Monthly Archives: June 2000

June 7 2000

Fried Rice Recipe

Thank you, Al, for posting your Fried Rice Recipe!

Another food story

John lived in Germany for a couple of years and is familiar with German breakfast:

“One of the first things I noticed in the German grocery stores was the absence of a breakfast cereal aisle. They had about two kinds of breakfast cereal and some muesli. […]

I’m making myself hungry, even though I just had some fried rice.”

Well… I didn’t count, but I think our supermarket has about 10 to 15 different kinds of cereal and maybe ten different kinds of muesli. Things have improved in Germany during the last couple of years, haven’t they?

I followed John’s link to fried rice and noticed another link for Maggi. The online store says “Product of Thailand” – strange… I thought Maggi was about as German as any spices could get. Maggi is a big German company that makes instant soups and the famous Fünf-Minuten-Terrine (“5 minute soup”) that comes in a cup. Add boiling water, wait five minutes, eat!

John, is there a chance that you reveal that secret Fried Rice recipe to me? Puh-lease?!

And now for something completely different!

It’s Susan‘s birthday today, I think. She hid her hint well near the end of a looong posting, but I found it nevertheless!

Happy Birthday, Susan, and have a great day!

Wiener Schnitzel everywhere

I just got a postcard from my friend Gabi. She spent a few days in Vienna. Guess what is says on her card!

“Yesterday, we had Schnitzel…” Must have been Wiener Schnitzel, of course.

Link from a stranger

André discovered a link to my “Schnitzel story” on Archipelago. Daniel Berlinger says Nutella is not food, it’s candy!

Total lecker

Roland Tanglao posted two questions in my discussion group: “If anybody could point me to a good Mohnkuchen recipe or name the schnitzel restaurant, I would be most grateful.” He is looking for the name of a restaurant in or near Lech, Austria. I can’t help him, but maybe someone else can?

Huge breakfast?!

Yesterday Al sent me email. He had read some of our journal of the trip to the USA and happened upon this:

“…but in Germany breakfast normally means a cheese sandwich or a roll with butter and jam.” [Day 2].

That made me think about the differences between German and American meals.

Germans eat the main (biggest) meal of the day around noon. It’s only sandwiches for breakfast and in the evening, but a hot meal at noon. And mind you, I’m not talking about something inventive like Tuna Salad Sandwiches or sandwiches with cheese and ham and tomato, but just plain bread with butter and a slice of cheese or ham or salami or jam or whatever. No ketchup, no mayonnaise, maybe just a little mustard.

Some people like Nutella on it. (Oliver even discovered Nutella in the US!

Myself, I don’t like Nutella. (In case you don’t know, it’s almost like smooth peanut butter, but instead made of hazelnuts and chocolate.) I prefer peanut butter – the chunky kind without sugar. But believe me, most people in Germany think it is disgusting.

What kind of hot meals do Germans eat? Okay, what typical German food do you know? Bratwurst, Sauerkraut, Wiener Schnitzel?

We don’t have Bratwurst and Sauerkraut every day. In fact, André and I never do. We like all kinds of Italian food and Eintopf (stew) and Auflauf (Auflauf is almost anything that is put into a bowl and baked in the oven, covered with a crust of cheese if you like). Especially Lasagna!

By the way, I really enjoyed breakfast while in Amsterdam. Our hotel had this nice buffet with lots of food: scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, different kinds of cereal, bread, rolls, muffins, quark cheese, fresh fruit etc.
I always started with eggs and bacon, then went on with cereal and fruit on yoghurt and had a muffin for dessert. A breakfast like that kept me going the whole day until it was time for dinner!

If you’re hungry, too, go visit the authentic Wiener Schnitzel sizzle André has found!

By the way, this has nothing to do with Wiener Schnitzel!

Spicy Noodles

Was soll das ganze Wiener Schnitzel hier?

