A to Z

Bread, that is!

There were two over-the-hill bananas in the fruit bowl this morning, and that just gave me a hankering for banana bread! My go-to recipe is called "A to Z Bread", which was given to me years ago by my friend Jackie in the Netherlands. I tweaked it a little bit here and there, mostly by reducing the amount of oil and sugar. Things have a tendency to taste too sweet to my palate these days, plus the overripe bananas add plenty of sweetness already!

I just googled A to Z bread, and found it here, if you're interested. I halved the recipe, and made the following changes:
1 cup all-purpose flour plus 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 large egg plus 3 TB egg whites
1/4 canola oil plus 1/4 cup applesauce
reduce sugar to 3/4 cup
I only baked it for about 45 minutes, until a knife inserted into the center came out clean.
The result: super moist banana nut bread! 

Just the thing with a nice cup of hot tea!

This-n-that

Remember Dieter? (shown here in a picture taken in February...)

Dieter began his day parked at one mechanic, and will end his day parked at another...
where do I start?! Well, without going into too much detail, Dieter is 11 years old, and things are breaking, as they are bound to do.

Last week we got the starting motor replaced, and he was running like a champ. Jim joked that the engine roared to life before you turned the key, and it almost seemed like that! However, the mechanic did not attach the "belly pan" (a plastic cover which protects the engine from the underside) properly, and on our ride to Huntsville over the weekend, it kept scraping the surface of the road. Not good.

This was the third instance of sloppy/negligent work on the part of this mechanic we'd been going to for 4-5 years, so we decided enough was enough, we're taking D. somewhere else. Enter mechanic #2 (recommended by someone on the neighborhood email list. This place also had many good online reviews.) They also charge $20 an hour less for labor.

They fixed the "belly pan", fixed the 2nd issue we asked them about, and found something new that the other place apparently missed (or which happened on our trip to H'ville over the weekend- who can tell...)

Everything was coming up roses, it seemed, until I got in to drive away after the repairs... I turned the key, and there was no sign of "roaring to life". More like a sort of feeble grinding noise, and then silence. @#$%&! What the...?! New starter, etc???

Apparently, the starter was faulty from the outset. Which doesn't explain why he started up so enthusiastically all those times. But, it was still covered under warranty. So, Dieter was towed from one repair joint to another, and will spend another night surrounded by his German brethren (BMWs , Mercerdes, Audis, other VWs) instead of in our garage where he belongs! And hopefully tomorrow will see him fitted with a new, non-faulty starter.

Today I exercised my freedom as someone who no longer has an on-air shift, and worked from home all day! Tomorrow I will brave the heat and ride my bike in.

In other news...

The yogurt pendulum has swung the other way!

 

Yep, that's me holding up one of my little containers of yogurt from the 2nd batch I made. Not quite what I was going for! It pretty much has the consistency of very thick custard.

I almost got the spoon to stay in while I was holding it upside down! But here it is just standing up in the upright container.

It tastes quite good- plenty of yogurty tang, and definitely not too sweet. But good lord, did that Agar powder bind or what?!

Next time I will experiment with 3/4 teaspoon Agar powder, instead of one whole teaspoon. In the meantime, anyone fancy some custardyogurt?

Not quite, but close!

To finish off the saga of my first batch of yogurt, I was about 50% successful.

I tested it after 9 hours, and it barely tasted tangy. Susan V.'s recipe did warn that it may take up to 12 hours to taste tangy if you used store-bought soy yogurt as a starter, so that didn't concern me.

So, I left it in the incubator for about 13.5 hours, and then it finally tasted tangy enough for me. But, it was still runny. So, I'm channeling my inner European and embracing the concept of drinkable yogurt.

Today I went to the General Store of Our Time, aka Amazon, and ordered up some Agar powder.

Next week will see me again crossing swords with L. Acidophilus, B. Bifidum, L. Bulgaricus and S. Thermophilus! :-D

Adventures in fermentation

No, not beer or wine... can you guess? Maybe pictures will help:

Yogurt! I wanted to try my hand at making my own soy yogurt. So, a yogurt maker was purchased (see Jim, there was still one piece of kitchen equipment we didn't have!) :-D

Of course, I knew nothing of making yogurt, so I needed a recipe. I decided to use one from the Fat Free Vegan Kitchen blog. (Scalding the materials beforehand was fun. So fun that I also scalded my right hand for good measure. Can't be too careful with bacteria, after all...) >-O

The only problem with using this recipe was this: I couldn't find Agar powder! Central Market used to have it in their bulk section, but apparently it's been hard to keep in stock lately. They have it in their Asian foods section, but it's not pure (it has sugar in it). I tried several other stores, to no avail. Of course, I could order it online, but I was sure hoping to make the first batch this weekend (see "patience, lack of " below). So, off I went in search of another thickening agent.

