Weihnachts-Lebensmittel {Christmas Groceries}

This morning I rolled into the local Lidl (an Aldi-esque) grocery store with a short list :: 

• Dishwasher tabs

• Brussel sprouts

• bread 

• paper towels. 

I knew that I would, as I always do, add extra items to the cart I had dutifully unhooked from the chain of carts with a 2€ coin. Sometimes the additions are because I forgot to add something to my list, but more often it's because I could never anticipate in advance my options. Germany is so much better about rolling out fruits and vegetables in concert with the season. Even the meat departments change as grill friendly skewers are replaced with stew meats, goose and sauerbraten. I find the rotating selection and surprise encounters to be both exciting and a fun culinary challenge.

My first stop was the bakery section, where after nudging a rustic loaf of bread out from its glass case with a giant spoon like tool, I carefully transferred it to the bread slicing machine. I diligently followed the four basic steps: 

1.) place loaf inside machine 

2.) close the lid

3.) select slice width (I usually opt for 10 mm) 

4.) remove loaf after slicing 

Step #4 is the hardest ... and really ... after the serious approach to steps 1-4 they kind of leave you hanging. The expectation is that you then transfer your sliced loaf to a little metal tray arm and then slide a plastic bag around the slices and with luck have the loaf maintain its shape as you insert it in the bag. I have about a 50% success rate. This morning the still warm bread did not end up loaf shaped in the plastic bag. I did an internal Monday morning shrug, and for good measure batted at the bag to twist the top before tying it off sit-com dad style. Obviously, whoever coined the phrase "the coolest thing since sliced bread" never had to endure the disdainful look of German shoppers watching a bread slicing machine fail. "Cool" was not the first word that popped into my mind. 

Never the less, my heart was significantly lightened as I made my way to produce, where I grabbed two overpriced, and giant carbon foot printed avocados. (The Littles have developed a taste for the millennial favorite avocado toast!) In the same section I found, for a reasonable price, a fresh coconut, bio (organic) cress, persimmons, artichokes (along with the brussels I had come for!) 

My shop continued like this. 

By the time I reached the check out I had the most unlikely assortment of items in my cart ... men's underwater (the "middle section" is promo-ing organic cotton this week) and a variety of items to assemble a beautiful cheese and charcuterie board. (The diverse cheese selection included Italian Toma, English Vintage cheddar and Herder's cheese from the Alps.) Sweets included chocolate for the fondue pot, boozy grappa filled truffles and Ruby Port. In the frozen section I picked up Kangaroo streaks, crayfishy looking giant red prawns and wild venison burgers. On a whim I grabbed a Cava vinegar and was delighted to find grated truffle (the fungal variety) both of which which will surely prompt a Pinterest search. 

With all the excitement, I did remember the paper towels! And, of course mundane items :: eggs (laid locally), bananas and milk ... 

This wasn't my average shop. The extra, special items are available in the run up to Christmas when the locals seem to forget that in general they are a meat and potatoes kind of crowd. The superfluous purchases are a fun punctuation of our host culture's favorite time of year. Germany's classy approach to Christmas extends even to its budget groceries. 

(I walked out with that amalgamation for just €140 ... including the last minute knee brace I threw in for our soccer star to try.) 

Lost in Translation :: Sauerbraten

Although we've suddenly had unseasonably warm temperatures, the Christmas delights of Deutschland already populate the grocery shelves. There are stollens and star shaped cookies, and a recent flyer from Aldi with a Christmas tree and greenery promised "Einfach alles fuer ein schoenes Fest!" Which translates to: Just everything for nice party ... the global discount supermarket, that was founded 20 minutes from where we now live, clearly likes to play it low key.

One of my favorite finds at Christmastime in Germany has been the Aachner Printen cookie, a local NRW favorite with rich history and a protected status. National Geographic describes them  here. (Really, go read this article, and then if you ever come to Germany make sure you add the Aachner Dom to your itinerary.)



This Plain Jane, denim skirt of  a cookie hardly has the flair that one typically thinks of a Christmas cookie, and that's fair, because they were made to be durable and long lasting, but they do not compromise flavor. So imagine my delight when I was traveling with my adult field trip group last season for a walking tour of Aachen, and learned that the protected Printen has made its way into a regional fall and winter dish ... Sauerbraten. 


