Dill Potato Salad with Smoked Trout--Food Post

Not sure how interesting my cooking is to anyone but myself, but at the very least I can put this on my Pinterest board of recipes I've tried for next time I'm deciding what to make. This recipe comes from a German cooking magazine called Lecker, which basically means "tasty." I think. Anyway it's been edited based on personal taste, ingredients I could get, and my reading comprehension, so here it is.

Ingredients:
~500g small potatoes (I think we would call them new potatoes? This probably would be good with those little potatoes that are all different colors, like some of them are purple inside?)
1 Onion--I think I used red, as that is my preferred onion type
4 Tbsp Oil--I most likely used rapeseed, I think vegetable oil would be fine, or Olive Oil for the part you aren't cooking. EVOO might have too strong of a flavor, at least the ones you can get here.
5 Tbsp White Wine Vinegar
1/4 Tsp Vegetable Bouillon
Salt, Pepper Sugar
1 Heaping Tbsp Mustard--I think the recipe calls for the kind with like big seeds in it, but I didn't have that I just had some spicy mustard and then I put some mustard seeds in also
5 Pickles--I don't really know what these are called in English. The little pickles that are maybe 2-3 inches long.
The recipe called for a Tbsp of capers, but Hunter doesn't like them so I omitted them
250g smoked trout filets. I don't know the exact weight I used, I just got two filets. These are a standard and inexpensive item at the grocery store here; I imagine if you have trouble finding it you could substitute regular cooked fish. I think the taste of smoked salmon might be too strong, though.
1 Bunch Dill.

1. Wash the potatoes and put them in boiling water with the peels on for 15 minutes. Finely chop the onion. Cook the onion in 1 Tbsp oil (or just however much you want). Add 6 Tbsp Water, the vinegar, and the bouillon. Cook for a little bit, then stir in salt, pepper, 1 Tsp sugar, mustard, and 3 Tbsp oil.

2. Cut the potatoes into halves or fourths, depending on size. Put in the "marinade" you just made for at least an hour.

3. Finely chop the pickles. Chop the capers, if you are using them. Break the trout filets into pieces. Finely chop the dill. Put everything together with the potatoes, season with salt and pepper to taste.

The result:

The conclusions:
I would definitely make this one again. However, if I make it again I will have to use cooked fish because Hunter really isn't a fan of smoked fish. He thought the potato salad was really good, though. I generally prefer smoked fish, so I usually have it for lunch. We could also make the potato salad and add cooked fish to his and smoked fish to mine, or just have it without fish as a side to something else.

Amsterdam (long post, lots of pics)

Last weekend we had a little getaway. Hunter got Monday off because it is "Rosenmontag," kind of the equivalent to Lundi Gras. He took Friday off so we could have a nice little break. We each wrote down three places we wanted to go on pieces of paper, and decided if there was an overlap we would go there and if not, then we'd go to Paris. We both wrote Vienna and Amsterdam, but we'd really have to fly to go to Vienna and Amsterdam is only about a three hour train ride, so we decided to go there. I was a bit apprehensive because I booked our hotel using the Priceline express deals, where it only tells you the area the hotel is in. It said Museum Quarter, but that was pretty misleading. It was a 20-30 minute tram ride from anywhere we'd want to be, including the museums. It ended up not being that bad, but Hunter and I agreed that next time maybe we can just spend a little extra money for the convenience. I can drop $50 on some Urban Decay eyeshadow like it's nothing, but show me a hotel/flight booking and there is like a physical block on anything but the cheapest option. This is basically the third time since we've moved to Europe that I've booked a fairly inconveniently located hotel. Maybe next time I'll learn my lesson.