Eventually decided to use cornstarch. After all, the Whole Soy & Co. yogurt I used as a starter was thickened with cornstarch, so it must work, right? So I consulted Chef Internet to see how much to use, and went from there. Very nervous-making, all of this experimentation. I am a recipe-follower, after all. Just give me a recipe that works, and I'm golden. :-)

So, it's happily fermenting away as we speak. It's SO hard not to peek under the cover, not to mention waiting 9 whole hours before I test it. But I'm determined to wait until 5 PM before tasting it.

You'll hear all about it next time!

Jan Steen

OK, Brenda, here's the answer to your question! :-)

The painting in the background of the picture of me and Jim that you see at the top of the blog is by Jan Steen. It's called "Soo voer gesongen, soo na gepepen"

This is by no means a literal translation, but the closest thing we have in English to that Dutch saying is "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree". And you can see that youngsters are being 'led astray', especially the kid smoking the pipe on the right side!

This painting hangs in the Mauritshuis in The Hague, and that's where Jim and I are standing in the picture, outside the gates.

Jan Steen (pronounced Yahn Stain- like a stain on your shirt) is a very popular Dutch Golden Age artist. He is credited with the creation of several Dutch sayings, things that are still used in ordinary conversation today. Like "een huishouden van Jan Steen" means a chaotic and messy household. (The floor in the painting above is pretty tidy, but in other Steen paintings the floor is littered with objects, and little kids are shown getting into all kinds of mischief.)

When Jim and I posed for this picture (it was taken by our friend Carla- we were visiting her and her husband Baher in The Hague), we didn't even see this large reproduction of Steen's painting. Only afterwards, when we saw the picture, we smiled at the appropriateness (we both enjoy a nice glass of wine, and no one could accuse us of being, shall we say, overly fastidious housekeepers!) ;-)

Keeping up with German

So you may have noticed the blog redesign... we're not 'on the road' anymore, so a few minor adjustments were needed. Hope you still like it (and want to read it!)

It was really helpful to spend a week speaking German. I felt that my skills improved just from that short but intense contact with the language. But now the trick is to keep it up! So...

A few months ago (actually, it may have been a Christmas gift), Jim ordered a book for me from Germany at my request. It's called "Mitternacht" (Midnight), written by Andreas Nohr:

My interest in this novel originated with its protagonist: a composer by the name of Nicolaus Bruhns. (If you followed the blog during our trip to Germany, you may remember the name.)

I fell in love with his music on first hearing. The bummer is, only a handful of his works have survived (or have come to light- let's remain hopeful that some more may be uncovered!)

Bruhns was a member of a  Lübeck musical dynasty, and studied with Dieterich Buxtehude. (Just as an aside, I've always wondered whether Thomas Mann may have been related to Nicolaus Bruhns, as his mother's maiden name was Bruhns.) 

Nicolaus was an incredibly gifted musician. An account of him tells how he would play the violin, and at the same time accompany himself at the organ on the pedals! I love to think of him as a teenager studying with Buxtehude, showing off in teenage fashion in exactly that way! 

So I came to learn of this book in one way or another, and thought that reading it might be a good way for me to improve my German. I should say "reading", since looking every third word up in the dictionary can hardly be called reading. Ah well- baby steps! 

Jim and I are also hoping to get some more conversation experience by hiring a native speaker of German to come over and talk with us a couple of times a month. Jim found someone advertising that service on our neighborhood email list, and as soon as he digs that out of the archives, we'll make contact. 

Gracie Awards 2011

[This post is several days late because I couldn't upload pics for some reason! So, just pretend it's Wednesday afternoon...]

Hello from Hollywood! This is Slim (sans Stretch! Boo hoo!)

I got up at 2:50 AM Austin time today. This was partially nerves and partially just needing to get out of the house to catch my flight at 6:30!

All went swimmingly. The flight lasted just under 3 hours (which feels really short after sitting through a trans-Atlantic flight the same week!)

