Christmas in Germany

Snow. Lots of it. Feet of it. Days and days of it. Until Monday, when it stopped.  That day we left Großkrotzenburg with our little car full of stuff and headed for Niederursel, to our new home, to finally start painting.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Christmas really starts on the 24th here and then there are two days following, so the holiday is three days long. Heilige Abend, or holy evening, is Christmas eve. And in the western and southern parts of Germany the Christkind comes on Heilige Abend (because jesus was born that evening) and brings the presents, which everyone opens that evening. In the northern and Eastern parts of Germany, (Protestant reform, ever heard of a man named Luther? therefore no Christkind-which is a mixture of angel and christ, past and present and future) there is the Weihnachtsmann, or Christmas man, who brings the presents in the night and they are opened the next morning (read: Santa Claus). Being in the Catholic part of the country, we opened our presents on Christmas eve. Nic and I went to hear the choir at her old school run by the Fransican monastery, which was lovely, and we got to walk in the snow. Then we had a lovely dinner and opened our presents.

I received Nigel Slater's first volume of Tender all about vegetables. The pictures of the garden are exquisite. I am still not quite done reading the volume i got for my birthday, so I haven't started reading it yet. But so far, it looks amazing. Oh, and a new cooking pot- medium sized, good for cooking pasta etc. And the sweetest little felt wool sheep that stands on the palm of my hand, grazing. She is the preview or ersatz sheep until we have land and can buy our first sheep of our own. My mother incidentally has a friend from high school who is moving to Ireland full time next year from the states and he has sheep and we can go visit and learn how to shear and milk and everything sheep related. He keeps merino sheep and angora goats. I am hoping to get some wool sent here way before we go visit. Like in the next weeks.

Christmas morning the duck went in the oven stuffed with Hokkaido winter squash, chestnuts, apple, quince, and hazelnuts. And we had pierogi, duck, and red cabbage cooked with onions and apples followed by Christmas cookies. Christmas cookies, by the way, are traditionally not eaten until Christmas eve here, so we baked all these different kinds of cookies and then couldn't eat any of them.

It snowing all three days meant that we couldn't drive anywhere and no one could visit us, so we had lovely quiet days with Nic's parents eating, playing cards, singing Christmas carols, and being together.

All of that said, I had to wonder often through the days what Christmas really means to me. Jesus as a child and the story of Christianity doesn't actually have any resonance with me. Of course, what is important is the food and friendship and the traditions of the time. Those I can connect to, and enjoy thoroughly. However, I couldn't find any root for the holiday, nothing to track it to that made sense for me. The solstice is much more resonant. I walked out around sunrise on the morning of the 21rst, which at this latitude (50 7 N 8 41 E) was 8:22am (By way of comparison: NYC 40 47 N 73 58 W and the sun rose at 7:11 that morning) But it is interesting that because no one around here, publicly anymore anyway, celebrates the solstice, it just doesn't have the psychic reverberance that Christmas does. With Christmas Markets and everything so CHRISTMAS here in Germany, there isn't much psychic space for anything else during that time, no matter which religion. I kept reminding myself on christmas day that for so many people around the world, it was just a Saturday. That said, the time together and sharing the traditions of the holiday were beautiful. especially our tree, which I will add a picture of when i am back in Großkrotzenburg and can transfer it from the camera.

For now, I am sitting on the floor in our new apartment, with almost no furniture, having painted three of the five rooms, happy to be in an almost empty apartment (I brought things for the kitchen, of course) with the quiet and the candle.

in a Winter Storm

I came back to Großkrotzenburg tonight on auto pilot instead of going to our new apartment. excuse me NEW APARTMENT!!! in the middle of a blizzard which i hope has stopped which will allow me tomorrow morning to get to work. Which, by the way is one street over from our NEW APARTMENT. I am not sure why I came back here tonight, except that i was prepared to do that and didn't think about it. Which is typical of any and all problems in my life- they start with me not thinking and then opening my mouth and inserting my foot, or just picking up that same foot and stepping in a pile of it. Or i just proceed gamely along, not thinking, until I can't and then i wonder, what happened?

