Inspiration

So I'm reading Julie Julia...  the book they based that movie on about a woman, Julie, who decides to cook all the recipes in Julia Child's cookbook, The Art of French Cooking....  in one year.  There are 524 recipes that she has to get through and she blogs about her efforts.  Well, the book, and the fact that it's Thanksgiving tomorrow, have inspired me.  Today I started with graham cracker crusts sprinkled with dark chocolate for my pumpkin pies.  Except I can't find graham crackers here in Germany.  So I used butter cookies and it seems fine...  On friday I'll cut the absolutely HUGE pumpkin that Oma grew in her garden this summer and on Saturday the pie crusts will be filled.

I had left over crumble.  What's a cook to do?  I made these adorable mini apple-pear tarts in ramekins and topped them with the remaining crumble.  My kids are going to be in heaven!  So  I melted butter and honey in a pot with the juice from one lemon.  Then I peeled and cored 2 apples and a large pear.  I sprinkled them with cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger and tossed them in the yummy buttery, lemony, honey juice.  All got divided up into three ramekins and topped with the remaining crumbly pie crust.  Don't tell my husband that there wasn't enough for a fourth...  They look and smell to die for.  I'll let you know how they tasted.  We're eating them after lunch for dessert.

My mom would be proud of me.  I'm making open faced turkey sandwiches with gravy.  When we were kids, my mom didn't throw anything away.  She still doesn't.  So on about the fourth day after Thanksgiving, we would always have these open faced sandwiches.  It was basically a piece of toasted bread topped with warmed turkey and left over gravy.  It tasted great to me...  We'll see what my boys think of this simple dish.  I don't know why, but yesterday I roasted a turkey breast.  Today we'll have the leftovers in the form of these tasty blasts from my past.

The last effort of the morning was the cranberry cherry compote.  I've read that this can be made up to two weeks in advance and stored in the fridge in an airtight container.  I didn't have shallots or pearl onions, but I did have pearl onions in a glass that I bought in Italy.  They tasted great, so what the hell.  I sauteed them in butter, then added a cup of sugar and a teaspoon of vinegar.  After letting that  caramelize for about 15 minutes, I added a cup of dry white wine, half a cup of vinegar and a cup of dried cherries.  Another glitch.  I had some dried cherries, but not a cup.  I had some dried cranberries, but not a cup.  I had some raisins, but not a cup.  I tossed them all in.  A pinch of salt and 45 minutes later I added a cup of water and 1 lb of cranberries.  The cranberries popped after about 10-minutes.  One should let this cool and then store.  The only problem was it didn't taste right to me.  The smell alone summoned up thoughts of an experiment gone terribly wrong.  Maybe all of my substitutions made for a funky combination.  I'll let Helmut be the taster later and see what he thinks (without saying anything beforehand). It looked beautiful, as if that's any consolation.  If I get a no from Helmut, I'll buy all the ingredients and make it again tomorrow, following the recipe...  Even if I get a "oh, that tastes good" from Helmut, I'm cooking it again tomorrow.  I can't imagine that my sense of smell has somehow gone awry and Helmut, in an effort to boost my ego, would try to trick me into serving a funky cranberry compote to a bunch of germans that have never eaten cranberries.  If they eat my funky cranberry compote, they might be turned off forever!  We certainly wouldn't want that.

Tomorrow I'll be making a turkey stock, the Hummus and choosing the red and white wine...  Oh, and of course the second round on the cranberries...  'Til then.

CONTACT

What do you think of when you hear the word "CONTACT"?  I used to think of contact with beings from outer space or about the internet, contact with new people on the internet.  How about contact with everyone you know when ever you want through our cell phones.  My son, Josef, thinks of making contact with new friends, exchanging phone numbers and making a play date.  My husband, Helmut, thinks of making connections with people or contact fighting, a form of boxing.  My sister Bobbie thinks of touching someone or sending an email, a contact lens maybe?  My mom thinks of contact paper, a paper that has a sticky side and you line your drawers or shelves with it.

