Hangin’ with the ‘homies’-Deutsche-style

Okay, so Germany didn’t win the World Cup this year, but the folks over at the German Air Force at Fort Bliss didn’t let that stop them from having a great viewing party for everyone to watch Deutschland beat Uruguay 3-2 in a very exciting match.
Christian and I took my dad to the party, and he came decked out in a Bayern München fussball jersey and baseball cap. I was embarrassed, until I saw that he was drastically UNDER-dressed for the occasion, with revelers painted the colors of the German flag, with hats, costumes, horns and all. I borrowed dad’s baseball cap so I too could “fit in.”
The viewing party was held in Bldg. 747, the same one where Oktoberfest is held each year and, just like Oktoberfest, lots of bier, brats, Berliners, Sekt und sodas were served. We had brought lunch just in case, but were glad to see we could get the brats to supplement our meal.
I must say I’m not exactly the biggest TV sports fan, but I got so into it, I had to check myself. I also got camera happy, but to save the ego of my loved ones, I didn’t use the flash too often, hence the quality of the photos.
I hope to attend lots more of the Deutsches Soldatenstube events, because they definitely know how to party and to make everything a celebration!

Being a foodie has its rewards…

I won at Foodie Blogroll! Sweet as honey 😉 Check out the site. There are almost 8,000 blogs for every food/lifestyle/health/travel subject imaginable.

Curry (por) favor

Tonight, Christian and I went to Chut-ney, an Indian restaurant that we’ve passed by countless times but just finally decided we had to try out.
We got there at around 6 p.m., and we were the only ones in the restaurant. The hostess was on the phone and hurriedly told us that we could sit where we wanted. Bad omen, I thought. Too busy to pay us any attention and no one was eating there. But I’m such a sucker for a great curry, I was tired, and the wind/rainstorm outside had us seeking shelter.
We waited around 7-8 minutes before she finished taking an order on the phone and brought us the menu. There are at least 70 or so dishes listed, both vegetarian specialties and meat specialties, ranging from Aloo Parantha to Goat Curry (which is what I had).
Hubby ordered the chicken curry, which I tend to avoid because it’s so, well, obvious. I think of it as the “safe” dish to eat at an Indian restaurant, and I want to order, usually, the most unusual or “ethnic” item at an ethnic restaurant. But that’s just me 😉
The curries, served in cast-iron bowls, were substantial and the smell of the spices wafted over us like the dust storm howling outside. All-encompassing and you couldn’t avoid it. They were served with rice, a great long-grain white rice with an extremely subtle seasoning that had us befuddled. A perfect bland accompaniment to the extremely bold and spicy curry.
My goat meat was not too goat-y or gamey, although it had plenty of bones and was a bit tough. I think another hour in the tandoori or oven could have done the trick. But it was a great taste and went very well with the amazing curry sauce that I could, frankly, eat as soup if no one was looking.
With our meal, we had masala tea, a hot chai tea with milk. Although it was lukewarm, it tasted heavenly and also provided a foil to the rich meat.
The naan was heavenly. Perfectly puffy bread soaking in clarified butter (?) and roasted garlic. I could eat that alone as a meal, maybe with a side salad. But not tonight. In the name of research, I wanted goat curry.
Again today I broke my self-imposed moderation rule with meals, and again I say “tomorrow.” But we do have leftover curry, rice and naan, and we don’t waste in our household. Alright, SATURDAY. Yeah, that’s it. SATURDAY is day one of moderate intake. Oh, wait. That’s the German potluck day…Well, at least we walked in the arroyo with the dogs today. That maybe took care of one-tenth of dinner.