Somehow, in the midst of all of this falling snow and foot issues I have been miraculously, continuously, lovingly cared for by mothers in various countries, friends in even more countries, strangers, bus drivers, bosses, co-workers, aquaintances, and surely a host of invisible beings who protect me and guide me- beautiful human fool that i am, that we all are, along my way. I am so thankful and grateful to be alive. Grateful to be in another country and have food to eat and a home to live in and A NEW APARTMENT and friendships beginning, and still some friends from the states who still care and write and love me. As a friend said the other day, it basically all boils down to gratitude to be alive. I can be the richest person in the world, but if I am not grateful, what good is it?

Reading Charles Dickens' a Christmas Carol, which I never have before. Which, by the way is fabulous. And of course, the whole thing with Scrooge is, he has all the money he could ever ever use and he is miserable and impoverished internally. I don't have 100 Euros to rub together, but I hope I am internally rich. At least I feel so. I catch myself thinking quite often- Wow, I feel like the richest person alive- after coming upon some secret ordinary wonder or beauty-gift from life.

For example, today I had fresh goat cheese and a pear, dates and walnuts for breakfast with green tea. My wife (I have a wife!) made me a coffee with sheeps milk and then i walked to work (from our new apartment), where I got to cook yummy things for 5 hours (including a banana hazelnut chocolate cake). Could I be luckier? I don't think so. And the biggest gift of all is that I know it.

As another friend said, my god how I love this life.

Thursday Potato Soup
2 Leeks
4 onions
10 potatoes
3 carrots

vegetable stock
salt and pepper
bay leaves
garlic
chili
marjoran
cream
butter
lemon rind
parsley

Peel the carrots and potatoes, cut off the tough part of the greens from the leeks, peel the onions and put all "discarded" trimmings with the bay eaves into water and simmer.

Chop carrots and onions and leeks in a fine dice and sautee in a pan with salt and pepper. Add the garlic, which you have macerated with salt using the side of your knife on the cutting board or in a mortar and pestle.

Either pour the stock into another pot or take all the trimmings out of the one you made the stock in, quarter the potatoes and put them in the stock to cook until soft. Mash the potatoes when soft. Add the sauteed veggies, marjoran, and chili, and finely chopped lemon rind. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add the cream and fresh parsley.

Alp horn

Look what we heard at the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas Market. Not exactly them, but some folks from around here. So pretty and calming. It comes from the Alps and you can hear the sound of these horns from very far away.

Foodie Post

Look what I found while looking for the turkey recipe!
A foodie tv series produced by Gourmet Magazine!

Here is what it says on the website:
With the breadth of international travel combined with a passion for food, Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie delivers a unique cultural look at the world, food first. Each episode of this mouthwatering food, culture, and travel series dives into the diverse realm of the world's greatest cuisine, from New Zealand's purest honey to Italy's famous Parmigiano-Reggiano. Over the course of 20 half-hour episodes, this James Beard Award-winning series promises to unearth an all-new feast of fabulous food trends, exotic ingredients, and in-the-know food players.

I have to watch every episode, of course. I watched Hawaii today. Farmers, Cooks, Culture. I couldn't be happier! I think Food- its growing, its traditions, its yumminess- is really my expression of creativity. Then wool. Oh and then singing and performing. But food is first.

Speaking of food, here is the recipe for the turkey. If you are planing on doing turkey for Christmas, this is your recipe. trust me.

Here are a few recipes I created this last week...

Autumn Chicken Salad

1 cup Leftover chicken, whatever you got, shredded
1 small fennel bulb, thinly sliced (including some of the "feathers"
1/2 red onion, finely diced
1/2 cup roasted walnuts
1/2 an apple, sliced in three sections, cored, and thinly sliced
8-12 oil cured black olives, pits removed and torn in thirds
olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, salt, fresh crushed black pepper

Just mix it all together.

Sausages with red onions and apples in a mustard sauce

2 mild pork sausages, sliced in 3/4 inch slices on the diagonal
1 apple, cored and quartered and sliced in short fat slices across the quarter
1 red onion
thyme
parsley
mustard
cream
salt
sumac

sausages and onions:
peel, halve, and slice onion and put in pan with olive oil
cut up sausages and add
cover and sauté on a med high flame till sausages are browned and onion is translucent
turn down flame and add salt, finish cooking and put into a bowl
next:
add cream, thyme and parsley (if dried) to pan, warm
add mustard, black fresh ground pepper, and salt
take off the heat (if fresh, add the chopped herbs now)
pour over sausages
last:
put an almond-sized piece of butter in the pan, melt
add apple pieces and sauté till slightly browned
pour onto sausages
sprinkle sumac and smoked salt on top, if you have them
eat slow if you can.

