Cooking, American-Style

This week has been a busy week for cooking, due in part to a desire to avoid working on graduate school applications. First, I made my squash ravioli on Monday. Needing to use the rest of the squash puree, I decided to make butternut squash-apple soup.

Mmmm...Vegetables

Medicat helped by ravenously licking out the leftover squash puree. Matt, we challenge you to explain this cat's love for all things not meaty. A co-evolution of Americans who cook squash and German house cats? Doubtful.

The finished product. Pretty delicious.

My next cooking project for the week was Thanksgiving dinner. I decided to forego the turkey, since I'll be eating turkey this weekend, as well as the pumpkin pie, since we'd already eaten squash twice this week. Also, the sides are really the best part anyways, in my opinion. I ended up making cornbread, candied sweet potatoes, stuffing, and green bean casserole (Grüne Böhne Auflauf).

You may be wondering what those five random circle on top of the casserole are. Well, those were my attempt at homemade french fried onions. The canned version don't exist in Germany and Alton Brown's version called for panko breadcrumbs, which also do not exist in Germany. I used some German breadcrumbs and then proceeded to burn the onions (they burned before the allotted time), except for the onions which you see in the picture. It tasted good, despite the lack of onion-ness.

Germans wondering what the heck this strange American food is/trying to convince the cat to look up for the picture.

Frohe Erntedankfest! (Happy Thanksgiving!)

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. There is football, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, my wonderfully "unique" family. I also like the idea behind the holiday. A day to sit back with people you care about and be grateful for what you have. That is a pretty cool concept and something that we don't do enough.

However, today doesn't feel anything like Thanksgiving. There's no football, no delicious smells coming from the kitchen, no pumpkin pie, no fake boxing with the Gramps. No intense displays of affection from Geoff and Mike--I'm looking forward to a rib-crushing hug from Mikey upon my return. It makes me a little sad to be in lab and not to have anyone realize that this is not just a day like any other.

Despite the lack of Erntedankfest Stimme (Thanksgiving spirit), I can't help feeling blessed and thankful. I have turkeyless Thanksgiving to look forward to tonight, and Thanksgiving part two to look forward to this weekend. Also, I am getting paid by both the American AND German governments to live here for a year and do some chemistry. That is pretty awesome. I am thankful for all of my family members, be they biological, surrogate, American, German, or adopted Chinese. Frohe Erntedankfest, guys!

Mein Alltagsleben in Deutschland (My Everyday Life in Germany)

Maybe some of you have been wondering what it is I actually do. I know that the Train is interested in the details of my life (Wat up, Dad?) If you have been wondering what I do everyday, this post is for you.

My day starts out like it always has, with great reluctance to wake up. I press snooze a few times and snuggle under my covers. I then ride my bike to the train station, where I catch the train for the appoximately 25 minute ride into Aachen. I like the train because it provides many possibilities for entertainment. I can read a book, listen to my iPod, or contemplate the meaning of life. (I think I've almost found it.) Train rides are also die perfekte Gelegenheit für die Beobachtung der schrecklichen, gemeinen Deutschen in ihrem natürlichen Lebensraum. (the perfect opportunity to observe the horrible, mean Germans in their natural habitat.) What will happen? Will people smile at each other? (No.) Will people give up their seats for the elderly? (Possibly, but not always.) I also like to watch people get caught Schwarzfahren (literally riding black--riding without a ticket).

Along the walk from Aachen West Bahnhof to the Institute

I then walk to lab, about five minutes from the train station, and begin my work. And by work, I mean, I check my email and think about working on grad school applications. And then don't. And then I play a little Sudoku online. Then I eat horrible food in the Mensa. The main attraction of the Mensa is that many of my labmates eat there, so it's a good opportunity to get to know some people. The food is eklig (disgusting).

Then I repeat my morning routine until coffee break. Then I repeat it again until I decide to go home. Okay, I'm exaggerating--it's really not that bad. I do do some chemistry. It's just that I haven't been quite sure what I'm supposed to be doing in the last few days, but now I have a plan and will start doing some real work and being more fleißig (diligent). There's also the fact that no one really cares what I do. At Smith and even at AstraZeneca, I felt like my advisers cared about my development as a chemist and about how my research was going. And when I say felt like, I mean they actually did care (or were really good at tricking me into thinking they cared). But I guess I'm in the big leagues now, where students are just publication generating machines and don't get invested in. It's time for me to learn to stand on my own two feet as a chemist and motivate myself, which isn't at all a bad thing. And it's not that my adviser here isn't nice or is a bad person, it's just that mentoring isn't the focus of research in Germany.

