How to prepare a Farmer's Breakfast in Germany, almost.

German food is mostly a delight to my taste pals. This blog entry will be devoted entirely to the Bauern Fruehstueck(Above).
Although the name alone evokes a sort of throwing-everything-you-have-into-a-pan-and-frying-it, there are certainly some specific recipes out there. Heck, even the neo nazi bars on the street corner offer their own Farmer's Breakfast.

And we had ours.
I think the logical place to start is with the ingredients.


Not definite on this, but I assume onions are always a part of the Farmer's Breakfast. It should look like this.

Another good thing to use are a bunch of random herbs and non-random potatoes.
The Schnittlauch(chives) should, of course, be freshly cut from your window side herb garden for the best results and least monetary expenditure. The Kartoffeln(potatoes) should be skinned by the best potato peeler in the household(me, in this case) and then chopped up to taste.

Once you manage to pepare all the ingredients, it is time to start the party. To summarize, you have prepared the Kartoffeln, Zwiebeln, Schnittlauch, Knobluach(garlic), Eier(eggs)-preferrably chicken, and herbs.
So with your newly acquired knowledge, I am sure you will agree that a Bauern Breakfast can reach across borders. Maybe you will prepare it next Saturday morning.
The best thing to drink with it is good coffee with cream. And, if you have read this entry carefully, you will usually end up with a happy man for the rest of the day. Also, throw a lot of sour cream on your plate if you want the meal to be complete.
Like I said, anyone consuming this MEAL will be a delight for the rest of the day, unless of course on the off-chance you totally forget to cut up the bacon that is lying unnoticed in the fridge and add it. An error like that could definitely ruin someone's day. Not that that happened with me, but it is a completely reasonable reaction to such an accident.

If you take one thing from this blog, I hope it is that sour cream can be added to most anything to make it better, and you can add as much as you want, there is no maximum when man reaches a bad taste. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed. I love you.

Just Another Weekend

A lot of people are probably expecting more about the everyday life of Chris in the west of Europe. Well, the masses have spoken, so let me just regale the many many readers out there far and wide with the latest weekend.

Once the week was out, 1pm for those keeping track at home, I hit the gym, lifted some weights into the air, and generally got sweaty with a bunch of dudes. For my evening activity, I cuddled up for my normal Friday viewing of Brokeback Mountain(thank you Ang Lee, it´s about time!). I still wasn´t tired enough to hit the sack(go to bed for u foreigners out there) so I slipped in the first DVD of Queer as Folk. Let´s just say I am probably not gonna watch the rest of the series.

Still with the taste of throw up in my mouth, I made my way to the bakery Saturday morning. The cool air, and the Van Morrison playing into my ears reminded me of the Cape, and The Men. A good, and much needed follow up to the previous nights gayness. Just so we are clear, I am not using gay in a offensive way, that is just the only adjective I can think of to describe it all. That, and homosexual just has to many syllables in it for me to include in my everyday repertoir.

On my return home, something manly wafted through the air. Eggs, fried, bacon, potatoes. I set down the soft, fresh buns that I had retrieved and held so securely yet tenderly on the walk home. I couldn´t imagine a better way to answer back to such a "gay" night. If that wasn´t enough, dinner consisted of a bunch of beans(you choose) a banana wrapped in a chicken breast, wrapped in bacon. After devouring all the cooked food, I went on to throw the two chicken carcasses, that I had surgically removed the chicken breasts from earlier, into the oven. When that was done, I naturally devoured all that too. I forget Sunday, but I am sure it was delicious in general.

So there is a little of the deutsches Leben, like anything it has its ups and downs, depending on your sexual orientation, and I recommend it highly.

Where Were You???

