Thanksgiving in Germany

With all the pork roasts and potatoes Germans cook, you would think their stoves and ovens would be really nice. But you would be wrong! For us Americans on Thanksgiving, if we want to have a turkey we have to either go to the chow hall (no thanks) or fix it somehow other than roasted in the oven. Even a 10 pound turkey in a roasting pan is just too big to fit inside these crappy ovens.

So this year (as in the past) we bought a 14 pound turkey, injected her with some marinade, put a rub on her and deep fried her outside. Damn, that's some good eats!

The first year we did this, our next door neighbor came right up to the fence to watch us and she asked us what we were doing. Now she is so used to seeing the Hubs outside frying turkeys during the holidays that she leaves us alone. :)

I had intended to light the grill and put a few side dishes in aluminum, disposeable pans to warm them up, but we had a slight miscalculation in the number of propane bottles we had, so I made do with the oven for the side dishes, and the top of the stove for a few other things. Whenever we do leave here, I will not miss these stupid tiny stoves and old fashioned range tops.

Friday in the early afternoon we took our dog Harley up to the hospital in Landstuhl to visit the wounded soldiers. Thankfully, almost every wing we went to only had a few people in it. Even so, by the time we stopped to talk to all the staff and the few patients, we were there for almost 4 1/2 hours. The Pet Visitation Program is really cool, and we all like it.

Saturday we went to the fairly close village of Homberg-Jagersberg for lunch. We had a great special pizza of the day, a greek one with feta cheese, black olives, peppers, garlic and mushrooms on it. Damn, that was good! I had a delicious German beer with mine. I didn't think I would like German beer when we came here, but now I'm totally in love with it.

In the village, there was a Christmas Market. We have some friends that work in the village, and they told us that it is really more of a Santa Claus Market than a Christmas Market. What? I don't think either of us really understood the difference.

All through out the pedestrian shopping areas, in front of every door of every shop were giant candles. The stores with double doors had two candles, one on each side. The smaller shops had one candle. The holders for the candles are square, about 18 inches per side and about 3.5 feet tall. They are filled with wax and a wick that is probably 3 inches in diameter. It looks very inviting and cheerful, and we discussed how in America nothing like this could be used for decoration because someone would either burn themselves or knock one over (even thought they are really sturdy) and there would be some ridiculous lawsuit and that would be the end of the giant, cool candles.

We walked further into the village over the cobblestone streets. In the village square lots of stands were set up and decorated with freshly cut pine branches and little white lights. There were hand made things, jewelry, soaps, candy, and lots of places that were selling bratwursts, fried potatoe pancakes with applesauce, the ever-present beer, but also the seasonal gluhwein. I'm pretty much a gluhwein whore, I love it! (It's a spiced red wine served steaming hot and you can request a shot of schnapps, rum, amaretto, etc in it to give it an extra kick. If anyone ever gets any, I always suggest a shot of rum, but not schnapps as German schnapps is WAY too strong for even me....and not the rum either if it's Stroh's. If you want to learn about Stroh's 80 (a.k.a. "blindness in a glass") a rum from Austria, click here My elderly neighbor gave us a bottle of this stuff 2 years ago, and I tried a shot of it. I couldn't taste anything for 3 days. After 2 years it is still contained in the glass, but the cork stopper is dissolving. Anyway, we had 2 mugs of gluhwein and then went to meet our friends at their special gathering spot they go to after work.

Their favorite spot is a little Italian delicatessen, hidden off the main street and down a few twisty alleys. Two brothers own it, and they and their families work there. They have excellent wheels of cheese, cured meats, wine, flavored olive oil, bread, and lots of other Italian delicasies. They close up at 2pm, but since our friends are "regulars" they let them in after the doors are shut and locked. There is a small bar inside away from the delicatessen area, and it is there that we all gather and drink wine together. This is one of the most excellent places, and the feeling in there of comraderie and friendships is almost visible in the air. One of the Italian brothers speaks a little English and a little German, his nephew (he looks like a very young Tom Cruise) speaks English very well. Of our two German friends, one speaks only German and the other speaks German and has a good command of English. Because all of us except Michael can understand English, when we are there everyone uses English, and Gunter will translate for Michael. We hung out there with everyone for about 2 hours, and bought 2 bottles of wine. One of the brothers told us that the bottle we helped to drink was no charge, on the house for friends of his friends. It was so cool, it was like a movie. :)

Sunday we had more snow but it was also mixed with sleet and rain - it was very sloppy and cold, so we huddled on the couch and watched a little tv under a thick blanket with each other.

And that was our Thanksgiving and our weekend! :)