Christmas begins

Wednesday, I found a massive 2,5 turkey leg for sale at PennyMarkt and also some sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner. Thursday night, I brined it and set it in the fridge.

Friday night after I got off work, Saori surprised me at home with a table already set with mallow pie, salad, and home made cranberry sauce. It was really sweet. I threw the turkey in the oven and started baking but I couldn't wait so we started in on the mallow pie while the turkey baked.

The turkey was great. The mallow pie was super creamy so it was more like a sweet potato pie, topped with scorched marshmallows. Saori also cooked us some string beans in a brown butter and balsamic sauce. It was a serious feast and we both throughly stuffed ourselves in the exemplary American fashion.

That night Saori woke up with difficulty breathing around 4AM. She boiled some water over the stove with teatree oil and peppermint oil which helped, suggesting that the problem was more about mucus than allergies, but it made me really worried. This is over if my biggest fears actually since in case of medical emergencies I am not really sure what to do. Of course, if one of us accidentally chops of an arm, really life threatening things, there is 112, the 911 of Europe, but up to that point, it's a bit hard to say, since there's no urgent care clinics here. It's a big gray gap between sweating until the doctors offices open, sometimes waiting over Sunday, and going to the hospital.

More to the point, I didn't have antihistamines and I didn't know where I could find a place to buy them at that time of the morning. So that was one thing we did today, was pick up a box of antihistamines from a pharmacy. The person we talked to was so concerned she marched Saori and I outside so we could read the name and number of the lung doctor in the same building. She wasn't really satisfied, but sold us some antihistamines anyway.

Tonight, I met Shiva, one of my two old Indian roommates from the old house on Zepplinstrasse (actually my new office is on Hindenburgstrasse- in starting to see a dark and unnerving pattern here). We met at Weihnachtsfes, Stuttgart's Christmas fest and honestly the best time to be in Germany. The buzzy lazy summer afternoons in the beer-gardens are nice, but there is something that all clicks when the old narrow cobblestone streets between the half-timbered buildings and stone architecture are filled with gaily lit wooden stands and hot spiced wine on a cold winter night.

We started with a cup of Glühwine and then had a special variation, where the mug had a little metal stand and a cone of sugar is doused with schnapps and the whole thing is set on fire. The fire melts the sugar which drips into the hot spiced wine. Afterwards we moved on to the brewery at on the Schlossplatz and had a glass of fresh Wulle Biere.

Alec Keeps it Professional

Recently, boss No.1 clarified that he wants me to act more in a designer-architect role than simply a supporting role. This is good, but for my German. Specifically, he wanted me to get on top of a project the office is working on in a nearby town.

So earlier this week, I grabbed the office camera and went over with Apo and boss 1 to meet the city historic preservation people since the building has listed elements. The master butcher also met us to show us around and open locked doors.

This town (well, village), has a bunch of really old buildings, and the project I am now working on has the renovation of one of them as the focus. The foundations were set in the late 1700s, although the oldest aboveground parts are probably only 200 years old. The building was at one time the bachelor lodging in town, then a guesthouse, and finally a restaurant and butcher shop, complete with pig pens in the ground floor, a slaughterhouse, and a butchers separate from the restaurant area. The ancient basement is a cavernous stone barrel vault two men tall, which dwafts the crates of wine which are stored there now.

The current Metzgereimeisteri (master butcher) who runs the restaurant is at least the third generation in his family, and some of the rooms above ground have been maintained and decorated as his parents lived.

Many other rooms, have had a lot of decay and time happen to them. I saw not one but two old cast iron stoves where you cook on metal surfaces above coal or wood fires. I had to bite my tongue to ask them to let me know whenever they have a garage sale. Got to keep it professional. The massive old timber framed roof contains three levels of attic floors, each with more rotten and missing floorboards than the last. The tile roof is shingled with terra-cotta using techniques at least as old as the foundations. Everything, absolutely everything is warped with age, it really makes me worry about how accurate our 0.000 precision autocad drawings are in relation to the wonky settling, leaning, and racking.