Arrived just after 8 AM, took a long and expensive taxi ride to Beverly Hills and found the Beverly Wilshire Hotel where the Gracie Awards luncheon would be held!

Remember this place from "Pretty Woman"?

Once I had oriented myself, I took a walk around the environs, including Rodeo Drive! I ended up having a nice cup of tea at a place on Santa Monica Blvd called 'Panini' something. It was very pleasant in the sunshine! The weather is great: low 70's and breezy.

The area where the hotel is located can best be described as the world's largest and most expensive open-air shopping mall. So I enjoyed window shopping at places like Ralph Lauren, Coach, Fendi, Michael Kors, and dozens of other places where I can't even afford to breathe the air inside the store.

It was amusing to me to reflect on how different LA is from the places I inhabited for the past 2 weeks. Lübeck and LA- could two places be more different! Underlining this odd juxtaposition was the fact that I read 2 more short stories by Thomas Mann on my Kindle while I was there, one of which took place entirely in Lübeck, though he never names the place outright.

But I digress.

After my tea I walked back to the hotel to change into my glad rags for the ceremony! The dress managed not to be too wrinkled, despite having been wrested into a garment bag and smushed into an overhead bin on a small airplane this morning!

They opened the doors at around 11:45. The ceremony was held in the ballroom. The first person I met was the very talented and glamorous Bridgette Lateice, who won her 5th Gracie for a documentary about students studying abroad in Africa.

Soon after that, the other half of the Austin contingent arrived: Khotan Shahbazi-Harmon, who won her 2nd Gracie for her show on KOOP called 'Idea Lounge'. She does long-form interviews on her program. She used to be a relief announcer on KMFA, and frequently uses our studio to conduct her interviews. She is a lovely person, and I really enjoyed getting to know her at the luncheon!

They soon let us into the ballroom for the luncheon portion of the festivities:

We had a nice salad, followed by roast chicken (for the majority of the folks!) Luckily, there was a vegetarian option: roasted veggies Wellington accompanied by haricots verts and pesto sauce. Quite tasty! For dessert, chocolate layer cake with fresh berries.

After lunch, the ceremony began: the keynote speaker was the CEO of PBS, Paula Kerger. She gave a very inspiring talk on the role of women in the media landscape.

She spoke of growing up watching PBS, and specifically mentioned one of my favorite shows from Masterpiece Theater: Elizabeth R, starring Glenda Jackson! She also referred to an initiative by actress Geena Davis, which you can read about here.

I actually read about this just a few weeks ago. Geena was watching children's TV with her young daughter, and it occurred to her how few female characters there were, how little they had to say and do (compared to the male characters) and how sexualized they were in their dress and conduct. This caused her to found the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media to study this phenomenon, and to hopefully enact change.

I was very impressed with what I read about her work. Little kids internalize the messages they receive from watching TV, even the unspoken ones, and I believe that it is vital to show kids of both genders taking part in the action equally, solving problems equally, and not reduce the female characters to wall-flower status.

Anyway, here I am digressing again... :-)

After Ms. Kerger finished her talk, we met the host of the award ceremony: Nancy Giles.

She is an actress, and TV journalist (CBS News Sunday Morning). She was a very smart, witty and amusing host! And I got to shake her hand after I accepted my Gracie!

None of the 'action shots' of me accepting the award turned out, but they had a professional photographer on the scene, and they say those pictures should be available in mid-June.

My program was the sixth one they announced (it was in alphabetical order) and of course it was all a blur. I was concentrating on not toppling over, unused as I am to wearing heels! Sadly, they did not permit us to make any remarks. Personally, I would have been glad to sit there for another hour so that everyone could say a few words. I wanted to thank Michael Nyman, after all!

The four award-winners at our table: me, Khotan, Michael Martinez from WAMU in Washington, DC, and Cheryl Jennings from KGO-TV in San Francisco!

Austin's got talent!

After the ceremony, I took a cab to my hotel, which, though fine in itself, looked a little shabby after the Beverly Wilshire! HA! There I took some pictures of Gracie:

After that it was time to think about dinner. I figured LA would offer a rich assortment of vegetarian restaurants, so I did a google search (say what you will about my shabby motel- it had free Wi-Fi!) and found Real Food Daily. It was on a bus line, so I decided to give my pocketbook a break and take the bus rather than a cab.  That turned out to be not one of my wiser decisions, as I waited for over a half hour for a northbound bus (watching 3 southbound buses of that number go sailing by while I waited...)