I have recently re-evaluated my views on the word "contact".  The last 8 years of my life have been spent living in a small town in Bavaria with my husband and now two children, next door to my in-laws.  We share a garden, we have very separate entrances, but the houses are connected.  I've often heard them make a comment about how they could hear me fighting with the kids in the morning, or worse, when Helmut and I have come home late at night after being out together.  How much do you think they can actually hear?  How good can their hearing actually be at the age of 78?  Helmut's brother lives in our town as well.  He lives across the train tracks with his wife and three teenage boys.  Forget running to the store in your sweats with big sunglasses and Uggs on, hoping not to be noticed.  I've tried it and it doesn't work.  "Frau Mages, what can I get you?" is the first sentence out of everyone's mouth.  They all know me, and knew me from the first week I was here.  It took me years to get to know all of them!  There I am walking home from the bar at 12 mid-night, happy and a little drunk.  Someone is walking towards me with a wool hat pulled down low.  "Hello Stephanie" says the man....  Oh, it's Helmut's brother walking home from the theater!  Now I know that his parents will know that I was out, that I was out without my husband, that I was drinking and they'll probably receive a full account of what I was wearing!  I so didn't grow up in a small town.  I grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.  Besides our direct neighbors, we could pretty much go anywhere incognito.
It also means that when I don't rake the leaves on our side of the house once a week, the neighbors talk.  Or when my neighbor lets her two girls play in the street in November, BAREFOOT, then I talk.
Well, recently my husband's father died.  I've lost two of my grandparents, but for reasons I'm about to explain, it didn't affect me so much.  You see, growing up in a big city, even though everything might seem so jam packed and close together, it's actually harder to visit with people unless they're your neighbors.  There is so much traffic, and it takes so long to get any where.  My grandfather lived until he was 91.  I was 31 at the time of his death.  But throughout the years, I never lived that close to him.  I never spent a lot of quality time with him.  Living next door to Helmut's father, we spent a lot of time together.  Token holiday parties aside, we spent time in the garden together.  We went shopping together.  The kids play in the garden and then go over to Oma and Opa's house.  I have to find them...  Opa loved to work with wood and was always teaching us something about creating instead of buying.  He was a bee keeper and over the years I've gone with him and learned how to care for the bees in the hopes of becoming as good as him one day.  It was a day in, day out relationship with an older couple.  A relationship, that until this point in my life, I had never had.  I miss him, and the kids miss him.  Of course my husband grieves his father dearly.  Oma, over every one else, who has spent the last 60 years of her life with Opa, misses him the most.  I can see the pain drawn on her face, the empty hole that is now a part of her every day life.  We look at pictures of Opa all the time, and talk about him a lot.  So now you understand how my idea of contact has morphed into a new meaning, a positive one.  Close contact with other people, people who are older and in many ways wiser than I, is a totally new experience for me.  I look forward to deepening these contacts in this small town and smiling when my neighbors complain that my side walk isn't clean.

Recipe of the day...

Today I'm going to cook Ribs with Whipped Garlic Potatoes and Bavarian Blaukraut...  YUM!!!

Ribs:
Buy 1lb for each person.  There's a lot of bones.
I buy flat pork ribs, but you can buy Baby Back Ribs too.

Salt and Pepper them, rub them with cayenne pepper and smear them with balsamic vinegar.  The vinegar helps to make the meat soft and caramelized.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Place the ribs meaty side down on a baking sheet that's lined with wax paper (this way you don't have to clean so much).  Roast them for 40 min., then brush them with a Creme di Balsamico.  Turn them over and bake another 20 min.  They should be brown and caramelized on the meaty side and oooohhh so yummy.

Whipped Garlic Potatoes:
125g of Potatoes for each person...
Peel Potatoes and one clove of garlic.  Cut into smaller chunks and place in a pot with just enough water to cover them.  Add the garlic and a pinch of salt.
Cook about 25 min. until the potatoes are soft when pierced with a knife.
The trick is you have to mash them with a potato masher and then whip them with your hand blender.  Warning:  don't puree them, use the whipping attachment!
While you're whipping, add a pad of butter and heavy cream.  It is up to you how much you add.  Keep tasting them until you've found a consistency and flavor you like.  I like mine less creamy, but to each his own!  Add salt and pepper to taste, and Voila!  Whipped Garlic Potatoes.

