Business idea for Stuttgart

There are not so many Indian restaurants in Stuttgart, and all of them tend to be more formal, linen tablecloth affairs, even the ones which have a 7 euro workday lunch buffet.

Invited to join Shiva and Chandra for dhal for dinner, I thought, you know, there are some indian dishes that are really quite simple and fast to make, and require really cheap and common ingredients. There are many cheap dining options in Stuttgart, however they tend to be limited to either Doner Kebab/Pizza, fast food from the main train station, and stuff from the bakery like buttered pretzels or fleishkase.

None of these options are particularly fresh or healthy. While doner kebabs are good, I have heard people complain about how hard they are on the digestive system.

What I propose is a shop which sells indian curries and dhals wrapped in chipatis (Indian wheat meal flat breads) burrito style, to be taken to go or eaten there. There would be two basic curries, one spicy, one mild, and one dhal, to which customers would request to be added cauliflower, chickpeas/garbanzo beans, green peas, and potatoes, and they would be rolled into daily made chipatis to make small burritos. Making a batch of curry to feed 100 people would require a few dollars of spices and cooking oil, 50 onions and 50 tomatoes, probably less actually, depending on the size of the burrito.

Immigrants would like the spicy taste notably lacking in European food, Germans would go for the "exotic" cuisine, foodies would appreciate the authentic flavors of India, Schwabians would appreciate the thrift, and the whole thing would be naturally bio, organic, and vegetarian.

What would be really cool is if we could partner with a local bottle maker to have them produce glass containers. So someone comes in orders two burritos, and then they are put into some kind of glass tube, which would be returnable. Or maybe some kind of flexible silicone disk which could wrap around each burrito like a burrito wrap.

Anyway, Indian food dreams.

This and that

I've been working the past few weeks on a project for a major German shoe and clothing designer, a relatively small office building. We are coming up on a deadline this friday, so every day, I have found myself working past 7pm. I also had to come in Sunday and work, which really sucked since the weather finally gave us a break and gave us some good summertime for a change.

The weather in Stuttgart has been really apathetic this year. Last year, apparently there was a very cold and snowy winter followed by a blazing hot summer. I arrived at the end of a very mild winter (it snowed only once), and now we are in the middle of a very mild summer. The last few days, the highs have not even reached the 20s. Today, I saw people in scarves and jackets. I wish I'd taken mine to work, actually. This is like a winter in Phoenix.

I can't remember if I wrote about it, but several weekends ago, we signed the contract for an apartment. It was a pretty major achievement. No brokerage fee, which is a savings of about $1,500-$2000, and surprisingly, no deposit either. Great location, rooftop attic apartment, and a landlord who owns several buildings and Saori's coworker reports no problems since she's been living there.

It did take 30 apartment visits and four months to make it happen, however.

Monday after work, I met Saori there and we talked to the current tenant about his furniture he's leaving behind. He's moving in with his girlfriend, and the apartment is 7 flights of stairs up, so he's motivated to leave stuff behind. We walked through and offred to buy or simply inherant a lot of different things, including a grill, a bathroom cabinet, a vacuum cleaner, etc. The big ticket items for sale were a washing machine (150 euro), an ikea table and chairs (200 euro) and a big white leather sofa (500 euro). He originally bought it for 1000 euros, and its really still pretty new and relatively lightly used- I can understand him wanting to get half of that back. We took the washer and the dining set- the couch we told him was out of our price range, although frankly we have other plans for the living room area. We won't even have a TV, so we really only needed a couch for guests or something to sit on to read.

I finally signed up for language classes with the school I was interested in. I just need to make the deposit for the fees and then I'll be officially enrolled. The language barrier makes me squirm so much. I don't know if its easier or harder to learn German because of its similarities to English.

Been reading the news about Ferguson, Missouri, one of the suburbs of St. Louis. It's really sad stuff, but its strange that looking at the photos of one of the poor scrawny municipalties of St. Louis County makes me actually miss St. Louis a bit. It hits uncomfortably close to home when I realized that most of Saori's and my personal belongings are in a storage unit about a mile from where the protests are happening.

There was an Ebola scare in Berlin today. Tests are still ongoing on why a feverish woman passed out in a hospital waiting room. I'm worried about Ebola- not that it will get into Europe or the US- it seems actually inevitable at this point, but for the thousands more who will die from a basic lack of education and sanitation. I'm not worried about an outbreak in the US or EU because people here don't believe that Ebola is a government conspiracy, because we have closed sewer systems and accessible soap and water, and because our burial rituals do not involve close physical contact with the departed. I am washing my hands more frequently though.

Been really really tired lately. Feel like I'm running around all the time, and you may have noticed I haven't been blogging much either. Actually, its already past midnight here, but I really wanted to just some things down what I've been up to before I go to bed.

a slightly less frenetic weekend

It's been a few days of running around.

Friday night, I met Saori at a electronic music festival held outside near the HBF, close to the new developments around the mall and new library. It was a huge hipster scene which was kind of fun to watch since I havn't really gotten a feel for what that even means in Germany.
Apparently, pretty close to the American variety, but a little more "green". From the "Bio" food truck, I ordered organic french fries with non-GMO, organic ketchup. Actually pretty good. We met Saori's punk friend from the office there and hung out on the steps drinking overpriced Wulle beer while waiting for the main sets of the night.

