3 Cs and I FAT

Dear Liebe:

I am learning lots of new things. Now I am learning Cooking, Counting and Chemistry. Wow! Some of this is great stuff, mostly.

Yesterday Joe came to house. He helped Briggie and Omi made Grappeln, which are little German doughnuts. I learned how to mix all this stuff, like flower and water and milk and sugar and Yeast (remember the yeast) together to make the dough. Then they have to put the dough in a warm place to rise.

What happens is that the yeast reacts with warm water and air and makes bubbles and stuff…and the dough gets really big. It swells up and gets really big all over and everywhere!

I was guarding Chief’s chair because he was away shooting, naturally. They put these dough things in a pan on a chair, right in front of the pellet stove and right next to Chief’s chair. I watched as they counted these things out: “1, 2, 3…23…24.” Wow, that’s two dozen.

So ½ hour later they came back to check how big the doughnuts had gotten, and they counted, “...19, 20, …??? What happened? Where did 4 doughnuts go?”

Unfortunately, just then I was overtaken by events of the moment. Remember the yeast swelling? I issued a momentous Rottweiler sized yeast belch. They immediately concluded that the missing four raising doughnuts were in the belly of the dog called “I FAT”. Ooh, they were right. Yeast is nasty stuff. Ooh. My tummy got bigger by the minute…ooh. Really big…ooh.

They scolded me and made me stay in a little box by the back door, after many trips outside.

Chief came home from his gun club meeting and saved me. We took the evening ‘Bigout’ walk, and everything was fine. But then at bedtime a yeast moment overtook me again, and I ended up sleeping all alone in my dog box. I think both Chief and Briggie were cold all night without me to warm them. Serves ‘em right.

Belch. Hiccup. Belch..oooohhh. This stuff just keeps swelling…ooh.

Charlie

The Ugly American

Ugly American

Picture this: You are eating lunch at The Edelweiss famous German butcher shop in downtown Portland. The little parking lot is filled with Volkswagens and expensive Beemers and shiny new Mercedes, and one ancient orange Ford Pickup truck, looking somewhat out of place.

All the real German expatriates are eating lunch and shopping here, slurping their Kaffe (coffee), eating their brats, reading their Frankfurter Allegemeine newspaper. Gemutlichkeit is in the air. (What in tarnation is that smell?)

This pretty blonde German lady is explaining to her bald Ami husband, the wonders and history of the fabulous lunch they are having. Finally he asks:
“What is that strange looking meat?”

She replies, this is the world famous “Leber Kase”. It costs $100.00 a pound, they make it from selected pieces of certified German pigs and other animals. Then it’s shipped all the way over here, to make this wonderful lunch. Why, this is just like eating a fabulous meal in downtown Berlin or Kassel. She is ecstatic, with the rapture of the moment.

She cuts him a small tidbit, and politely proffers it to him on her fork. He savors the taste and then he says, just a wee bit too loudly:
“Honey, I think this is just Spam from Nebraska.”

The softly playing Bavarian music stops with a “Screech!” The cash register misses several beats in totaling up Pfennigs and Marks for other shoppers. Heads turn toward he who used the forbidden “S” word.

The old single guy at the next table drops his false teeth in his Edusho Kaffee and sneezes, splashing the coffee on his much-revered newspaper. Two other gentlemen halt their conversation in mid sentence and look askance at the defiler of German meat heritage. Someone mutters in German: “”How did that poor woman get stuck with that weird guy?”

The store proprietor personally brings to their table the take home order of 20 pounds of imported hot dogs, and grimaces at the ugly American. He politely asks: “Are you finished yet?” The couple pays and they leave the store.

The blonde lady appears to be gesturing angrily at the man as they drive off in their Ford pickup. We can envision a one sided conversation consisting of 15 syllable German cusswords, politely translated to something like “We can never show our face in there again! How could you say such a thing?”

Guess who this happy couple is? 'Twas another day with Chief and Briggie.