Taking the Scenic Route

Every once in a while lunch just comes together and I make healthy food good enough to actually enjoy. Today was such a day, so I figured I should write it down so I can try for a repeat sometime.

I think I ended up making something that resembles Borscht, but I have never eaten Borscht (because it always has onions in it and I am allergic to onions), so I can’t really judge if it actually tastes like Borscht, but it was tasty.

1 can of diced tomatoes, including liquid
1 can of shoestring beets, including liquid
1 can of black-eyed peas (well rinsed to make me easier to be around later)
a large half of a turnip green bunch (I just stuck them in the sink to rinse, then took them directly out of the colinder and tore them up and threw them on top until no more would fit)
about half an apple grated onto the top (ok, this was an afterthought. Zora left a half eaten apple on the table and I thought it might add some sweetness)
Later on, when I realized it looked like Borscht, I threw in a few glugs of vinegar, maybe a quarter to half a cup. I would guess that apple cider vinegar would be good, but I just used the plain stuff from my laundry shelf.
About half way through cooking, I added a layer of dill (probably 1-2 tsps)
a generous dash of cayenne pepper
a dash of margorham
a dash of ground cloves.

I have very little idea of how long it cooked (long enough for me to be on hold with our health insurance, the pharmacy, me to build a sand castle and play a short game of soccer…maybe an hourish, maybe more. I basically waited until the turnip greens were soft enough to chew through.

Zane, naturally, wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole, but Zora sat on my lap and ate half of my first bowl, declaring it “YUMMY!” (of course, if she would have had her own bowl, she wouldn’t have eaten it *sigh*). I was pleasantly surprised. I managed to make a vegan, healthy dish that I actually wanted “seconds” of. Cool beans.

This week there was no program at Exploration Place, so Robert came over with his kids so that we could help him turn his pumpkins into pies while the kids played together. They guys played on the computer, watched Wall-E, and ran around outside.

Watching a Movie

Here we are turning baked pumpkin into strained pumpkin the easy way. We let the fiberous part drop off into the blender so that we could run it through and make it easier to use in breads and cookies later, and use the good stuff for the pies.

Zora helped hold the blender pitcher.

The guys were laughing at the pumpkin in the cheesecloth because it kept sounding like it was peeing. lol

Hard at work

The littlest nerds playing a game together on the computer.

While the pies were baking, Zach worked on my computer for a while to replace the power supply (I think) so that my computer would quit crashing.

By the end of the day we had two meals together, baked 6 pies, and had enough extra pumpkin for many cookies and muffins when he took it home. The kids wore each other out and Zora was asleep before we got the call from them that they had made it home safely. It was a great day.

The weather turns cool and I can enjoy my kitchen again. I love cool weather cooking…long simmering soups and roasts, the house filled with the smells of baking. Mmmmm.

Yesterday we made the first bread of the season (I really don’t like to bake in the summer if I can avoid it). After we made the dough together, Zora insisted on making her own mess batch of glue dough. She had a lot of fun. She even insisted on warming up the “milk” (water & flour) in the microwave. (just putting it in there and setting the timer seemed to satifsfy her…her brow scrunched up a bit like something was right, but the ding of the bell made it better. lol)

“heavywork” lol

We just came from breakfast, and I hope to make this post without the internet dropping me again, then I gather everything up and we check out of the hotel when Zach comes home for an early lunch. This afternoon Zach goes back to work, I buy a bit of chocolate to bring home and sit someplace and knit. When Zach gets off from work, the guy who drove us here will drive us back to Frankfurt, where we will spend the night. In the morning, we go to the airport and spend about 14-16 hours dealing with flights and airport stuff. We take off from Germany at 7am Kansas time, have a 2 hour layover in Chicago, then another hour to Wichita. We should land at about 7:15 pm (if I remember right…don’t have the itinerary handy) This is likely my last post from Germany.

Anyway, our last full day in Attendorn, Germany:

I finally got brave enough to try a “Donor” sandwich.  I got the small and it was plenty big enough for me.  It meat (I would guess lamb) shaved right off the rotating rotisiarrie, put into flatbread, with several kinds of cabbage, lettuce, some yogurt sauce, tomato, and I think Feta.  Qe got them at the shop next to the hotel.  Zach has had several of these over the last few weeks for lunch, but I generally am wary of food like this, but it was really good.

