most Easter-ly thing I did this year was to dye a few eggs. Even if your house is a pig-sty and the stuff you still need to unpack has kind of exploded everywhere, you MUST dye eggs. It' just not Easter without them.

The daffodils are working their magic

and in our garden you'll find little surprises in the most unlikely of places

Happy (belated) Easter!

mmm...pickled herring

2009-03-28T01:23:00.002+01:00

We leave for Denmark in less than 8 hours and once again I'm still not completely packed. My Danish is just as bad as it was last time we visited this adorable country but we got by just fine.

Hopefully the weather gods will smile down on us and give us a least a little sunshine while we're hanging out at the beach. We'll be gone for two weeks, arriving back just in time for a visit from the Easter bunny.

Y'all be good now and take care while I'm gone.

Oh, and would somebody mind feeding my fish? Just click on the water and watch the little nippers do their thing.

more cheese than w(h)ine

2009-03-28T01:20:00.000+01:00

If you're interested in attending this year's Whiney Expat Bloggers in Germany Meet-Up, get yourself over to the Expat Bloggers in Germany site and vote for the location of your choice. The three cities in the running as of right now are Berlin, Heidelberg and Munich. Something for everyone. You need to register to be able to view the site (keeps the riff raff out) and once you do, you'll be privy to all the important details. After a city has been decided upon, we'll start fighting about a date, most likely somewhere between July and October.

Let's have a great turnout this year!

two and a half men

2009-03-17T15:30:00.001+01:00

Oooh, long time no blog, eh? I'm OK, just not that OK. A brief update on that at the end of this post.

I don't know what I was thinking having two babies with birthdays only 11 (or 12, depending on the year!) days apart. Having my husband's birthday fall smack in the middle just added to the hilarity.

We all know that even if I'm not really feeling 100%, if I can stand up, I can bake. And bake I did. Nothing fancy, but the guys got their money's worth, I think.

The kid-formerly-known-as-Boy15 transformed himself into Boy16 on February 28. Whoo. No wild and crazy party this year, just a quiet dinner out with Oma and the rest of us, followed by some of the good stuff. The cherry cheesecake refused to be photographed. The chocolate chip muffins, on the other hand, were happy to take center stage.

Are you digging my new silicone muffin cups?

Chocolate Chip Muffins (from somewhere off the internet)

1 1/2 cups flour
1 T baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (I used some Zartbitter-Schokoflocken I had hanging around)
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1/3 cup melted butter (vegetable oil works just as well)
1 egg

In large bowl mix flour, baking powder, salt and chocolate chips. In another bowl combine sugar, milk, butter/oil and egg and mix well. Add wet ingredients to dry and stir until moistened. Spoon into greased or lined muffin tins.Bake at 375°F/190°C for about 20 mins or until tops spring back when lightly pressed. Makes 12 regular sized muffins.

Next up was a rather cranky Mr. M who did not, not, not want to turn 47 on March 4. Who's middled ages? Nope, not him. A giant slice of mandarin cheesecake eased his pain a bit.

And we all know that everything looks better when you've got a few cinnamon buns under your belt.

And guess who turned 13 on March 11? My baby. You know, the one who used to sit on my lap and nestle his little head under my chin. He's a long tall drink of water these days, but he still likes a good hug now and then.

He wanted a layer cake with buttercream frosting. "You know, just like the ones in cartoons!", he said. I used these two recipes and came up with this. He was pleased.

Sooo...with all the guy birthdays taken care of and both the boys well on their way to becoming fine upstanding young men, I can once again concentrate on obsessing about my health. I'm healing wonderfully well from the surgery and things are just as they should be in that respect, no regrets AT ALL. Unfortunately, though, I've developed a couple of other nagging issues that are being looked into. Probably not serious and certainly not blog worthy, but the jury's still out on what's to be done about feeling better again. Which I MUST do because we're spending the Easter holidays in Denmark and our departure date is only 12 days away. Wheee! Can't wait.

If you need me I'll be sitting in the recliner doing some positive thinking...

oy! and ouchie!

2009-02-02T20:28:00.001+01:00

Wow. I'm alive and well. What a surreal experience - not not NOT fun but definitely the right decision and I'm feeling better every day. Thank you all for your comments and e mails.

I need to go take a nap now...

my new year so far? not so good.

2009-01-22T15:14:00.003+01:00

I'm haven't stopped blogging! I've just been conserving my energy for more pressing matters.

Remember those two back-to-back colds I had starting in late November? Well, just when I thought I had gotten rid of the sniffles for good, the second cold morphed into strep throat mid-January and I've been on antibiotics since then. Bleh. I hate taking them, but it was necessary this time, for a variety of reasons.

All this illness just goes to show how sensitive the immune system is to stress and worry. I've been worrying an awful lot for the past several months and after a rather unpleasant but very informative doctor's appointment in early January I've made a life-changing decision. If I had any doubts, the week (yet another one) spent in hormone hell following the appointment only served to seal the deal.

On January 27th, that's next Tuesday for those keeping track, I'll be going in for a hysterectomy. It's not an emergency, I don't have cancer or any other life threatening condition. In fact this is something I've been considering for the past year and a half ever since my doctor presented the idea to me as a solution to several health issues I've been dealing with for a long time now.

It may sound like a radical step, but if you know me, you'll know that I've researched deep into the night, considering ALL the possible options and figuring out, with professional advice, of course, that this is the best one for me.

As you can imagine, I'm quite apprehensive about the whole thing. Luckily I'm a good candidate for the least invasive method, a so-called LSH - laparoscopic supracervical hysterectomy. Only the offending organ is removed, leaving the healthy bits intact. Incisions are minimal and I won't immediately be plunged into early menopause.

I'm getting different feedback on the recovery, actually expecting the worst and preparing myself to take it VERY easy until I'm completely healed. We're looking at NO lifting (well, nothing heavier than a gin and tonic), NO housework, NO grocery shopping and NO serious canoodling with the better half for many, many weeks to come. Since I'm also having another procedure (a TVT - I'll let clever googlers figure that one out) done at the same time, I'm expecting that things may take a bit longer to get back to normal. My three peeps have stepped up to the plate and assured me that they'll keep things running around here until the chief cook and bottle washer is on her feet again.

So I'm thinking of just scrapping the past few weeks and starting my new year all over again next Wednesday or so, if that's OK with everyone.

When I start blogging again will depend on a lot of things. I'm focusing on a positive outcome to all this and I'm sure everything will be fine, just fine. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself. Heh.(Tries not to panic.)

And now a few photos of the New Year's Eve fireworks in our neighbourhood. This is the kind of energy I'm hoping for when I return.

See y'all on the flip side!

auld lang syne

2008-12-31T22:00:00.001+01:00

Less than two hours to go until midnight. Yawn. I hope I make it.

Last year we had friends over, which was fun. This year we're celebrating en famille. Watching Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii (1973) has been the highlight so far.

We like to do a fondue on New Year's Eve. It's easy to put together and there's something for everyone. Several years ago we switched from using oil in the fondue pot to cooking various bits of meat and fish in broth. Works just as well and is much less fatty and messy. I always start with a well seasoned homemade vegetable broth featuring onions, leeks, carrots, celery root, parsley, thyme, a bay leaf and a peppercorn or two.

Of course the chocolate mousse we're having for dessert will cancel out all that vitamin-y goodness, but who cares, it's New Year's Eve, right?

As anyone living in Germany knows, Germany are crazy for fireworks and my big German and two smaller ones are no exception. I swear this is only a third of the booty and they're just itching to set everything off come 12 a.m.

I'm a bit worried about them ripping into this package of scary looking firecrackers. If you wake up tomorrow in an alternate universe, you'll know who to blame.

I stay inside during all the mayhem, happy with quieter things like wimpy party crackers (which for some reason appear here at New Year's instead of at Christmas) and Bleigießen - a form of fortune telling where little lead figures are melted in a spoon over a candle and then plunged into cold water to see what symbols come up.

And oh, just as an aside - no matter what I do, I WILL NOT watch Dinner for One this year, and you can't make me. No you can't.

There'll be a "my 2008 in a nutshell" coming up tomorrow but for now I'll wish you all a

Happy New Year and all the best for 2009!

I don't know how much longer I can stand it

2008-12-30T14:00:00.002+01:00

~~bubble~~ rubble bath, anyone?

This is slow, slow going. Little bits and pieces after work and on weekends with a precious few days off thrown in over the holidays.

Dig the ghastly 1960's tile while you can 'cause it's history, man.