Hilfe, alle reden nur noch von Wiener Schnitzel! (André, Brent, Dave, Daniel Berlinger … – alle in Englisch)

Für Amerikaner ist Wiener Schnitzel offenbar sehr faszinierend. Und passend zur Diskussion bekam ich gerade eine Postkarte von meiner Freundin Gabi, die ein paar Tage in Wien verbracht hat. Und was steht auf der Karte? “Gestern haben wir Schnitzel gegessen…” – War natürlich Wiener Schnitzel, in Wien.

Total lecker

Roland Tanglao stellte in meinem Diskussionsforum zwei Fragen: “Falls jemand einen Link zu einem guten Mohnkuchenrezept kennt oder weiß, wie das Restaurant heißt, in dem wir auf dem Rückweg vom Snowboarden in Lech, Österreich, so gutes Wiener Schnitzel gegessen haben, wäre ich für Hinweise sehr dankbar!” Ich weiß leider nicht weiter, aber vielleicht jemand anders?

André hat außer einem bebilderten Rezept für Wiener Schnitzel auch einen Soundtrack mit original Wiener Schnitzel-Gebrutzel gefunden: Schnitzi-Bruzzl!

In den USA gibt es übrigens eine Fast-Food-Kette namens Wienerschnitzel, die allerdings kein Wiener Schnitzel im Angebot haben, sondern die üblichen Hamburger, Hot Dogs etc..

June 6 2000

Trip to the USA

I read the advice Susan gave to Oliver on how to improve the navigation in his travel report. She suggested to add descriptions for the days, so I went and did that four our Trip to the USA.

Maybe those of you who haven’t read it yet might want to take a look?!

Back to Math lessons

Great, I’m back to teaching Math. One of the students I used to help with Maths didn’t get enough points in his Abitur test, so he has to take an oral exam next Tuesday. And guess what – he needs some lessons until then. Except for Sunday, we’re going to meet each day and work for two hours.

I hope too many Math lessons don’t make me dream about strange things at night like too much coding seems to make John. John, what about German Manila users? Weren’t they invited to the meeting?

Update: “Andrea, I was disappointed that neither you nor André were there! Maybe your flight was delayed?”

Bummer. There should be a Manila meeting in Europe, then. How about Germany? US Manila Users welcome, of course!

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Wieder Mathe-Nachhilfe

Uff, ich gebe wieder Nachhilfe. Einer der Schüler, die ich auf die Mathe-Abiklausur vorbereitet habe, hat im Abiblock genau einen Punkt zu wenig gemacht und durfte sich darum ein Fach aussuchen, in dem er ins mündliche Abi geht. Warum er sich gerade Mathe ausgesucht hat, ist mir ein Rätsel… Aber natürlich braucht er dafür Nachhilfe. In einer Woche ist die Prüfung, und bis dahin werden wir (außer Sonntag) jeden Tag zwei Stunden Mathe machen.

Und am Dienstag vertrete ich noch eine “Kollegin” und gebe ihre zwei Stunden Nachhilfe. Natürlich auch Mathe.

USA-Reise

Einem Vorschlag von Susan folgend, habe ich zum Index für unser Reisetagebuch eine Kurzbeschreibung für jeden Tag hinzugefügt. Wer mag, kann gerne einen Blick darauf werfen!

June 5 2000

“Free…and worth every penny!”

I like Al’s Weblog Motto.

Local Weblog Time

Martin is working on his “local time” clock. It has a pull-down menu with the names of different weblogs in it and is supposed to display the local time for the chosen weblog. I’m already in the menu, but the clock doesn’t seem to work properly:

The JavaScript in the time-zone widget depends on the local-time on the client PC/MAC/whatever. So it always displays the same time for traumwind as the time for you… Unngh! […]

Well, Susan and Andrea are in, none the less :)

Yesterday, Traumwind‘s time was an hour behind me, which I blamed on the Daylight Savings Time. (Martin and I are both in Germany and thus in the same time zone.) Bot today it says it’s 6:14 (am or pm?), but in fact it’s 23:42 (that’s 11:42 pm) right now. Susan‘s local time is even stranger: It says it’s -2:15 where she lives!