It really is a facinating building because it is a living testiment of time with slices readily apparent from the past 100 years. The restaurant on the ground level is actually really nice and I want to go back there with Saori sometime.

Danger Perkins

With the onset of a colder world, the US government cranked up the ol' Global Danger thermostat from Caution to Alert this tuesday. This really happened. The State Department issued an alart which covers the entire world excluding the US as an area to excercise elevated caution for terroristic activities.

This prompted Saori's sister to write us a well-intentioned and concerned letter that if we felt unsafe to travel, they would understand our cancelling our trip to the US this year. 

I thanked her for her thoughtfulness but assured her that plane travel to the US and within the US is probably one of the most secure things possible. Actually, I take security very seriously. I watch the news, I avoid mobs and protests, I look for exits in crowded spaces. 

Stuttgart is probably one of the most safest cities in Germany. We have to remind ourselves that we have to engage our "big city" awareness whenever we go to Munich, for example. Last year, people were shocked by a murder here. 

To be honest, Saori and I live really cloistered lives right now, actually. We almost never go out to events. I take mass transit to my work, which is probably my biggest exposure to terrorist danger, and Saori works at the far edge of the city center, away from large government or institutional buildings. 

I am actually a lot safer here in Europe than I am in the US, truth be told. Mortality rates for nearly everything are lower in Europe than in the US. Cancer takes a higher toll in the US. Infant mortality is higher in the US. 

In the US, I am twice as likely to be killed in or by a car than in Europe. And with gun violence on the rise, there are some cities where you are more likely to be shot to death than be killed by a car. If the US were another country, you know that the state department would be issuing constant travel Alerts cautioning would-be travellers.

Anyway, we are not changing our plans. We are still coming to the US, despite the risks we'll run on the other side of the border. 

Because my name is Danger.

Grocery stores and show

There was more events at my office when we learned last week that Mr. C, who started about two weeks before me, was quitting. He didn't say why but clearly both sides were unhappy with the way things were going.  While he did know a lot about drawing details, his computer skills were so lacking it was sometimes astonishing. I mean, autoCAD type programs have been widespread for nearly 30 years, and it is evident he has nearly never used them.

Friday, work was not so bad although I was jumping around between a few projects before heading back to Stuttgart a little after 4. I work a 40 hour week, nominally, often 42 or 43. At my last office, I was working at minimum 42-45 hours. On a weekly basis, there is not so much difference, but when you are free in the city at 4pm on a Friday, and no one will expect you in the office on the weekend, this is a great feeling.

Friday afternoon, I bought a ton of food, mostly vegetables, from Edeka.

Grocery shopping in Stuttgart is really different from the US. The first difference is that they are a lot smaller and there is a lot more of them. But they are also nearly invisible. When I first arrived, I thought, where are the grocery stores? I was looking for big signs, parking garages, expenses of glass, shopping carts outside. In the city, the grocery stores are tucked into ground floors or basements. You have to really search for signs among all the other building inhabitants.  I still stumble across grocery stores I haven't seen before, in the tiny area that is central Stuttgart.

From my apartment, for example, within a 15 minute walk, I can think of seven grocery stores, not even including the tiny stores which only sell produce or ethnic food markets.

In the US, a grocery store's quality, selection, and prices are all closely tied to the neighborhood income. Even in the same chain, like Bashas or Safeway, it's astoundingly separated by the targeted class. You have at the end a gradient of probably ten distinct grades of grocery stores, from the tiny malt liquor convenience store grocery with a few canned goods and Rainbow bread in the most desperate parts of town, all the way to the gourmet grocery with polished finishes, a caviar section, sushi grade fish, and imported Swiss muslei.

In Stuttgart, there are two types: regular and discount. These are spread over the same area, distributed evenly, and often enough across the street from one another. The discount chains are about 30-50% cheaper than the regular, but with less selection and quality. But given the limited selection at ALL grocery stores here, it doesn't feel so constricting. The service is about the same at both: straightforward and brisk.