Sauerbraten is literally the word sauer (sour) and braten (roast). But because Germans area the original hash-taggers, they love to squish several words together that then becomes one stand alone noun, for example in English we could create Sundaypotroast.

I googled several Sauerbraten mit Printen recipes and was trying to piece together which ingredients and directions seemed the simplest (everything I found was in Deutsch).

I decided on this  one.

I read through the German version three times before I realized it called for a kilo of horse meat! I had mistakenly thought Sauerbraten was simply a vinegary German version of roast beef, but Wikipedia set me straight. Sauerbraten is a German pot roast that can be prepared with a variety of meats - most often beef and TRADITIONALLY, HORSE. (Caps and bold mine, Wiki doesn't shout.) Before cooking, the cut of meat is marinated for several days (recipes vary from three to ten days) in a mixture of vinegar or wine, water, herbs, spices and seasonings ...

Dear Jesus, who's swaddling cloth is probably not actually among the relics at the Aachner Dom (go back and read the Nat Geo article) please don't let me have been stewing two pounds of horse meat for the last 90 minutes!

Imagine my relief when I saw that ever practical Aldi, who sells pre-marinated Sauerbraten, so I don't have to spend THREE TO TEN DAYS doing it myself, went the "most often" Sauerbraten route and mercifully not the "traditional" one.

When I arrived at my recycling bin and removed dutifully rinsed Sauerbraten packaging that had been dependably placed in the correct recycling receptacle (we have four: packaging/paper/bio/refuse, in addition to the various bottle sorting categories!) I saw the friendly image of a mournful cow and was monumentally grateful.

Today's The Day ...

On Sunday she flew with her Dad to Chicago. She expertly packed two duffel bags and a suitcase. She knows, by feel, the difference between 48 pounds and 50. This is not her first rodeo.

In many ways she’s so prepared. (Certainly more than me.)

Today she moves into her dorm.

Today’s the Day. And I’m not there.

“I’ve dreaded this day for two years,” I told a friend at lunch. 

When we moved to Germany two years ago with a three year contract we realized she would age out ahead of us. It has loomed in big and small ways for the last twenty-four months.

In many ways it was good it was a full summer. It kept our minds off of the inevitable.

The summer was a blur with Millie’s IB exams in the beginning of May, the visit of three of her friends at the end. Her prom (which in Deutschland is a family event) and then her graduation four days later. We had a whirl-wind day connecting in The Germ with American friends we did life with in China. We then flew and ferried to the blue and white paradise of Greece, where all the busyness of the previous months faded away and tans took. We relaxed and bonded. We got blonder and grew kinder.

We came home only to put the girls on the plane to America the next day, and boarded our own flight to Venice the day after that. We celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary in Italy. Venti in Venice. Molto Romantico.

In America the younger girls went to the Rocky Mountains with our church youth group. Millie and I shopped college supplies for two full days . We drank lots of Starbucks. We hit Target and TJs and Homegoods and Marshalls.

When Sean arrived we spent time with his family, cuddled nieces and nephews, caught up with friends, binged on “Christian chicken” from Chick-fil-A and stocked up on a year’s supply of antiperspirant, tampons and American Eagle jeans.

Work took Sean to the corporate office and the girls and I headed to the True North Strong and Free. We enjoyed time in Canada with my family and did the kinds of things we’d do if we lived closer – lunch with aunts, the tea house with my grandma, pedicures with my mom, and lots of time just being together.

Two days after landing back in Europe we welcomed friends from Illinois and jet-lagged together. We also got to catch two Women’s UEFA cup games in The Netherlands and give them a little taste of our life in the Germ.

Millie spent four August days in Spain with a friend, soaking in more sunshine and savoring the last bits of her freedom from studies. 

We spent the next weekend as a family in Berlin, soaking in the history and horror of our host country’s capital.

Most of Europe experienced the blasting heat wave dubbed Lucifer this summer. In Florence they actually shuttered the Uffizi due to high temperatures. Dante’s inferno literally came to Firenzia. But not Germany. They were like, “Not today (or any other day), Satan.”

