Eurovision 2008... yawn

I don't know what it was this year, but Eurovision was pretty blah. I finally voted for Norway because Bunny told me I had to vote for someone, lol. There was nothing insanely awful, although Latvia's pirates and that 'chiki chiki' thing from Spain were pretty goofy. Otherwise, nothing really thrilled us with its incredible awfulness or greatness. The winner, Russia didn't do anything for me. It didn't suck... it was just was missing something. I would have more easily gone for the runner-up, Greece. At least they had a catchy tune. An annoying clone of every other girly song on the radio, but catchy.

We both thought last year was 'better'. Who can top Ukraine's "sieben sieben" thing, now, really? LOL. Last year I liked Russia's song (good beat), France made us laugh for days ("again! again! again!" in the pink suit), I remembered Bulgaria's big drum, lightning and wailing song for weeks and I really enjoyed Ukraine's and the winner, "Molitva" (Serbia). I actually wanted to vote. But this year.... eh... not so much.

Ah well. There's always next year... =;-)

P.S. Germany sucked, as we expected. It's not our fault. In the German final we voted for the Tokyo Hotel wanna-be kids. At Eurovision Saturday the German entry, No Angels, sang poorly and, sorry, looked horrible. But Germans get what they vote for! =;-p

P.P.S. Bunny and I just watched some of the vids from last year again and wow... yeah, this year was LAME.

Britain's Channel 4 goes FTA!

We bought Sir Charles, our wonderful friend who sits out there on the balcony railing and saves us from dubbed German television, last June. Since we live in NRW, we're nicely inside the small satellite footprint that channels like BBC and ITV use to try to keep folks outside the UK from seeing their shows. This means we've got basic German cable (free with rent) and from our 60cm satellite dish: 300 channels of crap (dating, shopping & porn, mostly), 100 channels in Arabic or Hindi and about 30 channels of really useful stuff like the UK's Travel Channel, Wedding Channel and Zone Reality. We see tons of Globe Trekker, Beyond Belief and Cops. In English. "In English" is cool sometimes, even if the shows get old. Still cooler, though, it means that we get BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4, ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, Sky News, BBC News 24 and Film4.

I know that this all means zilch to Americans reading this who haven't either lived in Great Britain or had British TV from elsewhere in Europe, but I can tell you that it kicks ass. BBC has some great documentaries and between BBC and ITV we also get things from America like Pushing Daisies, my favorite show HEROES (!!!) and even American Idol as it happened (albeit a day or two later). One big chunk has been missing, though: Channel 4 and its offshoots, More4 and E4, and Channel 5 (with offshoots Fiver & Five US. Yes, 'US' as in 'USA').

Let me explain it for you like this. Back home you have the major networks that most everyone gets. You've got ABC, NBC, CBS, WB (probably, but who watches that?), FOX and PBS. Beyond that you have to go to cable. Well, in the UK it's four different BBC channels, four different ITV channels, Channel 4, More4, Film4, E4, Channel 5 (Fiver & Five US). So take your basic NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX offering and triple it. Channel 4 and Channel 5, though, have NOT been Free To Air (FTA), so you can only get them on pay UK satellite or within the UK on terrestrial antenna for a small fee.

UNTIL NOW.

The UK is going through their "digital switchover", when all 'telly' channels leave analogue behind. For some reason this means that people in rural areas will no longer be able to receive all their God-and-Queen-given public channels. To combat this problem, they have just launched something called Freesat, which allows folks in England to buy a FTA satellite receiver and get all their regular channels like they always have without having to pay for service from Sky. For us it means more choice down here on the continent as more channels from England go FTA.

And that brings me to the announement for anyone who's got free British satellite right now in Europe: RESCAN YOUR TRANSPONDERS! Channel 4 (affectionally called by its test name of "8350" in your channel list right now), More4, More4+1, E4 and E4+1 ARE AVAILABLE!!! They are sitting there on transponder 10729 V 22000 FEC 5/6 right now, just waiting for you to claim them!

This means new episodes of 'The Daily Show' all week long, not just CNN's "Global Edition" on the weekend! This means, in addition to tons more British offerings, lots of shows you might be missing, like Friends, The Sopranos & ER reruns, Scrubs, My Name is Earl, Lost, Desperate Housewives, The West Wing, etc. And all in their original English. No German subtitles. HALLELUJAH.

Let's just pray now that Channel 4 doesn't decide to go "free conditional" on Freesat like they did on freeview/Sky boxes. But for now it's FREEEEEEEEEE. Channel 5 is rumored to be coming over to the free side once their Sky contract is up (maybe this fall, maybe next year).