Anyway, Saturday I made sopa de Lima and we invited people over for S'mores and hot whisky drinks. We had a little fire on our terrace and it was nice but cold. Woke up this morning to a light dusting of snow, the first of the season in Stuttgart. Gonna be cold cold cold from here on in.

beans

I made beans and cornbread tonight for dinner. Beans in the pressure cooker, baked cornbread from scratch. Threw in some lightly smoked pork belly- Southern Germans do know their Schwein. Actually, I really missed it- savory southern cornbread slathered with pork beans and a heady dose of hot sauce. Good stuff, although I forgot to add salt to the cornbread. Saori is working late as usual this month, but it will be good for her to take for lunch tomorrow.

It's funny to me, not so much to Saori, that everyone in her office thinks I am a great cook. Saori is always bringing in breads or cookies or stews, and people always want to try a bite and ask "did Alec make that?" I think my cooking has improved a lot in a short span of time, but I actually learned a lot from Saori. Many of the recipes in my handwritten cookbook are from her, and I am trying to think of a not-so-hamfisted way to remind people in her office of this. The problem is that right now she has no time to cook, and secondly, she likes to cook things we eat immediately and don't really keep well- pan seared salmon with crispy carrots, daikon soup with beef, garlic sporuts stir fried with oyster sauce and thin-sliced pork. But the following-the-recipe cookies that I make, for example, travel well and are much more sharable.

And now a bit of strange things about German life.

We ordered pad thai for delivery Sunday night- it was, in fact, the first time we got anything delivered here. I have ordered food to the office many more times than to our apartment, which is a bit strange when you stop and think about it. The problem is that dining out or delivery is really expensive in Germany. We picked a delivery service which is a little more expensive than the average delivery, but it still cost us about $35 for two, and all we got were two dishes and a soup. It was, actually, really really good. My friend said it was the best Pad Thai in Stuttgart, and I agree with him.

Not so much intersection with our lives, but I discovered that despite the fact that beer is sold and consumed nearly everywhere (you can even order beers delivered from most all food delivery), and the proliferation of sleazy little gambling casinos, that the sale of alcohol in casinos is completely forbidden. You can have Ching Chong's Chow deliver a sixpack to your apartment, drink it all as you stagger down the street, pausing to toast a passing policeman, but you cannot sip a martini and play bacarrat (or rum coke and pull a handle). This is actually not a bad way of doing things.

Less good is that you also find cigarette vending machines everywhere. (Although most bars ban smoking indoors). Before watching the new James Bond movie, I saw the first cigarette advertisement in my entire life. While most of the developed world has moved away from cigarettes, Germany remains a heavily smoking nation. That's a real puzzler, given the foresight and risk-aversion that is the stereotipical German.

Southern Germany is still surprisingly religiously conservative, with the state and religion at least on speaking terms. For example, most people tithe directly from their paychecks. It's a completely standard question filling out office paperwork, what is your religion and do you want to contribute monthly?

Saori and I came across the intersection of local, cheap, organic produce and technological automation when we stumbled across a vending machine which dispensed the former. Daily stocked with free range eggs, seasonal harvested down the street vegitables and nuts, even entire butternut squash. It was in a village, near the center square. It makes sense, given that most villages don't have the demand to keep shops open all the time, and all the stores are closed sundays. It also works because most people walk to get to the bus or wherever they are going in town if they don't work outside the village. Lastly, it works because the supply chain is really simple. Produce is grown locally and distributed from the green grocer who in turn, stocks the machine located outside the shop.

I don't think it would work in the the US because people tend to buy groceries once a week or two weeks, in quantity, from large supermarkets. There isn't the lifestyle nor commercial pattern of going to pick up a few fresh things every day. The supply chains are much more industrialized- if there's a local farm, the farm is likely owned and managed by a large distributer, to the point that much of the produce sold at American suburban and urban "farmers markets" is just diverted from the local Safeway or Kroger.

Evangelical

Hi there! Has anyone talked to you recently about Pressure Cooking? 

So many times, I hear the same stories- my parents brought me up on pressure cooking but I grew out of it, it didn't really fit my needs, it was so old-fashioned, pressure cooking is all about the socializing in the kitchen, I'm not interested in cooking, who are you and get off my porch, and so on and so on. 