Bavarian Blaukraut:
1/2 head of Red Cabbage
1 Large Onion
2 Apples, peeled and cored
2 Cups of dry white wine
1/4 Cup of Apple Cider Vinegar
Cinnamon
5 Cloves
1 large bay leaf
Salt and Pepper

The first and hardest thing to do is to grate the Red Cabbage, the Onion and the Apples, SEPARATELY.  I have a fantastic hand held grater thingy that comes with all sorts of different attachments and gadgets.  A food processor would certainly work.  Be careful, you want to grate it all, not hack it into unrecognizable pieces.

Sautee the onions in a bit of olive oil in a large sauce pot.  After about 3 minutes, add the red cabbage and cover the pot.  Stir this occasionally for about 10 minutes.  Add apples, one cup of white wine, half the vinegar, salt, cloves and bay leaf.  Braise the cabbage with the cover on for about 20 min.  When you see the pot is dry, add more wine.  Add the rest of the vinegar and the cinnamon.  Continue braising for another 20 min.  Salt and pepper to taste.  This dish is so famous here in Bavaria, tastes awesome and goes well with meat and fish dishes.

ENJOY!!!  and let me know how it turned out for you.

Romping Part 3: San Benedetto, Italy

Part 3

San Benedetto, Italy:

Sometimes theory can be put into practice. After unpacking and re-packing and organizing and eating and re-organizing and giving the kids a bath and getting them to bed, and doing 100 other things I can't remember right now, I crashed. The problem was, I crashed at 11:30 at night. I couldn't imagine that I could wake up at 2 am and drive to Italy. But I did. We met Tina and Maria downstairs and packed the car and piled in, all 5 of us, and drove. The kids slept and Tina and I talked and drank cappuccinos and talked about what had gone on in our lives over the past month of being separated. We talked and drove and drank and before we knew it the sun was coming up as we were driving out of the mountains in Bozen. We arrived at Susan's at 8:30 am happy, refreshed and HOT. The first thing I did was take off my Uggs and put on flip flops. It was stunning. The resort was even more beautiful than I had remembered, the sun was shining, the blue water of the olympic size pool was sparkling and the air was ripe with the scent of morning dew and fresh Cornettos (Croissants). The early birds were arriving at the pool and as we were checking everything out, I heard a familiar voice from somewhere up above greeting us. It was Susan. Anticipating our arrival, she was setting up breakfast on the terrace. It was soooo great to see her! She always looks great, but after 6 weeks in Italy, she looks even better. We spent most of our days in the same fashion. We would have breakfast on the terrace, already in our bikinis and swim trunks. Then Tina and I and the kids would go to the pool while Susan did her laps and yoga and all the other relaxing fabulous stuff that keeps her happy and looking 10 years younger than she is. One or the other of us would go back to the apartment at around 2 pm and prepare a big fresh, yummy lunch that usually consisted of healthy salads, local cheeses, fish, and something undeniably whole grain. We would then linger by the pool-side again or play water games with the kids until dinner time, which for the Italians isn't before 9 pm in the evening. After which, the kids would fall asleep and we would continue our drinking and eating festivities well into the night. We would, at some point go skinny dipping and then fall into a happy slumber, full and knowing that we could do it all over again tomorrow! Needless to say that after just 10 days of this routine, I firmly believe that Tina and I also looked at least 10 years younger than upon arrival. Well, even if we didn't look 10 years younger, we certainly felt it... We've already made plans to do it again.

