Pushing the Pause Button on Social Media

I'm about to get on an airplane tomorrow, to visit relatives in Holland and Germany, and I've decided to push the pause button on social media updates for the next couple of weeks. No facebook, no twitter, no elenabella. Instead, I'll slip into the comfortable obscurity of a face-to-face life, camera, sketchbook and journal in hand. This is an experiment: I'm sure there will be much to say about the trip. But I won't always have ready access to the web, so I've made the decision to (try to) put the internet out of my mind. My focus will be on direct conversation, biking, hiking, sleeping, relaxing, and experiencing the chance to explore a few places that are now deeply familiar landing spots over in Europe. I'll be sharing some highlights after July 7th: come back in two weeks and find out what we did on our summer vacation! Bon voyage! Auf wiedersehen! Abientot j'espere..

And now, just for fun, that heroic moment when Obama swatted a fly. I like the fact that he slaps his own hand while smashing the fly: it's a double whammy, a calculated risk.

Winter Wonderlands in Deustchland and North Dakota

My in-laws in Westen, Germany, sent this wonderful photo of the snow outside their windows. It doesn't happen very often, but they got the full impact winter wonderland snowfall!

Growing up in Minnesota, I experienced a few magical snow days as a child, including one that prompted my father to build a snow fort, complete with tunnels, in our front yard.

Once, as my family traveled back from North Dakota after visiting my mother's parents for Christmas, we spent a night at the North LaMoure "store", the childhood home of my mother's college friend Jonnie. I recall so many details of that occasion: looking at old Life magazines in the storefront (soda fountain and wooden store shelves intact), the long preparation of a wonderful meal, candles on the table, Jonnie's typed list of memorable and amusing phrases (a wordsmith, she has been one of my inspirations), a fragrant balsam in the corner of a cozy living room where my sister and I consulted the Ouiji board with Jonnie's nephew Tom, tall and handsome, vibrant and engaging. We slept upstairs in warm quilt-covered beds, in rooms that were icy cold by morning. The next day, the trees in the grove next to the store were covered with lacey hoarfrost, like those in the back garden in the photograph here.

Jonnie and Tom visited my parents last October and my mother sent along this image. Tom arrived from work in his chef's jacket; he is now a master chef and lefse-maker extraordinaire. My mother says the conversation that night moved from food and family to North LaMoure, technology, music, and finally "branched off into eternity and infinity...!"

Today, I wish we could recall the conversation we all had around the dinner table and Oiuji board on that snowy night so long ago. Perhaps it is archived in infinity somewhere?

Hello to Heike

It's time to give a shout out to Heike, my sister-in-law, who is recovering from surgery in Germany. She is married to Chris, Andreas's youngest brother, and together they helped bring us Lenni, the foreign exchange student living with us now. Lenni is Heike's godson.

Well, first of all: we love Lenni – he is a joy! He's a senior in high school with Jack, a couple of years older than Savannah. The three of them became easy, compatible siblings almost immediately. Lenni is smart, kind, funny, and he plays the piano each day, often when I'm fixing dinner, or just before school. So, thank you, Heike, for thinking of this arrangement – it couldn't be better! The hard part will be saying good-bye to Lenni in February.

I'm including a couple of photos here, one of Heike coming home after work at her house in Germany, when we were guests there. She is walking up through the gorgeous garden she planted that includes some flowers from mother-in-law Marlies. And there is Christoph on the left, on the same path.

Hey Heike – we hope you are recovering at home with your feet up, a cup of tea, and time to relax. We miss you and hope you'll send some words to elenabella, visiting often. Here's a photo of the 3 teens.

Linzertorte

Kaffee und Kuchen is a time-honored ritual in Germany in mid-afternoon, something we have often enjoyed during all-too-short visits with my husband’s family. His mother, Marlies, makes large trays of apple streusel when expecting visitors, and we’ve had some wonderful hours in their garden, enjoying kaffee und kuchen. During the summer months, she uses fresh fruit: cherries, raspberries, and Johannes berries. When our children were little, they delighted at the sight of Opa lowering a wicker basket filled with plates and napkins down with a rope from the window next to Oma’s tiny but phenomenally productive kitchen.

If all of those hours we’ve spent together in Oma’s garden were strung together continuously, they wouldn’t make up nearly enough time – and yet they live on as memorable and comforting. There are photos of Andreas and his siblings taken over the years back there, always in the same configuration as when they were kids. Now the examination of these brings hearty adult chuckles, and wistful comments about the passage of time. It is a little triumph whenever a new one is taken, when the three brothers and sister manage to make their way back to the same spot of ground.

What we find in Oma’s garden: bees, Johannes berries, strawberries, raspberries, leeks, salad greens, chives, herbs, a compost heap and a cold frame – with goats, horses, and a forest to walk in just beyond the fence.

I’ve never made a linzertorte before, but my friend Nicole passed along this recipe, thinking I should make one for Andi. It’s easy! This would make a good ‘locavore’ treat in the winter, if you use summer berries to store up some jam. In Marlies’s cellar, in a cupboard behind a curtain made from a heavy blanket, are the glass jars of jam she makes from her berries.

LINZERTORTE for Andreas and Lenni

Ingredients
3/4 cup (a stick and a half) organic butter, at room temperature
¾ cup organic sugar
¾ cup walnuts, ground in food processor
1 egg, at room temperature
1 ½ cups all-purpose organic unbleached flour
½ teaspoon finely grated fresh lemon zest (optional)
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
½ cup of raspberry, black current, blackberry, or red current jam
2 tablespoons of sliced almonds (soak them first, if slicing your own)
organic powdered sugar for dusting

Bake in a 9-inch (24-cm) round springform pan.

Preparation

Preheat oven to 375º
• Grind walnuts and mix with flour, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.
• Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl, until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and add lemon zest.
• Stir in the mixture of flour, walnuts, and spices – mix it all up to make the dough.
• Divide the (somewhat sticky) dough into 2 disks, and refrigerate for up to an hour, to make it easier to handle. (The dough can be formed into disks 1 day ahead and chilled, wrapped well in plastic wrap.)
• Pat half of the dough into the bottom of the buttered springform pan. (You can use parchment paper to line the bottom, but it’s not necessary and may make it trickier to pat in the dough.)
• Roll the rest of the dough into a ¼ inch thick rectangle, and then cut into 1/2 inch wide strips.
• Spread the jam evenly over the dough in the pan.
• Line the sides of the pan with a strip of the dough.
• Crisscross strips of dough over the jam, making a lattice pattern. (I didn’t really weave these, but made a faux weave and pressed the strips down into a crisscross.)
• Press down firmly around the sides, and sprinkle the torte with sliced almonds.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until golden brown.
• Remove from oven and let cool in the pan.
• Remove the sides of the pan after 10-15 minutes, and when torte is cool, sprinkle with a dusting of powdered sugar.