Well, what if I told you that Pressure Cooking really IS relevant to your life? What if I told you that Pressure Cooking can really make a difference? I am not talking about the same old Sunday casserole or the overcooked goop the media wants to portray as Pressure Cooking, but a way of cooking that can really change your relationship with food.

The second through fourth words of the cookbook title The Joy of Cooking is "Joy of Cooking". Think about that for a moment. When was the last time you felt Joy in your cooking? Have you heard of this book? It has many great things to say about Pressure Cooking. The author of Joy of Cooking wanted to spread a message about eating things that are healthy and that taste really good. 

The problem is that cooking can be really hard sometimes. Cooking can be disappointing. Maybe you have tried some recipes that didn't turn out. When the bread doesn't rise or your dinner is inedible, it's too easy to turn away from cooking. I see so many refrigerators packed with frozen dinners and stuffed with takeout, so many people who suffer through Stouffer's.

You may be thinking, "this is all great for the people who were born British celebrity chefs named Jamie Oliver, but I have made mistakes in my life. I am an irredeemable cook." 

Friend, I am here to tell you that no matter how many times you tried to barbecue tofu, or toast a rice cake, that no man nor woman is totally lost in the kitchen. We are all weak, we have all ruined the turkey, but that does not mean we should falter in our path to reaching for the culinary sublime. 

Pressure Cooking is here for you. It is a gateway, a bridge, accepting of everyone with an open lid and 15 pounds of pressure per square inch. This is power. When you accept Pressure Cooking into your home, you will be amazed by the changes you see. I myself have seen three pounds of pork shoulder transformed into tender, falling-off-the-bone BBQ pulled pork in the space of one hour. 

Beans will have a new life in your meal planning. You, even you, may find yourself eating squash and enjoying it. 

Oh? You have a Crock-Pot? That's good. Many people don't even have a slow cooker. Now friend, you may disagree with me here, but I am here to tell you that a slow cooker isn't good enough. You deserve better. Sure, it's easy, you don't have to live with the mindfullness that Pressure Cooking requires, but you are missing so much. When you slow cook something, many of the nutrients and oils which carry so much flavor are carried away by the steam which escapes. Pressure Cooking locks that steam in so that all the goodness stays inside the pot. You see? 

weekend minutae

A few items from the local edition...

Work goes well enough. Boss 1 wants me to concentrate more on the development and renovation of an historic building in town, and let R act in more of a support role while I take the lead. This would jibe with the new desk across from A, which is at least twice as big as the one I was working at before. I was asked to swap with C, the older draftsman, which at least suggests to me that they really do intend that I take on more responsibility in the office, ready or not. It is still so hard to communicate that I still cannot pick up the phone and call someone which is precisely what architects really need to do. I still feel so out of my league in terms of project experience, compounded with the language fluency. It's a struggle.

Friday, I was back in Stuttgart early, as usual, and R dropped me at the mall since that was where he was meeting a friend, so I swung by the electronics store to pick up a new cable for Saori and ended up picking up a new Nexus 9 on steep discount since it was the floor model. Uptime was only 8 days, and it was far cheaper in euros than I could get in the US. Sadly, the Euro to dollar has fallen so hard that this is true. Anyway, I have a new tablet, which is cool. Also did a bunch of grocery shopping and dropped it all off at home. 

I wanted to bring Saori a treat since she was working late again so I swung by the little Italian cafe on the corner. They mostly sell ice cream but also coffees, and the tables in front are always filled, it seems, with Italians. Inside, in the narrow space, I actually only heard Italian spoken. I got a cappuchino to go and delivered it to Saori who was thrilled to see me.

Despite the horrible boss and conditions she is working under now, she said that it was actually worse on a project she had while I was in Mexico and in the US. 

We made apple-banana pancakes this morning for breakfast and then took a stroll over to a nice cafe across town. Then we strolled over to the flower shop and picked up a little chili plant for a former coworker of mine who was having a WG/birthday party tonight.

We made lasagna for dinner for the first time. Lots of substitutions so we should probably try the original next time. Goat cheese and gouda instead of Ricotta and mozzarella. A layer of sliced zuchinni. It turned out really good actually. We did the cheat version and didn't pre-cook the pasta, cooking it instead in the oven with a bit of water and moisture from the sauce. Learned a few things. One for the recipe book.

