Punkin Muffin Bread Puddin’

DW usually makes pumpkin bread and muffins for our German neighbors and acquaintances and gives them as Christmas gifts.  Germans love American style quick breads and muffins.  Well, we had a minor disaster when all the muffins stuck to the muffin… Read full post »

It’s like Brigadoon, but with sausages.

We visited Rothenburg last weekend during the Christmas Market, staying in a 260 year old hotel, in the newest section of town.  The walls had only gone around it in the late 1400s. 

 In its heyday, Rothenberg was a powerful city state in/… Read full post »

We haven't travelled since our Dordogne trip, so I've been cooking on the weekends. Yesterday I tried this recipe out.  DW loved the meatballs.

 1 Lb Ground Chuck

1/2 cup creamed spinach, cooked

1 heel of bread, toasted and minced fine

1/4 cup Basque cheese, grated

2 tbls herbes de Provence… Read full post »

This is a nice quick meal for cold dreary days, like we had today.   Total prep time is about 15 minutes, so it's from ingredients to table in about 40 minutes.

Butterfly Pork Loin with Apple Chestnut stuffing

2 butterfly pork loin chops

1… Read full post »

DW and DD are more of pork fans, but stewed and spiced properly, they can get into beef.  So I give you:

Boeuf a la Noel

3 lbs Beef Round or Rump, chunked

3 strips bacon

1 onion, chopped

1 clove smoked garlic, smashed

2 cinnamon sticks, broken in half… Read full post »

A Tale of Two Castles

Today dawned foggy, cold and decidedly drippy.  We had intended to ride one of the Dordogne gabarres, a traditional river boat.  Jonny Depp’s gypsies used them in Chocolat. The weather was far from ideal, so we changed our plans.  That’s the cool/… Read full post »

A Real Cliffhanger

The limestone cliffs in the Vezere and Dordogne valleys are riddle with caves, hence all the cave paintings and engravings but the caves also created the phenomenon called troglodyte villages.  Houses built right into the cliff wall, hanging in the air, tens or hundreds/… Read full post »

Perigord Market day

Wednesday we went to Sarlat-le-Caneda, a small city about 20 minutes from here, because it was their market day.  All the guidebooks raved about the Perigord and Dordogne markets.  Well, color me impressed.  Cheeses, foie gras, confit, cassoulet, sausages, ham/… Read full post »

A Stone Age Michelangelo

Day One at the cottage.

We’re staying in the Vezere valley in the Perigord Noir region of France.  It’s a dramatic landscape of limestone cliffs and winding river valleys.  For reasons that remain obscure to archeologists, this region… Read full post »

Chambord, where it was good to be the king.

Because the drive to Les Eyzies was too long to do in one day, DW found a place that was just past halfway.  When I say a place, I mean a hotel on the grounds of the royal chateau at Chambord.  We/… Read full post »

In no particular order

Back in Black -AC/DC

Welcome to the Jungle - Guns and Roses

Houses of the Holy- Led Zepplin

Double Platinum- Kiss

Mob Rules - Black Sabbath

Iron Maiden- Piece of Mind

Metallica- Ride the Lightning

O Brother Where art Thou soundtrack-Various

Ramones Mania- The Ramones

Bloodletti… Read full post »

One of the many cool things about living in Germany is going to the local festivals.  Towns will celebrate some famous event by having a party, then they do it again the following year to commemorate the celebration and the next thing you know you have a hundreds of year old/… Read full post »

I know, I know, bad pun.  We took a short trip to the Netherlands this weekend.  I hadn’t been there since the early 90s when I would go to Maastricht for the jazz clubs and the Dutch girls, who were unabashed in their admiration for Americans. Now, older, married… Read full post »

Perfection is a combination of beef, heat, smoke and spices, served on a hard roll with poppy seeds, sauce optional. 

I cooked up a nice piece of chuck roast on the smoker this Saturday.  It turned out pretty near perfect.  My last few attempts with the smoker have been lacklustre/… Read full post »

Getting there is half the fun.

            The week before last, the family and I stayed for three days at Europa-Park, a theme park in the Rhine valley just north of the Black Forest region in Germany.  I know, I know, what sort/… Read full post »

As I may have mentioned, we live in a small German village near an American base.  We’re not the only Americans who live here, but I think we’re the only ones to send our daughter to the local German elementary school.  This has many pluses; my daughter speaks fluent German and/… Read full post »

Apparently Stan Lee was wrong. On Monday, I was injected with chemicals and bombarded with magnetic energy.  I didn’t get any superpowers.  I wasn’t hoping for anything A-list, like mega-healing or an adamantium skeleton.  I would have settled for superior multi-tasking.&nb… Read full post »

Wow, long time, no post.  There’s a ton of reasons behind it, mostly all work related.  After a long day at work staring at the computer screen, I don’t feel like logging on and doing the same thing at home.  Especially when I can spend time with my wife and daughter,/… Read full post »

Life went sort of frenetic over the last three weeks.  As I posted recently, I was supposed to fly to California for training, as luck would have it, on the very same weekend that Iceland’s volcano shut down Northern Europe.  Because I couldn’t get a flight out in time, my train… Read full post »

You never know how intrusive it is until it's gone.  Jet noise, that is.  The Sound of Freedom, my first supervisor used to call it.  My family and I live near an American air base in Germany and there are always flights.  The fighter jets training, the heavies going in and… Read full post »

No, not the web comic; ( although that rocks mightily http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html ) I speak of those who feel the only time you are really driving an automobile when it has a stick shift, otherwise, you’re just steering one.  I must admit that I am one o/… Read full post »

Well, gelato actually.

Soooooo, my leave is over and I am back at work.  Happily it is (insert Mel Brooks voice) springtime for Germany.  And with springtime comes the gelato man.  The local ice cream trucks don't dispense rocket pops and creamsicles, oh no.  The fine gentleman wh… Read full post »

One our third day at the Bodensee we vistited a small family run farm and zoo called Haustierhof Ruetemuhle.  I had picked up some brochures at the local tourist information site and this was the standout choice.  I'm a huge fan of the small wildparks and tierhofs that abound in Germany.&nb… Read full post »