What do we have here?  Another yarn shop.  A little shop, but they had some nice yarn.  I got one skien of white wool to practice sock knitting.  I haven’t done a few of the techniques I need for socks in a while and it is always good to practice a technique with white/light yarn before digging in to the patterned stuff so you can see what you are doing better.  They had Addis in there for a whole lot less than I have ever seen them in the states.  I about cried walking away from them, but I can’t afford any more stuff right now.  lol.

The vending machine in the hotel.  The selection seems pretty par for the course here.  Coke, Fanta, Sparkling water (I don’t know what the deal is with sparkling water, but they don’t drink tap water here.  Everything is “water with gas”.  I can not wait to drink real water again.  This stuff makes me burp like crazy. lol), Apple juice with “gas”, and Beer.  Yes, beer in a vending machine.  Zach got one last night to see if it is regular beer or non-alcoholic.  It is regular beer.  German beer with lots of hops. 

Just for the record, if it says “Hallo” (Hello), you can get stuff.  If it says “Leer” it means that no matter how much money you put in the thing, it will keep spitting it back at you.  We thought there was a trick to it that we didn’t understand or that we needed “leer coins” or something.  The “trick” was that “leer” means “empty”.  lol.

“Trink Coca Cola”

The last night in Attendorn and we decided we had to eat at the hotel.  The food is great and we really enjoy the staff.  We did not know what we were hungry for, and since the place wasn’t busy, we asked Otto to make us what he wanted…without onions.  lol.  I like seeing what chefs do when given a little freedom, and don’t have the opportunity very often these days.  Plus, they know which ingredients are the highest quality that day, and are often able to create really spectacular meals because of it.  Chef Otto didn’t dissapoint.   

Here he is with the staff around him.  They are a neat bunch of people

And here is the magnificent meal he presented us with.  The pictures just don’t do it justice.  Both rustic and elegant, it was absolutely magnificnent.  It was a fish stuffed with an omlet.  In the omlet there were potatoes and mushrooms.  The seasoning was just superb, nicely layered and well balanced.  The whole thing just melted in your mouth.  I have never had fish that I enjoyed so much in my life.  I have worked in 4 and 5 star hotels and restaurants with world renowned chefs and can’t remember a dish I liked so much.  Especially surprising because I am more a “cream sauce and cheese make the meal” kind of gal (with the waist line to prove it) and this had nothing like that in it.  What an excellent end to a great vacation.

And I will finish with two more shots of our home for the last two weeks.  I can’t recommend the hotel highly enough.  Even this former restaurant and hotel manager was able to relax and just enjoy myself, something I can struggle with because I have difficulty letting my critical eye relax.  No problem with that here. 

It was a great vacation, but I am so ready to hold my kids in my arms again.  I really miss them.  My heart just aches waiting to see them again.  Mom and Dad are bringing them to the airport so we can see them moments after taxing down the runway.  I can’t wait.  I am all teary just thinking about it.

Last night when we went to eat, both restaurant areas were fully booked, so we ate in the bar.  Frankly, the bar is more fun to us because it is more lively, so that was a good thing as far as we were concerned.  The food here is always top notch.  Very, very good. 

One of the fun things about the bar is the group of guys that are almost always there, playing cards and giving each other a hard time.  I can’t understand a thing they are saying, but it is obvious they are enjoying themselves and it is fun to overhear the enthusiastic jarring across the table as they play.  I love hearing them in the background as we sit and talk.

The Beef vs. Pork tangent
The closest thing I have had to an exception to “all food here is great”  is the steak I had last night.  The steak was well seasoned and the flavor was good, but I am spoiled by living in the heart of beef country and used to fork tender steaks.  (as in, you really don’t need a knife if you are eating a good steak).  I definatly needed my knife, and was having to dig in my brain on how to cut it so that it was against the grain to make it more tender to eat.  lol.  Now I understand why there is hardly any beef in the grocery stores, and I really should have taken that as a clue not to order beef here.  It tasted really good, and the chef did a great job with the best quality I suspect he had available. In fact, I think the pasta we have enjoyed a few times has beef tenderloins on top, but it is prepared in a way that helps deal with any toughness.  That was fork tender, so I assumed the regular steaks would be too.  Not so true. 