I started writing down some of the recipes I cook often in a notebook. Tablets are good, but I like to have something more permenant that stays on that I can get a little flour or water on. It's nice to be able to add notes and commentary. Really I should probably just print the recipes I find online and bind them together. 

Saori was too tired to go the party, and she really only knew a few people there, so I went for an hour or so, bringing our carefully wrapped gift with us. Everyone really likes us, we get invitations to parties and dinners every weekend- Saori is so overworked that usually I am the one who makes the social appeareances these days. Unfortunately, she even has to work sunday, although I am going to cook us up some eggs for breakfast. 

Paris

Went to bed with the news reporting 40 killed in Paris, and a concert hall of hostages taken. Woke up to 120 reported killed, and probably more will surface. So far, our friends in Paris have checked in as all on. Such a sad day for Paris.

On our last trip to Paris, we stayed in the neighborhood where many of the attacks were carried out. It is seen as a wealthier, trendier, younger part of Paris, and one of the massacres took place at a concert hall playing Eagles of Death Metal, an American indie country rock band.

I hope Paris doesn't change. I hope they won't change in the way that the US changed post 9/11. I hope that they tighten border controls into Europe, figure out where the fucking guns came from. And we all have to do something about the hellhole of war, misery, extremism, and medieval darkness that is growing out of Syria.

You can get to Stuttgart from Paris, by direct rail, in about three and a half hours. There are no border checks, no ID checks, no metal detectors, no stupid questions about strangers giving you packages. You walk off the street into Gare d'Est, buy a ticket at a kiosk and hop on the train, and you hop off in the middle of Stuttgart.

But I don't think Stuttgart will ever be a target. It's a big city but not symbolically a big city. The military base at Vaihingen could be a target, but since the military people don't come to the city much, I doubt anyone trying to hit then would strike the city. There are many immigrants here but there isn't the friction of Paris. The cohesive ideology of the city is to make a high quality product, save some money for a house, and take Fridays off to enjoy life. If Terrorists want to lash out against Germany, they're going to hit a city that most Americans have heard of. 

Little weekend

So I finally booked our tickets for the US. Late, but not as late as last year. Unfortunately we have to disappoint at least one of our constant readers with the news that we will not be in Arizona this trip.

Saori has been in a crucible at her office, working really late hours and really really frustrated, mostly with her supervisors. One of her team coworkers, who I normally consider one of the most mild and even keeled GERMANS I know, is so stressed out and upset he can't even bring himself to talk about it because he gets too upset to speak, so I can imagine what a strain this is on Saori.

So Saturday was a bit of retail therapy. We actually do go out shopping shopping so much. So, we had fun shopping at COS where I bought Saori a late birthday present of a really cool coat.

Saturday night, Saori wasn't feeling well so I made Aloo Gobi and Daal and brought it with me to an Indian dinner party at Bala's place. I was wearing the Indian red long shirt thing they wear in the north, and there were actually two other native whiter than white Germans also sporting (more elaborate and fancier) versions of the same shirt. I found a great pressure cooker daal recipe and it was really really well received

There was much dancing but I am not so much for Indian dancing, so I practiced my German and small talk with some guests I didn't know, a young couple with very extravagant Indian attire (they admitted they got them through Amazon). The woman was from Turkmenistan and the guy was Russian-German. They both came from very small villages and talked about how Stuttgart really struck them as a big city with a great big city life.

I am truly spoiled- although I work hard (sometimes) to find the good in smaller cities, like St. Louis, it's hard to feel like we are living the big city life in Stuttgart after spending so much time in some of the biggest, most exciting cities in the world. Really I need to lower my standards.

Anyway, Sunday I made apple pancakes for breakfast and then around noon decided to hop out for a field trip to Schwäbisch Hall. Hall is a small city along a small river in a small valley with steep banks. The historic city centre was basically untouched for probably 200-300 years. I have never before seen so many half timbered buildings and massive old roofs. I changed our itinerary slightly, we actually rode one station beyond in a two car train which charmingly looked straight out of the 80s with orange spring-supported upholstery and brown plastic frames.