Actually, after the first set, a kind of Shoegaze electropop, a manager in a white tee an a mustache came out and announced the rest of the night was cancelled. The event originally got approval to play until midnight. It makes sense, the area is new, and looks like 80% offices and retail. However, a recently passed law restricts concerts to 10pm, so they had to call off the rest of the show. I don't really know why they didn't just cancel the first two hours of banal tiny acts where they didn't even turn up the volume. Anyway, rules are rules in Germany.

Also, fun fact, in the country which is nearly synonymous with beer, it is illegal to sell the stuff outside of a bar or restaurant after the late late hour of (wait for it) 10pm, on any day of the week. I'm not sure if this rule is restricted to conservative southland or if it's more nationally applied, but that's a blue law state worse than Arizona.

Anyway, after the show, we walked Nadine, the punk girl, back to her apartment building, where she was locked out of the main building entrance. The lock was jammed or something, and despite the landlords claims that there would always be a night guard in the neighboring building, Nadine had to shell out the pricely sum of close to $300 for locksmiths to come let her in.

I am sure her landlord will be receiving the bill. It was really late at that point, and despite Saori's flatmates's wishes to see less of me, I crashed at her place for the night.

Saturday, Saori turned 31. I headed out early to Breuninger's, the German Macy's equivilant, to pick up a cake for her party before dropping it off at my office for the refrigerators there.

Crossing back through town, I met Saori and we headed over to a really nice brunch at Cafe Scholz in Killesburg. Scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, toast, and a bowl of milchkaffee (latte). Really, really good. Walked around the park a bit before heading into town and wandering around inside the big electronics store. We haven't't done that in years, and it was fun to look at tablets, gadgets, critique laptops, try out headphones, take stupid photos etc.

Stuttgart being Stuttgart, we ran into one of Saori's coworkers there. Seriously, Stuttgart is worse than Ponca City in terms of constantly running into people you know. I actually saw one of my coworkers earlier in the day, out grocery shopping with his son.

After the electronics mall we swung by the office and picked up the cake and headed down to the hill to Mezcal^2 (Mezcal Hoch Zwei for the Deutschsprechen) for Saori's party.

I'd planned out a party for her at the best Mexican restaurant in town (which is qualified by the fact that they can distinguish between ketchup and salsa). Actually, this place is pretty great. I went in two weeks ago to talk them about planning the party, and what kind of options I had. In the turquoise blue interior around an old wood table, they bought me a corona I talked with the owner in Spanish about their offerings.

There are many interesting things about this place- for one, all the employees, who are all Mexicans, hold main jobs elsewhere. Two of them, including one of the owners, holds a regular job for a major car part manufacturer in town. Actually, I would even go so far to venture that given the strictly regulated working conditions in Germany, the side benefit is you have the time you need to run and manage a restaurant, even with a full time job. Of course, the restaurant only holds limited hours and days.

They have a surprising quantity and variety of Mezcal and what makes the food especially good is that they import most of their ingredients from Mexico.

Anyway, based on hints that I'd dropped throughout the day, Saori had figured out where we were going so she was happy but not super surprised when we walked through the door.

One of the owners was there, someone I'd met passingly on the train who knew Alfredo, and he didn't make the connection that I was the guy who had been sending the emails about the party. He explained he was a little tense about the upcoming night since there were going to be two simultaneous parties going on. I replied that I was one of them, and so everything became clear.

We were the first to arrive, so we had some coronas and chatted and Saori wandered around taking photos of the decor until some more friends showed up. One the pleasures of being an expat is being able to introduce people to new experiences. Our first guest was a young German woman who had never had a margarita before.

It is worth pointing out that at the Mezcalaria, they sell margaritas with Mezcal, and it was pretty amazing.

Anyway, more and more people showed up, ordered drinks, and we had a really good time. I'd invited close to 20 people but only 8 showed up, including Saori and I. It's a really bad time of the year- lots of birthdays, and this is the first big vacation week for many Germans. It was still fun, an intimate gathering, but I wish I'd ordered less food. first they brought out a kilo of quesadillas. Made with tortillas de maize. It's kind of staggering to see fifty-odd quesadillas but moreso when made with an ingredient which is virtually nonexistant in Germany, fresh corn tortillas. As garnish, bowls of salsa, sour cream, cheese, and pico de gallo were set out. It was so delicious.

And then they brought out the mole de pollo and frijoles de olla. Really, amazing food. The mole de pollo was accompanied by blue corn tortillas. Where the hell they found blue corn tortillas or blue corn masa was beyond me. The frijoles were good (but better today, when Saori and my flatmates devoured the considerable remainder).

Everyone pitched in, but I still ended up taking home a kilogram of mole de pollo, the main dish of the night. We are not complaining. That is some really fantastic stuff.

All in all it was a great party, and Saori was really really happy.

Today, we slept in and just took it easy all day, reading, eating leftovers, and taking short walks. All in all, a good quiet ending to a frenetic weekend.

But nothing like Taylor's last few days. In the space of a few days he took the state Bar exam and then packed his apartment and moved to a new city. Now that is a frenetic weekend.