“RIP tan.” Millie quipped.

I would miss her sarcasm and wit. (The younger two are nowhere near as saltzig.)

We huddled under sweatshirts and slept under down. The premature autumnal August was Lenten-like. It came with the final long good bye. A full week of the “Sunday Night Feeling.”

I’d catch the girls cuddling together while watching Netflix.

I caught myself tearing up … when I walked in to her room, or sat across from her at the dinner table. It had started in Berlin … eyes glistening at a restaurant and Millie said, “oh, Mom,” in a combination of frustration and pity. I’d slide my sunglasses on, despite being inside on a rainy day, and hope others didn’t see the tears sliding down my mom cheeks.

Sean made it his mission to announce how many days we had left to enjoy her being with us.

But for me the worst part was going to her room, as the closet and dressers grew increasingly barer as the suitcases plumped.

This is the bitter sweetness of raising children. Every minute we’ve spent with her brought us one moment closer to the day she moves on. From the moment my sweet man-child of a husband cut through her healthy, juicy umbilical cord 18 years ago, she has been slowly divorcing herself from the need of us.

And … This is how it should be.

(It’s just not exactly how I planned.)

Today is the Day-  that the sweet man who lovingly panted and breathed with me (and fed me ice chips and massaged my hands) as we brought her into the world 18 years ago, sweetly patched me in on FaceTime as he helped her arrange her half of a postage stamp sized dorm room.

I could be involved, despite being 4,000 miles and seven time zones away.

And the moments she and I spent planning and prepping everything from her succulents to sheets were pleasant memories revived. I was there as they unfurled her rose colored (or what Millie said has now been dubbed Millennial pink) spread over her semi-lofted bunk. And watched as they maneuvered around the frustration of ruptured laundry pods.

Today’s the Day.

Basketball 2017

It's NECIS basketball season and all three of our girls are playing this year.

It's a quick season with "friendly" matches against other international  schools in North East Europe. Schools take turns traveling and hosting games on Fridays nights and Saturday mornings. The home team hosts students from the visiting team overnight. Last weekend Beatrice and the rest of the U12s and U14s traveled to Luxembourg. The same weekend Luxembourg sent their JV and Varsity teams to us.

The NECIS season culminates in a long weekend tourney.

 Last weekend we hosted overnight two junior varsity girls from Sweden & the US. 

Tonight we have a couple of U12 German girls. 

Dinner conversation on Inauguration Day escalated quickly :: 

"How old are you? How old are your sisters? Are you American citizens? Who did you vote for?" 

Beatrice @ the Charity Stripe in game against Hamburg

Eliza on ISD JV against Lux

The Varsity girls pose for a team photo

Christmas in the UK

We spent Christmas in The UK this year.

We drove.

From Germany, through The Netherlands, into Belgium and then France. We spent the night near Calais and the next morning drove our Audi A4 Avant wagon onto a train and under the English Channel. When we popped up on the other side Herr Johnson bravely drove on the left side of the road, whilst I frantically googled U.K. speed limits and kilometer to miles conversions.


We checked into an adorable Air Bnb in Northwest London and then parked and locked our car for three days. We spent 72 hours traversing the city on foot and by public transit (Minding the Gap on the London Underground and enjoying the view from the upper seats red double decker buses to locations the tube didn't as easily accommodate.)
For much of the trip Millie served as our personal tour guide. She's been twice to London since we visited as a family last spring :: once with her HL art class and again with her soccer team. As Sean and I found ourselves in the unfamiliar role of following our daughter through tube stations and markets, We caught a glimpse of our future :: learning new things and being guided by our global girls. We also got the premonition that our future will involve passports and travel ... chasing our adventurous children around the world!


We Christmas shopped on Oxford St., visited the V&A museum, walked through the Spitalfields Market and down Brick Lane (Little Bangladesh). On Christmas Eve day we toured the hip Camden markets and had some of the best food from a vast array of international food options.

On Christmas Eve eve we attended a "Crib Service," an Anglican tradition of making the Christmas story accessible and real to very young children. Our no-longer-very-young children found it at turns quaint and sweet. We walked back to our rented London home and popped samosas and shepherd's pie into the oven (which we found at turns both traditional and cliche.)

