Archive for February, 2011

Apple Pie Recipe

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a blog entry about making pies, but I didn’t put up a link for the apple pie recipe that I used. This was because I didn’t get the recipe from the internet. I got the recipe from my Aunt, who taught me how to make pies in the first place. Of course, I am actually really bad at making pie crusts in comparison to her, so when I go to visit in a couple of weeks, I fully intend on asking for a refresh course.

Pie crusts are tricky to make. Here is the recipe I used, but if you have never made a pie crust before, I suggest you look up some instructional videos on YouTube:

Flaky Pastry Pie Crust Recipe

Makes two 9-inch pie crusts. (I use a butter pie crust recipe, because I have never been able to find Crisco in Germany, although I have heard that it makes making pie crusts a lot easier. My Aunt, who lives in Germany as well, recommends substituting a 1/2 cup lard [Schweine Schmalz is the German word] for a 1/2 cup butter).

Ingredients

2 1/2 cup all-purpose flour (320 g)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter (I just use a 250 g butter cube and it works fine)

1/2 cup ice water (120 ml)

Directions:

1. Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl.

2. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

3. Stir in the ice water, a Tablespoon at a time, until the crust mixture forms a ball.

4. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. (Actually 15 minutes in the freezer is good instead of the fridge if a short amount of time is required. This step is critical. If the dough is cold, it rolls out like a good little boy. If it is warm, it will stick to everyone and everything it touches, and will be a nightmare to get into a pie pan if you do indeed succeed in rolling it out. That little lesson I learned from experience.)

5. Sprinkle flour onto rolling surface. Roll dough out, then divide in half. Roll each half to fit a 9-inch pie plate. (You can also roll it out between two sheets of seran wrap or Backpapier [baking paper]. But as I said in step 4, if the dough is cold enough, this is not completely necessary.)

6. Place crust in pie plate, pressing evenly into the bottom and sides.

Apple Pie Recipe

Ingredients:

Pastry for 2 crusts (see above)

8 cups sliced, peeled assorted baking apples – about 3 lbs./1.4 Kg (Granny Smith, Cortland, Jonathan)

2 Tablespoons lemon juice

3/4 cup white sugar (150 g)

1/4 cup brown sugar (55 g) or just use white sugar if you don’t have brown sugar

1/4 cup all-purpose flour (32 g)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (Muskatnuß)

2 Tablespoons butter (30 g)

1 egg yolk

1 Tablespoon milk

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, toss the sliced apples with lemon juice. (This keeps them from getting brown, and gives a little tartness.)

2. Combine sugars, flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg; add to apples and toss well to coat.

3. Fill pastry lined 9 inch pie pan with apple mixture. Dot with butter.

4. Place second crust on top of pie filling, cut slits in top of crust to vent. Seal the edges of the crust with a fork or by hand.

5. In a small bowl, beat the egg yolk and milk. Brush mixture over the top crust.

6. Bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit (220 degrees Celsius) for 15 minutes

7. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake 40-45 minutes more or until crust is golden and filling is bubbly.

Comments:

My personal favorite apples for apple pie are Gala apples. But I actually don’t like apples very much, and Gala apples are one of the few sorts that I actually do like, I think that is just a personal preference. My friends have given me many compliments on my apple pie, and it was declared the favorite of all (although it wasn’t exactly in competition with my pumpkin pie at the time). I have tried to make this recipe as international as possible (without actually translating every line into German) by converting all of the American measuring units to the ones used in Germany. But I don’t know how to translate teaspoons and tablespoons, so I usually just go by feel. I usually use two German Teelöffel for every teaspoon and one German Esslöffel for every tablespoon. But if you have any questions at all or need clarification on anything, please comment!

 

2011
02/28
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I can’t remember the shoes I wore…

in the ninth grade. And this is really throwing me for a loop. Let me specify: I know I wore my mismatched pink and green flip-flops everywhere during the fall of my freshman year of high school. And I know that as soon as the first snow fell, I dragged on my clumpy snow boots that I had stolen from my mother. But I cannot, for the life of me, remember which shoes I wore after it was too cold for flip-flops and not cold enough for my winter boots. I was always a fan of slip on shoes, so I highly doubt that I wore my running shoes to school everyday, but maybe I did. I don’t think I got the hideous bright blue airwalks until my softmore year. In all honesty, I can’t remember a lot about my childhood. I don’t think I am a strong one on memories. I have always lived half-way in my own fantasy land anyway, and I never kept a journal, so now that I try to think back and remember, so many things come up blank.