I remember there was a US president who perhaps coined the phrase, "a day that will live in imfamy..." And some words probably came before that phrase and after it. As the recipient of a History minor at the university level, I shamedly admit I am not sure to which event it refers, but I think when the Japanese crazies kamikazeed Pearl Harbor, and I think the president therefore must have been Roosevelt, the one who couldn´t walk, not the oxymoronic avid hunter who loved nature so much as to not only kiil and eat many an animal, but also established many national parks. Long sentence, huh? Yes Yes I know. Again, that seemingly historical factoid may also be discovered to be untrue.
When FDR made his (fireside?) speech, he got it right. Every American knows that it happened, and our parents probably even remember the date and where they were. Me? Sometimes I wanna call that day "D Day", but i know that is not true. The point here is, did he say "date" or "day"?? Because while I know of the day, I am not sure of the date, but having the well trained mind of a history minor, I wanna say June 6. Maybe December 6th actually, the former being D Day. (The wheels are turning now.)
I guess I meant G-parents when I was talking about WWII, depending on your age. As for me and other members of the Y Generation(Why?), the big day of infamy in my life so far has been what people are calling 9/11. Now there is a date that will definitely go down in infamy, namely because its name is the date. Very straightforward. Personally, I don´t always remember the year even, unless, like this morning, I remember back to that day. I can remember from my youth my parents explaining the exact details of where they were when JFK was assassinated, or when people landed on the moon. I think most people of that generation also can tell you exactly where they were when his little bro, Robert, suffered the same fate. That remembrance may just be, however, a little overflow from the immense love people had for his brother.
I cannot say the day of the week, but it was definitely a week day because I know I was in my freshman year intensive Chinese class, which met for an ungodly amount of time per week, and at an ungodly hour, as far as college is concerned anyway. 8:50 am everyday for 2 hours. The first thing I recall of the day is being on my way back to New South, my dorm, and catching bits of conversation from passersby hinting at the news that something had gone down somewhere in the world. Next, I found out, somehow, what exactly happened. I think at first the news reported it was a bomb. I followed some poeple to the top of the neighboring student housing complex where we watched the smoke rising from the pentagon. I remember people had trouble getting in touch with their parents because of overloaded mobile phone servers. As a late cell phone owner, it was not yet a concern of mine, but I remember it nonetheless. I remember the ROTC stdents in their army stuff performing some roll, maybe telling us not to leave our dorms. They thought there were car bombs randomly located all over Washington, DC. At least for that day, and maybe some days to follow, the thing that stuck out in my mind was the utter lack of commercial planes flying overhead. There was a fair share of military choppers hovering of course, and maybe some fighter jets, but once that died down the lack of noise pollution was very clear to me. If you hva elived in that area, you know what I mean.
If anyone made it to the end of this long arsch blog, please share in a sentence or 2 where u were, I am interested to know. Tune in tomorrow to hear about my secret beard!

Back to the Future

Well, after almost two weeks back in the suburban life, aside from a quick trot out to Sin City to give Mario the wedding witness a first hand look at what might be the power couple that tries not to spray mud in Brangelina´s face as they take over the world, I am now back in the city life.

Since returning to the land of sauerkraut, I have had the pleasure of listening to Peter Schilling, a lot. "Major Tom" really strikes a chord in my ears. My frau introduced me, but I am pretty sure I have heard it before. Either that, or I am getting it mixed up with that Major Tom song by David Bowie, which may or might not be an answer song to the aforementioned Peter Schilling ditty, or vice versa.

I realize that the big city life is not exactly an accurate description of life in Nürnberg- I mean it is no New York City, but we do have our fair share of dangers that us Nürnbergers(the people, not the little sausages) have to face in everyday life.

For example, in my day to day life, there is no way to elude the almost daily meeting with the check out lady in the supermarkt. I don´t want to emberass myself too much, but let´s just say my skills in the check out line are not as sharp after the 2 week stint in the USA as they once were. In a nutshell, I was not at terminal velocity, as they say. I think they notice when they have a "rookie" and try to throw the purchases across the bar code reader even faster to make sure the people in line behind me are aware of the fact that it is ME who is slow and holding them up, and NOT the cashierette, or whatever they are called in English.

A picture is worth a thousand words

As I sit here chewing on the fat I am wondering if it was true when my girlfriend said I could eat the thick piece of bacon raw. I ask the same question everytime we are there, but only today did i make the purchase to see what it is all about. It definitely didnt taste like I imagined raw bacon would taste, so maybe it is not raw thick bacon after all.
Biting the Stomach Bacon.Or, maybe raw bacon has tasted like this all along but people always cook it for some reason. It is times such as these that I am reminded of those times I used to eat full chickens in front of my fellow housemates/volunteers to scare them, or when I ate the steak that was bigger than my head.