My own private Bavaria

I have a little cabin in Cloudcroft, New Mexico. It’s about 100 miles from El Paso, but about 6,000 miles away in climate, flora and fauna, and atmosphere. My tiny little cabin in the woods is my sactuary, my safe haven, and was in fact my home for almost 3 years when I worked as assistant editor of the newspaper, “The Mountain Monthly,” (www.cloudcroft.net) up there. I say “up there” because Cloudcroft is at 9,000 feet above sea level, or as the marketers that advertise Cloudcroft say, “9,000 feet above stress level.”
In so many ways Cloudcroft reminds me of the Black Forest and Bavaria. It’s almost uncanny. And the Germans who live down the hill in Alamogordo agree. The German Air Force soldiers and their families flock to Cloudcroft on their time off to enjoy the tall pines, hiking trails, quaint shops, and the good BBQ/pies/bread (Mountain Top Mercantile!!!!)/fudge that the locals are known for. The Germans also adore the Old-West photo stand, where they can dress up as cowboys, saloon maids or Confederate soldiers with props. Apparently those framed photos are a hit with the folks back home in Germany.
On a typical holiday weekend like Easter or Memorial Day, probably about 1/3 of the voices you’ll hear in Cloudcroft are German.
But I digress…
When I lived in Cloudcroft, I lived alone on a hill, pretty much the only inhabitant for about two blocks in every direction. You see, most of the cabins in Cloudcroft are owned by families who consider it a second home, and rarely use their cabins in the winter. Since I worked there, I obviously stayed year-round, so I got to have it all to myself most months of the year. It was somewhat stressful when the holidays came around and families came in droves to invade my little, peaceful Bavaria.
When Christian first came to the United States, one of the first things I did was take him to Cloudcroft, because a) I’m sure El Paso’s infernal temperatures were a shock to him when he arrived and b) I wanted him to see how similar Cloudcroft was to his home town.
It’s been a long time since we visited (the photos are from our first trip there together, on a hike on the Osha Trail), and the cabin’s been closed for the winter (water and electricity turned off, pipes drained). But we’re getting the itch. The itch to go hiking on the Osha and Trestle trails, to sit on the porch with our coffee early in the morning to watch the blue jays, squirrels and bears (yes, sometimes), to eat the scrumptious bread from the Mountain Top Mercantile, to attend one of the local fairs like the Cherry Festival or Mayfair, and to recharge our batteries.
For you who have moved to the states from Germany… how do you “recharge your batteries” and find a place that reminds you of home?

Homemade artisan bread and pies: Mountain Top Mercantile 575-682-2777. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ngw4WUY6Rug/SiQoToL8tSI/AAAAAAAAAAs/aGQIhgMHVvs/s320/cloudcroftpies.jpg&imgrefurl=http://thebestpies.blogspot.com/2009/06/mountain-top-mercantile-in-cloudcroft.html&usg=__fvfzaTlEBgKLZQutHPBVsqdCb40=&h=291&w=320&sz=34&hl=en&start=3&sig2=kHvhYOUd__9SQ34ftwGUDA&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=33TgglNLxVio5M:&tbnh=107&tbnw=118&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmountain%2Btop%2Bmercantile%2Bcloudcroft%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=3T7QS63uJYXYNdf6xLcP

Pre-NYC pantry

Our larder is getting skimpier and skimpier as we approach our trip to NYC, and as we are trying to save money so we don’t have to have street pretzels every day, we’re making do with what we have left here at the apartment. Basically, sausage, eggs, flour, semolina, onions, beef broth cubes, cucumbers, apple empenadas, oatmeal and milk. Perfect! Perfect for Christian’s Grießsuppe and his cucumber salad. Here’s the recipe he used, with a little tweaking provided by his father-in-law, Uli, who gave him some pointers on Skype:
http://www.webkoch.de/rezept/4566

After pigging out last night at the El Paso Club on pseudo-German fare (see yesterday’s entry), I was determined to rein it in food-wise. This morning was my typical steel-cut oats mixed in with diced pear and yogurt. So far so good. Lunch was fairly decent: a salad, a small slice of leftover homemade pizza, and a tiny bit of chai cake (I finally left the rest at the office, so I wouldn’t pick at it all night). But then after we walked the dogs this afternoon, we dropped by Barnes and Noble to flip through magazines and have a coffee. Well, the blondie blast “brownie” was just too good looking to pass up. Hey, I blame the barista, trying to up-sell everything to me. She won this time 😉 Note the magazines I chose to read while I indulged in the blondie. Not quite in jive. And, having sold my treadmill yesterday (which now pays for our hotel in NYC!!!), I appear to be evolving into a glutton. A happy one, at that, however.
Christian’s soup just rocked my world, and it’s so incredibly easy to make! Even I couldn’t mess it up. Well, maybe I could. The smoky sausage really penetrated the semolina, which had the consistency of a hot rice cereal. The soup was nutty, rich, yet oh so simple. And his vinegar-y and light cucumber salad was the perfect foil for the warm, substantial soup. This soup is commonly served in Bavaria, a “poor-man’s soup,” good for farm workers on cold days. But even though it was 85 degrees today, it wasn’t overbearing or cumbersome. Really a great comfort food.
Tomorrow I’ll try again to be good. I really will. But we have leftover soup that we just can’t toss. Nor can we freeze it. What if the electricity goes out while we’re out of town??? No, we must, must, must eat it ASAP! You know a soup is good when, after eating copious amounts and you’re cleaning the dishes, you already look forward to tomorrow’s lunch 😉