*DoingTheHappyDance*

I know it's pitiful to be so thrilled about something as crappy as television, but it's my one little real slice of home, you know. All around me is Germany & German. No American family, no American friends, no Taco Bell. But I can watch American "comfort food" television from the couch. For free. So that means something.

Perlite, the final (nasty) word

Have new info, so here's just a quick addendum I added to the post below about perlite:

***UPDATE MAY 24, 2008*** Seemingly you can buy perlite at select "do it" stores here, but usually in mondo quantities for a small farm. Bunny also found a forum where people were discussing soil additives and said some use cat litter (the non-clumping kind, of course) instead of Ton-Granulat. They enjoy very much using some kitty litter called.... I'm serious now.... Pussy. Yes, some people have even found Pussy at Rewe. I've never looked for Pussy at all, so can't say if they sell Pussy at Rewe, but it wouldn't surprise me. So just another hint for gardeners in Germany: if you can't get perlite, try some Pussy. =;-)

(Link: http://green-24.de/forum/ftopic5912.html)

Less than 5 days until...

EUROVISION!


LOLOL. You know you want it.


UPDATE: I wanted to say that although Eurovision is indeed 90% Eurokitsch, I really did love last year's more serious winner. Even bought the MP3. It's a great song. Serbia seems to have something similar this year. Look forward to hearing it in its entirety Saturday night. Below is last year's Serbian entry and the rightful winner, imho. From 1:55 into it it's just amazing (unless you don't like music like this, then I guess you'll think it sucks, but that's your problem, not mine =;-p)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVLINmPsrLY

No Perlite, Part Zwei

Just an update to the last post about perlite & vermiculite being mysteriously missing from German garden centers.

Bunny checked around and everyone reacted as if perlite was some scary substance only meant for industrial use. Run! The perlite truck is near! The only answer available about a substitute was "Seramis Ton-Granulat" (hardened clay bits that come in either little ball-shaped bits or cat litter sized gravel, mainly meant for growing plants without soil, but which I've been mixing into the soil since last summer to loosen it and keep the weight down a bit).

I then discovered that I was mistaken in my belief that standard German potting soil contains perlite like it does back on my planet. It doesn't. At least not the stuff we have. Just plain old dirt (well, good dirt, you know). You see, this weekend some of my baby pepper plants needed to be moved up to their last big yogurt container before their big venture outside and I finally repotted two of our gift plants from our next door neighbor. ("Gift" here is meant to be in English, not in German, which would mean "poison" =;-)

As the lady who lived here before us said, the next door neighbor is a certified plant nerd. I believe she may have an actual living jungle in her apartment. Not long ago she showed up at our door with two nice big houseplants. The poor things had been left by the back door in their plastic bag pots all this time until I finally got around to doing something about them Saturday. Well, blah blah, during the repotting I discovered something that the certified 100% German plant nerd had mixed into the potting soil of her plants. Was it perlite? Nope. Vermiculite? Nope. The cat-litter variety of Seramis Ton-Granulat? Yep.

So I guess that pretty definitively answers that question. The substitute around here is indeed Seramis. Only Seramis. I still feel it's not ideal, lol, but I don't see dead plants all over the place (to the contrary, Germans seem to be serious houseplant-a-holics) so it must work out ok in the end =;-)

***UPDATE MAY 24, 2008*** Seemingly you can buy perlite at select "do it" stores here, but usually in mondo quantities for a small farm. Bunny also found a forum where people were discussing soil additives and said some use cat litter (the non-clumping kind, of course) instead of Ton-Granulat. They enjoy very much using some kitty litter called.... I'm serious now.... Pussy. Yes, some people have even found Pussy at Rewe. I've never looked for Pussy at all, so can't say if they sell Pussy at Rewe, but it wouldn't surprise me. So just another hint for gardeners in Germany: if you can't get perlite, try some Pussy. =;-) (Link: http://green-24.de/forum/ftopic5912.html)

The easily obtainable organic fertilizer issue still exists, though.

And the next question is... does seed starter soil exist in Germany? I've never seen it either. Don't really need it, since I've had pretty good luck with plain dirt, but just wondering. I've seen it mentioned on UK websites and gardening shows (perlite too). You know, it amazes me sometimes how similar America and Britain are and how dissimilar both are to Germany. Just little surprising things, you know, that you'd never usually think of. Anyway, that's what I've gained from my 23 months in Germany and 11 months of British satellite TV...