Our first stop was the Hohenloher Freilandmuseum Schwäbisch Hall-Wackershofen, which was a small farming village pretty much preserved as a historic park where you can see how people in the countryside lived basically unchanged from the middle ages through the turn of the last century. It was a lovely day to be out in the countryside and we wandered through the old Mill and the home of the Millers family above it.

Then we caught the retro train back to Schwäbisch Hall and basically had all our standards for German urban adorableness reset. Old covered timber bridges, winding and narrow cobblestone streets, an amazing view of the old city wall above the river and the half timbered city rising above it. We found our way to the church plaza which is actually a big hill filled with steps, and claimed a spot at a cafe table outside. Saori got coffee and cake and I ordered a beer. We enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine making its way to the ancient plaza and shining on the people sunning themselves on the church steps.

And an hour and a half of travel later and we were home.

Dia de Muertos

Last year Saori and I made dia de muertos masks, but we never finished them. They sat in various corners of our apartment until a month ago when we made a concerted push to finish them. I ended up going all out on my oversized mask, covering it with different paint, white pen drawings, adhesive silver foil, newspaper cutouts, and self adhesive tiny glitter mosaic squares.

Saori finished her skull in florescent pink with just white pen linework, highlighting the form of the smoking crossed pistols and crosses. It's actually really great.

We bought tickets to a Dia de los Muertos event at Wagenhallen, a converted industrial space used for concerts, hipster flea markets, etc. I went in with low expectations, considering that Germans approach most other cultures like college students today approach the 70's: as pastiche themes to be appropriated.

The event itself is organized by Germans, the bands are all German, and only some of the merchandise sellers and the taco shop guys were Mexican. It was really a Dia de Muertos themed party. The fact that the event poster and the band both reference Speedy Gonzales, considered by many now to be a racist stereotype, is a good tip-off.

Anyway, I'm not Mexican; I'm not even Catholic, so I can't really point fingers and complain that they're not appropriating the holiday the RIGHT way. Plus the original event was a constructed hybrid of native American and Spanish holidays. Actually, the older I get, the more I find authenticity is overrated. Culture exists to enrich our lives, not the other way around. If it works for you, go with it.

So we decorated our masks, and set up a Dia de Muertos altar with candles, squash, flowers, photos, and a few personnel effects and favorite things from people we have loved and lost. Green Hokkaido pumpkin for Saori's grandfather, the rings of my grandfather, the pocket watch of my great grandfather, grandma Betty's tennis magnet, and also for her, oranges and rum.

We dressed up to go out in basically black club attire, and also our giant decorated skulls. Got lots of attention going down the street and riding the bus.

We found Rafa outside the main event, in a silver Luchador mask, working the food booth. He was dying when he saw us. Everyone thought or masks were great. Sadly, they had already sold out of tinga, but we got some chicken mole tacos. The mole I make is better, but they did have hot fresh corn tortillas which are such a missed delight.

There were probably about 500 people there that night. The vast majority of the other guests had the same skull face paint with blacked out eyes and painted teeth. Saori and I in our skulls cleared a path in front of as people moved out of way and turned in our direction. It was really fun to be a kind of show stopper.

The event itself was a bit of a letdown, even with low expectations. The band was not good. They did have mezcal at the bar, but they had a stupid thematic apparatus where you have to pump air into the bottle and turn a little tap. If it was a private party at house, it would have been cool. At a concert bar, it just looked irritating to the harried bartenders. There were some nice imported and exorbitantly priced Mexican crafts for sale, but if anything it was a reminder of how far I was physically as well as metaphorically from Mexico. It's surreal to see fake saguaro cacti used to decorate and support a theme, having grown up around them.

It was fun enough but we left after the Mexican themed striptease (featuring "Violetta Poison") since we were both really tired and a bit deafened by the music.

Halloween night, riding public transportation in a city where drinking nearly everywhere is legal, past 1 AM is also an unforgettable experience. Lots of zombies this year.