Kase und Wurst

Or, cheese and sausage. Which are definitely something that German's adore. After Bread and beer, which are their first loves.

It is harvest time here, my favorite time of year. At the market yesterday there were plums, squashes, heirloom tomatoes of all shapes and sizes, orange, green and red peppers, curly chilis, mushrooms harvested from the forrests- 6 or 7 different kinds, salad greens, corn, cucmbers, etc. and of course, bread, beer, wine, honey, candles,  chicken, eggs, cheeses (cow, sheep and goat), cured meats(mostly pork), pork, cow, lamb, wild boar, wild deer, and elk meat, And to eat: fresh pressed cider (susser), half fermented cider (most), hard cider (raucher), new wine (federweissen), zwiebel kuchen, flamm kuchen, grune sosse with potatoes, wurst, fresh fish, waffles, cake, coffee, ice cream, did i mention wine and beer?

Here is a view of the market from above courtesy of the internet.

I met my friend W yesterday afternoon at market and we headed straight for the Zwiebel Kuchen, which is a bit like a pizza crust- this one is sourdough- with lots and lots of onions and sour cream and quark, and bits of shinken, which is cured pork cut into little bits, and we drank Federweissen- which is the new wine from this year's grapes and it is all cloudy white, a bit sweet and grapey tasting and delicious. W and I are a perfect match at market, we are both completely snobby about our food, and we both like the same growers. After our lunch, we went to buy bread from our usual stand- The Winter Bakery- and then over to the fabulous milcherei, or dairy, called Herbert's Muehle- please do look at the website even though it is in German because the pictures are beautiful. They have extraordinary cheese- organic (bio) raw milk (roh milch) from Cow, Sheep and Goat. They have Lacaune sheep and Zebu cows. Then we go to the Metzgerei, or butcher, Bauernhof Frank. Bauernhof means farm. They have elk salami, so I had to try some and it is, of course, delicious. And then I had to buy some. At an organic butcher I also bought something called "nuss schinken" nuss means nut and schinken is a dried smoked cured pork similar to prosciutto.

Here are the grapes, apples, cheese and meats I bought along with  melon from the biodynamic shop that Nic works at. In the middle, is a Merlin goat cheese with a white rind, like brie, only it isn't (moaning sounds are heard upon eating), sheep roquefort (oh my god), and middle aged goat gouda. Elk salami and the nuss schinken.

I should say two things here, one is that I have now been to the market enough that I am starting to know where I like to go to get my things, one place for vegetables (more on that in a bit), two for cheeses, one for dairy, one for eggs, two for cured meats. I am still learning and trying new stalls, but so far I feel good about the people I visit, because they are people. And in two or so of the stalls that I frequent they are starting to recognize me. Which means I am beginning the wonderful process of knowing my growers and farmers and they are beginning to know who I am. I think I can finally talk to one of the people at the dairy and ask for wool!

So, the plums (kwetsche for nic's birthday cake), vegetables, and mushrooms (Steinpilze or Boletus) I purchased from a couple who have their own sausage, bread baked in a wood oven, pickles, jams, vegetables, wild mushrooms (maybe 7 different kinds), and then apples and plums etc. from a friend who grows fruit. The man is from the states and speaks english with a beautiful southern twang, maybe from Tennessee or Kentucky or Arkansas. His wife is German. He says that when the war was over, or when he was done with it, in '71 there were no jobs for him in the states, so he stayed here. We three speak a mixture of German and English together and they are really wonderful people. They have herbal lemonade each week that they make themselves as well. Everything is clearly hand made and on a very small scale, rather like Nic and I want to do some day. And they remind us of the folks at the Santa Fe Market, making their own things to sell and being very humble and beautiful about it. I am going to try and get a picture of their stand next week and I'll add it to the post when I do.

What a blissful day at the farmer's market. Here is a picture of Nic's birthday bouquet that W bought for her. Calendula and Oregano! Tschuess!