Okay, gotta go spit the fat out, it is getting slimy. DOne.

I am now inspired after reading a good blog by 2 of my fellow housemates, possibly schwul, to include more photos in my blogs. I think it makes it more interesting and less boring. So starting just a few moments ago, and updating some recent events that I feel particularly pertinent to you, here goes nothing...

Aside from my recent eating of the meat, I cannot help but think of the recent events that happened in my immediate neighborhood, and just barely missed the local news. First there was the fire in the house across the street.

On the very same day that I was seemingly the only one to notice the blaze, there was a shark attack not far from here. I know what u are asking yourself, "were there any victims?", and the answer my friends is yes, however not the likely one.

The driver of the late 90's yellow and blue, decaled race car, and lone survivor of the accident being called an "attack" by the locals was reached for just a few comments. According to him, "in that last glimmer of his eye, he(the shark) said "Hey Richard man, enjoy your dinner!" " Scientists from around the globe called it a turning of the tides, no pun intended I am sure, but the majority agreed that this is bound to happen as more and more weak-jawed sharks made out of plastic start walking the streets.
After the shark was attacked by the car, I thought it couldn't get any crazier that day. But I think u all know where this is heading, it did! As the crowds dwindled and life began to return to normal, the unthinkable happened. I inched closer and closer to the window, leaned over the window sill, and BAMMMM!

Two lemon colored autos parked right next to each other. After that I couldnt handle anymore shocks so I had to lay down for a bit.

Sweet Water Farms

I remember the days back on the farm when the great potatoe first fell to the ground. Actually, I guess it was still a large peanut back then, but whatever u want to call it does not change the fact that potatoes have changed my life.

Something from my childhood is coming to me now as I think about all the potatoes in my life, and that is the fact that I think I either learned, heard, or saw that you can conduct electricty with potatoes. Not sure why I am thinking this, I just have an image of a potatoe with wires going into it in my mind right now.

The potato shack, as I will call it here, seemed to have caught fire sometime recently in the mean streets of old town. I saw the burned out little area where millions and millions of potatoe products, mostly pommes have been boiled in fat and sold. I wonder if the potatoe place will make a valliant return after they fix that place. I wrote a note to the city office suggesting they erect some kind of a potatoe monument there. I was thinking a silverback gorilla sized male potato cast in copper. Of course, this would ideally be outside on the walking zone so the possibility remains for another potatoe product selling place to get in there, just like a hermit crab switching shells.

Well the blog turned from sweet water to potatoes, but that is really no surprise now is it? Also, yesterday or the day before I saw dog poo with corn. First I thought, "weird that someone is feeding their dog corn". My second thought was that I guess that makes at least 2 mammals that are not seemingly digesting/breaking down full corn kernels. Now, I am not sure what other pets Indians(native Americans) had besides dogs, but I actually only imagine it was them and their dogs. Oh yeah horses, but maybe horses were just for the plains indians. The point is, how in the crud did learning how to grow corn from the indians save the lives of the famous pilgrims of American folklore? It certainly doesn't seem to be providing any nutrients to the body. Probably we will never know what happened, but at least Thanksgiving came out of it and they made other dishes besides corn on the cob on that fateful day. Turkey, yummy.

A few funny translations

This will be short.
I thought a funny word in German is the word for gums. As in Bleeding Gums Murphy. Or, as in the place where your teeth are stuck into. So the word is das Zahnfleisch. Zahn=tooth. Fleisch= meat. Toothmeat. Sounds gross to me.


The only other one I can think of right now is for fresh water, that u would find in a lake or river, as in the opposite of the saltwater found in the oceans.
das Suesswasser----Suess=sweet, wasser=water, obviously. Saltwater is simply Salzwasser, so no fun there.

I have definitely come across more, but will have to add those as I recall them. Peace in the Southeast( of PA)