Mañanitas

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

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.