Life Partners

Excuse me for not writing in a week, but haven't felt the need to say anything. Now I want to write a bit about our Lebenspartnershaft, or Civil Union, because it is coming up two weeks from tomorrow and we are busy planning it and preparing. This is the completion of many ceremonies we have been blessed with over the last year, since leaving the zen center and being in the bardo of our transition here to Germany and into partnership. Friends have given us blessings on their land from many traditions- peruvian shamanism, Cherokee, Buddhist- and in many places- New Mexico, Maine, Eastern Canada, Connecticut. We have been blessed by many friends and loved ones all wishing us well and showing us their love and support. These have been so important to me, and the love and spirit from them still holds me close.

Quite an amazing thing to prepare for a thing such as this. I can't even imagine what it would be like to have a whole hetero wedding in a white dress, etc. We're not having a seating chart, for example. Although, when my sister gets married it will be one of those. She taught me, for example, that straight girls watch wedding shows on t.v. and pick out their dresses and rings before they even know who they are going to marry. I know not everyone does that, but I didn't know anyone did that. All the same, so much more nervousness and questioning than I thought would arise bubbles up in my consciousness. Somehow making it legal makes it feel more like stuck than partnered. But of course being with her is exactly what I want. I had to turn the whole concept around and see that being together actually includes everything, that it is not the ending of things or the ending of opportunities (nothing specific here, just vague fear) but actually includes everything- including separation and death. Then I can easily agree to exploring this great adventure together. I am so curious about what will happen and how my life will unfold. And mostly, I  just don't believe myself when i have a weird thought that starts with never, or always, or what if. I just drop it and move on to something else because I know it is a fabrication. 

We are getting partnered in the old Synagogue here in Grosskrotzenburg, which is to say the place that was the Synagogue before Krystal Nacht. The uncle of a friend of ours actually stole the Torah to protect it ( He was not Jewish) and the S.S. found him running out of the Synagogue and were going to kill him, so he faked an epileptic seizure. They left him alone and he brought the Torah to the Rabbi a day or so later. It is now a space for cultural activities and ceremonies. As we went to Auschwitz this year and brought the names of the people from this town that were killed, it is meaningful to us that we will be in that space. 

Yesterday, we met with the woman who will conduct the ceremony, Frau Amberg, and discussed the specifics. I made the mistake of referring to her as du, which is the informal form of you, rather than sie, which is the formal. well, speaking another language has its risks. I only hope I did not offend her too much. I'll have to figure out how to apologize before the ceremony. We will have one more ceremony before the ceremony, which is about the nature of our relationship- stepping as adults into our partnership and honoring one another's uniqueness and gifts as well as our togetherness in partnership. The morning of the ceremony, we'll go out onto the land with two people who will facilitate the ceremony of the basket with us. Then, we'll have the partnership ceremony in the afternoon at 3. My mother will sing at the beginning of the ceremony and my sister at the end. We are going to read a few poems and there will be the actual vows and exchange of rings. (Nic always says- finally we get to wear our rings!) Afterwards, we will have sekt (champagne made with grapes not from the region of France called Champagne) and little snacks and cake and coffee. Once our life settles a bit and things are more relaxed, we will have a bigger party for all of our friends and family. But for now, it will be small and intimate. 

So there you have it, a Life Partnership in Grosskrotzenburg, Hessen, Germany between two women, an American and a German. Apart from the paperwork and the internal dialogues, it has been quite easy so far. And apart from the fact that I still don't really know what I want to wear, I think everything is organized. I'll give you the update after the fact.

Pickles and Sardinia

OK, I promised you something happy after the genocide and human atrocity lesson, and then I gave you more rant about eating and fasting and meditation. I thought it would be good to complete the piece about the fast. Now, for the fun part.


We were talking last night over the dinner table about the sauerkraut and pickles that nic's mom would make with her mom. They would have these big crockery jars and fill them with fresh cut cabbage and salt in layers, or with cucumbers for pickles it was the same but with vinegar, herbs, and water. Then, a clean plate would go on top of it and a stone on top of that. Then, it was put it in the cellar and to wait, "for a specific amount of time" till it was sour. The pottery she was referring to is called "Dippe", which is slang for the word pots Topfen and is made of gray earthenware and has usually mostly blue painting on it. We still have some at the house, they are currently used to put plants in plastic pots inside for decoration.