Romping Part 2: New York City

Part 2

New York:

After a sad goodbye and a short 4 1/2 hour flight we landed in New York. I could hardly wait to see Josef and Helmut and of course all those special to me in the big apple. My parents picked us up at JFK. Unfortunately, Helmut and Josef were landing 2 hours later at Newark. My sister Tricia was picking them up. One of the perks of having a large family. It was a sweet reunion! and the best was that we got to stay in my sister's apartment, that was currently between rentors... totally cool. We immediately started having fun. One of our morning rituals is to be the first customers in the bagel store. We always order sesame bagels with tuna. We went for long walks in Riverside Park with Uncle Kaya, enjoyed sunset roof-top BBQ's and days at the beach with our girlfriend Theresa. We spent whole afternoons in Central Park at the Meadow. I showed the kids the bathrooms at Tavern on the Green and explained that you can always use the restrooms in restaurants even if you aren't a customer. I enjoyed working with long time colleagues of mine on several fabulous events while Helmut visited FAO Schwartz and the likes with the kids. We visited our friends Don and Michele on Long Island, swam in their pool and BBQ'd big American steaks. We went with Grandpa (my Dad) to his fitness studio and swam for hours in the roof-top pool. Afterwards, we would go home and cook gourmet meals together. The highlight had to be that Helmut and I celebrated 9 years of knowing each other. Our night out started at Quest, a fabulous American bistro, with $15 Grey Goose Martinis and plain green salads with some magical salad dressing that topped any other I had ever tasted. I moved on to home-made raviolis while Helmut reveled in heaven eating the thickest pork loin I'd ever seen over a pool of dark brown beer sauce that would make any German the happiest person alive. We couldn't actually leave without sharing the molten chocolate souffle, which was a good thing because I don't think my mouth had ever actually watered like that before when eating. I wanted to burst out laughing due to how happy my taste buds were. We then walked hand in hand through the East Village over to the West Village, through Washington Square Park and back over to Astor Place. A very comprehensive tour of my romping grounds in my 20's. I was happy. Helmut was happy. It was time to fly home. I decided to pack Helmut's bag separate so that I wouldn't have to do too much packing for Italy when I got home to Germany. The plan was that after returning home to Abensberg at around 3 pm, to rest and sleep a little and at some point in the very middle of the night, to drive to Italy with Tina and her 3 year old daughter Maria...

Romping Part 1: Denver

I recently returned from what I can rightfully call, a romp. It started with Theodor (my four year old son) and I spending two weeks in Denver, Colorado, visiting my sister Barbara and her family. We then flew to New York where we met my husband and our older son, Josef. We had the pleasure of staying in my other sister's three bedroom apartment for two weeks. That is a blessing in itself. Those of you who know what space constraints are like in NYC can attest to that. Soon after returning to Abensberg, my two boys and I said farewell to Helmut and took off with a girlfriend of mine and her daughter to Lago de Garda, a beautiful lake in the north of Italy.

Part 1

Denver:

Theo was very sick... he hadn't been sick for 4 months and then, BLAM right before our flight, he got a fever and a horrible cough. What's a mom to do? I packed a traveling apothecary and hoped for the best. By the time we arrived at my sister Barbara's home, we had been traveling 22 hours door to door. We were both wiped out, and sooooo glad to be there! All the wonderful plans my sister and I had made before our journey had to be put on hold. Our first outing the very next morning was a trip to the pediatrician. Diagnosis: a virus or a reaction to his MMR vaccine - we were told to wait it out. Of course that is a little hard to do when you only have 2 weeks to spend with your gorgeous 1 year old niece and fun-loving, goofy 3 year old nephew. We did our best by playing in the garden, taking lots of naps and drinking lots of fluids. Did I say drinking lots of fluid? It would have been more fitting if I could have been hooked up to an IV drip that fed me H2O around the clock. I felt like the water was being continually sucked out of my body by some imaginary nasty, water sucking fairy. One couldn't drink enough water! I was downing water every chance I had. My lips were so dry they were cracked and bleeding. My nose was bleeding too! When I didn't drink 1/2 liter of water every 30-minutes, I felt as though I was stuck out in the middle of the desert and was going to die if I didn't receive liquids immediately. Barbara, who doesn't drink much water to begin with, thought it was totally amusing. I, on the other hand, drink on average 2 liters of water a day in a normal environment. In the hostile dry-land of Denver I was easily managing 3 liters a day. Point: drink loooots of water in Colorado...