It is the opposite of home.  At home, pork is usually much tougher, dry and you have to prepare it in ways that compensate for that (pound the heck out of it, put it in sauces, cut it the right direction, etc), but here it is so tender and tasty that I am getting over my prejudice against pork steaks.  lol  They love their pork here and do an amazing job of preparing it.

So, if you come to Germany from beef country and want to order beef, order it in a form where they can use knife skills and other tricks of the trade to make it tender.  A slab of beef is not going to be your best choice here.  If you don’t have any restrictions on pork, get that instead.  Every restaurant here seems to do really well with pork.  (of course, some are better than others, but generally speaking, pork is a better choice.)

…and, back on topic
The staff here are just exceptional.  I usually have to adjust my expectations for places because, as a former hotel/restaurant manager, I have a tendancy to see any imperfection because that is what you have to do to improve the performance of your staff  (and yourself).  Here the service seems pretty flawless, and quite exceptional. 

It is almost becoming a running joke between Zach and I that they must have elves watching the room to see when I leave and then hurry and clean it while I am gone.  I don’t leave at the same time every day, and sometimes not until the evening.  To my horror, one night when I left in the evening, I didn’t expect them to clean the room that late and left a little pile of toenail clippings on the endtable (Zach interupted me when he came home and I hadn’t tidied up yet) and they came and cleaned.  I was mortified when I realized the toenail clipping pile was gone and the table cleaned off.  I know, from years of experience, that is probably nowhere near the grossest thing they have seen, but still. 

The waitstaff / barstaff here is really spectacular.  The only major difference between here and home are cultural ones.  Here it is obvious that they expect you to linger for a while after the meal, and linger over your drinks (rather than chugging and needing refills).  They expect you to go at a more leisurly pace than we were accustomed to.  It has taken almost a week for us to really get the pace here and learn to just chill out enough to just sit.  Finally, last Sunday, a table actually left before we did and we knew we had finally hit the relaxed rhythm that is the norm around here.  Take the leisurely pace together with “a good German Beer takes 7 minutes to pour” and you have a totally different pace than the fast paced American meals where you are practically pushed out of the restaurant to turn over the table. (especially if you have kids in tow)  Of course, it might also be because it is a smaller town and not a metropolitan area too.  Small towns in the US let you linger a bit longer too. (but you almost have to get to the “one stoplight” towns and smaller to have that pace there)

Everyone seems to go out of their way to make sure we are comfortable and happy.  They don’t seem annoyed by our struggle with the language, and most of them speak at least a little English.  We are gaining a little on German words, but it still isn’t to the level of people who claim they don’t know much English.  lol.  Apparently, we don’t have the accent right yet either because even when we use German, they smile, amused, and start talking to us in English.  lol.  We must be pretty transparent.

The chef here, Otto, is really quite exceptional.  I was shocked on my first time in the dining room when he came out to make sure that garlic was ok when he got the message that I couldn’t eat onions.  He double checks with us almost every meal now if he has a question.  Pretty cool.  On a more personal note, the first time he came out I knew immediatly that he looked just like somebody I knew.  I couldn’t place it for a while, but it wasn’t just how he looked, but how he held himself…his posture, his gestures, his facial expressions…everything.  Almost uncanny.  Zach said he thought the same thing but couldn’t place it either, only commenting that he thought it was somebody that he knew, but that I knew better.  It took us a few days and all of a sudden it hit us who he looks like.  He seriously has a doppleganger in Kansas.  Here is a test for my mom and Dawn, who also know this person.  You might not get it without seeing the body language, but let’s see if you can determine the doppleganger too:

Another cultural difference between here and the US is the concept of leftovers.  I can not for the life of me figure out how people eat such huge portions and are not particularly fat.  I am fat.  I can put it away, but I can not finish an entire meal here, no matter how hungry I am.  It is just an astonishing amount of food.  Apparently they eat it all because they are not at all familiar with the concept of taking the leftovers home with you.  They have no carryout dishes/boxes/bags in the restaurant for food take away.  Last night, when we asked if we could take the leftovers to our room “Packin’ ” (probably a very different spelling, but that is what the word sounds like to my ears if you ask for a to-go bag).  When we were ready to leave, this it what the waiter brought us:

ROLF!  They have to think we are just nuts.  They didn’t have any take away dishes, so they just wrapped them in kitchen dishes and sent them with us.  lol.  I don’t think we will ask for “packin’ ” again.   I was not expecting that at all.