Shoes clues

Alright, I gotta know. Why do Germans hate white running/tennis shoes? I adore my white running shoes because they are so incredibly comfy, look high-tech, and motivate me to take long walks.
My husband thinks they look god-awful and, if you ask any German (or European for that matter) to identify an American on the street, he or she could do it based on our shoes.
Last week, Christian bought these “Vans,” which look sort of like a Ed Hardy design. I think they’re very cool, but to me they are so, well, AMERICAN! I don’t recall seeing any of these in Bavaria, on anyone any age. But then again, nor do I remember seeing anyone wearing Nikes or New Balance running shoes.
I did buy a pair of beige ‘sport’ shoes at Netto, of all places, a discount supermarkt in Rohr (and found throughout Europe). For 8 Euros I got a very nice pair of shoes that have held up very well. I feel very “European” when I wear them.
To all those Germans out there living in the U.S. or back at home…what, to you, is a DEAD giveaway that someone is American?

“Sauerkraut or cabbage?” Huh?

We just returned from dinner at the exclusive El Paso Club with dad. German night. Well, more like an impressionistic painting of German cuisine. You get the gist of what it’s meant to be, but the parts aren’t all there.
When the very sweet but very unaware of German food waiter explained what was on the menu, he said we had the choice of “sauerkraut or cabbage (????), pork loin, broooots y knoookwerst, y weeeenersneeetzel.” Took us a while to figure out what he meant, but in the end, Dad ordered the schnitzel, I ordered the pork loin, and Christian ordered the wursts. To begin the meal, we were served an amuse buche of pumpernickel cocktail bread and liverwurst disguised as paté. Not bad, actually. Then out came our “cabbage,” or was it the “Sauerkraut?” It was practically raw red cabbage with a faint dressing, walnuts and some dried fruit of some kind. I actually sort of liked it, but Christian didn’t know whether to snicker or to cry.
Each of our main courses had blaukraut and a potato pancake (cold and greasy, but not inedible). My pork was overcooked but otherwise edible, served with sauteed but undercooked apple slices. Christian ate most of his wursts, but said he reallllllly missed some Händelmaier’s mustard. In fact, ANY mustard would do. His wursts didn’t come with any. Dad isn’t much of a talker about food. He orders, eats, then asks for the check, lol. But he seemed to eat pretty much all of his schnitzel.
One thing that really sort of blew our minds was that we were served Italian garlic breadsticks with our main course. After scratching our heads in bewilderment, we figured they had them left over from a party that was going on in the dining room next to ours. Lucky us (?)
We all got the same dessert – German chocolate cake. I have to laugh because it is not German at all. It’s just the name of the kind of chocolate used (I just recently realized this, unfortunately). But the cake was good, if not authentic.
The view from the El Paso Club makes one forgive inauthentic cuisine and, although we’re STILL searching for an authentic German meal we don’t cook ourselves, we enjoyed the evening very much. On Saturday we’re invited to a potluck with a German theme (not our idea!), and we’re trying to come up with a dish that screams “I’m GERMAN!” without being the obvious choice of potato salad or brats. And pretty cheap, too, of course.
Other than dinner, today was SWEET. I placed an ad in the newspaper just yesterday to sell my treadmill I have let sit in a room at my dad’s house for 5 years. I asked $400 FIRM, and got a buyer today- they came over, tested it, and paid right on the spot. That takes care of a big chunk of our hotel/hostel stay in NYC next week. Suh-weeeeeet!!!!
The rich pork, cake and potatoes have now worked their magic and the bed is singing a lovely tune to me 😉 Time to doze into oblivion.