Anyway, we got there and checked in to our hotel. I called to make reservations at an Ethiopian restaurant, because we apparently just have to eat Ethiopian any time we are in a major city, and since there was a little bar/cafe right near the restaurant, we went there to have a drink first. Of course, Sadie got tons of admirers! The only problem is that she is very hot natured, so she started getting pretty fussy eventually. We got a picture of she and I outside the bar:

Then we hit the restaurant. The waitress spoke perfect English, she had an American accent and I actually asked her if English was her first language. In Amsterdam, everyone speaks English, I mean, everyone which is good because Dutch is, as Hunter says, the Welsh of German. I mean, "ui" makes the "ow" sound like in "house." Basically, it sounds like they are speaking Simlish. Anyway, one possible reason why their English is so good is that movies aren't dubbed in the Netherlands, so I imagine they hear more English on a regular basis? Plus Amsterdam is such a huge tourist city; I guess in smaller areas it might be less ubiquitous. Anyway, it was super convenient for us. In addition to your basic Ethiopian stuff, the restaurant had dishes from some other African countries/regions; they even had crocodile and antelope! Ultimately, we decided to just get an assortment of Ethiopian things, although sadly they did not have kitfo, our fave. Sadie got admired even more, and then eventually got too warm. Many of our restaurant meals ended with Hunter and I alternating who would walk around with Sadie outside to cool her off. Much in the same way that the American South exercises no moderation when it comes to air conditioning, Northern Europe doesn't know when to shut the radiator off.

We had thought about hitting another bar before going back, but I was kinda getting a headache, which really only got worse. Luckily, there was a grocery store near the tram stop for our hotel, so I could grab a few waters. At the hotel, I took a bath and some aspirin and tried as best as I could to fall asleep. This was the worst headache I'd had since Sadie was born and I was seriously afraid I wouldn't be able to get up the next day. Then at like three in the morning, Hunter couldn't get Sadie to stop screaming. She was making herself hoarse, and refused to eat even though she hadn't eaten in like six hours. We eventually calmed her down and things were more or less eventful til the next morning.

Saturday's first item was to hit the Van Gogh museum. It was a great museum; they have most of his major works (of course Starry Night is at MoMA and Sunflowers was visiting London), but they have most other things you would want to see, as well as some lesser known works that I really like better. There was just one problem with this museum, well, kind of two: first off, it was really crowded. I mean, obviously people come from all over the world to see these paintings, but I feel like the layout didn't necessarily take that into account. The first room is laid out chronologically in a big square, so it has kind of a "Disneyland" feel to it where you are just shuffling through in a line. Plus, a bunch of people have the audio tour and so they are standing there for like ever. The upstairs was a little less annoying because you could go more at your own pace. On our last day, we saw the line outside to get in and I guess we went on the right day because we didn't have to wait or anything.

For lunch, we found a random Italian restaurant, not really notable but I did take a few pics of Sadie:

People kept saying "he." I get that there is blue on her onesie but it's a ruffly heart!

After lunch, we went to see the "Oude Kerk," the oldest building in Amsterdam. It cost 7.50 to get in, which honestly was a bit steep. I think the main reason they charged so much is because there are also some art exhibitions inside, or, as Hunter put it, "post-art." However, it was a really pretty church. Observe:

Big Organ

The choir chairs had these engravings that were meant to teach moral lessons. I have no idea what this one is, but it was deliciously creepy.

Stained glass--the walls used to be painted also but the Protestants put an end to that.

After the church, we went to check out the Royal Palace. It is where the Dutch royal family still hosts dignitaries and has events and stuff. We had to leave a bit before we had really seen everything, because Sadie woke up and was fussing/crying. She did briefly smile when we told her she was in a palace--I guess she just likes that word. We took this picture outside a few nights later:

People from History just had no idea what North America looked like.

I had made reservations at an Indonesian restaurant for Saturday night; we went back to the hotel to let Sadie rest a bit before embarking on that adventure. The food was delicious, but the restaurant wasn't the best idea. The tables were really squeezed together, plus the food took up basically every square centimeter of the table, which was just difficult with Sadie. Plus, of course, it was super warm. I'm not sure why I didn't take a picture of the food, but I did get a picture of the menu. We got what is called a rijstafel--basically some rice with tons of different other foods to try.

We debated going to another bar, but we just thought that Sadie wouldn't necessarily be up for it. We ended up getting some beers and cream puffs at the grocery store and watching some House of Cards. Not super exotic, but when there's a baby you can't just be out every second (as we learned).

