Mañanitas

I listened to this repeatedly, Zulma's dad singing Las Mañanitas to her. I especially love the vocal embellishments and his parting comment...

http://www.utterli.com/u/utt/u-ODAwMjQ3Nw#utt-ODAwMjQ3Nw

Deutsches Essen

(oder, besser gesagt, Das Essen in Deutschland und Umgebung)

Start the day out with a good Frühstuck, my personal favorite....





Afternoon Kaffeetrinken is obligatory...









Abendbrot!


Oder einfach herrliches Abendessen...










This is the only meal I made the whole month in Berlin, for Tesia:





Mannheim Goodness...







And in Würzburg...



Celebration food in Germany is usually awesome. 

Here's a birthday...


Obama's inauguration at the Amerika Haus, featuring German-Caribbean fare...


And Mama Henning's 60th birthday party with Lutoschens devouring some extraordinary Spargelsuppe...



Dutch food has never been my favorite, although one of the best meals I've ever had was an unexpected visit to La Ville in Maastricht. And I do adore hagel sla. I've been hording gaufre for several years, but my first street gaufre was this:


Kinda messy. Kinda embarassing when you're walking around trying to eat it in a dark coat. 

I found this in the street...

And I found this late at night...

I was very tempted by these "Swiss" McDonalds specialties, but I resisted.

Pea soup hit the spot on a cold afternoon.

Belgian food is SO much better than Dutch food, in my experience. I have a hard time making sense of this strange cultural nuance...



But the Czech food I ate on this trip may have taken the cake, albeit lacking in vegetables. Hell, it was Feburary!

Food, Glorious Food (dedicated to Aunt Irma Huchthausen)

I was looking at photographs of Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa and dreaming of 5 star hotels, World Bank Lunch style...


My last night in DC, Nzingha made this amazing meal:


And this was my parting home meal from one of my favorite World Bankers, Johannes...


In Brooklyn, I made pasties for the first time, for my G's...




After some amazing meals in Germany etc (meals to be addressed in another post), it came time for Wisco chow...


Well, I guess it was a lot of feeding kids and watching kids eat...


But there was some good stuff in there for me too, like this breakfast from my brother in law, featuring his very own venison sausage...


And my birthday cake! With all the fabulous cakes in the world, nothing makes me happier than a Dairy Queen cake...


Except maybe this little number I picked up in Northern Indiana while visiting Eve & Jim. Damn damn damn. We devoured this, in thirds. Maybe as delicious as the moon pie scored the previous day (from the Cultural Center Café, something I dream of when I am far...):


Northern Indiana also offered an amazingly delicious meal ala Jim and Eve. This picture doesn't even show the pork tenderloin. Preceding dinner, we had a very arousing discussion of meats...


I was delighted by this chip bag design. Isn't it nice?


And then San Diego. I'd been told tales of James' kitchen skillz, but I had no idea...

1st night- Black Cod Wasabi


3rd night- Yellow tail cheek & Tuna and salmon sashimi and Salmon skin, etc. 

No photo can capture what an extraordinary sight this meal was. Not meatloaf and mashed potatoes awe, colorful complex tasty layers of yum...

Then, more watching kids eat- Micah now:


And then, as if it could not get better, Bassemah's mom's fried chicken:


Lucas came from the OC craving BBQ, so we went to the place that the interweb said was the best BBQ in San Diego, House of Barbeque.


For San Diego's sake, I hope that is not the best BBQ in San Diego.

The next day, we drove all around North Park searching for Roberto's #10, which I could not find to save my life. So we settled on Rigoberto's.


It was fine, not great. I have been trying to eat as many fish tacos as possible while I am here. Roberto's #10 are much better...

That night, Lucas wished for some good old-fashioned meatloaf and mashed potatoes so we wouldn't have to go to bad San Diego gay bars or crappy BBQ. I provided, with a bit of embellishment ala ground turkey and my childhood Betty Crocker cookbook from which I used to create meatloaf pie ala mode.


The next night, for a belated birthday meal treat, Bassemah took me to Albie's All Beef. I could not imagine how perfectly full this experience would be...

Clearly, we were hungry.:

And I was mesmerized by everything around me.


Bassemah indulged me with my dream appetizer...


carefully sliced.


And I wasn't sure which I wanted more, her chicken parmesan...


or my bacon wrapped tenderloin.


Duh! Ha!

Wow. This was all topped off with the lounge band and everyone in the restaurant singing "Happy Birthday, Dear KJ."

...what a night... It's a long way from the World Bank.

What Does An Out-of-Work Film Programmer Do?

This post is like the opposite of a Bring-Your-Gainfully-Employed-Adult-to-School type of show and tell. My days usually look like this, though the setting varies. The present set-up at James and Jenn's in San Diego is definitely the warmest...