Anyway, Mama said a lady would come to the house and grate all of the fresh cabbage for people- that was how she made extra money- she'd bring a board with a knife blade set in it and put it over a cloth on the ground and slice up the cabbage. I could just imagine her fingers flying!

Here is my friend M's pickle recipe. I'm going to try it and let you know how it turns out. Also, I'll keep you posted on the mustard pickles.

one quart pickle slices or spears
1/4 cup whey (which you get by leaving raw milk out at room temp till it completely separates into curds (solids) and whey (the yellowy clear stuff)  or if you don't have whey they said to just use one more tablespoon of salt
2 tablespoons dill snipped
1 tablespoon sea salt
1 tablespoon mustard seed
and the rest filled up with filtered water to 1 inch below the top of jar

then seal them with lids and let them sit out for 2-3 days then transfer to cold storage, no water bathing or canning stuff needed

We saw the most beautiful documentary on the Barbagia region of Sardinia- i want to go! Firstly, it looks like New Mexico, which I am sorely missing these days. Except it is an island and has the sea. Here is a picture of the Costa Smerelda.



It reminds me in many ways of  the horse culture of the nomads of Tuva and M- except in Sardinia they are sheep people, and they stay put. Their suits are based on the traditional shepheard's suit (which a family of tailors still makes with a foot pedal sewing machine), their dances are the same quick steps that the sheep run and the music is sung at that tempo. And the songs are so beautiful, they sound a bit like the songs from georgia and the balkans, but in sardinian and with the sea in them. They are polyvochal braids of sound called "cantu a tenore"and accompanied by the Launeddas, a reed instrument requiring circular breathing to play. The music was included as a part of the UNESCO "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" Here is  a picture of singers from Oliena. See the black jacket? that's the shepard's suit. The cantu were traditionally sung also by women, but now are sung only by men.



Every year there is a festival in Orune for Madonna della Consolata. Folks who have left the village or the island come back to celebrate and honor her. Men cook huge vats of lamb stew and pasta and sauce. The women make the beautiful bird shaped cookies that everyone gets when they come out of church, the pasta, the bread, and run the whole thing. Pecorino Romano, made of Sheep milk and stews from lamb and fresh made pasta. yum.

old guys singing Cantu a Tenore



Some of the dancing with a beautiful song:


Here is some of the music sung by young people. Surprisingly, young people are really learning the dance and the singing of Sardinia.

Eating after fasting

So, the Fast went well, although I was still hungry every evening. And Saturday evening we broke the fast together at the Dojang. Everyone who is making a test- 18 people in all- fasted and then spent the day sitting in meditation. Like for 12 hours. Which almost no one in the room had done and which amounted to a great heaving beast of fidgeting, snoring, rustling, water drinking, window gazing, sleeping, and suffering. I was not there, but this was Nic's report. Poor thing. However, she did say she had quite an opportunity to practice, and the the insight to practice, having a larger field than the beast within which she could actually relax, in the silence around the noise. Also, she saw what a good training we had of the mind and the body while living in aforementioned zen center. She and only about three others were left sitting upright by the end of the day. Everyone else had succumbed to gravity and were lying about strewn on the battlefield of their own minds, having been totally slain by their egos, and lay limp on the Dojang floor. To be fair, almost none of these people have ever meditated and there were a handful of girls under 20 who had to be there- without their cell phones, maybe for the first time ever except when they are sleeping. This was a really hard thing they all did, and I am proud of them all for doing the best they could. And, wow.