Shoes were always a big deal for me. In spite of my total and complete lack of fashion sense, I always fancied that I was making a fashion statement by wearing my mismatched flip-flops and painting my toenails the opposite colors to match. In a way, I think I did, not because anybody else ever copied me with my weird flip-flops, but I envy that girl of 15. She wore exactly what she wanted, when she wanted, and felt completely comfortable. Not that she was totally macho and had no insecurities. On the contrary, she was quite insecure, and always believed that nobody liked her. But that didn’t keep her from being happy with who she was and what she was going to become. I hope if that 15-year-old girl were to take a five year leap into the future, she wouldn’t be disappointed to find me standing in her shoes.

Not that I really fancy going back in time either. Sometimes I daydream about going back in time and doing the whole high school experience over again. I would be more stylish. I would be less insecure. I would be friendlier. I would be smarter. I would be more popular. But every time I play the whole high school experience over and over in my head, I know that it was everything in the past five years that has made me become the person that I am today. So whenever I come to the end of my daydream and I re-graduate high school in my imagination, I am always disappointed. If I hadn’t done the running start program and gone to Spokane Falls Community College instead of staying at North Central High School for the last two years, I would never have met all of the wonderful people that I met during my those two years. I would have never figured out that I love programming way more than I will ever love physics and that computer science is definitely the major for me. I would have never taken German. And of course, I would never have come to Germany.

Chances are, I would have followed what I always considered to be my dream. I probably would have ended up at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. And I am SO thankful that I am in the beautiful city of Duesseldorf in the heart of the most populated area in Germany instead of that little village. I get to fly away to Rome next week now that I am on my semester break. I highly doubt I would ever have gotten there had I ever gone to Pullman.

So I resolutely chin up and look forward to the future. There is much in store for me here. But sometimes I wonder if I will forget that young 15-year-old girl completely. She already seems to be a little bit like a stranger to me. I had a friend who used to tease me and tell me that I lived under a rock. I denied it vehemently, but he was actually right. I was extremely naive and more than a little idealistic. But I was so happy. So blissfully unaware of anything painful or disappointing. Sometimes I want to crawl back under that rock just to be able to feel that bliss again. Unfortunately, once you learn something once, you can’t unlearn it. It is one of the parts of growing up. I am just thankful and blessed that I was able to stay under my rock for as long as I was. Once I discovered the harsh reality that is out there in the world today, I was prepared mentally and emotionally. I thank God and my parents.

2011
02/21
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What Germany DOESN’T have

A few weeks ago I wrote a level-headed article discussing the differences between Germany and America. But in my article I barely brushed the food factor, and while I am normally completely satisfied with German fare, sometimes I feel like I could EXPLODE because I want some American delicacy or other. And yes, maybe most of those American delicacies are junk food. But still.

It all started yesterday. I got a sudden, very strong longing for tortilla chips. I even wrote about it in my facebook status. Germans cannot do tortilla chips. They try, but all of the chips available have really weird spices on them so they aren’t at all compatible to the awesome, crunchy, delicious corn chips that one can find in America. *sigh*

So here is a list of food items that one CANNOT get in Germany (but if one of my German peeps knows where I can find them, then PLEASE comment):

– Tortilla Chips

– Refried beans

– Mexican food in general (Not even Taco Bell quality. If you want a plate of delicious Mexican rice and refried beans, you are out of luck. I rampaged about last falls trying to find a decent Mexican restaurant, but the results were exceedingly disappointing)

– Top Ramen

– Nerds (I remember those little purple and pink candies with longing)

– Oreos

Yeah. Those are the main items that I can think of right now. Except for the annoying lag in technology that goes with living outside of the United States of America. Like how the Chrome netbook testing program is only available within the U.S. borders. And if I wanted to receive a blog via Kindle, I would have to pay the extremely overpriced international service fee.

So for all my American friends, if you want to hit me up with a care package, I would be more than willing to send you my address per email. For all my German friends, if you ever see any of the above mentioned items, just let me know and you will probably get to witness me on a King Kong shopping spree (or at least read about it in this blog). For all my fellow Americans who also live on this beautiful continent, tell me what you miss! C’mon! Hit the comment button! Let’s get all nostalgic in here!

2011
02/18
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Pies!

Yesterday, in celebration of the semester end, I invited all of my friends over and baked pies for them. I am actually not that much of a cook, but I do like to bake the occasional pie (or three). And because pies are a rarity in Germany, if I want to eat my favorite dessert, I have to make it myself.

Here are my creations!:

The classic apple pie is the pie that everybody loves the most. It is also one of the simpler recipes. The main work is peeling and slicing, but if you use a bread knife, the slicing goes much faster.

Click here for the recipe for this banana cream pie. Except that I wasn’t able to make the meringue to go over the top. I tried, but it failed miserably, so I just left it off.

Click here for the recipe that I used to make this pecan pie. I accidentally overcooked it, but I just ate a leftover slice cold, and it is still quite delicious. It was my favorite, but everybody else preferred the apple pie.

