Our Evolving Languages...

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru!

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

Luna Language

Luna is starting to use 8 and 9 words together in combination, and is starting to comprehend some complicated concepts....

"anymore"  "Don't want that anymore!"
"either"  at first she used this pretty much the same as "too" but has since started using it correctly... "Don't want that either!"
"Sunday" as in, "It's not dark anymore, look!  It's Sunday!"  (Meaning "Sunday"="morning" - too cute)
"Last morning" as in "Me and Papa ate candy last morning!" (Translation - me and Papa ate candy yesterday)

Luna says "Kindergarten" as clear as day.  4 syllables!

And Bas told me a cute story, last night he was changing her, and she had a poopy diaper.  So he said "Stinky diaper!"  And she pinched her nose with her hand and said " I can't hear you!"  as if pinching her nose, plugged her ears!!!

Lil Miss Big Pants...

Nothing says Happy Valentine's Day like a deep fat fryer...  I love you, honey, now let me clog your arteries...

Folding laundry one night, Luna decided she had big pants to fill...

Could there be a more beautiful song than this?

especially when you have a 2 year old who loves her tu-tu?

Famous Loendorf Cream Cheese Corn

1 8oz pkg cream cheese
1 onion diced
pressed garlic - 2-3 cloves
onion salt
milk
very large bag frozen corn, or 2-3 cans corn drained

Over medium high heat, in very large skillet, saute diced onion and garlic in butter until soft, then add cream cheese on very low heat and let melt.
Add corn, and milk to desired consistency with melted cheese. Add onion salt to taste. Let simmer over low heat until ready to serve.

Our favorite Thanksgiving and Christmas recipe = but good all year round. Everybody loves it! Great for serving with a complicated main course or something that requires a lot of attention at the last minute - because this is so hands off when finishing!

Thai Green Curry

I couldn't sleep on Wednesday night, and I found myself fantasizing about the Thai Green Curry we had recently when we went to Zen (Thai restaurant) in Erlangen with friends.  So I made up my mind right then that I would try and make some the next day...

Having no clue how to really do it, I just went into the "Imports" section of the Grocery store, picked up what I thought I would need, and then kind of winged it last night.  And we were very pleased that it turned out really well - super yummy!

Here's what I did...

Ingredients:
beef or chicken cut into small chunks
green Thai curry paste
1 large can coconut milk (or 2 small cans)  shake before opening...
1 can Asian vegetables (bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, etc.,) drained
1 can bamboo shoots, drained (I love bamboo shoots, so I added this extra can)
cardamom
cumin
brown sugar
pressed garlic

2 paks Uncle Ben's Express or Ready Rice Paks (2 was for 2 people - it was spicy, so we needed lots of rice)


Prep:
Warm some olive oil in a large skillet, add meat with garlic, salt, heavy dash of cardamom and cumin, and 1 tsp of curry paste.  Cook over medium high heat until almost done to your liking.

Add 1 can of coconut milk, both cans of veggies, 1/4 to 1/2 cup of brown sugar, another heavy dash of cardamom and cumin, and another teaspoon of curry paste.  Cook over low heat until ready to serve. 

Check the taste of the sauce, if it's too spicy, add more coconut milk.  Not spicy enough?  Add more curry paste.  Add extra brown sugar to taste.

Toss Rice paks in the microwave according to instructions, and place in large shallow bowls, then add meat, veggies and sauce.

Weisendorf Fasching Party

We went to the local Fasching (Carnival) party for our town at the community center yesterday.  All the kids were dressing up, and since we wanted Luna to get the max out of her cute, little Fairy-Princess-Ballerina costume, we decided to go, and see what it was like.  It was from 2-5, which is usually when Luna naps, AND I was roasting a chicken which had to get into the oven early, so we were taking our chances - but it turned out to be a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

Already striking the ballerina poses!

All the kids were diving for candy... Luna didn't really get the whole concept, even though we kept telling her.  Guess she was above the fray!

Then the masters of ceremony entered to introduce the first performances...  Luna was quite interested!

Look at their funny hats!

The youngest dance troupe was first - they were so cute!  3 to 5 yr olds, we're thinking maybe Luna will have to do it next year!

Then came the 5-7 yr olds, so cute, and so German looking!

After the first set of performances, they did a little tug-o-war game, first with the smallest of the pre-schoolers, against the bigger set.  Luna held on for a bit, and then lost interest... took too long to get them organized.  Probably for the better, she would have gotten smashed!