Sadie on the tram

The next morning, we planned to go to the Rijksmuseum. We ate in the museum cafe because I didn't think I could handle a few hours on my feet on an empty stomach; the food was pricey of course, but pretty good. The Rijksmuseum's most famous piece is probably Rembrandt's The Night Watch, which is huge. For a lot of the more famous works, they have these informational sheets that tell you about the paintings--sometimes about things they found using x-rays, or just the symbolism of objects and whatnot. This museum was crowded too, but it wasn't as much just a moving line of people like the Van Gogh museum was. By the time we left, my feet were really hurting. I walk a lot in Germany, but I guess not as much as I thought!

For lunch I wanted to get pancakes, so we found a pancake place. Here's what I got:

Sugar, bacon, raisins, rum, apples...

After lunch we thought it'd be fun to go to a Dutch beer bar. The previous two nights had kind of taught us that post-dinner, going out wouldn't really be an option. We went to a place called' t'Arendsnest. They had lots of Dutch beers and also Jenever, which is the national drink of the Netherlands. It's made from juniper and supposed to be gin-like, but I thought it tasted more like whiskey. It was ok, but I'm really not used to drinking straight liquor so it was a bit strong for me. Of course, we had to fly too close to the sun and get a beer also. Once again, Sadie was none too pleased.

Once again we went home to rest. Since our previous two dinners had been a bit pricey, we decided we'd just get street food and walk around a bit. We had heard about these sort of hot food vending machines, so we started there. It was kinda weird, but good. Then we went to a croissanterie and Hunter got a waffle with Nutella; I got a turnover. It was about the price you'd expect for a place that presumably caters mostly to people with the munchies, but it was still tasty. We walked around some more and eventually got fries. I got mine with sambal on them. Seriously, I thought my tongue would fall off, but I've never been defeated by spice before and I did finish them all.

I thought it would be interesting to see the red light district, but Hunter didn't think it was a great idea with Sadie. Not because she would see anything untoward, I mean, she's a baby, but just because there would probably be idiotic tourists of varying levels of intoxication, and he just didn't want to deal with that. We walked around a bit more before heading back to the hotel.

Monday was basically a shopping day. We went to a cheese shop to get some cheeses (I seriously wish I could just eat these cheeses the rest of my life), I got a purse at the museum shop, and we hit an international beer store. They had some American beers, but nothing I loved enough to buy. I got two Dutch beers and a Belgian lambic. We ate a quick lunch before getting our stuff together to head home.

We were there for three nights and really I feel like we could go back and do all different things. We didn't see the Anne Frank Huis, for one thing. We had meant to but just never really had time. Our plans had to be pretty flexible with Sadie along. We also had thought about doing an excursion to a bit outside the city, they have things where you can see windmills and cheese farms and stuff, but we ended up not doing that either. I wanted to go on one of the boat rides in the canals, but Hunter thought it was a bit touristy and I'm not sure when we would have fit it in, anyway. It's a great city to visit and we had a lot of fun. I don't think of the Netherlands when I think of beer, cheese, bread, or really anything, but they seem to be a country that just quietly does a lot of things really well.

Our next big trip is when Hunter has a conference in Dresden at the end of March, and even though Sadie doesn't make things easy, I can't wait!

Happy Valentine's Day!

My mom made Sadie some cute Valentine's outfits. Sadly they got here the day after Valentine's Day, but you can wear hearts any day of the year I think. Here are some pictures I took of her modelling one of the outfits. I was trying to make a backdrop, and realized after that I should have draped the sheet over something instead of just laying it on the floor, so maybe next time the pictures will be less amateur-hour. Also the hat was a bit small and she isn't crazy about hats anyway, which is why in some of these she looks less than happy.

I think this one turned out the best 

Mom, stop! 

 Seriously, Mom, why are you doing this to me?!

This last one is from yesterday when I left a box of cookies on the couch and she grabbed it and started reaching in. It was just too cute not to shoot.

We'll be going on a trip either this weekend or next, so stay tuned for vacation deets and pics!

A Day in the Life

Today I kinda kept track of what I did during the day, just to give people a general idea of how things go around here. I don't necessarily have a "typical" day, but this is pretty indicative of my general routine.