Next scheduled bath: Easter

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T23:03:00.002+01:00

Just got a call from Vancouver and THIS is what the weather's doing way over there. Amazing.

We had a lovely turkey dinner this evening with trifle and gingerbread men for dessert. We're all Now it's off to bed (guess who caught yet another cold and will by lying low for the next few days).

Merry Christmas from our house to yours!

up to my elbows in icing sugar

2008-12-23T23:30:00.000+01:00

They say the best way for a woman to attract a man is to dab a little vanilla behind her ears. I don't know if that's true, I just know that the men in my house can't stay away from the Christmas cookies this year.

I decided to go all German-y this Christmas and bake a few traditional cookies with my own twist.

First off are the vanilla cresents I've been making for the past 22 years.

These are called Vanillekipferl in German and actually originated in Austria. You can be as creative as you like with these. I used ground blanched almonds for the middle row and rolled them in vanilla sugar while they were still warm. The two outer rows were made with ground almonds with the skins left on. I think the brown speckles go nicely with the dark chocolate decorations.

Shaping these takes a bit of time, but you can get them done pretty quickly if you do them assembly line style and use a level measuring tablespoon as your guide. Here, I dug the recipe out of my archives so you don't have to.

Vanilla Crescents (Family Circle Magazine, December 1986)

1 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup unsifted icing sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup ground blanched almonds
2 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
Icing sugar and melted semi-sweet chocolate for garnish

Beat together butter, sugar and vanilla in medium-sized bowl until well-mixed. Beat in ground almonds. Stir in flour until well-blended. Shape dough into ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 2 - 3 hours.

Preheat oven to 325°F (160°C) Using level measuring tablespoon for each cookie, roll dough between palms to about 3 in. long and bend to form a horseshoe shape. Place on greased cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes. When cool roll in icing sugar and decorate with melted chocolate if desired. Makes about 3 dozen.

Next up we have Lebkuchen or Honigkuchen, a kind of soft gingerbread cookie. I made these on a baking sheet and cut them into squares. Half of them were iced with a lemon juice and icing sugar glaze and the other half with dark chocolate sprinkled with chopped pistachios. Very festive, no?

Most recipes of this type call for Hirschhornsalz (Ammonium Carbonate or Baker's ammonia) and Pottasche (Pottassium Carbonate), leavening agents which were used before baking powder was widely available. When using either of these chemicals, the dough needs to be mixed very carefully and left to rest for a couple of days before baking. The resulting cookies have a unique flavour and a long shelf life.

The Lebkuchen-Gewürz you see above is a special mixture of spices usually sold only at this time of year. This one is made up of cinnamon, orange rind, ground coriander, lemon rind, star anis, fennel, mace, nutmeg, cloves and cardamom. Whew! I found it to be an aquired taste and next time I'd probably tweak it a bit or make up my own mix.

Although I've used Hirshhornsalz and Pottasche in recipes before and bought both again this year, I happened upon a much faster and easier recipe calling for baking powder and decided to try that instead. The cookies came out fine are are improving with age as the flavours blend. The recipe is here in German.

Spitzbuben are cutout cookies with a jam centre, usually red currant or apricot. Any firm sugar cookie recipe will do for these. I made stars and angels this year.

And finally we have some no-bake craftiness that anyone can do. Anyone with the right cookies, that is.

These little 'candles' are immensely popular at grade school Christmas craft afternoons. All you need is a star shaped chocolate covered gingerbread cookie, a rolled wafer cookie and a blanched almond. Icing sugar and water 'glue' holds everything together and there you go - edible art!

We're having a very laid back Christmas this year. I may do some more baking, I may not. Stay tuned...

the wonders of chocolate

2008-12-08T23:44:00.002+01:00

We´ll, the old guy came through with the chocolate and I'm feeling sooo much better.

Here's our dear St. Nick courtesy of Boy12 and lots of scotch tape

This is part of a classic poem for St. Nicholas Day, or Nikolaustag as it's called in German. It's recited by Knecht Ruprecht who carries the sack of gifts for Nicholas.

Von draußen, vom Walde komm ich her;
ich muß euch sagen, es weihnachtet sehr!
Überall auf den Tannenspitzen
sah ich goldene Lichtlein blitzen,
und droben aus dem Himmelstor
sah mit großen Augen das Christkind hervor.

(I come from out there, from the forest
And I have to tell you
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
I saw tiny golden lights
Twinkling on the tips of the fir branches,
And over at heaven's gate
the Christ Child peered out with huge eyes.)

The rest is here, if you'd like to read it.

We dutifully hung up our stockings, quite an eclectic mix of colours and patterns. We don't do matchy-matchy around here.

Mine is on the top left. My mother made it for me when I was about 13, I think. I whipped up Mr. M's during our first Christmas holiday in Canada pre kids. Boy15's on the lower right was also made by my mother when he was a baby and I created Boy12's when he was just a little guy with a thing for trucks.

The kids got lots of goodies and a present or two and Mr. M will be enjoying his favourites, chocolates filled with Eierlikör.

As far as we're concerned, he can have those all to himself! Scary stuff.

Check out my loot

Milk chocolate with raspberries and coconut, bittersweet with ginger and bittersweet with slivered almonds and sea salt. I'm actually a plain chocolate girl at heart, but I'll try anything once and I'm sure these won't last long.

The boys also picked out a Christmasy plant to brighten the place up

And what's Nikolaustag without cookies?

We left a few out for Nikolaus on Friday night in case he got hungry on his journey and the rest were devoured the next day.

This isn't my usual sugar cookie recipe, but I love how it tastes like eggnog when there is no eggnog to be had (don't want to risk making my own with the dodgy German eggs!). The combination of rum extract, nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla is lovely and I suppose you could use any cookie recipe you wanted and substitute those flavourings.

Eggnog Sugar Cookies (Canadian Living Magazine, December 1999)

3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp rum extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp each baking powder and ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
pinch of salt

1. Beat butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg, vanilla and rum extract. Combine flour, baking powder, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt; with wooden spoon stir into butter mixture in 3 additions. Divide dough in half; flatten each half lightly. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour or until chilled (Make ahead: refrigerate for up to one day.)

2. On lightly floured surface, roll out each half of dough to 1/4 in. (5mm thickness. Cut into desired shapes. Place 1 inch apart on parchment paper-lined or greased rimless baking sheets.

3. Bake in top and bottom thirds of 375°F (190°C) oven rotating and switching pans half way through, for about 10 minutes or until golden on bottom and edges. Let cool for one minute on sheet. Transfer to racks and let cool completely. Decorate with icing as desired. Makes about 30 cookies.

putting the vent in Advent

2008-12-05T00:19:00.001+01:00

The Christmas season is upon us. Last Sunday we lit the first candle on our Advent wreath.

and I bought a new Lichterbogen for the living room.

That was the fun part. Here's the vent.

I'm good and sick. A week and a half ago I got struck down by the worst head cold I've had in years. I think I caught it from Boy12. He sailed right through his whereas I'm still coughing up a storm. Bleh. Just a little sinusitis and bronchitis, no strep throat or pneumonia this time. That would have been lovely. Mr. M has banished himself for the duration.

The cold is also being aggravated by the tons of dust pouring out of the upstairs bathroom while my better half is hard at work chiseling the old tiles off the walls. There's no getting away from that stuff and guess who has a dust allergy? It makes me itch all over, it makes me cough, it makes me break out into a rash. Can you imagine how cranky I am right now?

And also? I think I have plantar fasciitis in both feet. They've been killing me lately but it comes and goes and seems to switch sides a lot. Some days it's fine, some days it's awfully painful to walk. The internet told me to do calf stretches and that seems to help quite a bit. I'm keeping an eye on it.

So if you see someone hobbling along sniffling into a kleenex and hacking up a lung, that will be me. Waaah waaah waaah.

Oh well, Saturday is St. Nicholas Day. Hopefully all the chocolate I'll find in my stocking will make me feel better.

(snow)man's best friend

2008-11-23T14:16:00.003+01:00

We drove home from dinner with friends on Friday night in a scary snowstorm and woke up on Saturday to find six inches of the white stuff covering the yard. Boy12 used almost all of it (plus a few leaves and a bunch of dirt) to make a snowman, carrot courtesy of our helpful neighbour.

More snow to come. Whee. It's officially winter. Now where did I put my skis?

the past and the present

2008-11-11T23:50:00.000+01:00

In the little corner of the universe I take up space in, they're celebrating St. Martin's Day and the start of the Carneval season. Click on the links to take you back to my 2005 posts on both of these.