P.S. You can order big bags of perlite (& vermiculite! shocking!) from amazon.co.uk. It's probably only in Germany that it's not used by normal people. That would be pretty typical.

*UPDATE/NOTE* As of Feb 2009 you can buy perlite/vermiculite in bags at Exoga, an online seed shop. And they take Paypal! =:-) http://www.exoga.de/diverses2/duenger-und-erde/index.html

No Perlite - what gives?

We haven't been to every "do it store" (our name for DIY home improvement stores) in Germany, of course, but the ones we have visited have been devoid of certain products I'd really like to find. I wonder if anyone else out there has had more luck or knows something I don't. The things I've looked through Bauhaus and Hornbach for, to no avail, are:

1. Perlite (small whitish pieces of volcanic glass that make good additions to potted plants because they keep the soil from compacting and reduce overall soil weight on balconies or in the house. Also helps hold water a bit. It's added in small quantities to most potting soils already, but adding more of it can help in certain planting situations.)

2. Vermiculite (helps soil hold more water and keeps it from becoming compacted, plus it's lightweight)

3. Organic fertilizers like fish emulsion liquid

Perlite and fish emulsion are so incredibly normal in America that you'll even find them in the plant sections of grocery stores. And you'd think that Germany, supposedly so hyper about the environment, would have organic fertilizers everywhere. All I've been able to find is the standard chemical type. It's got to exist somewhere! Not everyone lives someplace where they make compost (I'm sure my neighbors would love a compost heap on the balcony, lol) and not everyone (especially around here) has a car and can haul stinky stuff from some specialty nursery out in the country. I just find it odd that the two big 'do it' stores don't carry any of the above.

I have found some little chunks of hardened clay called Ton-Granulat here and it kind of works like vermiculite. The stuff is specifically for growing without soil, but I mixed it with soil last year because it's lightweight and I was a bit worried about loading the balcony too much. Thing is... it still does turn to mush if left too moist. I WANT PERLITE, DAMNIT!

P.S. Hornbach is the only place close enough to us to get to and even it's a pain in the ass, with a bus that only runs once per hour (and woe be to he/she who misses that last one at 7:29pm). There's a Bauhaus way down in south Duisburg that's a long Straßenbahn ride, then a long U-bahn ride, then a bus ride just to get to. I know there's a couple of other 'do it' chains in Deutschland, but I don't think they have locations near us.

*UPDATE/NOTE* As of Feb 2009 you can buy perlite/vermiculite in bags at Exoga, an online seed shop. And they take Paypal! =:-) http://www.exoga.de/diverses2/duenger-und-erde/index.html

Wanna-be Enchiladas in Germany (recipe)

(Pic: Our homemade enchiladas and refried beans, sprinkled with cheese, Schmand & tomatoes. YUM!)

Tomorrow is May 5th, Cinco de Mayo. For those of us in Germany that means... nada. We can't even get a taco. Well, below is my recipe for Wanna-be Enchiladas, made entirely from ingredients you can find in regular German grocery stores. Of course, you could make them better if you had actual Mexican chiles and/or chile powders, corn tortillas, etc. However, unless you get some rather expensive stuff from specialty mail-order companies, there will probably be no way to obtain those things around here. That said, it should be obvious that the recipe below is for wanna-be ripoff Americanized enchiladas. If you want die-hard authentic, go mail order. If you need to satisfy a craving for something (anything!!!!!) that tastes better than ketchup-flavored salsa with flavor-dusted tortilla chips, here you go:

Aunt D's Wanna-be Enchiladas in Germany

• 6 to 8 average sized flour tortillas (like Fuego brand)

• corn tortilla chips (need about 1/4 of a German bag)

• 500g ground meat (beef, "Rind", is really best for these)

• 1 1/2 packages (300g) shredded Gouda (cheddar, if you can get it)

• 150g container of Schmand (Sauerrahm) or Quark mit Sahne

• 500g Tomaten passiert (tomato sauce)

• 1/2 jar of sliced black olives (like Crespo brand from Kaufland)

• 1 to 2 onions,chopped

• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
  

• 1 tsp salt Note: Max 1tsp (maybe less) if your tomato sauce is already salted, so check the label. If it's not salted, start with 1tsp & add more by taste

• 1 1/2 tsp cumin (Kreuzkümmel)

• dash of black pepper

• 1+ tsp cayenne pepper (or fresh chiles, chopped. Hot as you want it)

• 1/3 cup edelsüß Paprika powder (or "scharf" if you really like it hot)

Oven: preheat to 175 degrees C, bottom heat only

1. In a large saucepan/pot, cook meat with onions & garlic until browned. (Chopped fresh chiles, too, if you're using them instead of cayenne powder.)