We wound up taking poor sick Theo back to the doctor after a couple of days due to high fevers and uncontrollable coughing. Diagnosis: ear infection and antibiotics. The boy was looking like his old self again after 2 hours of taking his first dose. Antibiotics are amazing. That's when the real fun started. We had play dates and splash pool fun. We visited the Botanical Gardens and the Children's Museum. We went swimming. Instead of bar hopping like we used to do, we went play ground hopping. We planted flowers in the garden and helped the boys color their own clay flower pots. We went shopping and we went shopping, and did I mention we went shopping. When in America, take advantage of the shopping... We had gin and tonics on the terrace and enjoyed home cooked meals prepared by her do-it-all husband, my brother-in-law, Russ. We talked for hours about the advantages and disadvantages of living in big cities and small towns, politics, musik, sports, kids, cars and old and new friends. We laughed until we cried and our stomachs hurt. All in all, time well spent with my sis, whom I sorely miss and her young family, who's growing up so fast they'll be wearing lip stick and going on dates so fast it makes my head spin. I took lots of pictures to freeze the precious moments and to show my kids so they don't forget who their cousins are far away in Denver.

My First Entry

Trend Fasting in Bavaria

Written by a true New Yorker

I haven’t eaten for 7 days!  I’m on my 7^th day.  Wow, somebody please pinch me… I don’t know how I was ever convinced of this, but somehow I just got sucked in.  It’s the hottest trend, like wearing crocs with business suits.  The idea certainly stems from lent, abstaining from life’s pleasures, one of them, of course being FOOD.  Fasting has become the trendy way to shed those nasty extra pounds you’ve packed on during the winter months.

One girlfriend told me she started it, day 3 for her.  The next day 2 other friends, beaming, told me how fabulous they felt after not having eaten for 6 days (huh?).  They planned on stopping at 10, which is the standard “Heilfasten” (healing fast) that’s the big hit.  They talked about it like it was the new drug everyone was dying to get their hands on, and they got it first.

 

Day 1 started on a Wednesday.  I had lots of herbal tea, a soy milk shake for lunch, lots of water and veggie broth for dinner.  Did I mention lots of water?  I felt good, albeit a little hungry.  I have a family of four to feed, two small children that are constantly munching on yummy healthy snacks that I buy and prepare.  I thought it would be torture, but it was okay.  A couple of the women that I meet up with once week for play dates looked at me like I was crazy, but one is from Ireland and the other from Romania.  The three German women practically praised me.  I think my standing with them has been elevated!

 

Day 2 went pretty much the same as far as tea, water, soy milk, and broth.  That’s basically all you get for the duration of this thing!   I noticed a funky pressure behind my eyes. That’s weird.  Time seemed to be slowing down, way down, and my stress level went down a notch.  I cooked a delicious meal for my family, went to the gym, went in the sauna and was up from 6 am until 12 mid-night, my standard hectic day.

 

Day 3 was a Friday.  I decided to leave out the soy milk.  Technically it’s supposed to be butter milk, but I don’t drink any kind of cow’s milk, never have.  I felt great, dare I say jubilant.  I was so friendly to everyone.  I felt like announcing to everyone that I was fasting.  I told the cafe lady at Ikea, “I’m not eating because I’m fasting.”  I told the man at the dry cleaners and the kindergarten teacher.  I would answer the phone and say “hello, I’m fasting.”  What was wrong with me?  How could not eating make me feel so good?  Time was definitely moving slower (could it be because I was starving?).  I was so mellow, like in my college days after I had smoked a joint.  The pressure behind my eyes was gone, but something new started to happen.  You know how in the movies when they want to soften up the look of a woman and they put that filter in front of her that makes her look all illuminated and frosty?  Well, that’s what I was experiencing, everything looked illuminated and frosted.  I bought new pillow cases for my couch cushions, new curtains for my entry hall and a beautiful new fruit bowl.  I had to do something with my time, since eating wasn’t allowed.  That’s it!  I never realized eating took up so much of my time, and now I had all this time to fill.