We didn't have any children knocking on the door for candy this year, as is the custom in our area, but just for fun I made some Weckmänner, yeasty little men symbolizing St. Martin. I'm sure St. Martin never looked like that, but these guys tend to develop distinct personalities in the oven.

Besides the celebrations, these past few days have been very full in a historical sense. Where I come from, today is Remembrance Day or Poppy Day, also known as Veteran's Day or Armistice Day in other parts of the world. Lots of commemorations going on.

Germany certainly has its share of remembering to do as well. November 9 is a key date and is sometimes called the Schicksalstag, literally the day of fate, the two most recent events being the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 and the Kristallnacht, a terrible event in Germany's history that took place on November 9, 1938.

Coincidentally, my maternal grandmother's birthday was also on November 9 so I did a little personal remembering and reflecting of my own on Sunday. Nonna passed away in 1983 and I miss her every day.

I wonder what she would have thought of the world we live in now?

monstrous monsters

2008-11-06T22:30:00.001+01:00

A rep from Oxford University Press recently approached me and asked if I'd do a review of a childrens' bilingual language-learning book. Having had the pleasure of raising two bilingual children myself, I'm happy to oblige.

Compiled by Neil Morris and lovingly illustrated by David Melling, German First Words is part of The Oxford First Words Series. It is labeled as a 'thematic bilingual picture book with over 400 words in German and English' and recommended for 4 to 8 yr olds.

Each double page of this book covers a different area. A large illustration in the middle is bordered on the left and right by miniature drawings accompanying German vocabulary in bold print and an English translation in a smaller font. Everday themes such as home, school and shopping are mixed with more exotic fare - dinosaurs, stone age man, ancient Egyptians and fairy tales stir up a child's imagination and enrich his vocabulary.

Now, this format is nothing new. We had many books of this type when my children were young (in the opposite language constellation, of course). They loved them and learned from them. It's the illustrations that make the book really special. Every time you come back for more you'll discover something new, something that will most likely bring a big smile to your face.

As a wonderfully funny touch, right in the middle of the book a family of ungeheure Ungeheuer (monstrous monsters in English) shows up to get in on the fun. These little monsters aren't really monstrous at all, they're really quite adorable and go about their daily lives just as you and your family would.

Bonus material at the back includes sections on counting, telling the time, weather, opposites, shapes and colours as well as a word-picture matching game. Whether you're a German parent in a foreign country trying to teach your child your native language, or just someone interested in the language for fun, this is a book that can grow with your child and be used for years in many different ways.

As luck would have it, the books in the First Word series are also available in French/English and Spanish/English versions. Here's the blurb from the bottom of the press release in case I've piqued your interest.

Oxford First Word Series
by David Melling and Neil Morris, will be published, in paperback,
by Oxford University Press on November 6, 2008
$12.95 / 48 full color pages / ISBN: 978-0-19-911002-5[French],
978-0-19-911004-9[Spanish], 978-0-19-911003-2[German]

thanks, America...

2008-11-06T11:29:00.000+01:00

...for choosing the right man for the job. Change is a Good Thing and y'all have made this Canadian in Germany very happy (yes, I cried when he gave his speech). And if I'm happy, I can just imagine how happy YOU must be.

Speaking of change and the right man for the job, Mr. M is right in the middle of remodelling our upstairs bathroom from stem to stern. I'm all itchy from the dust already. New ceiling, new lights, new commode, new bathtub, new flooring - the works. And maybe even a new bathmat and a few matching towels. That will be my department.

It's a big job, but we can do it.

Yes we can!

as far as I'm concerned, it's still Halloween

2008-11-03T12:39:00.001+01:00

At our house it ain't over until the pumpkin starts growing mold.

I'm about to grow mold or moss or something any minute myself. Yes, I do shower daily, but I've been so slooooow lately that some might take me for an inanimate object. I walk slowly, I think slowly and I get things done so very slowly that Casa Messy del Norte is really in dire straights at the moment. I blame it on The Malaise. You guys know all about that.

Anyway, back to Halloween. We had a couple of friends over on Friday night to join in the festivities.

We gave Boy12 free reign with the table decorations. He was only halfway through at the time I took the picture. Didn't he do a scary job?

Nothing like random body parts to whet the appetite.

The swamp soup and roasted bat wings went over well, as did the Halloweenie mummies...

Curses! We're done for!

...and the skeleton cookies for dessert

If only I had paid more attention in anatomy class!

You can't have Halloween without a pumpkin. When I first moved here they were pretty hard to find. Now you can get them all over the place in every shape and size.

We had two this year. The one on the left is the real McCoy. The right one is a wooden jack-o-lantern I found at a craft store for €1.99 and painted myself. Year-round Halloween fun!

Along with the pumpkins come the pumpkin seeds - almost the best part, I'd say. I varied with tradition and tried out a new recipe. These Sweet and Spicy Pumpkin Seeds, flavoured with sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cumin and a pinch of cayenne pepper are a really interesting variation on the regular roasted and salted seeds. Definitely worth a try.

And last but not least, my little tribute to fall. Is there anything cuter than an ornamental gourd? Mr. M brought me these beauties last week. The three wee ones outside of the basket are ceramic but also look quite real. I love them - I can't help it!

Well, it's the beginning of another week. My to-do list is a mile long. Now that I have (finally!) blogged, I can get down to business and start getting something done. Maybe.

Keep smiling - it makes people wonder what you've been up to. ~Author Unknown

hold the mayo

2008-10-27T23:00:00.001+01:00

I haven't jumped ship yet. Really.

Ever heard of the Sandwich Generation? That would be me and Mr. M right now, feeling like we're squished between two thick, dark slabs of that stuff the Germans like to call bread. One of those slabs is the trials and tribulations of trying to guide two adolescent boys through the oddities of the German secondary school system without any of us going insane. The other more worrying one is some unexpected in-law drama that surfaced during the past couple of weeks. No, no one is dead or seriously ill, but there are going to be some major changes happening in the coming months, hopefully for the benefit of all concerned. If only some of those concerned could actually get it through their thick skulls that these changes are absolutely necessary.

We're just trying to make the best of it right now.

What's that old saying? "If life gives you lemons, make tuna salad"? No, wait...

come on over and have some pie

2008-10-13T15:57:00.000+02:00

It's the second Monday in October and that means only one thing - Canadian Thanksgiving. Turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, the works.

Our little 5 lb turkey is about to go into the oven and I made the desserts this morning. You should see my kitchen. Organized I am not.

My pumpkin pie, made from scratch with a little Hokkaido pumkin I bought last week, turned out very...um...let's just say...rustic. Then again, if I stuck an 'artisan' label on it I could probably sell it for 25 bucks.

I made these maple walnut butter tarts on a whim and haven't tasted them yet, but they smell like home. That other home that shares a place in my heart along with this one.

I'm just saying a quiet "thank you" today for all the good things in my life, butter tarts included.

Happy Thanksgiving to all you Canucks out there, near and far.

Hem your blessings with thankfulness so they don't unravel. ~Author Unknown

hurry up and wait

2008-10-11T23:16:00.001+02:00

So sorry for the long blogging break. I have so much to say and not enough time in the day to say it!

This translation project I've been working on is taking waaaay longer than I thought it would and my head is kind of exploding in the process. Not having a real deadline is very, very bad for a procrastinator like me, 'cause I'll string it out ad infinitum if given the chance. I'm almost finished, though - just need to polish it up a bit and send it on its way and then I'll go back to being a lady of leisure for a while. Well, except for the cooking and cleaning and managing a family and all that other easy stuff that no one pays you for.

The kids are now on 16 days fall break which means that I get to sleep in while they get their own breakfast. Whoo.

To be continued...

I thought everyone would be taller

2008-09-29T21:49:00.001+02:00

Oh wow, what can I say? What a great, great group we had this time. I love these people. Every last one of them. The WEBMU 2008 in Bremen was a rip-roaring success, in my humble opinion anyway.

Today found me in my hermit cave recharging my introvert batteries. Being sociable and trying not to act too weird really takes it out of a girl, you know? But I'd do it all again in a second. It was that much fun.

Tomorrow I should be able to think coherent thoughts again and give you a little summary of our most excellent weekend.

arghhh. and wheee!

2008-09-26T23:05:00.001+02:00

Ho hum. Same old, same old. My doctor's appointment yesterday was uneventful, apart from it being at the hospital's surgery clinic where fancy-looking doctors wearing bright green Crocs were whizzing in and out the whole time. If it had been Wednesday I would have said they were late for their golf games.

