Gavin & Kindli’s News, events, updates & opinions on the weather
I actually made this the other day, but I’m just now getting around to posting a picture! I finally found a use for the origami boats and birds… I made a fun collage to hang on the wall next to the Pacific-centric map of the world by Gavin’s computer. I like it, it’s colorful and some of the birds look possessed. Maybe next time I’ll have them dive-bombing the boats.
Also, eventually sometime today/tomorrow Gavin has promised he will update This Month in Pictures.
I love our new ice trays. I threw out the old ones, and we only had one that worked well, so I got some at Market Basket –2 for 99 cents.
left, the new trays, right, old tray that still works; not pictured, the uncooperative trays that did not work
I just made the first batch of cubes with them this afternoon, they sprung free easily and were great fun to twist and flex. Unlike the old ice cub trays, which were demonically possessed, rigid, and uncooperative, the new ones are a joy to work with. The new ones also make more cubes!
I also had great fun sliding my ice-cold hands along the back of Gavin’s neck.
Today Gavin and I met up with Jenny walked around Downtown, and ended up by the Boston Commons to watch The Illusionist.
Although they took great liberties with Austrian history. The only Leopold I could come across in Austrian history was Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, and he was not in turn of the century (1900s) Vienna. There is also Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, but he’s English, not Austrian.
The premise, from movies.yahoo.com, is a bit far fetched, but still interesting enough if you over look the screaming historical inaccuracies aside, along with the completely unreasonable leaps made in the relationship between Sophie (Jessica Biel) and Eisenheim (Edward Norton), and the horrible costumes that Sophie wears, the movie was fairly good.
Childhood lovers, torn apart by circumstance meet up again and one is fated to marry the Prince. Oh noes! Clearly the woman must have a dramatic sequence, face death, and the man must antagonize the Prince, causing him to fall under suspicion and then I’m not going to give away the end of the movie.
It is rather sad to say but no one in the audience is entirely upset (or surprised) when Sophie ended up in a watery grave -her acting (and accent) are painful to endure, and the actress looks MUCH better as a brunette. Everything falls together nicely in the end when Chief Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti), gets around to figuring it all out.
Of course there is a dramatic climax, an odd twist, and a happy ending… there has to be. Gavin claims he knew how it was going to end “as soon as he opened the Orange Tree!” (you’ll have to see the movie to understand the context).
Not long after I finished making the blackberry strudel, I opened the freezer and saw the bread I had tossed in about a week ago. It had accidentally come home with us (God only knows how, we’d never buy that kind of bread), so it was tossed there until we could decide what to do with it.
About every other week or so I make garlic bread. Usually I just melt down a stick of butter in the frying pan, add some garlic and assorted dried herbs, and dip the sliced bread into it.
This time around, I found a recipe for garlic bread (oh so scientific, I know!), so I pulled some butter out of the freezer and set it on the stove to thaw quicker.
butter and garlic and herbs
I think the garlic bread turned out fairly well, I havn’t heated any of it yet, but it smells fantastic, and the butter mix tastes good too.
spread nice and thick
We’re not going to eat six loaves of garlic bread at once, so I’ve got them stacked in the freezer, next to the new ice trays, for future consumption.
stacked in the freezer
Today when we came back from Market Basket I decided to be adventurous and try making Blackberry Strudel. I got the recipe from Leslie, she got it from Silke’s Aunt Giesela.
Leslie and I talked for quite awhile about the best way to convert the recipe to something I could make here (with out a scale). The italics are the approximate amounts that I used to make the Strudel.
We also debated the best American equivalent to vanilla sugar… Leslie suggested powdered, so that’s what I used.
Blackberry/Raspberries/Cherry Strudel Cake9 oz. all purpose flour 2 3/4 cups
a squirt of lemon juice
1 egg yolk
5 oz sugar 1 1/4 cups
5 oz margarine/butter 3/4 cup
1 package vanilla sugar table spoon powdered sugar
about 1 1/2 lbs. of fruitMix flour, lemon, egg yolk, sugar and margarine in a bowl, and beat. Once the dough becomes a clumpy consistency, take about 2/3rds of the dough and put it in the bottom of a spring-form tin. Pat down firmly. Once the dough is patted down, add the fruit and the vanilla sugar, and then sprinkle the remaining strudel mixture over the fruit. Preheat the oven to 400*F and put cake in. Bake for about 30 minutes, and cool for about 2-3 hours.
the assembled strudel about to go into the oven
I was reminded the dough should be ”crumblier than you’d expect it to be” and to “make sure you put the bottom of the spring pan in upside down, it slides off easier, and doesn’t leak as much” .