On Christmas morning there were no stockings or presents or even a tree. But there was breakfast. We brewed strong Yorkshire tea and ate crumpets with clotted cream and jam to fortify us for our journey into Wales, the ancestral home of my Canadian relatives. We left a very quiet London ... zipping easily along the motorway. So much of the land was busy celebrating Christmas (not driving to Cymru).

The drive would take about four hours. We were headed to the wee town of Carno. A village where both my great grandmother and great grandfather hail from. They later immigrated to Canada. My paternal grandfather was their sixth child. My grandpa died when my dad was four. The connection with that part of my family is not strong. But the idea of being so close to my roots compelled us.

We snacked on apples and good English cheddar and cold samosas on the road. We talked about how our families all originally came from Europe before immigrating to North America, and the irony of us, as North Americans, now living in Europe.

We are coming full circle.

We arrived in Carno and found the football club, with a community centre Canadian cousins helped finance, there was a well groomed soccer pitch and tidy lawn bowling courts. We regrouped in the parking lot there ... shuffling between emails and photos and anscestry.com to find the spots we were looking for :: the Smithy, where Great-great grandpa Gittins worked as a town's blacksmith, the old Gittins house, Tyre Mar (the Big House my great grandpa Lewis grew up in), and of course the church and church yard where the relatives are buried.

We found all these places.

The sky was grey, but it wasn't cold. The ground was spongy. Everything felt old. Maybe because nearly everything that stood still acquired moss. Or maybe it was because everything really just is old. The Free House in Carno has been serving ale and renting rooms since the 1600s. Nearly 2000 years ago the Romans came through and claimed the area. And ... 700 years before that the Celts were here.

As Americans we come from a land of strip malls. Where 70 years ago we carved the faces of respected leaders into some hills and proclaimed it a landmark. Sometimes it's just hard to wrap your head around just how old things are in the Old World, and how newly invented everything seems in the New World.

It's also interesting to think that this place is where one quarter of my people originate. They spoke a language other than English. They contended with wind and a harsh climate. And at some point, a brave young couple named David and Annie Jane set sail for Canada leaving it all behind. I don't know exactly what drove this move. But what a massive decision!

We took a final pass through the quiet little village of Carno and then headed toward the coast. We arrived in Aberystwyth at sunset and caught the salty spray of the angry Irish Sea. The beach was all smooth black rocks. The temperature was noticeably cooler. As wiki explains, "Air undergoes little land moderation and so temperatures closely reflect the sea temperature when winds are coming from the predominant onshore (westerly) direction."

We hiked up to the castle ruins. It was now dark — uplights provided illumination but hampered photography. We listened to the waves crash.

We had a full day in Wales.

We drove a mile or so up the hill to our home for the night. We marveled at a place so sweet and safe that email correspondence declared, "they would just leave the key in the door." They did. They also left a lamp on and a little Christmas tree lit. There were Christmas plates and tinsel. The front mat declared "the weather outside is frightful," and we could imagine that if there was a strong wet Welsh winter gale it would be, but it was hard to describe the wall mounted electric fireplace as "delightful."

It was a little like coming home to grandmas.

In a way ... we were.

Cymru am byth
"Wales forever"


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Reflection ...

"Weihnachten 2016 PEACE"

Chalk art at the Münster Christmas Market 

Tonight, in a capital that I've never been to, 600 kilometers from where I live, a truck rammed into a crowded Christmas market. 

I will try to go to sleep tonight ... Knowing that as I sleep Politzei in Berlin will work to reconstruct events and build a case. 

I know that by tomorrow morning, the news outlet that flashed a banner and headline across my smart phone as I was setting my alarm will research and have background information. 

My Facebook page will have updates and notifications. 

Tomorrow morning at breakfast  I will tell my 11 year-old a tale we've repeated too many times.

For now, there is nothing I can do. 

But, in this moment, I can reflect. 

We've never been to Berlin (although it's on the short list of places to visit next.)

We know what that Christmas market would have been like ... we've spent our weekends wandering around Weihnachtsmarkts in

small towns and bigger cities in our corner of Deutschland. We have visited markets at castles, beside churches, and even Cathedrals. We've drunk warming gluhwein from collectible mugs, ate our way though German sweets and savouries, bought ornaments and just experienced the magic of the moment. 

