The Backmeister

This little beautie is our latest kitchen gadget purchase and goes by the grand name of "The Backmeister" (makers name, not ours). Eric wanted to hone his breadmaking skills here in Berlin but unfortunately our oven is an ancient gas oven with no fan. It's fine for stovetop cooking but it's pretty crap for baking. So, after a couple of bread disasters we decided to invest in a bread machine.

Now I know that bread purists may turn up their noses at a bread machine, that it's not the same as bread from an oven, that it's not the same when not kneaded by hand. Which, I'm sure, is all true. And to be honest, Eric loves the kneading part of making bread. He claims it's a good way to vent frustration.

How and ever, I have to say that we are pretty happy with our Backmeister. We have tried a couple of different breads and they have all come out quite nice. It's also saving us a bit of money as we realise, since we are at home most of the time, that we eat about two loaves each week. And it is SO easy. You just literally bung in the ingredients, set the programme and hey presto, you got a loaf of bread! I have to say that I have never made bread before and it is actually quite thrilling!

Above is a pic of one of Eric's breads. This was a recipe from the manufacturer's book and is a more of a traditional German bread, which means it has a dense texture and moist crumb. It is a very good lunch bread with cheese and salami. Below I am posting a recipe for a bread that I tried - an olive oil and rosemary bread. I got it from Allrecipes and made a couple of adjustments to it. It turned out more like the bread that we are used to, a little lighter in texture. It's delicious as a sandwich bread or toasted for breakfast with eggs.

ROSEMARY AND OLIVE OIL BREAD

1 cup water
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon fresh/dried rosemary
2 1/2 cups bread flour (I have used both white and brown and both turned out great)
2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Here are the directions for the bread machine

1. Place ingredients in the pan of the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select white bread cycle; press Start.

Someone on the site also made this recipe by hand - her instructions below:

1. yeast + 1/4 c. warm water, wait 10 min.
2. Add flour, salt, sugar, oil knead like heck.
3. Add the herbs & pepper.
4. Let rise an hour or so in an oiled, covered bowl in a warm place.
5. Punch down, let rise another hour.
6. Bake at 375 until browned.
7. Remove from oven, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with coarse salt.

Enjoy!

Sprechen Sie Englisch???

When we first arrived to Berlin, our favourite, and most used phrase, was 'Sprechen Sie Englisch???', which was always uttered with more than a hint of desperation. The problem was that we came to Berlin with the expectation that all German people spoke perfect English. In fairness several different people had told us this, and I had also remembered from my few weeks in Northern Germany as a teenager seeing my German counterparts reading Pride and Prejudice in their English class and having late night chats (in English) about everything under the sun.

We should have known better. My memory can, at times, be best described as fiction. (As the t-shirt logo goes 'I make stuff up' [sometimes]). The truth is all German people don't speak English. Actually in our experience only about 10% of them do. Which is fine since they are GERMAN after all (!!!) and so it was pretty ridiculous that we would expect them to speak anything other than German.

However, because of this myself and Eric found it very hard to get around Berlin at the beginning. Any interaction was daunting and we had numerous frustrating, and also hilarious encounters. (We met one woman at Dee's brother Shaun's gig whom we thought was a hairdresser to small dogs but it turned out she was a hairdresser who hated 'small talk'. We took the hint and finished the conversation pretty quickly after that!).


Anyway, common sense prevailed and we enrolled ourselves into the nearest language school (it is literally down the road from us) into a school called Tandem. I have to say that it was pretty hard-going at the beginning. My brain wasn't used to concentrating like that for prolonged periods of time and Eric said the same, having not been in school in over 20 years. In the first couple of weeks we both had backaches, headaches, basically every kind of stress ache you can imagine.

However a month of intensive classes on (3-hours a day, 5 days a week), I can happily report we are delighted with it. We were really lucky with our class, and our teachers, everyone has been really nice. (Above is a photo of most of the class, the woman in the middle in the blue shirt is Barbara, one of our teachers. She is our favourite as she is patient, funny and a very good teacher). We are a motley crew - 1 Irish (me), 1 American (Eric), 1 Scottish (Julie), 2 Spanish (David and Kiko), 1 Argentinian (Gabrielle), 1 French (Elize), 2 Japanese (Kanako and Yukiko) and 1 Chinese (Youyou).

I think myself and Eric have really come on with our Deutsch since the course has started. The little bit of German I learnt as a teenager has finally started to come back to me and Eric, from having no German, can now buy groceries and talk a bit about himself. It's been a really good experience for me and has given me a boost of confidence as I had always pegged myself as 'not good at languages'. It's great to know that learning a new language though definitely difficult, isn't impossible. Proper conversations auf Deutsch with German people here we come!

A Dublin Weekend

So, we are just back from our whirlwind weekend in Dublin. I have to say that it was quite weird to be back, especially since we were really only there for a day and a half. It was like my brain was in Berlin but my body was in Dublin - very unsettling. We arrived on Saturday evening and basically went more or less straight from the airport to our friend Daithi's 40th birthday party (the main reason for our visit).

