Another Boomer Meatloaf

Few things please me more on a cold winter night than a delicious meatloaf and a glass of red wine. The basics are always the same: around a half kilo of ground pork, onions and garlic sautéed in olive oil (I prefer red onions) and an egg. Variations are endless, and this time I discovered a bottle of capers in the fridge and remembered we had some Sambal Oelek and a flavor pack. So I stirred in the mixed spices and spread the Sambal Oelek and the capers on top:

Then I baked the meatloaf for about an hour at about 180º, covering it with aluminum foil for about the last half hour. Voila:

Polenta and sautéed spinach rounded out the meal:

The leftovers (alas, not many) made a good lunch the next day.

The Critical Mom and the Maskless Mansplainer

They're called "Querdenkers" here in Germany, a term that used to mean "maverick" or "unconventional" but now implies "dangerous" and "lunatic." They've been spotted among my children's teachers, yes, an unmasked person giving an unmasked talk about his supposed civil rights being violated in front of an unmasked audience. All on social media. And then this dude is back in the classroom, resentfully manslipping his mask, that is, letting it slide below his nose. 

We stepped into the elevator, my child and I, in our FFP masks, and never before or since have I wished that I'd had more than a meter's distance between myself and other person. 

The bald, leather-jacketed fellow wore no mask, but I'd assumed he was heading home, alone, so felt no need of protection. We stepped into the corner. 

But he turned toward us, eyes blazing, and announced: "You know, those masks don't do anything. They don't prevent viruses."

We wanted to inch even further into the corner, but were unable to do so.

"If there's another lockdown," he said, "Well, I hope there won't be another lockdown!" He rolled his massive shoulder proudly, as if they would have looked insecure if he'd had a mask on. 

After less than two minutes, we were in the open air. 

Manslippers, mansplainers: put your FFP2s on and behave yourselves.

Mr. Deformity, Our Snow Man

 

Here he stands in all his dubious glory. So eager were we to see the first biggish snowfall since my children were young that I forgot to bring along a carrot for his nose. I assumed I'd find pebbles for his eyes, but I assumed wrong. I tried leaves, and the poor thing ended up with one eye much higher than the other. Oh, well. Maybe some budding Cubist painter will come along and find him inspiring. On our way home, we found a large indentation in the back of his head, which had been assaulted by falling melted snow . . . no more brain. We decided he now resembled the outgoing POTUS, whatsishame. But our Mr. Deformity is much friendlier. See his funny little head, tilted as if in greeting, his leafy eyes and twiggy nose wagging a hello. He'd hug you if he were able to do so.

The Clueless American and the Kindly German Bureaucrat

Such persons as kindly German bureaucrats do not exist, you might think. I'd been waking up at night worrying about one of my many bureaucratic issues . . .  to live in Germany is to have bureaucratic issues . . .  but this one had me sweating. When you move, you're supposed to register your new address with the "Citizen Office" or "Bürgeramt" within two weeks of your move.  And to register, you need all relevant documents. Did I have them? Well, somewhere. After all, I'd just moved. Everything was in boxes. And I was thinking like an American, a problem I tend to have, repeatedly.

Imagine moving from New York to Chicago and being required to go to an office to document that you've left your New York address behind for your Chicago address. Why would anyone care, I wonder. But they do care. Oh, they do.

Last night I was talking with one of my teenagers about this application and explained--my explanation eliciting a startled look--that this kind of registration wasn't required in the USA. 

"But Mom," said my child, "How do they know how many people they have living in the city, then, or where they live?" 

"They don't care that much," I said. "Anyway, there's always the census and your taxes." I had to explain that in the States, I'd just send my new address around to various important places, like my accountant's office.

To register at our local Bürgeramt, my older kid told me, I'd need my American passport, my German residency permit (Oh, and everyone has a card--if you're a citizen you have to have a personal identification card, too. Yes, in addition to your passport) and proof of my new address. I'd need the lease and some other document I've forgotten the name of that my landlord gave me. "And," my kid said, "You need the original, mom!" 

Which of course I had. In a box somewhere. I unpacked those boxes. I looked into those big gray notebooks I now stick various documents into . . .  though I never know what to do with the various documents I've stored there. I paged through those notebooks repeatedly, sure I'd stuck the lease in there.

I hadn't. But then I did find it, in a box. Then I discovered that a huge part of the lease had been sent only via email. The email was actually the original! I printed out all nineteen pages and stuck them in a plastic document pocket with the passport, the residency card, and the "original" part of the lease and went off to my appointment hoping for the best. Waiting on the tram platform, I nearly turned around and went home, since I hadn't brought the bill from the moving company documenting the date on which I'd moved.

My head swimming with dire tales of people who'd waited a few months instead of the two weeks, and had to pay a 500 euro fine, or even a 1,000 euro fine, or lost their benefits, I trembled into the agency, sat down in the waiting area, and pulled out my book. I'd been told to keep my eye on the screen until my number came up, and I figured I'd have a good two-hour wait. Barely had I gotten through a paragraph when my number came up, and I went to the assigned booth and nervously explained, before anyone even asked, how sorry I was that I was late with this, there'd been family illnesses and  . . . 

The young woman with the non-matching fingernails (some were pale pink and some were red glitter) waved a hand.

"Ist in Ordnung," she breathed, as if she saw Americans like me every day and accepted their odd ways.  I could hardly believe she wasn't going to yell and scold and explain that this one time there'd no fine but I'd better watch out next time . . . .