For my birthday I received Nigel Slater's new cookbook, or cookery book as he calls it, called Tender II. Tender I was about vegetables and this one is about fruits. He is exactly the kind of cook I aspire to be, a soul brother elder in the garden and kitchen pointing the way. All of the vegetables and fruits in Tender he grows in his garden. He grows them. THen he cooks them. Without being some celebrity chef, although he writes a column in a newspaper about cooking and he has a television series on the bbc about simple cooking, oh and a film has just been made based on his autobiography, Toast: the story of a boy's hunger. However, his recipes are simple, rarely having more than 10 ingredients, and deeply nourishing. His passion for good food, for growing food, and for life, are apparent in each of the recipes. I cannot more highly recommend that you go and buy his cookbook and let it inspire your garden, your purchases at farmer's markets, and you cooking.  Hooray Nigel Slater! And the best thing is, my sister has promised to order  Tender I as a belated birthday present! Please visit Nigel Slater's website for recipes and a list of his books.

and lastly, in gratitude to those I eat with and speak of the Great Everything with;

before the walrus and the carpenter feasted on the oysters the walrus was purported to have said:
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:

Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--

Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--

And whether pigs have wings."

Birthday Post

Happy Thanksgiving Birthday to Me

Menu

Turkey brined in beer and salt water and then roasted with a barley malt and apple cider vinegar sage glaze

Stuffing with chestnuts, quince, fennel, onion

Creamed leeks and mushrooms in Bechamel

Gravy and au jou

Green salad with cranberry vinaigrette

Cranberry sauce with oranges and apples

Mashed potatoes

Pumpkin pie and apple pie with whipped cream

It was wonderful and a smashing success in the food department. I think a good time was had by all. At a certain point I sat watching everyone eat and talk and drink beer and wine and laugh and generally enjoy themselves and i wept at how grateful i was to cook for three days and have it be so received and taste really good. It was a moment of feeling deeply in relationship and belonging and happily of service and wildly in love with food and people and life, the last of which is my favorite state to be in. So, I had to cry a little from happiness and contentment. Here are some photos...

November means Wind

In Germany, November seems to have a similar flavor as march in the states- in like a lion, out like a lamb- except reversed. And it was a rather wet lamb in the beginning as it rained the first handful of days. Ok, I am stopping the metaphor now. Suffice it to say that it is windy. And the days are getting so short. I always forget how far north we are, somewhere latitudinaly north of Toronto, Canada. So it is dusk now, at 4:45pm, mid-way through November. The good news is we can light candles and listen to the blues and drink Chai and get in the bath and wear hand made sweaters and scarves. And make christmas cookies, because I am the sort of person that continues the traditions of eating and celebrating at christmas without any of the actual religious part. I don't really have any qualms with that, as Christmas was a big cover up and absorption of many indigenous and pre-Christian traditions- trees, candles and stars, santa claus (more on him in another post), passing through the darkest nights to the return (birth) of the sun (son), singing, drinking hot alcoholic drinks, baking cookies and feasting together, dancing and releasing the old year, presents (offerings); these are all traditions that belong to the time of year, rather than the particular religious festival of Christmas. SO, I can happily abandon myself to the pleasures of eating and drinking and celebrating with no guilt or remorse. phew, glad I got that cleared up.

Here are the cookies we are going to make:
Peanut butter with Hershey's kisses
Biscochitos (anise flavored New Mexico cookies)
Toffee bars (recipe from  my mother's friend from High School)
Spritz (German butter cookies that you squeeze out of a icing flute)
Chocolate Spritz
Mocha bean cookies
Bethmann's (almond/marzipan cookies)

Before Christmas, however, comes my birthday and before that comes Thanksgiving.
We'll have Thanksgiving on the weekend with our friend whose father was a GI, which makes him half American by culture and full American by passport. I am going to make pumpkin chestnut soup. And pumpkin Pie and apple pie. He'll make the Turkey and who knows what else. I'll make Gravy.