It was held upstairs at the Teacher's Club on Parnell Square in a lovely restored Georgian room with high ceilings and chandeliers. The room was packed with all Daithi's friends and family, lots of tasty sandwiches and even a couple of musicians in the corner that played all night. It was great to see everyone there.

Another part of the entertainment was this very funny questionnaire that Daithi's wife Bridget made up. The theme of it was 'So you think you know Daithi Doolan?' and consisted of questions all about his life, from where he went to secondary school to when he left Ireland for London, to what his favourite joke is, which by the way he made up himself (How do you spot a kinky chicken? He's into studs and feathers (?!)). Needless to say that his mother and his auntie won the competition, though I think that Eric might have helped them with that joke.

And let us not forget the cake! Daithi's wife Bridget got a delicious Black Forest gateaux big enough for 60 people and 40 candles. Daithi, of course, with the pair of lungs that he has had no problems blowing them out!

It was also great to see our friends' kids, whom we miss seeing over here. Above is a photo of Baby Peter, Dee and Richie's little one (with Richie and Michael) who has grown alot in the six weeks we have been gone. He is just plain gorgeous, with a smile for every person he sees.

And there is probably no introduction needed for this pair - Siofra and Paddy. We went to see them on Sunday morning and boy, were they excited! (So were we of course). I wish we could have brought them back to Berlin with us, though I think Bridget might have had something to say about that.

Then we went on to my Mum's house where we had lunch. It was really nice to see her and to spend so time with her. Her garden looks amazing at the moment, though you can't really see it from this photo. Talk about green fingers! (It may have been sunny but it was bitter, which is why I am all bundled up).

And lastly, this is a photo of her dog Kanu (named after a former Arsenal striker) which I just had to post. Check it out! He's not the smartest dog on the block but when I said 'Cheese!' for the photo, he actually gave me a grin! Freaky.

Do we do anything other than eat?

Re: the title of the blog - I was just voicing what I know you all must be thinking. And the answer is 'yes, of course!!!' but not that you can tell from reading this blog. And just to add to the food fanatic image, here is another foodie post. Monday just gone was another bank holiday here in Germany and we kindly let our friend Joydeep come over and cook for us!

Above is pic of Joydeep doing just that. Joydeep was originally our neighbour (he has moved out since) and we befriended him over chats about German cake and the Democratic nomination race in the US. He is currently finishing off a PhD in Philosophy and is a Professor in Indian philosophy in waiting. And he is also a foodie, just like us.

We were very excited (as above photo of Eric shows) as Joydeep spent the afternoon cooking us a delicious vegetarian Indian meal, using lentils, tomatoes and the spices in the first photo. It was accompanied by a delicious fried cabbage dish with roasted peanuts and served with rice and cucumber raita. Mmmmm!

Below are the boys getting stuck in - very serious work!

And lastly we had a warm Indian dessert made with milk, vermicelli, raisins, and cardamom pods. Oh, and two slices of cake from the bakery down the road, but to be honest they could have just as well have been decoration as they hardly got a forkful taken from them - the Indian dessert was that good! It was like a really fragrant version of a rice pudding, but with vermicelli. So that was that - not bad going for a bank holiday eh? Non-foodie post on the way - I promise!

Karneval!

This weekend in Berlin was Karneval der Kulturen weekend! This is an annual event in Kreuzberg area of the city, which usually coincides with one of the bank holiday weekends. We had been hearing about this weekend since we got to the city six weeks ago. Nearly everyone we have met has said to us 'you can't miss the Karneval', so we were really looking forward to it.

It's basically a 3-day knees-up to herald in the summer, with a parade and music and food. Whole streets are shut off and everyone comes out to celebrate the arrival of the blessed sunshine. It's all very tribal and lots of fun. We decided to head down on Saturday with our new friend Kanako. Kanako is in our language class and is from Osaka, Japan. She has very good English so we communicate in a strange mixture of English and German, or Germlish as you might call it.

We arrived at about noon to Blucherplatz where all the stalls were and it was already very packed. There were people as far as the eye could see. I think we spent a good two hours wandering around and we didn't even see the half of it. The festival is about celebrating all the different cultures in Berlin so in the square there were vendors selling food from as farflung places as the Sudan to Sweden. There were lots of street performers - breakdancers, bellydancers etc. - and vendors selling all kinds of clothes and knick-knacks. Unfortunately the battery to our camera died so all these pics are courtesy of Kanako's camera.

Here is a pic of Kanako and Eric with their new sunglasses that they bought from the grumpiest man in the world (honestly, it was like he wanted to keep all his sunglasses for himself). Anyway, the glasses were super cheap 5 euros, you can't go wrong! Eric says this is his home-boy pose.

Part of the concourse was an organic market where all the stalls gave free samples of organic goods. We basically had our lunch here - we got lentil stew with rice, chocolates, coffee, cake. All for free! This is a very happy Eric testing an organic beer. I have figured out that Eric's favourite four-letter word in the whole wide world is 'F-R-E-E' - check out that grin!

And lastly this is a very nice picture of the two of us that Kanako kindly took. We were there for nearly four hours and left nicely tired and full. Viva la Karneval!