One more quickie before I sign off.  I am amused by the exit sign.  lol

In contrast to Saturday, Sunday was calm and laid back.

In the morning Zach went out and picked up some bakery rolls, and we sat around leisurely enjoying coffee and rolls, and a few of the locally made chocolates we picked up Friday night until we were itching to get out.

The “excitement” of the evening was taking a different route to the restaurant area for supper. On the way we discovered the other old wall tower, just around the corner from the one I took pictures of the other day. I thought the other one was one of the buildings that I could see from my window, but after seeing it, the placement didn’t make sense, so today when we went out we went looking for the tower we could see. This one appears a bit shorter, and doesn’t have a museum inside, but it is still very charming.

Other views as we walked around

Those look like soybeans. Soybeans? In a garden plot? Why would somebody grow soybeans in a garden?

notice that the parking spaces are defined by differently angled bricks instead of paint

 
Suppertime.

This time we ordered some regional favorites. We had a waiter that spoke English so well we asked him where he was from. He is from Germany, but studied in Scotland for two years and learned English there. That accounted for the Scottish accent, but he really spoke English like it was his native language. It allowed us to ask him questions and order the local favorites (for Zach) and I got something closely related. (I am more adventurous than I used to be, but not like Zach).

Zach got “Sauerlander Krustchen: paniertes Schnitzel auf Toast mit Champignonrahmsauce, Pommes frites, Spiegeliei und Salatgarnitur. (Pork fritter, on toast, covered with a mushroom sauce and an egg. Served with a salad and fries)

I got: Kaseschnitzel: paniertes Schnitzel mit Kasesohnesauce, Kroketten und Salatbeilage. (pork fritter with a cheese sauce, served with tater tot type potatoes, with a salad).

The salad you see in between the plates and on Zach’s plate seems to be a normal salad around here. It consists of a few kinds of cabbage in a sour/vinegar type dressing, with carrots, cucumbers, romainne lettuce, and corn. Really good actually. I am going to try and make something like it at home.

The beer this evening was first, a Diebals, then I got a wheat beer and Zach tried the waiter’s favorite beer, and then we switched because the waiter’s favorite was a banana infused beer that was too sweet for Zach. lol. For once I liked something he didn’t. Rarity.

We did not discover until partway through our trip home that if you set the automatic navigation system to “short route” it is different than “fast route”. To us, shortes route is the fastest route, so we didn’t think much of it when we set it initially. What we ended up taking was truly the scenic route, weaving through the countryside and small towns. It was nice and showed us that Attendorn is a pretty typical smaller town here in Germany. We went past lots of old churches as the roads wound through the rolling countryside. We enjoyed watching small town life as we puttered through the streets. At one intersection, we saw a bridal party being chased and honked at by a line of cars. (it was cool to see they do that here too and it isn’t just an American thing to do) There were trees everywhere. My biggest impression of Germany is probably how green it is and how many trees tower over the roads and countryside.

Eventually, the architecture started changing slightly and the towns along the way became a little denser and gradually looked more and more urban, until we found ourselves driving in a large metropolitan Bonn.

One of the more unsettleing things is that the road share the same space as the trains in places. There wasn’t any choice but to follow the roadway, but dang, it made us nervous. As we got into town, the lanes of traffic split, with the rails in the middle, so you were right up next to any passing trains. The trains were really short too. I am used to freight trains, miles long at times. This is maybe two up to six cars long, painted brightly with advertisements.

Our first blip with the navigaton system came when we were in the middle of heavy traffic in downtown Bonn. The voice suddenly announced “You have reached your final destination area” with no further explanation and we were like “Where?” We are in the middle of traffic and no sign of the specific store we are looking for. We decided it might be on one of the side streets and maybe you can’t drive there. (a weird phenomena we have noticed around here. On the older, super narrow streets, they often block off all automobile traffic and you are only able to walk). We found a parking garage just before the train platform (and what appeared to be a giant outdoor escalator) and went down into that, hoping we would be able to figure out how to pay for the dang thing. lol. Faced with multiple directions we could go, pointing to, presumably, different streets above, we kept going left. We ended up finding a parking space about 5 spaces away from one of the exit doors down a level. I had to get out of the car so Zach could park because the space was so narrow that I would have not been able to get out.