June 4 2000

The origin of Aids

The origin of Aids (via BookNotes):

“Most scientists believe that Aids was ‘naturally’ transferred from primates to human beings via a hunter who ate a chimpanzee. But a competing theory claims that Aids was caused in the 1950s when thousands of Africans were given a live polio vaccine derived from chimp kidneys. The stakes are getting higher, reports Matt Ridley

New Manila Macro

There’s a new macro called pictureRef which makes it easy, among other things, to “align right” a picture. Just what I wanted all the time!

Sunday

Today is Sunday, the only day of the week on which hard-working students like me can get some work done.

It took me two hours to sort through my stuff for the uni and clean up my desk… incredible. Seems like I should stop studying and get started with my Examen thesis…

I also did some household chores and spent some time reading A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George. I discovered her crime stories recently and like them a great deal. While reading one of her novels, I come up with several explanations about who is the murderer and why. So far, I’ve always been wrong!

Half a year of EditThisPage

John Marden, better-known as The Curmudgeon, flipped his page for the first time six months ago. Seems like there are quite a few people who started on that day. When did EditThisPage.com start?

Jeff’s Weblog is celebrating its 6th month anniversary today: “My life changed on a Saturday afternoon at 4:19:08 PM…”

Al flipped the page for the 180th (?) time today as well. He started his weblog, View From The Heart, on December 4, 1999. Wow!

I started my weblog on January 25, 2000, a little over four months ago.

By the way, Al, I thought the St. Pauli Girl Beer would suck. I didn’t know it before Scott pointed it out to me, probably because it is not sold in Germany. Nobody would buy it here, I guess!

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Sonntag

Heute ist Sonntag, der einzige Tag der Woche, an dem man als fleißiger Stundent dazu kommt, etwas zu tun.

Etwa zwei Stunden habe ich damit verbracht, meinen Uni-Krempel zu sortieren und meinen Schreibtisch aufzuräumen… unglaublich. Vielleicht sollte ich endlich aufhören zu studieren und stattdessen mit meiner Examensarbeit anfangen…

Außerdem habe ich mich noch ein bißchen als Hausfrau betätigt und nebenbei in “A Great Deliverance”, auf Deutsch erschienen unter dem Titel Gott schütze dieses Haus, von Elizabeth George gelesen. Die Autorin (und englische Krimis überhaupt) habe ich erst vor kurzem für mich entdeckt. Elizabeth Georges Bücher gefallen mir, weil man nicht voraussagen kann, wie die Geschichte endet. Bisher hatte ich bei jedem Buch mehrere Theorien, wer der Mörder ist und warum, aber ich hatte noch nie recht!

June 3 2000

Getting ready for the trip to Germany

Craig over at BookNotes:

“One week from Monday, my daughter and I are leaving for Germany. It’s been many years since I travelled abroad and I feel like a kid.”

Craig, let me know if you need any info on Germany. I’ll be happy to help!

Hailstorm

Wow! We just had a horrible thunderstorm with hail almost the size of golf balls! I’ve never seen anything like it…

But it rained and stormed only for half an hour. Now the sun is back!

An expo, German beer, and big German women. Oh Yeah! (Al)

Al, here’s one for you: St. Pauli Girl – “Germany’s Fun-Loving Beer.

Scott says it is only sold outside of Germany. The girl, by the way, was born in Alambama, USA, and lives in LA. Well.

Thanks for the link, Scott!

Gewitter:

Hagelsturm

Gerade hatten wir ein richtig tolles Gewitter hier, mit ordentlich Regen. Plötzlich fing es auch noch an zu hageln – die Hagelkörner waren fast so groß wie Golfbälle! Sowas habe ich noch nicht erlebt…

Nach weniger als einer halben Stunde war aber schon alles vorbei, und jetzt scheint wieder die Sonne.