Then they did kids against the Dads, the Dads actually lost at first, until they recruited some more strapping men out of the audience...

As you can see, it was about 8 Dads against 100 kids!

Meanwhile, Luna found a nice quiet place to play...

Then the bigger girls started their performance.  We were quite impressed!  Lots of props!

And then the teen-agers... very put together!  And check out those hats!

We left at 4, so that we could get home and get the chicken started.  Luna didn't get her nap until half-way through dinner, but it was worth it!  She will have at least one more Fasching party at school, hopefully she will manage to get some candy there!

adidas vs. Puma: The Graves of Adi and Rudolf Dassler in the Herzogenaurach Cemetery

On a whim, we decided to go find the graves of Adi and Rudolf Dassler in the Herzogenaurach cemetery yesterday.  For those of you who don't know, Adi and Rudolf were brothers who started a shoe making company together.  They focused on sport shoes, and were having great success when the brothers started to quarrel.  Rudolf left the company to start his own company and called it Puma.  Adi changed the name of his company to adidas.  Both companies are still headquartered in little old Herzogenaurach, and the feud between the brothers lasted until their death, and affected the history of Herzogenaurach for years to come.  Town citizens were basically forced to pick sides, and the town became known as "``the town of bent necks'' because locals wouldn't talk with anyone until they looked to see what shoes they were wearing.

Both brothers are buried in the Herzo cemetery.  You find Rudolf immediately to the right as you walk in using the south-west entrance.  He is buried with his wife and parents.  To find Adi however, you have to trek all the way to the farthest corner of the cemetery, on the opposite side - near the north-east entrance.  He is buried with his wife and son.

You can read more about the brothers, their history and the town HERE.

Tomatoe Cheese Pastry Appetizers

Ingredients:
Premade Puff Pastry Roll (Pillsbury)
Tomatoes
Sliced Gruyere Cheese
Tomatoe Mustard (Or regular mustard)

Prep:
Set Oven to 375F or 200C
Roll out pastry, and cut into appetixer sixed slices.
Place on oven tray and bake for 5 minutes.
Remove from Oven

Slather with tomatoe mustard, add tomatoe slices, and then top with gruyere cheese slices.  Bake another 5 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Yum, yum!

Tomate Monschauer Senf

We have discovered a wonderful mustard (Senf) shop, here in Nürnberg, that will be sorely missed once we leave!  It has hundreds of varieties of Senf, in all sorts of flavors.  My favorite is tomatoe mustard, and if you watch my recipes, you've probably heard me mention it.  We have a favorite appetizer that we love to make with it, will post about that next...  although my new favorite thing to do with it is make a lunch sandwich, with cream cheese, tomatoe Senf, and turkey...

anyway - for all of you expat ladies, the shop is just at the top of the hill on the way up to the base of the castle at the Albrecht Dürer platz.  

It's called the Senfladen:
Bergstrasse 27
90403 Nürnberg

Yum, yum, Senf!

LOST!

Went ahead and downloaded it, cause we couldn't wait.  LOVED it!   Can't believe this is the last season, we want another year!

Blogging 101...

Hosted my first blogging class for ladies here, and had a blast.  Thank you so much to all of you ladies who were interested!  I should have taken a picture so that I could post it, I guess I will have to do that next week! 

Next week is when it gets fun... isn't it great that we can do this?  You will all be experts soon!

Fairy-Princess-Ballerina Tu-tu Pictures...

Luna will be a "Fairy-Princess-Ballerina" for fasching (carnival) this year.  So Saturday we went out and got fabric and some other things to go with her costume.  She is very into ballerinas and princesses, right now, so she got right into the swing of things.  I got some tulle to make her a tu-tu, but then we also got some pre-made things to go with it.  So we went ahead and gave her some of the accessories.  The kit that we got came with a skirt, which we won't use in the costume, but she loved that she got to wear that right away...  she wore it with her snow boots, to the store, to the resaurant that night, and over her pajamas when she went to bed...

Yesterday I got her tu-tu made, and since we wanted to avoid her being afraid of it, like she was with her Halloween costume, we decided to introduce her to it last night.  So here are some pics with the wings as well (one of the accessories that came in the kit...)  I know I should have waited to post until she has the full costume on, but I couldn't resist!