I would like to add my own suggestion, make sure the mixer is set on LOW or else you’re going to end up with flour EVERYWHERE>. And be careful with the lemon juice squirt… it bleaches clothes quickly.
cooling on the stove
The Strudel smells fantastic, and it is incredibly hot. I was quite pleased that the spring form did not leak at all, then again, unlike the pineapple upsidedown cake, there really wasn’t anything that could totally liquify and ooze all over the place.
the finished strudel, missing the sample piece
A little later, talking to Leslie:
Kindli: it turned out SUPER well! only problem, it was a little attatched to the bottom
Leslie: did you grease the pan well?
Kindli: oops?
Leslie: did you turn the bottom over?
Kindli: by well you mean not @ all? and yeah, it was turned over
Leslie: hehe
Kindli: oops
topped with whipped cream
The blackberry strudel turned out excellently (in spite of having not greased the bottom of the spring form pan). Eventually I managed to slide it onto the pedistal, cut off a piece, and top it with whipped cream (from yesterday’s waffle luncheon).
I gave Gavin a bite, he said: “It’s good” (he was playing WoW at the time, so I wasn’t expecting much).
Our new mattress arrived today! They came in, hauled away the old one, inflated the inner thingies, put down the bottom, the foam, the other foam, inserted the pipes, added the mattresses, and zipped on the top. It was quite something to watch –they were done in about ten minutes.
They told us to inflate to 100, let it sit for an hour or so, and then adjust it to the firmness we like.
After they left, we put the bedding on it, and lay down for a little while. It was a little firm, but such a nice change from the old mattress. Although it is not quite as high as the old one (it’s 11 inches, instead of 14), it really doesn’t matter (the quilt hangs a little lower now, but so what? It still misses the floor).
I am looking quite forward to sleeping on the new mattress tonight!
For those of you that like some variety, Leslie’s Website has been updated with an expanded collection of pictures, recipes, and stories about life in Munich.
Our website has also been updated, today I added This Month in Pictures, (and more pictures will be added soon… they’re on my computer, the website updates from Gavin’s computer… and a link will be added in the blog’s side bar). I’ve also added more pictures to the Trudell and Carothers albums on Our Pictures page.
Tonight, after 7:30, Gavin’s former roommate Mike is expected to show up. He will be staying with us for a few days until he finds an apartment. Tomorrow (between 12:30 - 4:30 pm) our new sleep number mattress is going to arrive. Posts on our adventures with the new mattress to follow!
One more real quick thing! Heidi’s Yahoo Photos have also been updated with pictures of what she’s up to… Right now it’s the Smith Point Hawk Watch… those pictures are in one of those albums!!
For my Cold War class at Principia I wrote a paper about the Cuba, during the course of the paper, I found that I sort of liked Fidel Castro… he’s quite the character. Comrade Squishy is responsible for the link, I think it’s brilliant, and only reinforces that Mr. Castro is quite the unique fellow.
I found the following two quotes to be quite insightful (and amusing):
“Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away.”
-Fidel Castro“I would not vote for the mayor. It’s not just because he didn’t invite me to dinner, but because on my way into town from the airport there were such enormous potholes.”
-Fidel Castro
from Fidel Castro Quotes
An exciting FedEx package arrived today. Our bright red kik-stool arrived! It is so much fun. I’ve rolled it around the office, the kitchen, the bedroom, sat on it, stood on it, and rolled it around some more. 
The color is brilliant, and it rolls really well! Now I don’t need to stand on a chair, or the kitchen counters to reach things that are high up (yes I’m tall, but not that tall).
It is quite an excellent design, it rolls, until you stand/put weight on it, then it sinks down and doesn’t budge. It is similar to stools found in libraries and some bookstores. I’m going to go back to rolling it around the kitchen now.
After reading my posts on Dunkin’ Donuts and Boston life in general, a friend of mine who had gone to college in Boston posted the following:
other than the disgusting and horrid fixation on Dunkin Donuts bostonians have, have you also noticed their disconnection to reality via an ipod of some sort and their loud obnoxious drunken behavior along with their intense cravings for chinese?
While I have not noticed their obnoxious drunken behavior (I tend to avoid places where they might hang out), and I haven’t noticed their intense cravings for Chinese (there isn’t any good Chinese around here), I have noticed their disconnection with reality via ipod.
On my way home on the T, I noticed about 1 in 3 people were tuned out with an MP3 player (most of them had an ipod).
While I do have an ipod, I tend not to use it when I’m on the T. I don’t quite know where I’m going yet, so I need to pay attention to the stops, and I really don’t like walking and listening to my ipod at the same time.
There is also the problem that in order to hear the music on the ipod you have to crank the volume to unhealthy levels to hear it over the screeching and grinding noises on the T. I don’t want to go prematurely deaf, nor do I feel the need to share my music with my fellow T travelers.
I understand the joys of listening to music, but is it really necessary to be plugged into to an ipod 24-7? I’m not disputing their greatness, I very much enjoy mine (although I hate the earbuds). Call me crazy, but I’d rather be able to hear the stops being called (and the horn from the huge truck behind me) than groove along to the top 20.
