Blog May 17, 2020

The weather has been unusually cold for this time of the year and it would have been nice if the landlord had not turned the furnace off.  The advantage will be the fuel costs at the end of the year. Most of the stores are open including the larger ones and everyone is entering wearing masks. The supermarkets are mostly requiring that customers also use the shopping carts which facilitates keeping distances between the shoppers while pushing the carts. There has been demonstrations in the larger cities in Germany against the lockdowns and sheltering at home but since one can go out for a walk, increasingly go to restaurants sitting outside, small groups meeting, shopping, visiting a friends home, etc. my feeling is not one of isolation. I have started teaching at the music schools where I have students as well as continuing lessons online of those that want to stay at home. The music schools have „Spukwände“ ( spit shields) for singers and instrumentalists, plastic sheets mounted on wooden stands and plenty of hand sanitizers in teaching rooms.  Luckily in one school,  I have two pianos so that I can demonstrate without getting near the student at the piano. What I have missed this year since I only started back to teaching last week is driving in the countryside looking at the light pastels of emerging leaves on the side of the road and hills as they are turning to full greens. I was at my garden yesterday and picked a good handful of sorrel to add to a salad along with parsley which comes up every year (sorrel too) in my greenhouse.  We usually make sorrel soup here in Germany but I googled some recipes for salads and will give it a try.  

Blog May 10

From what I have been reading about the arctic weather hitting the northeast, a look at the weather prognosis for northern Bavaria, Franconia is cold nights for the next 4 days of freezing temperatures. Sometimes there is a mirror weather effect here paralleling the northeast of the States. Today at the bakery for fresh buns and croissants, I had to wait in line with distancing in order to enter the bakery. The only problem with paying for something using the smart phone is my facial recognition IPhone doesn’t work with a mask on and so I have to tip the password in sometimes not getting it right with people as well as sales person waiting for me to get it right. I sometimes wear rubber gloves which makes it even more difficult but hey, that is so unimportant these days, why bother complaining. They are starting to relax some of the controls here and this week I will start to teach at the music schools in the two cities where I have students. I have sent all the parents and students the rules for lessons and several have asked to continue online lessons for the time being.  This month I will miss my intensive Czech lessons in Prague for the first time in many years. Every quarter we meet with our teacher in Prague at  a language school near the Prague Castle trying to get back our foggy memories of the language having been busy with many other things during the off months. One of our fellow students works near the Czech border in Linz, Austria and actually has to use the language in business. She can converse much better than I.  I do practice daily and slowly attempt to gain a foothold in Russian as my garden partner comes from Moscow. 

May 4 2020 making semolina breakfasts

Since I have been here in Germany there is a type of wheat flour named Grieß and from this flour one makes Grießbrei or as I recently discovered in English semolina porridge. Many things and words are not translated everyday and one accepts the word without bothering to translate in my case into English. Since my Wednesday routine is Grießbrei for breakfast after many years I wondered if we had this type of flour in English and lo and behold there it was. I have never used semolina flour in the U,S. although being acquainted with the word. Semolina is used to make pasta and desserts. The closest I came to it is wheat being used as a breakfast cereal is in Wheatena but that is not the same thing. Semolina is thicker than normal flour and has more taste.  This brings me to Stellcut  oats. I have often bought steel-cut  oats in the PX where I shop at the military base at. Grafenwoehr and it is not cheap but makes a great breakfast. I don’t go often to the base as it is an hour or so drive and most of what I need can be bought on the economy here where I live. I discovered about a a year or so ago that steel-cut oats (with steel blades) are hulled oats (outer inedible shell) cut into tiny pieces. Hulled oats are also known as groats and the taste is like steel cut oats only more chewy. They should be soaked a long time and then cooked but like with steel cut oats can be made the night before. I put a cup of groats into a sauce pan and 3 cups of water and a bit of salt. I turn the stove burner on to about medium and set my time for 45 minutes. I then cover the pan and leave it over night. I start the my breakfast with doling out two portions which leaves 2 portions in the pan. I add milk, fruit, homemade jelly and into the microwave for 2 minutes and voila breakfast is ready.  Groat porridge is chewy, tasty with a consistency not unlike tapioca. The advantage is with the leftover porridge is to put it in the refrigerator to use a few days later.  The leftover porridge as is good as it was several days ago and doesn’t become mushy like oatmeal.  The cost of a package of 1000 grams is less than 3 euros while steel-cut oats can cost upwards to 8 or 9 dollars. 