I didn't get to see the head physician, you need extra private insurance for that, but the doctor I did get was a nice enough fellow and actually took the time to listen and then asked a lot of questions himself. Not that it helped any, because he said although all my symptoms pointed to a hernia somewhere in the umbilical region, he could neither see nor feel anything to confirm the suspicion. Meh. That's no good. He and I both agreed that it's probably not a good idea to slit someone's belly open unless you're fairly sure what you're looking for so right now I'm on "watchful waiting". He even suggested that if it is indeed a hernia that I should go ahead and lift heavy stuff, cough and sneeze a lot and do abdominal exercises regularly just to provoke the little beggar and see if he'll raise his ugly head.

Since abdominal pain can be mighty difficult to diagonose he considered that it could be something else entirely and encouraged me to get a bunch of other stuff checked out, including the possibility of an ulcer or some weird gynecological issue. Mmmm. More doctors, more fun.

Or maybe I'll just ignore everything and get on with it. No time for bellyaches tonight because tomorrow morning I'll be arriving in in Bremen for the 2008 Whiney Expat Blogger Meet-Up, aka WEBMU (thanks, Jen!) There will be zillions of bloggers and friends there this year. The hotels and restaurants we booked meals at are dancing a little jig already, I'm sure.

I really do promise to get back to blogging next week. Between worrying about my health (which made me lose 6 lbs, not a bad thing, really), doing volunteer work and working on a project that someone is actually willing to pay me money for, my brain has been kind of busy. And you should see what my house looks like! At least I managed to remove the science experiments from the fridge this afternoon so no one dies over the weekend.

curiouser and curiouser

2008-09-15T11:31:00.000+02:00

So. Last Wednesday my regular doctor (the one who diagosed the umbilican hernia in the first place) did an abdominal ultrasound and said he couldn't see a thing. No hernia nohow. Hmmmmm. The other doc thought the pressure under my ribs might be a gall bladder problem, but that organ is apparently in good working order as are all the other soft parts in there, as far as Dr. B could tell.

So where did the pain and pressure come from? The good doctor said it could be a Verwachsung, an adhesion from a previous operation. I told him that I hadn't had any previous operations! Obviously we were both stumped for an answer.

The good news is that the pain has actually been minimal for the past couple of weeks but the weird pressure is still there, making me think that something is going on. I guess my next appointment will either clear things up for good or label me as a total hypochondriac. We'll see.

And thanks for all your kind comments on my last post!

don't mess with mother nature (or: this won't hurt a bit, no, wait, yes it will)

2008-09-02T11:40:00.001+02:00

Whoah, I feel like I feel off the face of the blogosphere and can't quite get my footing back.

But enough of this being sick stuff. My theory is that if I tell you what's wrong with me, I'll start feeling better.

It all started way back at the beginning of June when I finally (finally!) got out into the sorely neglected front garden and started ripping out weeks and stuff willy nilly. There was one tough customer in the form of a small shrub that needed to be relocated but wasn't cooperating. I pulled and pulled and finally yanked that sucker right out of the ground, falling backwards a bit in the process. That little tree was to be my downfall.

When I woke up the day after the gardening extravaganza I felt this weird stabbing pain in my belly button and thought I had done a number on my stomach muscles. This wasn't like any other muscle pain I'd ever had, though. Time to start googling.

Minutes later I came up with a diagnosis - an umbilical hernia. Nice. Thanks SO much. I always thought hernias were something for old men, but apparently they're pretty common, especially in women between 40 and 50 who have had multiple pregnancies and are overweight. Ahem. If the shoe fits...

A quick trip to the doctor confirmed my suspicions but he maintained that the opening was very small and wouldn't need to be repaired quite yet. If I had constant, excruciating pain, though, I should get myself to emergency immediately, he said. There's a risk of incarceration and strangulation with these things and that's bad, bad, bad. Ugh.

Anyway, there wasn't much I could do since we were going on holiday soon, so I tried to ignore it, even though there were good days and bad days with more or less pain and discomfort. I even managed to enjoy our vacation to the fullest, trying not to think about how travel insurance would deal with a pre-existing condition like that if things took a turn for the worse.

After we got back I visited the doc again, a different one this time since my regular GP was away. This doctor poked around a bit and said he thought I should see a surgeon if I was having a lot of discomfort and also make an appointment for a general exam with an ultrasound to check things out since some of my symptoms didn't fit the hernia issues.

The surgeon poked around even more and said he felt it was just a general weakness of the rectus abdominus muscles leading to a separation, the so-called diastasis recti, common in women who have had children. That's all well and good, but I've always had problems in that area since giving birth to a 9 pounder over 12 years ago, but I feel my symptoms and the discomfort point to something else, something new. Before I had the chance to shout "Would it kill ya to do an ultrasound??" he gives me a referal to yet another surgeon, the head honcho at the hospital one town over and a specialist in gastrointestinal stuff.

That appointment is on the 25th. The other general appointment is next Wednesday and I'm really hoping to find out why I sometimes have the feeling there's a red hot knitting needle poking through my belly button from the indside. And then there's that tennis-ball-wedged-under-my-ribcage sensation on the right side. The fun never stops.

Meanwhile I'm taking it one step at a time and doing what I can on good days like this, resting on bad days like yesterday. No need to worry, I'm perfectly fine - I'd just like to know what's going on in there and get it fixed once and for all.

I'll keep y'all posted and stay tuned for a bunch of What I Did on My Summer Vacation posts comin' up soon!

foiled again

2008-08-25T08:57:00.000+02:00

I really, really, really want to tell you about our holiday, but, alas, a weird, ongoing, annoying, possibly-ex-pat-meet-up-jeopardizing health problem (a different one for a change!) has removed any urge to blog right now. Dr.'s appointment tomorrow will bring clarity. My regular doctor is on holiday so I must see his partner even though I cannot stand the guy. Such is life. Doctors need vacations too.

Here, take a seat and relax until I come back.

good thing I am not performing brain surgery today

2008-08-20T13:48:00.000+02:00

We made it home safely and I have wicked, wicked jetlag. Have already been out foraging for food and am now attempting to put away the contents of eight bursting-at-the-seams suitcases. It's not going so well since I have to sit down every ten minutes and stare into space wondering what day it is.

Also...

Dear KLM,

As much as we love you - you got us where we wanted to go without a hitch and your staff were friendly and helpful - you served the absolute WORST airline food we have EVER tasted. Ever. We thought maybe it was just a fluke on the way over, but the flight back confirmed it. Absolutely appalling, and we're not that picky, believe me.

We know you'll try harder next time.

Smooches,

The Mausi Family

please fasten your seatbelts

2008-08-18T10:39:00.001+02:00

You know what they say about the best laid plans. Well, the plan was to blog considerably more while we were here, but, um, real life got in the way. That doesn't mean I don't have anything to say though! It's just going to take a while.

Our plane leaves shortly before 7 p.m. this evening and we'll be back in Dullsville late Tuesday afternoon. School starts Thursday, that should be fun.

We've had a wonderful time, as usual, and it's going to be REALLY hard to leave.

Much more to come from the continent later this week.

my tan is coming along just fine, thank you

2008-07-28T00:54:00.001+02:00

Can you believe it has only rained for about an hour and a half in the 17 days we've been here? Most unusual and a true delight since it hasn't been boiling hot either. Despite SPF 30 my cheesy whiteness is slowly turning into a slightly more appetizing light golden brown and I've got the tan lines to prove it.

It's not as if we've been so busy that we don't know which way is up, but I've still had no time, and frankly, not much desire, to blog. The first couple of days I had to work my way through two years of back issues of Martha Stewart Living. That done, my mother presented me with a stack of must-read books and magazines which I was eager to get into. Then tragedy struck - I took a nice slice out of thumb while making dinner one night, seriously compromising my page turning ability. I'm a fast healer and all is well now, though.

We've been meeting lots of friends and families for various lunches and dinners and catching up on all the news, both good and bad. Friends my age are getting on with their lives, some dealing with ageing, ailing parents as I am (but I must say that my own parents are doing extremely well) and older friends, my 92-year-old godfather among them, are wondering what's next for them and how much time they have left, insisting that two years is far too much time between visits. 'Cause you just never know what's going to happen. I agree.

Tomorrow we head south across the Canada/U.S. border to spend a few days exploring Washington State and Oregon. Except for one 'for sure' visit with some friends, there's no real plan - we're doing this road trip style and will end up where we end up. Hilarity may ensue.

