A perfect moment

Saturday was just an all-around perfect weekend day: slept in, enjoyed coffee and news headlines while I gradually woke up; dropped off two cakes to the family of a lady who is in ICU b/c of head trauma from a bad fall; made a home-made pizza for lunch (brie and prosciutto with mushrooms); worked out while watching Lost Season 4, and then housecleaned with A. until everything was spotless; changing out all the linens to fresh, crisp ones.

But the afternoon reached an absolutely perfect climax when I stepped outside to take out some trash and a cat ran up and rubbed herself against my legs. Then she followed me into the foyer of my building, so I grabbed A. We took turns sitting on the stairs with her rolling around on our laps in an ecstasy of petting.

Later, I sat outside on the front step, and the cat lunged into my lap and settled in for a good long while, resting her chin on my arm. In the shelter of the porch, we stayed dry as it rained and got blustery. It might have been cold, but the chubby cat kept my lap nice and warm. We sat there for a while as I watched the different kinds of trees wave and shiver in the sudden wind. Some lightning streaked across the sky, and the cat only looked up for a second as thunder rolled over us.

After a few minutes, the sun came out and a complete, perfect rainbow arced across the sky in colorful brilliance.

It was one of those rare, restful and richly sensory moments that I hardly ever have time to experience. I just looked up into the sky and said, "Thanks, God."

Black Forest Ham

So, I learned recently that Black Forest ham, in Germany, (here it is called Schwarzwälder Schinken) is NOT the same thing as Black Forest ham in the United States. Back home, when you get Black Forest ham, it's a cooked and smoked ham, often with a kind of very thin rind on the edges.

Here, it is raw.

OK, it is smoke cured. But it's transparent and stringy like raw meat. They don't cook it first. It looks a lot like raw bacon.

It's very salty and tasty, but when you first take a bite of your sandwich and are surprised to realize you are eating raw meat, it's a little unsettling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Forest_ham

Cherries!

I don't know how I didn't notice this before, but there are so many cherry trees around here that I'm surprised they haven't been dropping on my head. There are two behind the dorm on campus, and one in the garden of a home that butts up against the small driveway entering campus. There's also two hanging over the fence of a woman's house next to my office. And quite a few line the walking path from our village to the next bigger town.

The cherries are ruby red now, and about 1/3 smaller than the ones you usually get from Washington.

I've been lusting after those cherries, particularly the ones by the office. I love cherries and in the States they're usually so expensive in the Midwest that I only get 2-3 bags a summer.

I saw the neighbor today. After we asked each other how we're both doing, I asked, "Koennen wir nehman kirsche?" Literally, this means, "Can we take cherry?"

She got visibly excited and I thought she said something to the effect that a friend was coming to help her pick the fruit and that she would bring us something. I didn't know if that meant just the raw cherries or something she was baking.

A few hours later, a huge bucket heaping with jewel colored cherries sat on the doorstep with a note from her. Now I understand -- her friend came before and they had picked all these cherries. I guess they had more than she knew what to do with -- her trees looked like they'd never been picked, there's still so many. She has at least 3 trees. I was quite happy to help her with this problem. :-)

I split them with the couple living in the apartment in the office building.

So now I have an enormous bowl of cherries I need to figure out what to do with. I just baked a heavy raspberry pie, using frozen raspberries, on Sunday. I guess I'll pit these and leave some to eat and freeze the rest until I have empty casserole dishes to bake with again.

Comfort food

As you have probably noticed, when you are an expatriate, food from home becomes particularly important, more so than usual. Comfort food goes to a whole new level.

I had a bad day today. And suddenly I was in the mood for breakfast for dinner. So, we had bacon, eggs, blueberry pancakes, hot coffee and pineapple juice.

By candlelight.

And now we're on the couch watching a movie.

The day just got better.