Then for my birthday We'll have a marzipan sour cherry torte, for which I promise to include the recipe here if it turns out to be as delicious as it sounds.

I have been making lots of soups lately. Other than that I have been too busy to make anything. But I made three soups this week that are worth mentioning


Pumpkin Sambar
Whenever I cook Indian food I have to get everything prepared and then it goes really really fast- almost faster than I can keep up with.

1 cup red lentils, cooked
2 cups (at least, maybe 3 is better) winter squash, steamed
1 onion, finely chopped
1-2 green chiles, chopped
1" ginger, finely chopped
1/2 cup grated coconut
1 T mustard seeds
2 tomatoes, chopped
1T tamarind paste (add to ~3T hot water and work the tamarind until a slurry forms, remove any pith)
sambar powder (make the effort to find it)
curry leaves (make the effort to find them)
salt
fresh cilantro

In a pot, pour 2T oil and heat until sizzling (but not smoking) add mustard seeds and fry for 30 seconds. Add the onion, chiles, curry leaves, and coconut and fry until golden brown (not long). Stirring continuously, add tomato, tamarind slurry, 2-3 t, sambar powder and salt. Lastly, add pumpkin, dal and water to form the consistency of a thick soup. Simmer until hot (about 15 minutes) garnish with  cilantro, eat with rice and hot mango pickle.

Kale Soup
In water add the following:
1 onion
cubed winter squash
cubed beets
bay leaves
rosemary
pinch of anise or nutmeg, optional

Simmer until tender. Chop lots of kale and add to the soup along with salt, fresh ground black pepper,  and butter. When the kale is finished, add cream to taste (don't be shy).


Greek Vegetable Soup
1 clove garlic
1 leek
12 mushrooms (white button or brown crimini)
bunch of spinach
3 carrots
1 dried red chile
bay leaves, rosemary, sage, mint
Feta cheese

Make a broth with the spinach stalks, leek outer leaves and thick green leaves (i always use the tender ones), carrot peels, bay leaves, rosemary stalks. Simmer for one hour.

Sautee leeks in lots of good olive oil till translucent, add sliced mushrooms, chopped carrots garlic and salt, red chile, chopped rosemary and sage, two cups of broth and cover. Coarsely chop spinach, crumble or cube feta, chop mint. When carrots are tender, add the remaining items, correct salt and turn flame way low. Leave the lid only half on, otherwise the spinach will go gray. When the spinach is wilted, the soup is ready. Oh, I added croutons.

Croutons
Day old bread cut into cubes
lots of olive oil
salt, fresh ground pepper, paprika
toss all together with hands
toast in the oven on 350, turning with a spatula every 5 minutes or so. keep watch and take them out when they get to the point you like.

Oh, and I have been making and drinking lots of chai. When I get a good ratio of ingredients, I'll post the recipe. And here, because I love them so much, are the sheep we saw on a drive in the Odenwald.

on not posting

I have had the stomach flu and have lately only been making things that are too disgusting to share with anyone other than the toilet bowl. enough said? But I am now well and heading into a new week.

On friday we studied Plusqueamperfect (sp?) and Praeteritum (i spelled it right) and i wasn't there so now i get to play catch up with yet another version of the same verbs I barely know in an unrecognizable form. The Praeteritum form is used when telling a story about something that is past and definitely finished. Like in a story book. Like what most of us do in our minds all day even thought it is finished.

I however, was too weak to do anything but sleep for two whole days and then I had to trick myself to stay in bed for another whole day by reading the first three books of Harry Potter in a row.

Now I am back to cooking, if not quite up to eating everything I was before. However, I have noticed in the last weeks that when I am too busy to make things with my hands- cooking, spinning, painting, whatever, then I usually end up cranky, irritable, easily hooked, tired, and miserable. Making things with my hands keeps me balanced and literally in touch with the world around me rather than caught up in the many thoughts in Praeteritum swimming around my head. That is, I don't believe them as much and I don't, as a wonderful visiting teacher at the Zen Center once said, I don't go looking for big juicy hooks to bite. So there.

Today, to make up for all of this, I made green chile stew (I have dried green chiles from New Mexico) finally took the dried mint and tarragon off of their stems and stored them in clean jars, organized all of my loose teas and labelled them, wrote this blog post, and I plan on spinning later on after I finish my homework on...Praeteritum.