First things first: Sadie wakes me up around 7:30, while Hunter is getting ready to go to work. I feed Sadie, then get her dressed and changed, and a little after 8:00, I'm ready to eat my breakfast: muesli and yogurt. Before I start, I throw a load of diapers in the washer. While I'm eating, I throw on an episode of Supernatural, and then when I'm done I work on my grocery list. After the episode, Sadie is falling asleep on the couch, so we take a nap or go back to bed, depending on how you look at it.

Sadie wakes me up again at around 11:15, I feed her, and then we get ready to go get groceries. For me, the hardest thing is getting out the door. I have to buy groceries every few days, and sometimes I would really rather just lie in bed with Sadie. But I force myself to get dressed and put on makeup and everything. Usually once I start getting things done I will end up doing more than I thought, but at the bare minimum today I have to get groceries, since we don't really have any dinner food.

Before I go shopping, I stop to go to the ATM, and mail a DVD. We get Lovefilm, which is basically like Netflix. While I'm in that area, I grab a Red Bull and a pink donut. There's this one bakery, the pink donuts taste just like a Dunkin' Donuts pink donut so I'm getting them every time I walk by.

Today I'm hitting up the Asian supermarket. There are a few different grocery stores I go to, depending on what I need, and tonight I'm making Kao Soi. While I'm there, I get a few other things, too. They have imported Arm&Hammer baking soda, which is the only place I've seen it here, as well as sesame seeds. I also got Chaokoh coconut milk and mirin (cooking sake), plus a few kinds of noodles. I picked up some bowls as well, since the only bowls we have are "soup plates" and just don't have the volume/height for a noodle soup, as I learned last time I made Kao Soi.

My bag isn't as heavy as I thought it would be, so instead of taking a bus, I decide to walk. I had been meaning to buy a lighter jacket. The coat I have is really nice, but heavier than I really needed for the winter here (it's been really mild). I have only worn it out a few times, usually at night, because during the day it's just too much, especially when I go into a store and they are blasting the heater. So I swing by H&M to get a coat, and grab a sweater while I'm there. They have these great fair isle type knit sweaters, and the one I bought today is my third one, but at least it was on sale.

Since I've done so much walking and it's right there, I treat myself to McDonald's for lunch. I eat McD's more than I expected I would, but German McDonald's has so many things that the American one doesn't! AND they have the McRib year round (and don't bother giving me a lecture about the McRib. I don't care what it's made of, only that it's tasty). So I grab a burger to take home and at this point Sadie's carrier and the shopping bag is getting a bit heavy, so I hop on a bus. I basically just got on the first one I saw, because all of the buses from that stop go in my general direction, but I realized when I got on that it wouldn't take me as far as I needed to go. No problem, at the place where I switch buses, there is a drugstore so I popped in and got Sadie some baby spoons, now that she's starting to taste real foods.

When I get home, it's about 1:45. I eat my lunch and watch another episode of Supernatural. After that, I feed Sadie, put away yesterday's dry clothes, and hang the diapers up to dry. I also order a new carseat, since ours was lost on a plane. Hunter told me today he is going to take an extra day or two off this weekend, which means we'll be going somewhere (TBA). I want to make sure we have the seat in case we need it. That's pretty much as long as Sadie can entertain herself, so we head back to the couch to watch some Downton Abbey while I do some knitting.

Here is where I intended to put this cute picture of Sadie shoving yarn into her mouth while I was knitting, but my phone apparently didn't take the picture. Sorry.

At around 5:00, when that episode is done, I'm feeling pretty exhausted. I really want to take a quick nap with Sadie before our Skype with my sister at 6:00, but there was something else I wanted to do today: mop the kitchen and bathroom floors. This is one of those jobs I hate because a day after it's done, it's like you didn't even do it, but then if you don't do it pretty frequently, it gets gross. I decide I'll work on it as long as Sadie will let me, in other words, as long as she'll play quietly herself. I'm able to get the kitchen floor done and then she's pretty much wailing, so we go lie down for a few minutes.