Coffee talk

Oh wow, was it hard to get up this morning. I’m still walking around with one eye open, and all we have is decaf in the house. We make up for it very, very well at the two (yep, two) coffee houses we visit on a daily basis. We start the day on the way to work at The Percolator downtown, and after work and walking the dogs, we usually stop by Kinley’s House near the university, or the Starbucks at Barnes and Noble. For me it’s just about always a large (or Venti) Americano with half and half, three Splendas and lots of cinnamon. For Christian, it’s usually a large non-fat spiced Chai latte.
But for now, it’s decaf Folger’s coffee weakly pretending to be a coffeehouse special. I don’t care how pretty the mug is I serve it in, or how I froth the milk or add cinnamon or vanilla. It is Folger’s coffee. The best part of waking up, for me, isn’t Folger’s in my cup. It’s the anticipation of the espresso I earn after walking a mile and a half to work 🙂
Our usual routine in the morning goes something like this. The alarm goes off at 5 a.m. We cuddle about 5 minutes, encouraging each other to not nod off again. Then I hop out of bed and stumble into the kitchen to start the coffee. I pack our lunch and start checking emails/news/blogs while Christian showers. Then I get dressed, and go back into the kitchen to make our breakfast, which we usually scarf down in front of our computers (note to self: MORE TOGETHER TIME AT THE DINING ROOM TABLE!!!). Then I put on my makeup, clean the dishes, pack everything to take to work, make sure the oven is off (about 5 times. I’m a little OCD, ha ha!), and FINALLY get on our way.
Today, breakfast for Christian was lots of watermelon and a toasted everything bagel with Neufchatel cheese. For me, a sloppy but tasty mess of yogurt, dry oatmeal, raisins and diced pear, all mixed together like muesli. Looks like a train wreck, but tastes delicious and keeps me completely satiated until lunch, no matter when lunch happens. Today I felt like it was a “comfort food” day. So I made us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on 8-grain bread, leftover salad for Christian and an apple for me, and I packed away a peanut marzipan “cookie” for my dessert. This “cookie” is a popular Mexican treat, sold just about everywhere in El Paso. The consistency is that of marzipan, just made with peanuts instead of almonds. Tasty little thing!
Ahhhh, that reminds me! I had meant to show everyone the Mexican culture in Downtown El Paso…the vendors, the street food, “Por Libra” stores (stores that sell used clothes by the pound, really. And don’t balk. I’ve found some incredible brands in those shops), the restaurants…. that’s my quest today.
If you have any ideas or suggestions for me, or any restaurants to check out, feel free to email me at krautundcracker@gmail.com. I’ll be happy to oblige.>

A dog’s day

Today was a proverbial Monday. Dark, gloomy, hard and exhausting. We had to really pull ourselves together to gain the energy to walk the dogs this afternoon, but we did it, partly to give them the one thing they look sooooo forward to and partly to diminish the sins of last night’s beef ribs (a marathon is more along the lines of what we should have done). But at least the dogs got the leftover bones, we felt absolved, and we got some great photos in the desert arroyo.
The arroyo is the “park” where I grew up. I built many forts in that arroyo and I like to consider it “mine.” It’s full of gorgeous cacti, greasewood plants that smell like rain, and lots of rabbits, rodents and snakes (although I’ve only seen one snake in my entire life there. I have seen a few bobcats, and even a mule deer, though).
The walk in the arroyo helped a little in terms of making a bad Monday a bit more tolerable, but the slump was still there and we both really weren’t in the mood to pull out all stops in the kitchen for dinner. Sooooo, tonight was one of THOSE nights. You know what I’m talking about. The nights you just will either ring up Domino’s, eat a bowl of cereal, or forsake dinner altogether. Foodies that we are, we couldn’t resort to that, but we still half-assed our cooking. Not a bad result (after a sliced pinkie, bones in the meat and too much vinegar in the salad) but not a blogger’s pride and joy 😦
I sliced the meat off of the last rib left from last night (and my pinkie. It’s still intact, mind you), and placed caramelized sliced onions, ketchup, cayenne powder, Cojita cheese, garlic and some fresh cilantro on a Boboli. In a pan, I cooked up some sliced jalapenos in olive oil. I then added that mixture to the Boboli and put it in the oven for 15 minutes, when the cheese started bubbling. Besides the fact that it was impossible to keep the toppings on the Boboli regardless of using a knife and fork or eating it with the hand, it was decent. It was filling, it was cheap, and it was easy. Perfectly imperfect.
Tomorrow it’s German night at the El Paso Club, a fancy private club. Dinner’s on dad. Last time I went there, I was refused service for wearing sandals. Never mind they were $150 nice “sandals” (they showed my toes. They were not Tevas). I’m really hoping I pass the test tomorrow, ’cause it was a bit awkward to have to tell my dad (a member) that I would go eat at Quizno’s and “thanks anyway for the invite.” 😉
But I’m really looking forward to Wednesday, when it’s back to the home kitchen for Christian’s Grießsuppe and whatever concoction I can make up. I’m leaning toward a cooked veggie dish of some kind. But it has to be weird, it has to be cheap, and it has to be good.

Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Salad

Mmmm. This sounds very good, especially after a night of ultra-decadent ribs.

Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Salad.