2. Add to meat the tomato sauce, salt, cumin, cayenne, black pepper and all the paprika powder. Stir well and cook on low heat for 5 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, grease a large baking dish. I use a big glass 8x11.5x2 inches 2-quart dish from the US. Anything equivalent will work. Crunch up corn chips just a little and cover the bottom of the pan with a thin layer of small chip pieces. The chips will be soft when done & add a nice corn tortilla hint to the dish.

4. Warm 6 to 8 flour tortillas a bit (wrapped tightly in foil in the oven for a couple of minutes or just on a plate in the microwave). This makes them easier to roll.

5. Remove sauce mixture from heat and stir in about 3/4 of a 250g container of Schmand or Quark. Save the rest to garnish with when serving later.

5. Ladel a bit of the sauce into your baking dish on top of the corn chip crumbs. Not much, though. Just enough to make a very thin moist layer.

6. Put shredded cheese and several black olives into each tortilla and tuck in the ends and roll them shut. How much cheese & olives (or no olives) is up to you. Place them side by side, seam side down in the baking dish. Repeat until you can't stuff the dish with any more of them.

About to go in the oven (pic):
7. Pour the rest of the sauce carefully over and around the "enchiladas" in the baking dish. You might have a bit too much sauce, depending on dish size. It's good with omelettes in the morning or with chips.

8. Sprinkle the rest of the shredded cheese over the top and bake in the oven for about 15 minutes, bottom heat only. If desired, turn it to top & bottom heat for an additional 5 minutes to get the cheese a bit crusty. Garnish with whatever you want.

NOTES:
By average sized tortillas I mean those dinky ones that we'd consider fajita size. Sometimes you'll find nice big ones or "wraps", but the smaller ones are best for "enchiladas". (Not that enchiladas should be made from flour tortillas in the first place, but... well, you know.)

I say to use Schmand or Quark mit Sahne because the "sour cream" here is usually not sour or creamy enough. Most brands are too thin and runny and don't have much flavor. I did buy a good brand once at Penny Markt, but can't remember what it was. Anyway, I usually buy Campina Tuffi brand Schmand (green container). I find it's an excellent substitute for American sour cream.

The yummiest tomato sauce we've found is a brand called Pomito (sold at Rewe & probably others). They have no added preservatives or salt and it's not watery like some, ahem, cheaper brands... (like I used tonight, darnit)

It might sound excessive to put 1/3 CUP of paprika in there, but that's what real enchilada sauce is in the end: a whole bunch of mostly mild chile peppers. You might want to add even more than the 1/3 cup. Big bags of Paprika which contain way more than 1/3 of a cup can be bought at larger stores like Kaufland and Real for pretty cheap.

If I find improvements to this in the future I'll update this post with a noted message. The last we made them they were soooooo good, but I remember now that I used the rest of my little packet of "enchilada sauce seasoning" from America in addition to the other ingredients. Ah well. Tonight's (following recipe above) were pretty yummy, though! =:-9

Ken Lee ee e e e e eee

OMG, I almost went pee on myself. I love the end:

"What was that language?"

"English."

(I suggest just going straight to the link to watch. Embedded YouTube vids never load right...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RgL2MKfWTo


Ah well. I suppose it's similar to American kids singing "99 Luftballoons" or "Rock Me Amadeus" back in the 80's, huh? =;-) There's one part where I always swore Falco said the "c" word. At least we did learn "Alles klar, Herr Kommissar?" from After the Fire (who?.... that's a trivia question, huh? For some reason I always thought it was The Clash that had covered Der Kommissar in English, lol). Never would have guessed that "alles klar" could come in handy someday...

Homemade Refried Beans (Recipe)

After G in Berlin asked yesterday for my recipe for un-icky pickles (because the German ones su-u-uuuuck), I thought I'd start actually paying attention to the things I cook and write them down and share. I'll start a new tag, "recipes". I already did the brownies recipe and I'll make some more pickles soon, so I'll post a recipe then. (G, you can check the comments under the grunge post for general instructions, though). So, to begin....

Aunt D's Easy No-Fry Refried Beans

First, you need the beans. Pinto beans are "Wachtelbohnen" in German. Unfortunately, cranberry beans are also "Wachtelbohnen" in Germany. (Another instance of Germans having too many words for things that don't need specific words and no specific word for things that do!) Pinto beans are a light beige and brown, while cranberry beans are beige and, who'd guess, cranberry colored. Check out Miss Vickie's site for pics. They look almost the same, but the taste is a bit different. Pinto beans make the best refried beans. Cranberry beans are what you can use in a pinch. You can buy dried Wachtelbohnen at most Kaufland and Extra stores. Kaufland's are often cranberry beans lately, though. Now we begin...