We ended up next to an elevator, and when we came up to the street, we discovered we were across the street from where we went down. lol.

That was odd. It was the first time I can remember being in a group that big crossing a street. It was a wall of people and bikes pushing forward to the other side. We walked away from the train platform, trying to figure out where exactly it was that the navigation system abruptly announced we were there. As it turns out, we overshot it a few streets, but we did eventually find the street we were looking for.

Along the way, Zach was amused by the fake birds on the sign.

The shopping area itself was really amazing, although the crush of people made me know this is not a place I would ever want to come with Zane.

Zach is the one who spotted the place first. I was dazzled by all of the shops and not looking up at signs, but suddenly there it was, the meca of German Yarn: Wolle Rodel. (I don’t know how to put those little circles above letters, so pretend they are there) Oh.My.Goodness. Now THIS, my friends, is a yarn store. Whoa. The selection was dizzying. I read someplace on the internet that their in store brand is pretty good, but I ended up picking out things like Regina, and Lana and other magnificent brands. It was about half the price that I would pay for it in Kansas, and considerably more than the dozen or so various colorways I have ever seen IRL before. It was Yarn Nirvana. I had fun. They had all kinds of yarn there, but I was focused on the sock yarn because I don’t feel like spending the kind of cash I would need to if I were to make my plus sized body a sweater, but socks I can handle. lol (I will take pictures of the stash later, but they are in the car trunk at Zach’s work right now)

After the yarn, headed back to the street, we noticed Beethoven’s house and museum. We stopped there to look in the shop and at the building, but didn’t really want to spend the time going through the house, and especially not pay to do it when we had plans of going to the art museum in Cologne. (Had it been Bach, or Vivaldi, or especially Mozart, we would have spent more time there despite our other plans, but the desire to see a Monet and Rembrant IRL was overwhelming my desire to see Beethoven’s house on the inside)  I did, however, pee there. So, I can now say that I peed at Beethovens house. lol.

So, for those of you who found this blog searching for where to shop for yarn in Bonn, Germany, find Beethoven’s house and on the other side of the street, a few shops up (away from the main driving street), you will see Wolle Rodel.  On the street we drove in on, there was a big McDonalds on the corner across the street from the walkable shopping area.

We grabbed a quick snack and cup of coffee before going back to our car, with my wool sitting at my feet.  We had cheesy bread and some pastries with bavarian cream in them.  We decided that “hey, I think these are what toaster pastries are supposed to taste like”

Along the way we came across a group of American (by the accent) college age girls all giggly trying to shuffle around and take pictures of eachother. I asked if they wanted me to take a picture of them all together and they were giddy. lol. I think afterwards it might occur to them…”hey…she spoke English”, but they were so focused on what they were doing at the time I don’t think it registered.” lol

Getting out of a parking garage is sort of weird. The “out” bar area isn’t manned. On your way to retrieve your car is a vending machine type thing. You put your parking ticket in there, then start putting in Euros until you have paid it. It stamps it and spits it back out at you. Then you find your car, follow the Ausfahrt signs (our nemonoic, of sorts, to remember which is “exit” is “the Fahrts exit out the Aus”) and find your way to the street. When you get to the exit bars, you slide the stamped ticket in and the bars raise up (and you sigh in releif that you figured it out)

This is where the navigation starts getting weird and you remember why you need to bring a map, a compass, your common sense, and a sense of humor with you on the trip. Right outside the parking garage we set the navigation for Cologne/Kohn.

