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Congrats to Dr. E for her dentures, wait I think I messed that up, your tenure! We forgot to congratulate you last we spoke.

hugs,
M&L

Small Birds and Bamberg

Hello everybody,

It started to snow today for the second time this year and as the wetter guy stated last week, we should be seeing more snow starting Monday due to the Russian arctic blast.  Jean-Luc has been waiting all month for this ‘arctic blast’ he been like,  “Dis is sheet, I’ve bin vearing my coat for months now. Merde!!!”

My thoughts exactly JL, but other than that things are great and this weekend we headed towards Bamberg and experimented cooking small birds…quail, just in case you started to picture L and I joining Jean-Luc in pouncing  birds around our place.   

We made blue cheese stuffed quail wrapped in bacon and garlic. 

1. Take the little birdies and smoother them with good ol’ olive oil and garlic thyme love.  Make sure they get a nice blanketing.  Then set them in the fridge for about 1 and a half hours to 2 hours  or so, well until they get well acquainted with the  olive oil, garlic and thyme battery.

2. Then with some blue cheese, stuff the little guys with a nice helping of that goodness.  After that make sure you seal them up sp not to let the cheese escape and proceed to wrap a nice pepper bacon tightly embracing the quail as if to say, “You think you can get away from me.  You betta think again.”  

While they get to know each other , sneak attack them like you’ve been living on Mt. Olympus way before Zeus and begin raining or reigning over them with the fury of olive oil, garlic, and thyme infusion. 

 

Beer break…

Paulaner Helles from Munich

Light, with a nice hops after taste.

Back to cooking.

 

4. Now yous got to prepare heaven for the little guys, of course by making a bed of onion sage and carrot comfort … sheesh what did you think, these little guys have no idea.  Words can’t describe where they’re headed.

5. Ok… Carrots quartered, chopped or however you chop carrots, whatever puts a smile on yo face.  Next, chop onions and mix some sage, actually a lot of sage and sweat them over a nice heat.  Add the carrots and brown.  Now you have to activate heaven.  With 1/4 cup of chicken broth mixed with 1/4 cup of some good pinot gringo, activate heaven, pour it into your carrot/sage/onion mix and cover until carrots are tender.  Remember you’re activating heaven not hell, you don’t want carrot mash, so keep an eye on the carrots…tender not mash.   

6. Cooking time…

Hopefully you preheated your oven to 500 degrees Celsius, come on keep up, sheesh.  Second step to heaven for the birdies is a nice warm bathing of artificial heat, 15 to 18 minutes or 20 minutes, depending on your oven.  Still working on that part, they’re so small, that they cook quick, so keep an eye on them.

7. Dish up…

I don’t think I really have to tell you how to do this part.

Bamberg

Built on seven hills, just like Rome…

 

Oh sweet Gluehwein!!!

 

Little Venice in Germany?

Ok that’s all folks,

hugs and kisses,

M&L

Welcome back, it’s been such a long time, Welcome Back (sung to the tune of Welcome Back Kotter)

 

L is back from China and we celebrated our first Turkey Day together as…you guessed it…tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum.  Here are some pictures of the meal.  Yup, A little bit of homecooking for my sweety.

Challa Bread

Ginger Cake

Stuffing

Mashed Potatoes and Turkey.

We hope everyone had a great Turkey week and weekend.

We Miss you all,

M&L

Happy Turkey Day

 

 

love,

M&L

Being Extrodinarly Lazy

Hello Everybody,

As some of you may know, L has been in China for the last week and will return this coming Sunday, leaving me with my own vices, contraptions and the locals for the last two weeks. Yup I’ve been swimming on my own in the deep end, but not with out arm floaties.

I’ve been out to the school several times to teach. The school has also started the paper work for my work permit…so, it shouldn’t be too long before I can start to actually work at the Gymnasium.