We'll be pretty much off line while we're gone, so I won't be able to respond to comments or e mail for about a week. Here are a few pictures to tide you over.

The beach, about a 10 minute walk from my parents house

My mother's beautiful garden

Horseshoe Bay, where B.C. Ferries set sail on an hourly basis to Bowen Island, Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast

Last week's trip to Bowen Island, a 20-minute ferry ride from Horsheshoe Bay

see ya

2008-07-10T10:00:00.000+02:00

Gone Fishin'...

Back the third week of August to tell you all about the one that got away.

done like dinner

2008-07-09T23:35:00.003+02:00

You may have been wondering where I've been. Well, I had to choose between blogging and packing, and packing won hands down. We leave for Vancouver tomorrow morning, you see, and there was so very much to do. I'm finished now. Finito. Fertig. Done. Like dinner.

Mr. M is a real champion at stuffing things into suitcases, so that's his job, but I'm in charge of choosing what to take and making sure it's all in good order. And then there's the matter of summer-proofing the house and garden so we don't come back to any unexpected suprises after five and half weeks on the road. I am SO tired.

This time instead of the kids and me taking the train to the airport while Mr. M and his mother go by car and meet us there with the luggage, we decided to get a door-to-door airport transfer that will pick us up tomorrow morning at home and then again at the airport when we get back in August. Much easier all around. We're also flying via Amsterdam on KLM this trip rather than using Lufthansa as we usually do. I'm looking forward to spending an hour or two at the well-thought-out and easy-to-get-around Schiphol airport (are you listening, Frankfurt??)

It's about an hour's drive from the Vancouver International to my parents' home in West Vancouver. When we finally get there we'll first need to check out what's new in Mum's garden

Black Squirrel

and Dad's garage

After that it's off to the beach, only a few minutes away

to meet some old friends,

Canada Goose

and do a little of this

Of course we'll be enjoying the view wherever we go

Looking over Burrard Inlet from Lonsdale Quay

View of downtown Vancouver from the North Shore with Mt. Baker, a volcano in Washington State in the background

Lighthouse Park

although we hope we won't run into one of these along the way

And the trip wouldn't be complete without a ferry ride

B.C. Ferries

We wish you all a great summer, wherever you happen to be.

der Bergsteiger kehrt zurück/the return of the mountaineer

2008-07-03T18:14:00.002+02:00

Boy15 ist letzten Sonnabend heile aus Baad zurückgekehrt, sehr müde und froh zu Hause zu sein. Es war aber eine wunderbare Zeit und er fühlte sich glücklich, mitgemacht zu haben.

Boy15 returned home from Baad in one piece last Saturday, very tired and happy to be home. But he did have a wonderful time and felt very lucky to have taken part.

Er hat viele Fotos gemacht, leider wurden einige vom Kartenleser aufgefressen. Wir haben aber die meisten gerettet. Ich finde der Junge hat ein gutes Auge.

He took lots of pictures. Unfortunately a few of them got eaten by the card reader. We managed to save most of them, though. I think the boy has a good eye.

Ausblick über Baad, das Dorf wo die Kinder wohnten.

This is the view overlooking Baad, the tiny village the kids stayed in.

Die Landschaft im Kleinwalsertal ist atemberaubend

The scenery in Kleinwalsertal is breathtaking

und die Nachbarn, ob groß...

and the neighbours, both big...

oder klein...

and small...

...sind immer froch, dich zu sehen

...are always happy to see you

Wenn du länger bleiben möchtest, hast du mehrere schnuckelige Hotels zur Auswahl

If you want to stay a while there are many adorable hotels to choose from

Boy15 fand die heimische Küche ganz in Ordnung.

Boy15 was delighted by the local cuisine.

Das ist eine sogenannte Brotzeit - eine Art Imbiss zwischendurch bestehend meist aus Brot und verschiedene Wurst und Käse Sorten mit Beilage. Hier haben wir Dörrfleisch aus Rind.

This is what is know as a Brotzeit, a kind of snack in between meals. It usually consists of bread and a variety of cheese and sausage with a garnish. Here we have some dried beef.

Zum Nachtisch oder auch als Hauptmahlzeit gibt es diese Germknödel, mit Pflaumenmus. Obendrauf kommt Mohn und Zucker.

Germknödel, a yeast dumpling filled with plum jam and topped with sugar and poppy seeds, can be served for dessert or as a main course.

Wenn die nicht am Essen waren, waren die Kinder ständig unterwegs.

When they weren't eating, the kids were always on the go.

Eine 3-Tages-Wandertour mit Übernachtung im Zelt und Berghütte

A three day hike, staying overnight in tents and mountain cabins

Klettern

Rock climing

Riverrafting

River rafting

Wenn er doch eine Minute für sich selber hatte, hat Boy15 es sogar geschafft, ein bisschen Kunst zu finden.

When he did have a moment to himself, Boy15 even managed to find some art.

und natürlich die obligatorische überteuerte Souvenirs.

and of course the obligatory overpriced souvenirs.

Jetzt wo er wieder zu Hause ist und sich von den ganzen Strapazen erholt hat, freut er sich auf dem Sommerurlaub.

Now that he's home again and recovered from all the action, he's looking forward to his summer holidays.

Prost!

Cheers!

it ain't canada day without food

2008-07-01T20:04:00.001+02:00

Just a simple barbecue tonight.

Mirin Wasabi Glazed Salmon, roasted carrots, peppers and fennel and corn on the cob.

It was goooood.

Canucks unite

2008-07-01T13:33:00.002+02:00

(You'll notice I'm cheating a bit today!)

This is what it looked like at our house at 7:30 a.m. this morning.

That's because it's July 1st, Canada Day. Whee. You can read up about it here, if you like. It's a work and school day in Germany, so no big celebrations going on at our house. Perhaps a quiet salmon BBQ later with a bit of flag waving.

So what sort of things do YOU identify with Canada? The maple leaf? The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (oh, I DO love a man in uniform!)? What about Canada's national animal? That would be the castor canadensis, more commonly known as the beaver. Yes, the little old beaver.

I was turfing some stuff out of Boy12's room and came across a most interesting and entertaining Canadian souvenir given to him by some well-meaning relative.

CANNED BEAVER - CASTOR EN BOîTE

And at the bottom of the can we have

Caution: These beavers have been known to snuggle you to sleep.

Attention: Ces castors peuvent se blottir contre vous pour vous endormir.

You'll notice the French on there as well as English. That's because as a rule, all products sold in Canada must be labeled in both of Canada's official languages. Does this mean that my French has ever progressed past first year university level? Nope, unfortunately not.

If we turn the can around a bit we find

ADULT SUPERVISION REQUIRED
SUPERVISION D'UN ADULTE REQUISE

CANNED IN/MIS EN BOîTE AU CANADA

CONTENTS: ONE FUZZY BEAVER
CONTENU: UN CASTOR EN PELUCHE

Hmm. This gets better all the time.

Here's the back of the can

It gives us some miscellaneous castor canadensis facts, including talk of late night tale slapping parties and the ability to cut down up to 200 trees a year with their razor-sharp incisors. Scary.

And way down at the bottom a serious warning

Always treat wild animals with respect.
Respectez toujours les animaux sauvages.

Indeed. You wouldn't want to get in the way of one of these guys in a dark alley.

If you still can't get enough, here's a Canada Day quiz. See if you can identify these Canadianisms.

1. toque
2. loonie
3. toonie
4. chesterfield
5. serviette
6. Kraft Dinner
7. 40-pounder
8. two-four
9. homo milk
10.garburator

and my kids' all time favourite

11.gonch pull

Got them all? Scroll down to see how you scored.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
1. knitted cap
2. Canadian 1$ coin
3. Canadian 2$ coin
4. couch/sofa
5. napkin
6. Kraft macaroni and cheese
7. 40-ounce bottle of spirits
8. 24-can flat of beer
9. homogenized/whole milk
10.garbage disposal
11.wedgie

Isn't Canadian English weird? Just in case you want to hear me speaking it, here's a repeat of a recording I did as an "accent meme" in 2006. Just click on play - you'll probably have to turn up your speakers quite high.

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Language Week, Day 1: ein Rezept/a recipe

2008-06-30T22:42:00.002+02:00

Es ist Language Week. Diese Woche werde ich meine Beiträge auf Deutsch schreiben (mit Übersetzung, natürlich)

It's Language Week. This week I'll be writing my posts in German (with a translation, of course).