Anyway, it all worked out and I eventually made it to the restaurant. What an amazing array of choices on the menu! Omnivores may not realize what a special feeling that is, when one is used to having 2-3 things to choose from on an ordinary restaurant menu (maybe more if you eat fish, like I do). I eventually selected a very tasty BLT wrap. The "B" in this case being made of tempeh. It was sliced very thin, so it was crispy like bacon, and it also had a smoky flavor. They did very well, in my opinion! I also had a glass of organic California Cabernet, and a cup of chai tea for 'dessert'.

By then I was totally beat, and took a cab back to the motel, and was out like a light by 9 PM (LA time- 2 hours earlier than Austin.) So there was no heavy sightseeing or boisterous partying for me that day!

Oh, I wanted to mention these gorgeous trees I kept seeing:

Had no idea what I was seeing, so when I got back I asked a friend who grew up in that part of LA, and she knew. They are called jacaranda, and they are just gorgeous!

So to finish this saga, the next morning I got up, had a jog on the treadmill, ate breakfast at the motel, and was on the road to the airport by 8 AM. My flight left at 11:20, but I was living in fear of LA traffic. Turned out, there was none! So, I spent 2 hours at the gate.

I was also worried about getting Gracie through security (wasn't about to put her in my checked baggage!). That also was no problem at all. Had a smooth flight back to Austin, and was met very punctually at baggage claim by my wonderful husband, who I was very glad to see! Then we went home and I cooked my first meal in about 3 weeks. Welcome back to reality! :-) Honestly, I'm glad to be home and to be staying put for awhile!

Fun with time zones

We're back home in Austin after a superb trip! The flight from Amsterdam to Houston went off without a hitch (long trip, though- more than 10 hours!). But then reality set in: when we landed in Houston, we stood in the immigration line for more than an hour, because only 4 officers were on duty, and hundreds of people were waiting!
That caused us to miss our connection to Austin. The next flight was scheduled to depart about 3 hours later, and we were able to get seats on that plane. But, it ended up being delayed for an hour... and Jim's bag went on its own little vacation to points unknown... you get the picture. (The bag was delivered this morning in good condition. I was relieved to find the bottle of Luebecker Rotspon intact!)
So, we got back to the hacienda at about 9 PM last night. The house looked bizarrely huge compared to the cozy Dutch and German quarters we've been used to for the past two weeks. But, I guess that will pass after awhile. :-) Our cat, Calli, was suitably unimpressed to have us back again. You can almost see her thought bubble: "Oh right- you again." I regaled her with stories about the friendly cats we met in Europe, hoping she would take the hint. No dice. :-)
Calli was taken care of by my Mom and brother, who loved their two-week vacation in Austin!
It's definitely easier flying west, but it does make for a long day (you get those 7 hours  back that you 'lost' on the way over). Right now I feel vaguely hung over, without having had the fun of consuming those beverages which cause one to get that way.
Poor Jim is at work- I took the day off to recover (i.e. do laundry and get some food in the house!) Tomorrow I go back to work... for one whole day, then I'm off on another adventure. Tune in on Wednesday for more fun with time zones! :-)

Edam: More than Cheese!

Today we got up in good time to start packing up for the return journey tomorrow. Then we took the train to Amsterdam at 11:46, and thence the bus to Edam, about a half hour north of Amsterdam. The purpose of this trip was to visit with my old organ teacher, Harm, and his wife Trinette. We arrived a little after 1 PM, after being held up for a few minutes by a traffic jam going to the uber-touristy Volendam.
We had a lovely visit with H & T in their home. Actually, the weather was so lovely that we sat in the back garden, first enjoying tea and cake, then later a nice glass of wine (Luebecker Rotspon that we brought them!) and snacks. We had a great time catching up on all the goings-on since the last time we saw them (2 years ago in Brugge), and reminiscing.
Harm also took us on a nice walk into the old town of Edam. Here are a few pictures to show exactly how picturesque this old city is. It was once a major shipbuilding town.

The Lutheran church in Edam, where I played the organ once!

Then we headed a back to Haarlem for a final dinner at Cafe Brinkmann on the Grote Markt.

That famous light...