Hunter gets home around 6:00 and shortly after that, we Skype with my sister for about an hour. I make dinner, which we eat while watching a few episodes of Community. Last night for dinner, we had some cabbage salad, which I heat with water and puree for Sadie. She only tastes a little bit, and I put the rest in an ice cube tray in the freezer. At this point, Sadie was doing her exhausted cry, so I put her pajamas on, fed her, and now she's sleeping so I can write! I'll probably go to bed within an hour (so around midnight) and I don't think I'll have any trouble sleeping tonight!

Product Review: Nook Tablet HD+

Alright, this is kinda different from what I usually talk about on here but who knows, maybe someone will find it useful.

When the Kindle first came out, I was extremely opposed to it. I was one of those "a book is an object" people and I loved just exploring the library and finding random old things. I still feel that way, and there are some books that don't work in e-book format (I just bought House of Leaves, for instance), but when the Nook came out, I kinda wanted one for a few reasons. At the time, the Kindle was a lot more proprietary than it is now. You couldn't read epubs on it (I'm pretty sure you can now?) and you couldn't get Overdrive books from the library with it. The Nook had an Android OS, which I'm a fan of. So for Christmas of 2010, I received the original Nook Color. This thing had been through a lot. During the tornado, I had left it sitting on the couch. When we went into the living room, the roof was gone, the couch was halfway across the room, but the Nook was sitting there, still kicking.

Once I moved abroad, the Nook was indispensable. Obviously, I couldn't bring very many paper books with me, so I read tons of books on the Nook, both from the library and ones that I bought. Since I moved to Germany, I read 63 ebooks. Assuming (pretty conservatively, since I read fairly long books) each book is an inch thick, that amounts to a stack exactly as tall as I am. I had also occasionally used it to play games or look at knitting patterns, although I mostly used it exclusively as an ereader.

However, shortly before Christmas, it started acting weird. Basically it would be plugged in for a while, but then stop charging around 50%. The charger was pretty beat up at this point, so I thought it was probably that but then I tried a different charger and the same thing happened. With as much as I read, I thought it would definitely be worth it to buy a new Nook. I wanted another Nook for two reasons: all of the books I'd already bought could be downloaded to it, and it had access to the Google Play store, so I could put the Kindle App on there and read Hunter's books, too. We were going back to America so I could buy one there, plus if I bought it in Montana there would be no sales tax!

My original plan was to get the 7" one. This is the sort of regular, book sized one. But at the store, Hunter suggested I get the bigger one because it wasn't that much more expensive and I could take more advantage of the tablet type features. I'm really glad I listened to him because I love it so much! I can play tablet games like Ticket to Ride and Elder Sign:Omens, read books from Google Play, Kindle, and the Nook store, read my RSS feeds, do crosswords, look things up in Chrome... it was really worth it. I even found a knitting app that can look up and import .pdf patterns from various sources and download them, plus it has an integrated stitch counter. And for me, one of the most important things is that I can read in the dark. Because of Sadie, I'm awake a lot at night while Hunter is sleeping and I can read unobtrusively.

There are of course, a few cons. There is no camera or USB port. It's a little weird that there's no camera, since even the Kindle Fire has one, but really if I want to Skype I have a laptop for that. I don't really need a USB port, either, but I can see how some would think it was a nice feature. I guess the only relevant-to-me complaint I have is that it does TOO MUCH. I have read slightly less than I used to because I can do all these other things on it! So, I wouldn't recommend it if all you want to do is read because there are cheaper devices for that. But if you want a tablet that's cheaper and a bit less functional than the Windows thing or an iPad, this is a really good option.

Hope someone benefited from this.

Neanderthal Museum Trip

Last weekend, we took a day trip to the Neanderthal Museum. It's a little bit outside Dusseldorf, so not too long of a train ride, plus there is a train that leaves from the station right by our house. It was a bit of a rainy day, but not too bad. From the train station, you have to walk down this kind of windy hill to get to the museum. Hunter and I were observing that in America, no one would ever expect you to do that. Anyway, I actually didn't know Neanderthals were discovered in Germany until I was watching an episode of Futurama. They showed on the map where they were found and I was like, "That's close to where we live!"