I also experienced my first German lunch with my new friend, Herr Muller (with an umlaut on top of the ‘u’)and his family, he is also a teacher at the Gymnasium. Two of his children attend the Gymnasium as well, by the way is anyone interested in taking on a German exchange student. I met with him and his family for Sunday lunch, I also met his mother-in-law, she was amazing. About 5’4 with 90 years of living under her belt and full of spit. I found out she has lived her entire life near Herzo in a town called, Erlangen. If some of you remember Erlangen was one the cities we were hoping to live in, but never found a place.

We ate lamb, potato rounds, celery root/arugula salad and ice cream with plums for dessert. Followed by two hours of long discourse with the grandma about Erlangen and how much Germany has changed through out her life time. It was a good afternoon.

I also visited the German rally grounds which I have pictures of and will be dedicating my next blog to the visit.

So that’s all for now and L says hi from China. Jean- Luc also says

Quelle merde
Pourquoi ma litière sale

and wishes he were in his home land of France. Jean Luc is so French.

Summer Look

Winter Look

hugs,

M&L

It’s Official

After four weeks of vigorous mental reprogramming, we can say without a doubt how much we loved preparing for our drivers test. Yay !!! Now we’re allowed to drive where the streets have no name.

What’s weird is that they had our licenses ready and waiting for us at the TUV. Meaning the driving center was waiting for us to pass the test and L’s co-worker, whom never passed the test and gave up, probably has a license still waiting for him after three years. It’s all a scam…really.

We can officially take visitors for rides, so hurry up and visit, it’s almost six month since we arrived here.

love,

M&L

p.s. If you would like your very own finger warmer write us at...

Alles in Ordnung

Hello Everybody,

It’s been a while. I’ve been a bit lazy and trying to get acquainted with the Herzo Gymnasium. The Gymnasium is sort of a Jr. High and High School rolled into one, it is for the brightest students, or at least for students that show ‘promise’ by the age of ten, in town. Yeah! by age ten it is determined, by test scores, where young Jane and Johnny might end up doing, working as, when they are older.

In Germany, students are tested at the age of ten, which also determines if they will be attending one of the three kinds of schools that provide different “life” skills. There is the Hauptschule, a vocationalistic school, also considered a ‘low’ school. A Realschule, a ‘life’ school, general know how is taught here, students learn one foreign language and so on, medium grade school. The Gymnasium, where students get an ‘intellectual’ education, putting it nicely, is the top school, students are required to learn three languages at the least and so on.

Well long story short, I’ve been asked to work at the Gymnasium, as an English expert…(can you believe that, they like to use the word expert quite freely, although I believe it’s a way for them to negate responsibility, did I just write that), provided my work visa goes through.

Without getting too political and bring the blog down, I’ve been feeling really out of place, I believe I’m experiencing what illegal immigrants might go through back home. Except that obtaining a work visa here(Germany) seems more difficult than the hand me outs back home.

Also when I use the word immigrants, I mean all immigrants, Russians, Canadians, Germans, Africans, Scandinavians, Australians and many more, not just Mexicans. Maybe I’m sensitive to the Mexican immigration issue, with walls going up and such, because we seem to be seen as the last to arrive to the party, when in fact I believe we’ve always been here(U.S.). (By the way where is the wall keeping out Canadians…nothing against Canadians, just trying to find a tenor in the whole deal.)

Excuse the jabbertalkie, my thoughts are coming from a recent guest speaker engagement I was asked to do at the Gymnasium. The topic was about immigration in the United States, particularly Mexicans. I found the questions, coming from the students, quite stimulating and thus my rant which was ignited from talking about my work visa.

Or maybe I’m just feeling a little sad because L will be leaving for two weeks to China and I’ll be left here with my thoughts to fester.

On the bright side, I’ll have a job at the Gymnasium, plus now they would like me (potentially) to speak at a conference about Bilingual schools…what!? But hey I wanted a job, so I’ll take what I can and run with it.

I hope everyone is doing great, keeping warm and dry. L and I miss everyone dearly. By the way, can someone send more peanut butter M&Ms, we’re running dangerously low.

missing everyone,

-M