1 package (500g) Wachtelbohnen
1-2 medium onions
2+ crushed/chopped garlic cloves (or garlic powder)
1+ tbsp salt
2+ tsp cumin (sometimes called Kreuzkümmel)
hot chile pepper or cayenne powder as desired
1 to 2 tbsp of cooking oil
water

1. Dried beans must be soaked before cooking. Either cover with 3+ inches of water in a large pot and let them soak overnight or fast soak them by bringing them to a boil, boiling for 2 minutes, them remove from heat and let soak at room temp for 2-3 hours. [With a pressure cooker you can even 'pressure soak' them. Cover with 2+ inches of water & add 1tbsp of oil to prevent foaming. Leave at least 1/3 of your cooker empty, though, so there's room to build up steam. Bring up to pressure, cook for 5 minutes only, remove from heat and let pan sit until pressure comes down on it's own. Do not speed-cool. It might take 30 mins or so. Proceed to step 2.]

2. Dump bean water and rinse beans a couple of times. Refill pot with water so that it's covering them by at least 2 inches (can get by with only 1 inch if using a pressure cooker -- remember that you need at least 1/3 of the pan empty).

3. Add chopped onions, chopped/minced garlic (2 cloves minimum), a tbsp salt, 2 tsp of cumin, a tablespoon of oil (2 tbsp if using a pressure cooker and this is essential!) and as much hotness as you want (a chopped chile pepper or two, a couple of teaspoons of cayenne, etc)

4. Bring to a boil, cover well and reduce heat to low. Cook for 2 to 3 hours until desired tenderness. PRESSURE COOKER: Bring to pressure and then cook about 15 minutes (for 15psi cookers). Use slow-release method to bring pressure down.

5. Strain liquid (so you don't lose the onions, etc), but save at least half of the cooking water in an extra cup or bowl, set aside.

6. If you have a nice big food processer (lucky!), try mashing them as you would potatoes. If you don't, just use a potato masher. Slowly smash and smash and smash them to desired consistency, adding a bit of the liquid back in as you go. As they cool they'll definitely dry out and get stiff, so plan to make them a bit runnier than you want them to be in the end.

7. Taste test. They'll probably need a bit more salt and possibly more cumin if you love cumin. (I know I do!) Just add a tsp at a time and smash it all in good, re-taste. At some point they'll be delicious.

This makes a big bowl of them, great for a get together dinner of Americans or converted Germans. The beans freeze really well, though, too. You can just portion them into freezer bags or small containers and they'll be good as new next time you need them. It may sound like a lot of work, but I make them a lot and I hate cooking, so they must be pretty easy =;-)

Tomorrow or Sunday (hopefully): Aunt D's Wanna-be Enchiladas

Duisburg grunge hits the streets

Well, I haven't been posting much lately, I know. Been gardening, hanging around town with my husbunny, who's been on vacation for a couple of weeks, and I've been working on the stuff below.

I thought the world needed a bit more Duisburg in their lives, so, in connection with a close relation's online shop (I got my whole section, whoo-hoo!), I bring you our special new line of .... da da dummmmmmmmmmm.... Duisburg grunge t-shirts. Hehe. The craziest part is that I suppose the only people in the world that would actually want an ugly, dirty-looking, industrial, grunge, ripped, smeared, spilled on, splattered, broken and factory-smoked-up monstrosity that says "Duisburg" are people in or around Duisburg.... and being that they live here, they probably can't afford it. Doh! =;-) See post about "Dat ist Duisburg" for further explanation.

All proceeds from ugly Duisburg grunge products will go directly and thankfully into the now-empty Fund for Duisburg Bunny's Trips Back to America (or at least for some care packages from home). If you can stand it... please help us escape Duisburg. At least once a year...





Mr. Husbunny just came in and looked at the screen and again said, "Yep! Those really look like Duisburg!" Crazy, but they do.

UPDATE: Added more Ruhrpott cities: Dortmund, Essen and Bochum!

~sigh~

P.S. I plan to add more Ruhr Area cities on that "Ruhrpott" design, like Essen and Dortmund. By all means, if you need a ghetto grunge shirt for your Ruhrgebiet city, don't hesitate to leave me a comment here or email me