Also hier endlich das Rezept für die Jogurt Schnitten die ich zu meinem Geburtstag gemacht habe.

At long last here's the recipe for the yogurt squares I made for my birthday.

Nur weil das Wort Joghurt im Namen erscheint, bedeutet nicht, das die Schnitten kalorienarm sind. Wie in vielen deutschen Backrezepten, gehört eine ordentliche Portion Schlagsahne dazu. Aber ich bin die Meinung, daß ein bißchen Sahne noch niemanden geschadet hat.

Just because the word yogurt appears in the name of the recipe, doesn't mean that these are low calorie. As with many German baking recipes, whipping cream also appears in abundance. But I happen to think that a little whipping cream never hurt anyone.

Vanille-Joghurt Schnitten

2 Eier
135 Zucker
1 Prise Salz
100g Mehl
1 TL Backpulver
1 gehäufter EL Kakaopulver
8 Blatt Gelatine
200g Vollmilch-Joghurt
400g Schlagsahne
300g Vanille-Joghurt
Waffelröllchen zum Verzieren

1. Eier, 75 g Zucker, Salz und 1 EL heißes Wasser 4 Minuten lang schäumig schlagen. Mehl, Backpulver und Kakao mischen und über die Eimasse sieben und dann unterheben. Boden einer eckigen Springform (24 x 24) fetten. Masse einfüllen und bei 175°C 12-15 Minuten backen. Auskühlen lassen.

2. Springformrand wieder um den Boden schließen. 4 Blatt Gelatine 5 Minuten einweichen. Vollmilch-Joghurt und 60g Zucker verrühren. Gelatine ausdrücken und auflösen. Zuerst mit 4 Esslöffeln Joghurt verrühren, dann unter restlichen Joghurt rühren. 250g Sahne steif schlagen, unterheben. Creme auf den Boden geben, glatt streichen. Ca. 1 Stunde kalt stellen.

3. 4 Blatt Gelatine 5 Minuten einweichen, ausdrücken und auflösen. Zuerst mit 4 Esslöffeln Vanille-Joghurt verrühren, dann unter Rest Vanille-Joghurt rühren. 150g Sahne steifschlagen, unterheben. Auf die helle Joghurtcreme streichen. Ca. 2 Stunden kalt stellen. Kuchen in Quadrate (oder Dreiecke) schneiden. Mit Waffelröllchen verzieren.

Ich habe keine eckige Springform sondern einen Backrahmen. Wer keins davon hat kann entweder eine runde Springform nehmen, oder eine eckige Backform mit Frischhaltefolie aufschlagen nachdem der Tortenboden schon fertig ist.

Vanilla Yogurt Squares

2 eggs
135g sugar
pinch of salt
100g flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 heaping tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
8 leaves of gelatin
200g full fat natural yogurt
400g whipping cream
300g vanilla yogurt
wafers for decoration

1. Beat eggs, 75g suger, salt and 1 tablespoon hot water together for 4 minutes until foamy. Combine flour, baking powder and cocoa powder and sift over egg mixture, folding in. Grease bottom of 24 x 24 cm (8 x 8 in) square springform pan. Turn batter into pan and bake at 175°C/350°F 12-15 minute. Let cool.

2. Place springform around cake base. Soften 4 leave of gelatin in cold water for 5 minutes. Combine full fat yogurt and 60g of sugar. Squeeze out gelatin and dissolve over low heat. First stir 4 tablespoons yogurt into dissolved gelatin, then add this mixture to rest of yogurt. Whip 250g of cream and fold into yogurt mixture. Spread yogurt cream evenly over cake base. Refrigerate for about 1 hour.

3. Soften, squeeze and dissolve 4 leaves of gelatin as above, stirring in 4 tablespoons of vanilla yogurt and then adding to rest of yogurt. Whip 150g of cream and fold into yogurt mixture. Spread onto first yogurt layer and refrigerate about 2 hours. Cut into squares or triangles and decorate with wafers.

I don't have a square springform pan, but I do have a rectangular baking frame. If you have neither of those, either a round springform pan or a rectangular cake pan lined with plastic wrap would do after the cake base is done.

Ich denke, solange man die Proportionen behält, kann man diese Schnitten in allen möglichen Varianten machen. Wir hatten noch ein paar Erdbeeren im Garten, da habe ich die mit Erdbeer-Rhabarber Joghurt/Natur-Yoghurt kombiniert und diese runde Torte gemacht. War ganz erfrischend.

I think as long as you keep the correct proportions you could make these squares in many possible variations. We still had a few strawberries in the garden so I combined them with strawberry-rhubard and natural jogurt and made this round cake from the same recipe. Very refreshing.

Das war's für heute. Die ganze Woche liegt vor uns und es gibt viel zu erzählen.

That's it for today. We've got the whole week ahead of us and there'll be lots to talk about.

reverse psychology

2008-06-29T21:03:00.002+02:00

We eat enough German food around here, so tonight in honour of the Germany vs. Spain Euro 2008 final we had somthing different for dinner.

Tapas, baby!

And some cheap Sangria to wash them down with

That means Germany will win for sure, right? My prediction for tonight? 2:2 in the regular game and a win for the Fatherland in the penalty thingie.

UPDATE: Spain wins 1:0! Oh well. They were by far the better players tonight.

thing one and thing two

2008-06-29T18:03:00.006+02:00

Two things before I forget:

1. It has been decided by the powers that be that the Whiney Expat Blogger Meet-Up 2008 will take place in Bremen this year. Yes, I am pleased. Now it's time to decide on a date - September 20 & 21 , September 27 & 28 or October 11 & 12. October 4 & 5 are not such a good idea since the 3rd is German Unity day and lots of people will be traveling. November is a bit too dark and dreary, as we found out at the last two meet-ups.

So get over to J's blog and put in your vote, but only if you're really serious about attending. Triflers need not apply, as they say. N.B. Voting ends Wednesday evening.

2. This year's Language Week is June 30 to July 4. You can check the details at sra's blog and sign up to particpate.

More of the footy tonight. Must go snag a good place on the sofa!

more cowbell!

2008-06-26T15:24:00.001+02:00

We're the kind of parents who usually figure that no news is good news when our children are at camp or on a school trip. I mean, if something bad happens, they call you, right? They're not just going to lose your kid and forget to let you know.

But after almost a week and a half of not hearing a peep out of Boy15, we did start to get a little worried, especially since he had promised to write to his grandparents. They're the kind of people who take family correspondence very seriously.

Yesterday, with only four days to go, we finally had a sign of life from deepest, darkest Austria - a postcard for us and one for Oma and Opa! Phew!

Greetings from Kleinwalsertal. Experience the original.

Our card reads:

Hallo Mummy, Papa und Boy12,

In Baad gibt's nichts zu tun und nichts zu sehen, aber beim Wandern habe ich ein paar tolle Fotos gemacht. Es regnet nie and das Essen is super! Hier gibt's auch Minigolf! Wir haben auch 'nen kleinen Fernseher für Fussball. Und am Sonntag haben sich alle gelangweilt. Heute geht's auf die 3-Tages-Tour.

Boy 15

In plain English that would be:

Hello Mummy, Papa and Boy12,

There's nothing to do and nothing to see in Baad, but I took a few nice pictures while we were hiking. It never rains and the food is great! And there's mini golf! We also have a small TV to watch soccer. On Sunday we were all bored. Today we're going on a 3-day hiking tour.

Boy15

That's our boy - saved by the (cow)bell.

the footy - you can run, but you can't hide

2008-06-25T14:05:00.001+02:00

Soccer, football, Fußball, footy - whatever you want to call it, it's all there is in Germany right now.

Even if you never turn on your TV during the Euro 2008, you'll see fans everywhere sporting t-shirts, face paint and funny hats, their cars are adorned with at least one flag. This is a BIG deal.

Mr. M isn't really one for football, and our kids seems to have inherited our "no sports" genes, but Boy12 likes to run with the in crowd, so last Friday evening he invited three of his best pals over for a "EM Party" to watch the Croatia vs. Turkey game.

They plowed through all the snacks...

...but still left room for the football cake

...and two of the little guys stayed over night. I swear none of them got a wink of sleep. I've never heard boys talk so much.

Turkey's victory last Friday and Germany's win over Portugal the night before meant that Germany would be up against Turkey in the semi-finals. That game takes place tonight and the city is just hopping. There are over 1.7 million Turkish citizens living in Germany, 20,000 of them are registered in Hannover alone. Two public viewing screens have been set up downtown to accomodate the huge numbers of fans that are expected to turn out for this event and everyone's hoping for a relatively peaceful celebration no matter who wins. You won't find us there, though. We prefer to stay home and watch the action from the comfort and safety of our boring old living room.