The important thing is to face each day hopefully, with a lot of clothes on.



This is not always easy. A few months ago, on the day that I first sat down to start my job search in earnest, the very first thing I came across was news of the 25% staff reduction at Film Society at Lincoln Center. Today there's this again: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/movies/01linc.html

It is at once 1) validating re: my current condition, and 2)extremely depressing.
I do not see light at the end of this tunnel, though I'm sure it's there, somewhere, far off... 

Meanwhile, I am taking advantage of the, um, free time for visits with friends and family who are good enough to take me in and let me feel productive in their lives while I search for a job. This involves a lot of kid visits and babysitting. In the case of my nieces, the kids are really happy and excited when I arrive and couldn't be cuter...





And by the time I leave they are miserable and can't wait to see me go.



Maybe it's a good thing for our relationship that I don't get to see Malcolm T as much?



In the case of Oliver, after the last 3 days when it was just him and me, we both really wanted more of each other. Here he is at a big gaping garbage hole that we checked out on the daily coming home from school.



I also got to see some kids I haven't seen in so long that they don't even look like this any more...





I've also taken to crashing birthday parties of kids who I don't know...yet. Free cake!



Then there's housesitting, which is a nice way of saying that my wonderful friends let me stay in their awesome homes while they are away so that I don't feel quite as home-less as I am. I break up a day of futile resumés and cover letters with useful things like watering their plants...



And I take care of their pets and pray that they don't bring flailing lizard tails into the house.



My favorite task is cleaning out the kitty litter. Mmmmm!

I also give impromptu lectures and book reports to visiting friends, just to hone my public speaking skills...



Bassemah just tried to talk me into going to work with her tomorrow by saying, "You can have 3 hours of internet!" I am not a sucker. Why would I go to her yucky work at school when I can do my futile work searching in this setting?


Cheers! Here's to finding a job before 2011!

Land of the Happy Animals

Maastricht Moments

Nurses I Have Loved

Post-debate TV cart

To borrow a phrase from Red, "Look how lucky I am! Take a picture!" Giovanna's pumpkin bread and Jenn's leg massage making me pinch myself.

Vanna and Jim braved DC driving to come visit. And so nice it was! They sent me all the best cards...

G & Nzingha & Jenn too.

Jenn and I watched some Women Make Movies screeners, this was THE WOMEN'S KINGDOM, I think.

Jenn cleaned my whole house before she left!

After the bandages came off- lookin' good!

When Aaron arrived, my camera got somehow pink for a while.

He took me for glorious late night walks...

and played wonderful music for Jackie, Robyn and me! A neighbor from next door even came over to tell us we needed to keep it down, but that our harmonizing group-sing of "Brown Eyed Girl, "sounds really good."

Robyn did ALL my laundry, dude! And look how BEAUTIFULLY folded everything is! So spoiled I am...

Heavenly Prudence and her heavenly tapanade. Chopped by hand!

And Pru's DELICIOUS curry meal, with Nurses Robyn and Rowan.

Pru!

Morgan came over from next door, she has the YUMMIEST belly.

Serious scrabble with Sara Varon.

She kicked my ass, actually.

My Bed Rest Lunches: Post-Surgery Part III

OK, so this is all out of order, but here are some nice things.

For example, percocet makes you feel SO SEXY!

When we removed the nerve block catheter, I put this patriotic band-aid on the scar.

Here's Luz, the little luz!

A delicious Karin meal!

And Nzingha's outstanding breakfast. What a treat...

Visits with Nzingha and Zulma...

And moms!

After they took out the sutures at my one-week check-up, I had this nice tape for a while. Bon appetit!

The ever-requested kringle. DELICIOUS!!!

My Bed Rest Lunches: Post-Surgery Part II

Marta and Luz brought these beautiful zinnias from their garden. Such a treat to have that bundle here for a spell! And these flowers lasted forever.


On the same day, Zulma brought this wonderful bouquet!


And a week and a half after the surgery my left hand was finally starting to recover for the anesthesiology student Eric's missed IV pricks.


Robyn made moms and me the PERFECT delicious veggies with tofu and brown rice. It was EXACTLY what I'd been craving!


And Johannes made mom's dream come true when he came over and made us Wienerschnitzel. It was EXTRAORDINARY. And my first excursion out of the bedroom! I think this was one week post-surgery. After dinner, Johannes and I watched INTO GREAT SILENCE alone, after mom realized what was on and said "oh no, not this, this is BO-RING" and retired to the living room with her book.

Pfister Sisters

Jenn saw this in Berlin, I was impressed. and, yes, jealous...