I recently rediscovered my grandmother’s recipe for Baumkuchen. English translations for this delicous treat that I have found online are Pyramid cake and layered cake; if you do it properly you prepare it by adding layer after layer of dough on a spit turned regularly. In a less dramatic version, you add the layers in an ordinary loaf pan. That’s what I did last week, and the resulting cake was so delicious that I want to share the recipe with you. Read the rest of this entry »
Grandma’s Baumkuchen
March 23rd, 2013Which Ones Do You Play?
March 21st, 2013
My father in law received a tablet for Christmas. Since then I have played numerous games of Words with Friends and Draw Something with him. I also play my brother in law but since he is a nasty cheat 
I don’t like to think about that. Those are the only games I play right now and family are the only people I play because honestly, it is way too easy to lose hours to internet games. But I would love to have the time to explore more games.
The Noobs have Pwned our insults!
March 19th, 2013
Over dinner the other day my husband and I were telling our teenage son about old insult sayings, to see if he could figure out what they meant. We were saddened to learn that phrases we’ve known since childhood were no longer common knowledge. Are they dying out completely? Some of the more colorful ones we asked about were:
- She couldn’t hem a pig in a ditch – meaning she’s bowlegged. Read the rest of this entry »
I was late to the social networking party
March 18th, 2013
I was late to the social networking party. It wasn’t because I was wary of technology. My husband forked out $2000 for an Apple computer in 1982 that did not even have a hard drive. Pre-children, we spent hours on that computer fighting monsters and completing quests on the role playing games available at the time. Sometimes we even used it for finances and business. Much like the game consoles of today, we traded up each time a new incarnation came on the market. I had email long before most of my peers. My brother had moved to Saudi Arabia and after a year of extremely high telephone bills, I knew there had to be a better way. There was: email. So you might say that technology for me needed to be either entertaining or useful. Read the rest of this entry »
The Comfort of Chicken Soup
March 16th, 2013With tomorrow St. Patrick’s Day, I fully intended to post about my preparations for a lovely Irish meal tomorrow. I wrote a similar post last year, and had a few wonderful meals. Those plans were set until I began struggling with a late winter cold yesterday afternoon. When I woke up this morning coughing and sneezing, the only food on my mind, in fact one of the only things on my mind, is chicken soup.
Earworm of the day: Let the River Run by Carly Simon
March 14th, 2013
Let the River Run is an old favorite. I also love the movie from whose soundtrack it is, Working Girl. The song gets me into an upbeat mood, so it’s ideal for phases with lots of work (but a weekend on the horizon).
- Rike Horstmann
Movies That Meet (or Exceed) the Book
March 8th, 2013
There is always controversy when movies are adaptations of beloved books or plays. Films such as The Hobbit, which use outside source material to extend a revered original, are dissected as fans determine which moments, if any, should have remained untouched. But I felt nothing but delight with the changes made to Breaking Dawn Part 2. Be warned, I am heading into spoiler territory here so if you haven’t seen the film, quit reading.
Caring Less is Still Caring
March 7th, 2013English is a living language, meaning that it’s always changing, always evolving. Unless you want to live in constant pedantic frustration, you have to be willing to accept new words or phrases that didn’t exist at all in the near past or, a bit harder, words or phrases that originally meant one thing but have now come to mean something else because of common misuse or a general misunderstanding. Read the rest of this entry »
AAR Goes to the Movies: The Master
March 5th, 2013
I wasn’t really too keen to watch The Master, but my husband persuaded me to come along as he’s a huge fan of P. T. Anderson, the film’s director. Well, it proved one of those films I was glad I’d seen, but which I probably won’t want to see again. Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome, spring!
February 28th, 2013
Since this has been the darkest winter in Central Europe for many, many years, I can’t wait till spring starts. It’s not the low temperatures or the regular sleet that bother me, it’s the lack of light. So you can imagine my delight when I discovered the first harbingers of spring next to my terrace today! Aren’t they pretty?
- Rike Horstmann