But I digress. Back to my daily routine. The train home is sometimes more exciting because they deploy older trains in the evening. Normal trains have a button which you press and the doors automatically open. The older trains have a handle and you have to push really hard on the door to get it to open. I mean, really hard, like sometimes throwing all your body weight into it hard. If I can successfully extricate myself from the train, I then ride my bike home, where I am forced to feed the cute bunnies (gemeine deutsche Kaninchen). Then, there are several possible ways in which I spend my evenings.
Possibility 1: Roger forces me to speak German and corrects my mistakes.
Possibility 2: Work on grad school applications/blog/fool around on internet.
Possibility 3: Ride Ronja.
Possibility 4: Pet/have my clothes destroyed by Medicat (often done in conjunction with other activities).

Then we eat dinner and go to bed. So that is a day in the life of a Fulbrighter. I wish it were more exciting, but it just isn't.

Das grosse Kürbis Kochen Abenteuer (the Great Squash Cooking Adventure)

So some of you may be wondering what I did with my two giant squashes. Well, the first one was made into a puree in which I used too much cinnamon. I love cinnamon so much that I get carried away sometimes. We ate the puree at the Amerikanishe Wahlparty, held the weekend after the election (Matt, we here in Leiffarth are still hoping for your Blog Eintrag).

The second hung out in the kitchen under the watchful eye of Medicat until the top started to go soft and I realized it was now or never for the Kürbis. I decided yesterday to make butternut squash ravioli with a hazelnut brown butter sauce, after cutting off the gross part of the squash, of course. Making ravioli is a little time intensive, but the results were pretty delicious.


I have some leftover squash puree, which I think will be turned into Butternuss Kürbis Spätzle (an Emeril recipe) and soup, maybe with apples. Or maybe just soup. I haven't decided yet.

Schnee!

This weekend saw the appearence of the first snow here in the westernmost corner of Germany. As a lover of snow and winter (and when I say snow and winter, I really mean Christmas), I was very excited. (Evil Americans get excited about snow). It snowed a teensy bit on Friday, a lot on Sunday, and is snowing again today.

One thing to note is that when Germans say "a lot" of snow, 1. they don't say a lot, because they're German. They say "richtig viel" or something similar, but that's not the point. The point is that viel Schnee does not mean the same thing as a lot of snow in New England or Cleveland. Poor Germans. No wonder they are so mean. ; )

Deutsches Essen

This entry will be the first of probably many chronicling both my culinary adventures and the differences I observe between German and American cuisine and food culture.

Contrary to American popular belief, German cuisine does not consist entirely of sauerkraut and bratwurst. It also consists of pig blood. Okay, it's actually a lot more than pig blood. Here are some of the highlights of my German food experience so far.

Panhas. This is pig blood mixed with buckwheat flour and spices. Actually does not taste bad, but the texture kind of weirded me out.


Kartoffeln (potatoes). I am a big fan of warm mushy food in general and the Germans are big fans of potatoes, something which can very easily be made warm and mushy. My potato highlights thus far are Reibekuchen, a kind of potato pancake, and Auflauf, which I think is already known from an earlier post.

Frühstück (breakfast). Breakfast is one my favorite meals. Cereal, toast, pancakes, French toast, bacon, little sausages (which Germans find strange when combined with blueberry pancakes. Hello? You guys eat pig blood.), eggs, everything is delicious. Sesame bagels. Oh, sesame bagel, toasted, cream cheese, I could eat one right now. Delicious!! Coffee, muffins. Oh my gosh, I love breakfast. I could eat breakfast for every meal for the rest of my life and probably be happy.

The Germans do breakfast a little bit differently, but also deliciously. The main feature of the traditional German breakfast is the Brötchen (roll), which can be served with either meats and cheeses or jam and Nutella-like spreads. I thought it was a little weird to eat salami at breakfast, but I tried it in my attempts to assimilate and it is not weird at all. It is delicious (which seems to be the word of this post...). Müsli is the other classic German breakfast. Also very delicious. One thing I have been avoiding eating for breakfast is Leberwurst, or liver sausage. Maybe someday.

Getränke (drinks). It seems like Germans are really into beverages. I mean, everyone's into beverages...that whole needing water to survive thing applies to all of humanity. But the Germans seem to be really into a variety of beverages. In the Davis house, we have milk, tap water, Mom's special generic diet sodas that she drinks at work, and beer when Geoff or I are home. Maybe soda, but usually one type. Here, there's a whole buffet of beverages to choose from. I don't know what to do with myself. Should I drink soda (coke or fanta? if fanta, orange or lemon?) Or water? (sparkling or not). If beer, which of three kinds? If juice, which of four kinds? It's quite overwhelming. Usually I just go with water or Coke, perhaps partially because I am unwilling to open myself to the wider world of beverages.

The overwhelming variety. And all the beer is on the other side.