Since the parking garage exited out onto a side street, we had to first get back on the highway and followed the instructions of the lady in the machine as we wound around the streets. At first, all seemed well, but as it kept telling us to “turn right/left at 100 meters”, then “turn right/left NOW” and it was directing us to turn into buildings, we first thought it was because we don’t have a really good feel for what “meters” is because we think in feet and yards, not the metric system. It seemed like it had us going in circles, and then, we as we pulled up to the exit of the parking garage, we discoverd it had, indeed, directed us in a circle, we pulled over and laughed heartily and tried to reset the navigation system again. It did it again. We decided maybe it thought we were on the highway above, so we pulled farther away and reset the system again. When it tried to take us back to the parking garage, we rebeled and found our own way back to the street. At this point, the navigation system is having her own little meltdown because she thinks we are lost, lost, lost, and keeps insisting that we are “off road” and “New Route, Make a U-Turn” in a sing-songy voice. After hearing this a while, when we are clearly back on track, we decide the lady in the navigation system is autistic, and very happy Zane is not in the back seat to pick up the phrase “New Route, Make a U-Turn” in a sing-songy voice over and over again when we pass something he wants to go to. lol. Eventually we get the navigation system reset and all seems well for the trip to Cologne. It still has us taking side routes instead of the Autobahn, which confuses us, but we can see on the map and with the compass that we are going the right direction, so we live with it.

On to Cologne/Koln

When we walked into the hotel room at the end of the day we decided that it was the fullest and most fun day we have in our lives, with the exception of our wedding day and the birth of our children. Wow, what a day!

We got a late start, at least later than we have been waking up since we got here. We were up late talking to people online back home, and went to bed later than usual.

We left the hotel room intending to just find an ATM to get some cash, grab a roll from a bakery, and get on the road to Bonn and Cologne/Koln.

When we walked towards the bank, we discovered that Saturday is Market day. Lining the shop filled streets (no car traffic any time) were vendors of all kinds. Everything from fruits and veggies, to sausages, to flowers and plants, to garden ornaments, to clothing, to suitcases and purses. It was amazing.

When we went to the bank, we were amused to notice that one of the other people there, looking almost as confused as we were at the multiple type of atm machines (and trying to determine which one to use) was speaking in French. 

While we were struggling with figuring out the bank machines with our phrase books, a choir formed outside.  We stood and watched them for a while.  They appeared to be a high school or college singing group. Pretty good too!

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We sat down for some breakfast at one of the many outdoor cafe/bakeries.  I was really excited to notice that they had a version of poppyseed rolls.  Although they resembled the flavor of my grandma’s poppyseed rolls, it feel short for me.  Still very good, excellent in fact, just not like Grandmas.  It was still pretty neat though.  Zach enjoyed his croissant with fruit filling too.

Walking back to the car still parked at the hotel, we saw a chalk drawing of a house on the side of a building.  We enjoyed seeing a display like this…reminded us of our favorite son.

 We filled the tank up and Zach showed me two quick sites on the way out of town. 

First, the jail.  I wouldn’t want to spend any time there, but a really nice looking jail, as jails go.

And, just down the road, the restaurant his coworkers took him to the first day of work

And, with that we were on the road for a day of adventure.

In the square in the middle of town.

We see lots of touring bikes everywhere

Looking towards the hotel from the town square

Remember the webcam pictures of the town square I linked to before I left?  We think this is the camera that is shooting those pictures.

If you look closely, you can see the white speck that is the camera on the leftmost lower window on the roof of the building on the right.  (the one with the stepped roof line with no shops)

One of the bakeries you can see from the camera. We had coffee and split a bun with cheese baked on it.

These little bees are everywhere.  They drive Zach absolutely nuts.  They are about as abundant as flies are in Kansas. (and about as annoying)

After some shopping, we went back to the hotel for supper.  Tonight the weather was nice enough that they had the patio dining open, so we opted for that. 

If you like something, you can show approval with a thumbs up, but if you show them the A-OK sign, you are calling them a bad name.  (a stinky part of your body).  Don’t do that.  If they know you are an American they are polite enough not to tell you, but certainly notice the faux pax.  If they don’t know you are Americans, they might kick your butt.

 Looking around, enjoying the beer, waiting for the food.

Ah, the food.  I can not say enough good things about the food here.  It is just divine. 

On the way from the hotel restaurant back to our room, we pass by the pizza place we have been to a few times and realized we had no photo of it.  Good food here too, but much more casual.  There seems to be a lot of the combo of Pizza and what appear to be Gyros.  (some sort of Turkish food)

Almost every house has a garden of some kind.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all “unsuccesful” journeys were so pleasant and peaceful?