May the best team win!

And...GERMANY WINS 3:2!!!

go germany!

2008-06-19T19:05:00.003+02:00

Tonight it's Germany vs. Portugal in the first EURO 2008 quarter final game in Basel, Switzerland.

Boy12 and I bought Mr. M a special halftime refreshment at the supermarket this afternoon.

Win or lose, it'll go down well.

UPDATE: Germany wins 3:2!! Great game.

I did and I still do

2008-06-16T17:35:00.004+02:00

Him: Well, I guess it's that day again, isn't it? Geez, when I met you all those years ago I was just out to have a good time. I never thought I'd end up married to you for 18 years!

Me: You're a true romantic, as always. Now where are my flowers??

Mr. M took the day off today and we spent it puttering around the house getting things done. Later on we'll be going out for a nice dinner followed by the Germany vs. Austria Euro 2008 soccer game. We're not really soccer fans but we'll be keeping an eye on it just to see who wins this important match - the Piefkes, as the Austrians like to call the Germans, or the Ösis, the Germans' pet name for the Austrians.

I haven't done a meme in a long time so here you go - The Wedding Meme

1. Where / how did you meet?
In Vancouver on a blind date set up by his aunt.

2. How long have you known each other?
Since July 1986.

3. How long after you met did you start dating?
Five minutes.

4. How long did you date before you were engaged?
Three years. You know, long distance relationship.

5. How long was your engagement?
Ten months.

6. How long have you been married?
18 years!

7. When is your anniversary?
That would be today, June 16th. I never set out to be a June bride, it just kind of happened.

8. How many people came to your wedding reception?
About seventy-five. Six on his side, the rest on mine.

9. What kind of cake did you serve?
White cake, three tiers, ivory buttercream frosting decorated with fresh tea roses.

10. Where was your wedding?
St. Francis-In-the-Wood Church in West Vancouver. The reception was at a golf and country club.

11. What did you serve for the meal?
Canapés, champagne, petit-fours, coffee and tea. It was an afternoon reception.

12. How many people were in your bridal party?
My matron of honour, his best man and two flower girls.

13. Are you still friends with them all?
Only with the first two.

14. Did your spouse cry during the ceremony?
No, but I did, and so did our cousin Charlie from Florida.

15. Most special moment of your wedding day?
When both of my parents walked me down the aisle.

16. Any funny moments?
I think someone may have fallen down, but I can't remember.

17. Any big disasters?
The best man stepped on the back of my dress and almost ripped it.

18. Where did you go on your honeymoon?
Guernsey in the Channel Islands.

19. How long were you gone?
Two weeks.

20. If you were to do your wedding over, what would you change?
Not a thing.

21. What side of the bed do you sleep on?
The left.

22. What size is your bed?
King.

23. Greatest strength as a couple?
Not killing each other when the going gets rough.

24. Greatest challenge as a couple?
Bridging cultural differences.

25. Who literally pays the bills?
He brings home the bacon, I cook it.

26. What is your song?
We have a (cheesy) movie instead of a song - Ferris Beuller's Day Off

27. What did you dance your first dance to?
I have no idea. We're not big dancers.

28. Describe your wedding dress.
Floor-length, off-white satin, puffed short sleeves, sweetheart neckline.

29. What kind of flowers did you have at your wedding?
Ranunculas, sweet pea, stephanotis, alstroemeria, gerbera daisies, peonies, roses

30. Are your wedding bands engraved?
Um, no. We keep meaning to get around to that...

Oh look, here are my flowers.

He may drive me crazy, but he gets those right every time.

Happy 18th Anniversary, Schnucki.

the hills are alive...

2008-06-16T00:30:00.001+02:00

...with the sound of myriad 15-yr-olds descending upon an unsuspecting Austria.

Early Monday morning Boy15, his classmates and two other 9th grade classes will set off on a 13-day Outward Bound adventure to a tiny little place called Baad in the Kleinwalsertal, a valley surrounded by the Allgäu Alps in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg.

(click to enlarge)

My dad grew up in Bregenz in Vorarlberg and was thrilled to know that Boy15 would be visiting the Kleinwalsertal because many of Dad's ancestors came from there.

It's a seven hour train ride from Hannover to Oberstdorf in southern Germany. There the adventurers will be met by buses to take them to their final destination. I just spent two days helping Boy15 organize and pack all his stuff and I am pooped, especially after discovering that we couldn't get all the gear to fit into the bag we had chosen. The kid has size 13 (German 47) feet and just two pairs of shoes take up an inordinate amount of space. A few moments of frenzied rummaging around up in the attic produced a more suitable bag and we're ready to go. Phew.

Outdoor activities will be the order of the day; hiking, climbing and biking, along with some free time to discover what else the area has to offer. Apparently there is a bus service operating every 10 minutes connecting the little towns in the valley so they'll be able to get out on their own and explore.

And now to get us in the mood here's a video of some wild and crazy Austrians doing the Schuhplattler, a traditional dance performed in Bavaria and the Austrian province of Tirol, right beside Vorarlberg. Yep, I had Lederhosen just like that when I was a kid.

And here we have lots and lots of yodeling, also from Tirol. For heavens's sake don't try this at home. You might hurt yourself

we've got gas!

2008-06-10T15:39:00.003+02:00

Good times on the weekend. On Sunday the brand new biogas plant in our little town held an open house. We decided to get in on the fun by walking over to take a look.

This is a pretty flat, rural area and there are walkways between most of the fields. Only pedestrians, bikes and farming vehicles allowed. If you don't watch your back at all times you run the risk of getting run over by a tractor. That's country life for ya.

We thought it would take us about a half hour to get there but we ended up going for 45 minutes since the plant is right on the edge of town and we just happen to live on the other edge.

This is where the journey starts.

If hiking through the fields in the blazing hot sun isn't your idea of fun, you can always follow that brown sign pointing to the left and end up at the friendly neighbourhood brothel aka "erotic hotel". Uh huh. I've never been there but I hear it's very nice. Isn't Germany progressive?

Also to the left is a more innocent view of the old sugar factory with yet another small town behind it.

But there were no detours allowed and so we trudged on and on

If you'd been with us you would have seen wild flowers along the way

And many a tasty vegetable set out in neat rows

Cauliflower in the making

The railway crossing is always a highlight because it means you're halfway there.

And finally (finally!), just when you think you can't stand it a minute longer, the biogas plant, lovingly know by the common folk as The Three Nipples, comes into view.

Basically, they're taking corn and turning it into biogas (methane) which is then piped into the natural gas line for Hannover. Wow. What a feat. There's a lot of controversy surrounding this type of process, but we're not going to start a debate on the pros and cons here.

Here's a closer view of one of the three containers

The shredded corn is kept in large compressed piles outside and is gradually fed into the first container to start the fermentation process. And no, it doesn't smell as bad as people thought it would.

For privacy reasons I'm unable to post any more pictures here, but it was a very interesting tour and I have to say I was impressed even if I may not entirely agree with the idea of using food for fuel. Ahem.

The sizzling 45 minute walk back brought me a killer migraine (and stripey feet thanks to my sandals!) and I had to lie down for the rest of the afternoon. The good side to that was that the hour and a half of power walking meant that I didn't need to use the cross trainer that day, and that's a good thing.

make up yer mind, will ya?

2008-06-05T10:49:00.017+02:00

Over at J's the votes are pouring in for the location of the 2008 Whiney Expat Blogger Meet-Up. Six cities were nominated and now, in the second round, it's time to choose the one you'd like to have a fabulous time in. The only rule is that you shouldn't vote for the city you live in - I'm not really sure why this is, maybe J can tell us.

Here they are in alphabetical order...

Berlin
Bremen
Frankfurt
Hamburg
Nuremberg
Wiesbaden

...and here according to how many votes each has gotten so far and who voted for which city

Wiesbaden – 6 (Rositta, G in Berlin, Belinda, Martina, Erin, AmiO)

Bremen – 5 ***(Claire, Mausi, CN Heidelberg, Scott, Jul)

Berlin – 3 (Ian, Dixie, Headbang8)

Nuremburg – 3 (Adam, J, ChristinaG)

Frankfurt – 1 (Andrea)

Hamburg - 1 (Nate)

Now this can change at any time and I might update it a bit before my next post. You'll notice that Wiesbaden(!?) has taken the lead at the moment. Completely unexplainable, but, hey, if enough bloggers want Wiesbaden, then Wiesbaden it shall be. For the time being my humble vote still goes to Bremen. Let someone else sit on a train for 4 hours this year, I say. But you know I'm gonna be there whatever location we choose.