May 2, 3 2020

A sort of rainy clear sometimes day here in Germany. Went to the bakery with my mask on and got 2 loaves of „Bauern Brot“ or „Farmers bread“ in German. This particular bakery is one of the few businesses that only accepts „Bar Geld“ or cash.  Many stores not only accept bank cards and or credit cards, the readers also have blue tooth receivers so I can use my smart phone to pay. The Scandinavian countries almost exclusively use card payments and cash very seldom used to pay for something. I am still developing my internet teaching skills with music instruction. It is difficult to correct a piano students mistake without showing the keyboard and simultaneously playing. Luckily most students have a bit of musical talent and are able to grasp what should and should not be played. The news is full of reports on how people are coping at home and work. The 12th graders are carefully going back to classes in smaller groups to prepare for final exams similar to American Highschools senior exams, They get a passing grade for an Abitur which is like a diploma.
    Sunday May 3. Walk to bakery for Brötchen (rolls) and croissants. Everyone going into bakery puts on their masks. I paid using my IPhone Apple wallet. The only problem is the phone doesn’t recognize my face and I have to use digital access. Today if the weather holds (windy and cold) I will go to my garden to make some repairs on greenhouse and gate.  Yesterday I made a quiche with vegetables ( using a frozen bag of mixed vegetables). I finally have to succumbed to buying frozen food from a distributor who comes once a month. The main advantage is I get the frozen vegetables that I want especially frozen corn which is difficult to come by here in Germany. We can buy canned corn now which wasn’t a possibility in the past as many other American type foods were not when I first arrived in 1991.  This has all changed for the better as chicken in all ways is now available. At the time the only use for chicken was soup chicken and rotisserie chicken. Gradually chicken breast chicken thighs, and whole chickens became available.  This observation is only where I was shopping as I am sure that in Berlin and in big cities there may have been more selection. I mentioned my garden which is about a quarter of an acre sporting a small garden house and two greenhouses. The metal greenhouse I bought and put together and the other is self made with wood and plastics sheets.

 Germans love their gardens and one can rent a plot and then add structures.  The yearly rent is quite cheap and one can rent the garden for as long as one wants. 

29 April 2020

29 April 2020

It has been a long time since I have used my blog to publish anything but since I do a daily personal blog for my self, I think it would be useful to get back to my letter from Germany. We are like everybody else in lockdown with Germany doing a good job keeping safe distances and lower death tolls than many other countries.  I have been teaching music on line with my keyboard and singing students and although not perfect it is working. The parents are happy that the children have something other than schoolwork to do. I am cooking more than.ever learning new ways and techniques finally ordering frozen food from a distributor something I never thought I would do. The frozen vegetables are excellent and because I do a lot of baking vegetables in the oven rather than steaming or boiling them makes them taste better. We’ve started putting on masks for entering stores, offices etc. and everyone seems to be complying. We are having a problem especially here in Bavaria with the of the driest Aprils in record which causes problems for farmers and our forests. It was warm and wet during the winter but snow is a cover and supplier of water for the subsequent seasons. I am trying to read more although being more at home doesn’t mean I have had less to do and I still am wasting too much time reading reports and news from the States. I read our local paper here daily and catch the evening news at 8:00 PM as well as reading several books in English and German. Getting older means that retaining things such as words and names is a part of life. Memorizing has never been a forte for me but I have always been able to research quickly to bring back things and the internet has supplied so much information that was not available in the past. I have a good library of reference works especially for language and music.