Anyway, the museum also had a special exhibit about mummies and Egyptian things. We again experienced the German reliance on the "honor system." Basically, you had to pay extra to see the mummy thing, but the only thing keeping you from just walking into it was a sign that said not to. Germans. Anyway, it was pretty cool. There were two mummies, an adult and a one-year old. There were also some other artifacts. Pretty amazing how the artwork is so well preserved and keeps its color even after thousands of years. I guess they thought the stuff was going to need to stay with them forever so they made it tough.

The Neanderthal portion of the museum was also interesting. There were exhibits about their discovery, physiology, and culture. I think something Hunter and I both would have appreciated was more information about the methodology used in coming to the conclusions they did. There really aren't that many bone fragments, but they assert a lot of things about what Neanderthal culture was like. These are obviously conclusions drawn from study, I just wish they talked more about what specifically led them there. That probably isn't interesting to most people, though. All of the signs are in both German and English, so that was pretty useful.

By the time we got back, we were pretty tired. We decided that next time we do a trip, even if it isn't too far away, we may just get a hotel and make a weekend of it, because travelling with a baby is kind of a big production. There is a museum nearby I want to go to with an exhibit on Nazi fashion, so hopefully I'll be able to post about that soon!

Travels With Sadie, Part Seven: The Leap Home

Alright, so in the days leading up to our departure from America, I was really dreading going back, for several reasons. We had just spent 2+ weeks really relaxing and enjoying ourselves, and I didn't think I was ready to go back to the day-to-day routine. Like, having to go to the grocery store almost every day, navigating a foreign city, etc. But Hunter helped me by pointing out that if we lived in America, it wouldn't be like a vacation every day. We would still have to do all of the annoying stuff. I was also afraid that I would basically have to get used to Germany all over again, that it would be like starting over. Hunter convinced me that wasn't true either because we already knew so much more than we did than when we first got there.

Anyway, we got to the airport and were told our departing flight was delayed an hour. This wasn't really a big deal, because we had a 4.5 hour layover in London. The layover wasn't idea, and we had considered changing our tickets and spending a night in London, but it was going to be so expensive to change the tickets, we almost could have just taken a trip to London for that price. We did decide to spend the night in Dusseldorf again when we got in. It isn't so far from Aachen, but by that time we would already have been traveling for so long, plus it would be a bit late.

We flew British Airways on the way back; we had both had good experiences with them before and really, they are one of my favorite airlines. But this flight was just not good. It might not have been the worst flight I've been on, but it was definitely the worst BA flight. We had the bulkhead seat again, which didn't cost anything extra like it did on American. However, on American there is significant extra legroom and on BA there isn't. So when they came to hook up the bassinet, it made it impossible to get up or even pull out the TV screens. Sadie slept in the bassinet while we ate, but then we asked them to take it away because we needed to be able to get up. Also, they had the on-demand viewing on the screens, and Hunter and I were going to watch Blue Jasmine together, but my screen wasn't working, so that was pretty lame. Basically I was cramped, uncomfortable, and bored the whole time.

The flight into Dusseldorf must not have been as bad because I can't really remember it, and I can't even remember much of the layover in London. We got our bags, ate at McDonald's in the airport (I believe Hunter's first McDonald's trip in Europe), and then went to check in to our hotel. It didn't take long to feel "right at home" again. We were standing in the check-in line; there was only one employee working and she was helping someone else. Some people got in line behind us and suggested we step up a little bit. That is just so, so, German, nitpicking the way you do some tiny little thing that doesn't even make a difference. I mean, could the invisible other employee not see us or something? Typical. Anyway, we checked in, got rested, and went back to Aachen the next day.

And yeah, it was a bit like we had never left. It wasn't that hard to get back into the routine, but there are things I still miss (mainly the Diet Coke). I'm not sure when we will visit America again. I really wanted to go for my 10 year high school reunion this summer, but it's looking more and more like that won't happen. It's just really cost prohibitive. I thought this early I might be able to get a good deal on a flight but the cheapest I've found is $1300/person and that just isn't practical, as much as I hate to admit it.

So, we are back in Germany (for like 3 weeks now, this series took a while) and soon I'll get back to more posts about Sadie, Germany, and my life in general.