If you want to have your say and not have some random whiney bloggers make up your mind for you, go put in your vote before J makes the final decree.

After the location is announced, it will be time to work on a specific date. September and October are looking good since the weather tends to be a little iffy in November and it gets dark early leaving less time for sightseeing.

Once again to refresh your memories:

(See? Wiesbaden isn't even on there!)

P.S. If you feel like it, post a link to J's on your own blog so we can get as many bloggers as possible to attend.

***UPDATE: Three more votes at J's blog now put Bremen in the lead! It's not over yet, folks.

1001 creative uses for aluminum foil

2008-05-27T11:57:00.000+02:00

We all know Boy12's penchant for 'making stuff', as he calls it. Well, this is how he wrapped up the box with my birthday present inside on Sunday.

ooh, I wonder what it could be??

But what really killed me was the family portrait on the back

Notice how he's all cozy with Mr. M and me while his big brother stands off to the side all alone. Analyze THAT, won't you?

Check out the fabulous array of gifts.

Along with many chocolate-y treats that didn't make it into the picture (three guesses why) we have a recycled decorated flower pot (see the dirt still in it?)from Boy12, a virtual (and therefore invisible) Amazon gift certificate from Boy15, some yummy rhubarb jelly from our sweet old neighbour (who rang our doorbell at 9 a.m. on Sunday and caught me in my pyjamas, as usual, oh well) and my new camera - a small one this time, the Canon PowerShot A570 IS. I'm so tired of lugging the big Nikon around and I thought this one would be handy for our vacation. The in-laws kindly contributed a bunch o' batteries and memory cards so once I learn how to use the little cutie I'll post some pictures. Whee!

I was also treated to masses of lovely flowers from all and sundry.

Did they spoil me or what?

But wait, there's more! Well, this wasn't really a birthday present, but I figure a giant inflatable Coca-Cola air mattress from the Saturday flea market is worth a mention. If I can't tell you about it, who can I tell?

Talk about product placement! This thing is HUGE.

Being a Pepsi drinker myself, I'm not really sure what to think, but I kinda like it.

So that was my birthday in a nutshell. Another year older, another year wiser, perhaps, and very much looking forward to what the rest of my life will bring. You just never know, do you?

so much cake, so little time

2008-05-25T22:37:00.001+02:00

Today's motto was "45, still alive". But just barely. Middle age (why yes, I do plan on making it into my 90's) has been catching up with me lately and I wasn't really in a birthday mood at all. Mother-in-law came over early afternoon for cake and after she left I ended up having to take a little nap to make it through until dinner time! Grilled salmon and shrimp were on the menu tonight. Yum.

We'll be leaving for Vancouver in just under 7 weeks and in anticipation of that great event I received a shiny new digital camera from the men in my life. Boy12 outdid himself wrapping it up. More details to come.

Here, have some cake while you're waiting...

vanilla yogurt squares

fruit salad cake

I may be tired, but I can still bake!

ready...set...mow!

2008-05-19T15:26:00.000+02:00

As of last weekend, the garden season was in full swing in our little corner of the world. According to German meteorological folklore, May 11-15 are the days when a sudden period of frost could damage plants set out too soon. These days, collectively referred to as the Eisheilige (literally 'The Ice Saints'), get their individual names from bishops and martyrs from the 4th and 5th centuries: Mamertus (May 11), Pankratius (May 12), Servatius (May 13), Bonifatius (May 14) and Sophie (May 15), also known as die kalte Sophie - cold Sophie. With past changes to the Gregorian calendar, the dates no longer really apply and many people start their gardens early, but there are still a few superstitious souls who adhere to the old sayings:

Pflanze nie vor der Kalten Sophie
(never plant before Cold Sophie)

Pankraz, Servaz, Bonifaz
machen erst dem Sommer Platz
(Pankraz, Servaz, Bonifaz clear the way for summer)

We, of course, have been ignoring every rule in the book and sticking our tongues out at any mention of frost. The weather has been fabulous for weeks and it looks like there's no end in sight.

Just look at how the grass has been growing! We threw some grass seeds onto the bare place in front of the new steps and in a couple of weeks it looked like this.

Quite a miracle in a garden where the lawn usually ranges from a soggy, mossy swamp to a crispy brown desert. Too much shade and the wrong type of soil aren't going to win us any Perfect Lawn prizes, but what do we care? We just enjoy it the way it is and give thanks that fabulous weather conditions this year are helping in a big way.

So the grass is growing like crazy and lately when it comes time to get down to business we've been ignoring the electric mower and turning to this baby which runs on an environmentally friendly, renewable energy source - elbow grease.

The kids just looove the thing and will happily volunteer to mow the lawn whether it needs it or not. Interesting factoid: I was never allowed to use the lawnmower as a kid because my father was (and probably still is) afraid that I would cut my toes off! Still got all my digits, Dad!

In other news, my messy herb garden is coming along just fine. In between the forget-me-nots and dandelions you'll find parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme (hmm, I think I feel a song coming on!) and lavender.

I love cooking with fresh herbs and everyone adores this (easy!) rosemary foccacia bread so I make it often.

The rhubarb plant is going great guns..

...but the strawberries still need to catch up.

The few nice red ones we did have were immediately gobbled up by a couple of naughty birds who think they own the place. Nets are now in use.

Since we just couldn't wait I did a strawberry-rhubarb cobbler trial run with fruit from the supermarket on the weekend. Yum.

Oops, is that the time? Gotta go pull some weeds!

yes, the stretch marks were worth it

2008-05-11T16:44:00.007+02:00

Happy Mother's Day!

Got these from my sweet boys this morning

I won't be able to talk to my own mother today - she has just been through major spinal surgery after many, many months of painful waiting. The Canadian health system certainly has its pros and cons. She is doing just fine now, though, and should be home within a couple of days according to my dad. We're all overjoyed that she'll finally be feeling herself again.

you know it's going to be a great weekend...

2008-05-09T12:48:00.001+02:00

...when Friday's lunch matches your blog!

Finding a decent avocado around here is also cause for celebration. Lucky for me that the rest of the family are guacamole haters. No need to share the goodness. Yes, those are tortilla chips and yes, I was on the cross trainer for a good long time yesterday and the day before so I deserve them.

Spring has made a great showing in the garden so far. Here's a little selection of what's been popping up.

First it was the daffodils and grape hyacinths.

Then came the tulips in all variations

'Pomponette' English daisies and pink cryanthemums. Aren't they perky?

And finally we have periwinkles and pansies - a couple of my very favourite flowers.

This is the start of yet another four day weekend, for the kids, at least. It's Pfingsten or Whitsun so they get both Monday and Tuesday off. Mr. M will have to settle for Monday only but he doesn't mind. The weather is supposed to stay in this gorgeous holding pattern until the middle of next week so we'll most likely be spending a lot of time outdoors.

Hope y'all have a wonderful, sunny weekend. Our dinner guests are scheduled for 7 p.m. this evening. Must go cook something...

no expat left behind

2008-05-07T22:45:00.002+02:00

Listen up, expats. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get your little starved-for-conversation selves over to J's blog right away to put in your vote for the location of this year's Whiney Expat in Germany Meet-Up. We're thinking possibly September, but nothing's set in stone yet, and so far Bremen, Berlin, Nuremberg and Frankfurt have been thrown into the suggestion box as possible venues for this fabulous event. You may want to nominate a different city entirely and see if there's a response. The game can go in any direction, and if you don't play, you can't win.

Being such a social butterfly (NOT!) I somehow managed to attend all three of the previous meet-ups in Marburg (2005), Bonn (2006) and Dresden (2007) and enjoyed every one of them. Meeting bloggers in person is great fun, you know. They're even better in real life.

You don't have to be a blogger to attend, nor do you even need to be an expat. Friends, partners, spouses and offspring are all welcome. You can stay for an hour, a day or the whole weekend. It's entirely up to you. If you're new to using the Deutsche Bahn to get around in Germany help is only an e mail away.

Sound intriguing? Then go add yourself to the list of participants. Here's a clue as to which city gets my vote this time around.

(thanks for the pic, Wikipedia!)

Oh, and I'm adding the obligatory map of Germany for the geographically challenged.