 It is always interesting to start eating again after not having done so for a while. I ate a bowl and a half of soup and got a belly ache. It helps me to understand why, when people who have been starving receive food aid, for example, they often still die from malnutrition. The stomach has shrunken and the ability to get food into the body is diminished, let alone to digest it and deal with it once it is there. It takes awhile to build up to a normal portion and one must eat so little. A few snacks here and there, only about a cup of food each time. And this time both of us felt dizzy after we ate and I had such pain in my stomach when I ate just a little too much.  And after juicing, which is a larger ratio of of calories to substance than food, which is filled with fiber, the calories one can eat at one sitting are not so many. I think we had five small meals on Sunday. Listening to my body to see exactly what it is that it wants to eat, not what my mind wants or what my mouth wants to taste. And also when I am full, not eating more because it tastes good, or because I ate too fast to notice I was eating and enjoy it. I eat so fast!!!

Eating is so much a cultural thing, so much of a tradition that comes from a place. All of the feelings that come up when we do not to eat with people, or to eat in front of someone who cannot, or chooses not to. Or to eat more than we need or less. Usually the traditions of food teach us, without our knowing, how to eat to maintain health and vibrancy. What happens when we eat foods from other places removed from the culture that the food tradition is borne out of? What happens when we start to eat too fast? When we stop preparing our own foods? Last night at dinner, Uncle Richard said that there was a time in Germany, probably during the war, when they would put little styrofoam beads, the size of blackberry or raspberry seeds into the jams in the factory with aroma and water and only some actual fruit. Cheaper that way, and no one ever noticed they were eating styrofoam! So much arises around the food itself. How our food comes to us and from where, and whether we must grow it or cook it. How much we have, and can get and not get. Flying avocados here from Peru, for example. Or buying things out of season, or that don't grow even on this continent. Eating really is a political as well as a social and cultural event.

still no pictures from the computer. i wanted to give you a sunflower.

A short lesson

So, I think everyone who reads this blog knows that Nic and I want to work with girls who are trafficked across country borders and forced into sex work. If not, now you know that. Another abominable but connected atrocity is the rape and torture of women as a weapon of war. Especially in areas of Africa, when a woman has been raped, she is no longer accepted by her husband and is therefore cast out by her family. In the Congo, women are being gang raped and tortured as a part of the ongoing war being fought there. Essentially, the oil and mineral benefits are so high that the truth of the people is being largely ignored by, oh, the entire world.

Here is a map of Africa, you are looking for what is known as the DRC or Democratic Republic of Congo,
So, in this country there is a war going on, for almost 13 years now, which has taken the lives of 6 million people and left more than 500,000 women raped and tortured. Also, the tribe known and the Pygmies, considered the original inhabitants of that area of Africa have been hunted down and eaten. Yes, it is what you think it is. Which war, you might ask. Read here.


Please also read this article by Eve Ensler, who wrote the famous Vagina Monologues and who has been working for women's rights around the world and an end to violence against women of any kind for years now. She has written a beautiful piece called, "Congo Cancer", about her own battle with uterine cancer (amazing, right?) and her experience of working with the women in the DRC. She has helped to establish the City of Joy, which is a community in the DRC for survivors of such crimes. Here is the blog which is an information and fund raiser. Also, please see Stop Raping our Greatest Resource, which is a human rights organization to stop the rapes going on in the DRC. 


I promise to post something happy next time, but I needed to share a bit about why I want to do the work I feel called to do.

Fasting Day 3

This is the strangest fast I have ever done. Normally, I don't have any hunger, and I have a hard time eating again at the end and I don't really have any reactions to fasting. This time, I had headaches the first day and half of the second, and a belly ache during that same time. I kept drinking Master Cleanse and water and finally succumbed to the bed on Monday night. It is fair, I suppose, to say that being in an entirely new country, with entirely new surroundings, not even half as much stress as I used to have, and a totally different intention for this fast might make a wee bit of difference. But, wow, this is like, a totally new animal that I have never met.