And then there was a problem. But only a little one. They want the personal id card of the child who is living with me. Having it is "very important!" but I can bring it by in a day or two. I hope I get the same clerk or somebody just as nice. Kurt Tucholsky, a German-Jewish writer, observed: “The German nightmare is to stand in front of a counter, the German dream is to sit behind a counter.” But today I saw the exception to that rule, and I feel downright cheerful.

Our Global Warming Snowfall

 

I almost thought I'd never see snow again. Here we are--the third week in January--and nothing but a few lazy flakes that dissolved before they hit the ground. But here's the real thing. I hope it's there when I wake up in the morning. I won't be able to go to the gym--or anywhere--but as I leap, not with enthusiasm, onto my cross trainer while Barry Manilow Coca-Cabanas, or Blondie Heart-of-Glasses, I'll enjoy the sight of the snow.

Our Decaying Slum Upon a Hill

When I tuned into the live hearings, yet another senator was hauling out that frayed phrase, "a city upon a hill . . . " popularized by John Winthrop's 1630 sermon, but hailing of course from the Bible--the parable of salt and light in Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. I've lost track of how many presidents and how many politicians have pulled that moldy old thing out of the drawer, but I'll never forget that Sarah Palin attributed the metaphor to Ronald Reagan. 

The bad part is that our senators still think America is exceptional. Or feel they have to claim that it is. The eyes of the world are upon us, because we're exceptionally awful. We elected a gangster, we spread COVID like wildfire, we've colonized oil-rich regions under the guise of bringing them democracy, and don't get me started on our other sins. 

Some leader ought to be pointing out that we've failed dramatically but plan to do better. "Some day," the speaker of the house ought to say, "we'll be worthy of the notion that America is a shining example--a city upon a hill." If we try really hard, and we'll start by taking Greta Thunberg seriously and acting on all her recommendations.

If American were the City Upon A Hill, Mike Pence would have invoked the 25th Amendment. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and every other possible platform--Parler.Com I Mean You--would have banned Trump the nanosecond he displayed his un-presidential qualities. We would not be engulfed by Q-Anon.

In this kind of chaos, as Yeats observed, the best lack all conviction and the worst are filled with passionate intensity. Let's have some passionate intensity from the best, and some spine. Remove this horrifying criminal from office. If we can't do that, we're not America.

Pasta While the Capitol Burns

Okay, Nero's not playing his violin. The dead aren't jumping out of their graves and wandering the streets; the horses aren't eating each other. But it's bad. The Trumpistos are out there; the police aren't using tear gas or rubber bullets--they're not nearly as violent as they were at peaceful Black Lives Matter protests. The MAGA folks aren't exactly the "fierce fiery warriors" in Julius Caesar,  but they still

drizzled blood upon the Capitol.

The noise of battle hurtled in the air.

 

Nobody's rounding these rowdies up. What to do? Hole up in a place far, far away--I'm in an order-loving neighborhood of an order-loving city in order-loving Germany. Traffic noise all but disappears when I shut my window. I stare at CNN in sorrow and then, since I can't magic away the bad guys or erase Trump's latest rot about the election being stolen, I cook. 

This is what I made:

Call it Pasta Insurrectionista. Details: 

I went to my local REWE, where I shopped among the masked octogenarians, purchasing that fennel sausage I love so much, two little bags of fresh spinach, red onions.

At home: I chopped the red onions, put them in the olive-oil-drizzled pan. Added chopped garlic. How much? Lots. Around ten cloves. Added the sausage, each one sliced into four or five pieces. Stir. Add the spinach. Stir. Add a sliced tomato. Stir. Boiled water, added four-cheese tortellini. Boiled two minutes, drained, added to sausage mix. Add freshly ground pepper. Stir. Grate Parmesan or Asiago. Voila! A glass or two of red wine help to blot out the reality on the screen.

P.S. Also watched the second Borat.

Inspired Winter Chicken

When it's freezing outside, chicken and potatoes are always good, but I was looking for a new spin on an old meal. I've tried plain chicken: salt and pepper the bird, put it in a dish, leave it in the fridge overnight so the skin gets crispy, and bake it. That was my husband's favorite recipe. But I liked stuffing the bird with a lemon, or lemon and garlic, or lemon, garlic and rosemary. We always had fresh rosemary growing in our garden, but the children didn't like that particularly tangy herb, so when they were eating with us, we had to leave it out. 

Browsing in REWE, I came across fennel-stuffed sausages and vaguely remembered a restaurant meal involving chicken and sausages. I've tried different versions of this recipe--you can use chicken thighs instead if you like--but tonight's version involves the following:

One entire (preferably corn-fed) chicken that has been seasoned and left in a pan in the fridge overnight. This time I used a salt-rosemary mix. 

One pack fennel sausages--the kind you'd normally fry in the pan, or skewer and roast over a campfire. The kind you can't eat raw. 

Red onions--sliced in largish chunks

Garlic--lots. Whole cloves--six or eight. 

Roma tomatoes or any juicy-looking medium sized bunch of tomatoes. You might want three or four.

Put the bird in the pan. Slice the sausages--usually about four come in a pack--and stuff them into the chicken. Add around three cloves of garlic. You can truss the bird too, with twine (I did) but you don't have to do so.  

Slice the tomatoes and the red onions and put them in the pan with the rest of the garlic. Place the bird on top. Bake at 220º for around an hour and a half. I put aluminum foil over the bird so it wouldn't get too dry or too brown on top, and basted it a few times. 

I fully intended to provide a photograph of the finished product--but most of it was inhaled by a hungry adolescent before I could do so.