Isn't that just amazing?! It is of course no accident that people like Vermeer and Rembrandt played with light in the way that they did in their paintings. The light in Nederland is really special... when it's available, that is!! :-P

Happy Schneiders!

"Our" church, bathed in evening light

And so tomorrow will see us back in Austin again...as hard as that is to believe. Two weeks have gone by in the blink of an eye! Thanks for sharing our adventures with us!

Here and there in Haarlem

Dutch door in our kitchen, seen from outside

Side view of house, taken from the street

"Still life with breakfast"

Today we were tourists in Haarlem. We visited quite a few 'hofjes'- inner gardens with small houses around them that were founded as charitable institutions by wealthy Haarlemmers in the 17th & 18th centuries.

We also visited St. Bavo's on the Grote Markt. It's a magnificent structure, as you have already seen in the painting by Berckheyde from a few days ago. 

The lovely and ornate rood screen. I took some pictures of the interesting creatures depicted on the screen:

You may remember reading about my interest in Saenredam's paintings of church interiors? He did one in St. Bavo. I was delighted to come across a poster of his painting propped against a pillar, marking the very spot where he stood to capture his view!

Saenredam's view

Very nice detail!

WOW! It really is one of the most impressive organ fronts in the world. Even for a person who has seen a few- it took my breath away seeing it again!


We were a bit foot-sore by then, so we decided to take a canal boat tour. Here are some choice pictures from that:

 

 The Cathedral-Basilica St. Bavo, aka the New Bavo. I used to go to organ concerts here nearly every week during the summer organ season.

Beautiful step-gables across from the Frans Hals Museum.

The other Bavo, officially called Grote- of St. Bavokerk.

Guest blog by Stretch

Thursday, May 19,  Guest blog by Jim (Stretch).

Starting with what I came home to this evening, above is a shot of the church tower taken from the terrace of the apartment we are renting in Haarlem.  People live and work here surrounded by beauty like this.  This is probably what I enjoy most about what we experience in Europe.  The beauty that is part of almost every minute you spend here.

Here is Sara relaxing on the terrace after an interesting day that included a successful interview and social visit with Sir Harry Van der Kamp, star bass baritone singer of early music.

But enough about Sara. ;-) This morning  I started out walking about 20 minutes to the main train station in Haarlem and taking a 10 minute train ride to Sandpoort, a small village on the North Sea.  Sara’s friends Jackie and Ton live there with their children.  Ton, whom I had not met, had kindly offered to show me things that would be of interest to someone of a technical bent, mainly focused on shipping.

First Ton and I walked from their home to a functioning flour mill driven by wind power; that is, by the kind of windmill that you associate with The Netherlands, and imagine is just a relic.  In this case, the windmill, built around 1780, grinds wheat into flour that is a commercial product.  A non-profit organization owns the facility and leases it to a miller who operates it with paid and volunteer labor. It is there to provide an opportunity for visitors to understand the role of windmills in the history of their nation.  Ton had been there dozens of times before with visitors from foreign countries, but somehow with our combined hunger of knowledge, the docent there was inspired to allow us access to areas of the mill that are usually off limits to visitors, and to recount a lot of new information to Ton.  It was fascinating for me to see how wood, iron, and stone could be fashioned, using hand tools, into this functioning machine, built on 18^th century technology.

After the mill visit, Ton, his son Stefan, and I drove to the port of Ijmuiden.  Above is a shot of a platform that is used to erect modern windmills in the sea, and a ship that carries the parts to the construction site.  Below is a huge steel making facility, with a tug boat in the foreground, or forewater, in this case. ;‑)

I guess that in addition to just blogging, whatever that is, I am pointing out that the people who live in  beautiful  cities like Haarlem and Amsterdam are not just making trinkets for the tourists.  It is possible to have a beautiful country that does serious business.

We visited a lock and watched a ship use the lock, which was very interesting.  The lock connects a major shipping canal from Amsterdam to the North Sea.  Locks do not make for very interesting photos.  After the lock we drove to a ferry crossing.  Here is a shot of Ton and Stefan on the ferry.  There were our car, a truck, about 30 bicycles, and a few motorbikes making the crossing.

After having a cup of tea back at his home, Ton kindly drove me back to Haarlem, where Sara and I had an adult beverage on the terrace (see above), enjoying the first warm, dry evening we have seen in The Netherlands this trip.  Then we went out for fabulous Indonesian food (rijstafel and gado gado).