I am fasting for two, or maybe three reasons. First, to support Nic in her fast that she has to do before the 12 hour meditation day on Saturday at her Dojang in preparation for her third dan test (third black belt). We'll break fast on saturday evening after the meditation (which I will not be attending), for which I will bring a big pot of carrot avocado soup, the recipe of which is from my friend, Micki, who is amazing and has a link in the friends column to her pictures of what she calls, Everyday Artfulness. Please look at these handmade beautiful beings that she has created. She is a true sister of the handmade life and an inspiration for me every day, especially when I receive a picture of her beautiful artfulness in my email box. Annoyingly, I still cannot get pictures onto the blog, so I can't show you.

OK, so, second reason I am fasting is because I have hated my belly and especially the fat around it since puberty, and I think it is time to come into relationship with my belly exactly as she is and stop all of that nonsense.  I have been doing all sorts of writing and questioning and diving down into what is buried in there. It is a powerful thing to do, and i am getting to look at all sorts of stuff that I thought I had dealt with already, or, that I would really rather not have to look at. The belly, known as the Hara or Dan Tien in japanese and chinese respectively, is the center of our power. Our digestion, assimilation of nutrients, our life energy, and our sexual energy are all housed and generated in the lower halves of our abdomens. I think partly it is my piece of the cultural repression of the feminine and the demand that we look a certain way etc. that I carry, compounded with my own shames and guilts and secrets and everything that I will not spill all over this blog. Just know, this is a major piece of work and supported by the fasting.

Third, because I would have liked to do a Vision Fast (see School of Lost Borders under "nourishment for the handmade life" on the right) between leaving the zen center I lived in for 7 years and moving to another country on another continent. It can help us to consciously make a change during life transitions by marking them with some kind of ceremony. I have found deep healing and power in the wild places in the world and in myself when I entrust myself to them. I will also be "verpartnered" ,meaning partnered with nic, in a civil union in a month's time and this is another good reason for going out onto the land and crying for a vision, of wholeness and beauty, to bring into our commitment of a life together. However, I am in a town in Germany and don't have the resources to do such a ceremony of fasting in the wilderness, but this is a good intention to carry while we both fast together this week. We took our rings out last night and showed them to friends and looked at the pictures of our Blessing Ceremony in May in Connecticut. It was beautiful to see all of the faces and smiles of the people who were there giving such love.

And the sacredness of the time during a fast is somehow always present, even in the midst of our lives.There were moments today, when I was walking from the train to my school, for example, when I had no idea where I was. Or, better said, I could have been anywhere- no one spoke german during those steps of mine to give some context of place and I was wrapped in the anonymity of travel. I was walking within a world of people and things, all particular in their beingness and all a part of the world fabric in that moment, and there was nothing to make it a thing to speak of, only a shared creation of place and time. This was a moment of freedom, a gift from the lightness of the fast and the faith of being here.

Fasting Day 1

Some thoughts from today:

This morning we had fresh apple juice and I had carrot juice this afternoon before my language class so I would have some sugar in my brain to understand German. Not that this helps much, but I figure I had better do everything in my power to put the odds in my favor. Turns out our new teacher has lots of energy and speaks rapid fire. Somehow, she has singled me out as the person she can best speak with, ask questions of, etc and therefore sends quite a bit my way. I try not to have a glazed look in my eyes when I look back, although with language, it is hard to hide when you don't understand. Usually it takes me a full minute before I understand sufficiently to actually formulate a response. Then is takes another minute to actually let the German words bubble up from my subconscious and arrive on the tip of my tongue in order for me to gurgle and spit them out.

That being said, we had rain again today, for like, the 30th time since July 23. Where did our summer go? I have so much adjusting to do after living in Santa Fe. So much homesickness for our little house and garden and friends and Tai Chi classes and chiles and tortillas and pinto beans and oh, green chile chicken enchiladas, or huevos rancheros christmas, or...oh, i should stop now. The point is, homesick for everyone on that side of the Atlantic Ocean, especially in the mountainous areas of New Mexico and Colorado, and in Maine and Toronto, and Connecticut...I really which the states were across a slightly smaller body of water. Meanwhile, we make a life here, or begin to, slowly, not having the slightest idea what is going to happen, and less of an idea every day.