There is a collective sense of community in the Christmas Markets. The days of advent are counted down with expectation. Every German, regardless of his level of devoutness, knows what week of advent we are in. Yesterday we lit the forth candle ... not just in churches, but also in communities. 

And now in these moments, before we know the gory details of death tolls, injuries and sleeper cells ... 

we think in terms of community :: the immediate community in the capital, the larger national community, the community of shared cultural affinity. On a global scale we can also share community, with a shared understanding based simply on our humanness. 

And as these communities, individually and collectively, mourn and weep, may we also come together in shared solidarity and with a continued advent-like faith in the anticipated, but not quite arrived day of peace we all long for.  

Traditional Advent Reading (week one)

4 He will judge between the nations
    and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
    nor will they train for war anymore.

Isaiah 2:4

Neunzehnten Jahrestag

Sometimes as an expat, life is as glamorous as it sounds, and looks, in the highlight reel. 

And ...

Sometimes you spend your wedding anniversary like this :: 

Nine time zones apart. 

The deal was I got a chance to travel to Southern California and see my brother and his family while my parents were also visiting. This was high on the girls' bucket list of summer things to do, and I was thrilled with the prospect. 

Herr Johnson hadn't scheduled vacay during this time, plus somebody had to wait for Millie to get back from her biological conservation service trip in Greece, and feed Kate the Great (now probably the world's most expensive rabbit.) 

It worked out. We had a great week in Cali and met up with Sean and Mills in Chicago the next week. 

And we knew we'd get a chance to get away sometime, if not on the actual date. 

So this weekend, on our 19th year and one month anniversary we got away for 28 hours ... Top down on the autobahn ... Squeezing in three countries, two churches and one British restaurant we will remember forever. We also stayed in a really hip apartment that had a sleeping loft ... (It might have felt more like we were 19, than 19 years married — The approach to the second story felt almost identical to clambering up the vertical approach of a corn crib.) 

Featuring the sleeping loft ...

I can't Instagram (or blog) everything, but this posset with my posse of one was amazing. There was a large table near us that got notably quiet when each course of their food came out. When they finished their dessert you could hear spoons scraping the bottoms of their Wekk canning jars (Europe's cousin of the ubiquitos hipster Mason jar). I fully admitted to the chef when he came out of the kitchen and chatted that I had just literally googled "posset" (I later visited Pintrest for ways to concoct it at home.) I took a chance on it and was not disappointed ... Not for a moment. It was curdled with lemon and gin. We had a tutorial earlier in the meal on gins ... And they had special tonic, brewed by a friend of the chef. I felt like we got a foods class as part of the experience. It's hard to go wrong with a "farm to table" concept restaurant in The Netherlands, the produce capital of Europe. Check out The Dutchess (http://theduchess.restaurant/) if you're ever in the greater Aachen/Limburg area.

 (We did.)

We also visited this historic Baroque church on the Markt square. 

As we were leaving, this woman approached us ... First in Dutch, then German and finally English. She wanted us to catch the exterior detail of a lion. 

According to this tri-lingual, passionate Ambassador of Limburg history, a circus once set up in the Markt Square (where we had just enjoyed a pair of cappuccinos and people watching.) In an unfortunate incident, the circus' lion escaped and made its way into Sint-Michielskerk. The church was full of people. The lion sashayed to the front of the church, laid down by the alter, and simply looked at the congregants. The lion trainer arrived at the church and was amazed by the sight. 

(Of course I googled this too ... And found the lion story is an iconic part of local history! http://www.netherlands-tourism.com/saint-michaels-church-sittard/)

We had a beautiful day for driving. 

We drove through the Dutch hills (which is a rarity ... The Netherlands is known for being both flat and largely below sea level!) to the meeting point of Belgium, The Netherland and Deutschland. The convergence of these three lands is marked with a plain cement point and the three flags are furled. The Dreiländerpunkt (three country point) is a perfect example of how one European country seamlessly flows into the next. 

From the Dreiländerpunkt we made our way back into Germany, stopping in Aachen to tour the Aachner Dom and grab a late lunch before heading home.