 

Day 4 we had friends over.  4 kids under the age of 7 were running around and making a lot of noise.  I needed quiet.  I was a little shaky on my feet and that vision thing was intensifying.  My friend’s husband told me my eyes looked glassy.  Water, herbal tea, broth, water, herbal tea, broth…  they ordered pizza and salad, no problem.  I had so much time to help my family and guests feel comfortable.  I wasn’t concerned with eating myself, so setting the table and getting up that extra up-teenth time wasn’t an issue for me.  When they had all finished eating, I had a delicious, fantasic, out of this world dark beer brewed right here in our little town of Abensberg.  I didn’t care that I cheated.  It was good.  Then I drank lots of water and went to bed.

 

Day 5 started out great (Sunday).  I woke up and let my husband sleep in.  I made the kids pancakes from scratch with maple syrup and a fresh fruit salad with cottage cheese.  They loved it, and get this, I served my husband breakfast in bed!  He loved it!  I loved doing it for them!  I’ve never behaved this way.  I’ve never served breakfast in bed, never in 8 years!  Then I went jogging with a girlfriend, who’s also fasting.  Afterwards we hung out trying out different herbal teas and drinking carrot juice (all the while taking care of 4 children).  The fuzzy eye thing was gone, jogging was a trip, and that night I felt, for the first time since I started this thing, wrong.  I couldn’t sleep.  I kept going through in my mind what I would cook when I was eating again.  Whole meals were planned.  Grocery lists were written.  Would I cook it in butter or olive oil?  How would I present my first course?  Where would I store all my groceries once I started eating again?  I finally got up and cleaned out my closets, creating two huge boxes of miscellaneous items to give to the poor.  I had read that for spiritual reasons, fasting doesn’t count unless during your fast, you give to those less fortunate.  I felt fulfilled, and tired.

 

Day 6 is Monday morning.  I felt better than the night before.  I kept dreaming that someone was tickling me and I was laughing so hard I kept waking up laughing.  Up until now, I had only lost about 3 pounds.  I didn’t care.  I’m not overweight and didn’t do this to lose weight, I did it for the experience.  Of course, losing the 5 pounds I put on over the holidays is a plus.  When I weighed myself in the morning, I had lost another 3 pounds.  I can only assume the jogging on no fuel burned up some cellulite and released all those toxins into my system, resulting in last nights dreams and before that, the uneasiness.  Okay, back to the daily grind.  The kids got up, I dressed them, fed them, got their lunch boxes ready and we all rode our bikes to school and kindergarten.  Then I had a breakfast meeting with colleagues at 8:30, where I again told everyone that I was fasting.  I drank tea, juice and a coffee (shhh, don’t tell anyone).  After work, I picked the kids up and made turkey rolls with mashed potatoes with butter beans, and an extra healthy greek salad for my man. I felt like calling friends I hadn’t talked to in a while and chatting.  3 of us wound up going to the movies that night. For the first time, I’m hungry.  I’m not just a little hungry, my stomach is growling and there’s this big knot in my throat.  I made a veggie broth from scratch, drank about 2 liters of it and felt better.

Day 7:  I’m stopping after today.  I hope all the toxins are out.  The feeling of euphoria has ebbed and I snapped at the kids today.  I’m getting kind of used to not eating, but think it’s like riding a bike.  You just start right up again where you left off.  You ask, what do I think?  I’m completely surprised and almost can’t believe that it worked, and that I wasn’t absolutely fried and kranky and dying to eat.  I hope all the Bavarians are proud of me, I’m proud of me.  I’ve lost 8 pounds and my skin has never looked better.  My closets are organized.  I’ve gotten in touch with several old friends and my husband and I have had great sex.  Maybe I’ll try 10 days next time…

 

Saucy Stephanie