2011
02/15
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German vs. American

I have been asked what difficulties I have had integrating into the German culture. The answer? Not very many. I am pretty easily able to adapt to different situations, my personal experience has been very good, and I thoroughly enjoy living in this country. But there are many differences between the two countries, and while these differences are not necessarily good or bad, they are definitely things that took getting used to.

1. SHOPPING

– The grocery stores in Germany are much smaller and usually only sell one or two brands of any given product and they ONLY sell groceries.

– There are a few stores that sell more than just groceries (like Real) but unlike WalMart, they aren’t cheaper than other stores. In fact, they are much more expensive. And you still can’t get everything at Real. For instance, you can’t buy furniture at Real. I would say that Real is about half the size of a regular Walmart and probably about a third of the size of a Super Walmart.

– The electronic stores in Germany sell ALL electronics. That includes microwaves and hair-dryers. Maybe I have forgotten, but I am pretty sure Best Buy or other electronics stores in America don’t sell hair-dryers.

– The frozen food section of a German supermarket is TINY in comparison to an American supermarket. I am guessing it is about half the size of one of regular sized aisle in America. And a TV dinner? I’ve never seen one. Pizza is the only already prepared frozen food that I am aware of.

– Germans tend to go grocery shopping more frequently than Americans. Refrigerators are smaller and freezers are almost non-existent. Because of that, almost everything that is cooked is cooked from scratch and cooked from fresh ingredients. Which is alright. I actually have learned how to cook since moving here, so it is all good with me.

2. SOCIAL INTERACTIONS

– I would can sum both cultures up in one word: Germans are direct, Americans are polite. They are just two different cultures. It takes a while to figure out if an American actually likes you. Americans are very polite to everybody, so it is difficult to tell if someone actually likes you or if they are just being nice. You pretty much have to actually have to be an American to tell or stick around in America long enough to get a feel for things. With Germans, it is obvious from the beginning. I actually prefer the German society. I don’t like to have to second guess if anybody likes me.

– I think that this difference stems mostly from the language. German is structurally more strict than English, so there aren’t as many different ways to say something (although I have been told that I just need to expand my German vocabulary and then I might be able to express myself better). For instance, when sitting at a the dinner table in America, it is polite to ask, “Could you please pass the cheese?” whereas in Germany it is standard to ask “Gib mir den Käse bitte” (Give me the cheese please).

3. CLOTHING

– The styles are different in Germany than in America. At least from the North-western part of America. I grew up in Spokane, Washington, so I can’t speak for America as a whole, but in Washington State the fashion is much sportier. But I think the most differences in fashion are with the men’s clothing. In Germany every guy wears sweaters, scarves, and never wears running shoes. The jeans are much different as well. They are tighter than American jeans and the pockets are placed lower down than on American jeans. It is really easy to spot an American guy: Everybody can see the cargo shorts, t-shirts, New Balance shoes (or sport shoes of some sort), sport watch, and baseball cap from a mile off.

4. GRADING

– In the University and school system, the Germans are graded on a scale of 1.0-6.0 with 1.0 being the best and 4.0 being passing. I have composed a list from Wikipedia with the basic conversion, so I thought I would post it here:

Percentage German Grades American Letter Grades American GPA
90-100% 1,0 A+ 4.0
1,3 A
80-90% 1,7 A- 3.7
2,0
2,3 B+ 3.3
65-80% 2,7 B 3.0
3,0 B- 2.7
3,3
50-65% 3,7 C 2.0
4,0 D 1.0
0-50% 5,0 F 0.0

Like the table? I was playing with my HTML skills. That brings us to another major difference between Germany and America.

5. SYNTAX

– I actually find it very interesting how handwriting varies from country to country. I always thought it was kind of miracle how Sherlock Holmes was able to tell so much about a person from their handwriting, but the truth is that is is not difficult to guess where someone comes from based only on their handwriting.

Some unique characteristics of the German handwriting:

– When writing the character “1” you really emphasize the little flag part at the top, so that the “1” looks almost like an upside down “V”.

– When writing the date, the days and months are switched. (That is actually the same in all European countries. Maybe the whole world. I am not sure.) They also use a “.” as the separator for the days months years. So in America the date looks like: Month/Day/Year, and in Germany it looks like: Day.Month.Year. For instance, my birthday in America is: 11/21/1990 and in Germany it is: 21.11.1990.

– The “.” is also used as the ending “th” in the case of numbers. So “1” means one and “1.” means first.

– Commas are used as the decimal place and periods are used to mark the thousands places in a number. I still personally think it looks really weird, when they write 1.098,23 instead of 1,098.23. But since I have to go shopping a lot, I now don’t have to think twice when something says 3,24 Euros. I know that it means 3 Euros and 24 cents.

6. OTHER DIFFERENCES

– The language is different, obviously. And that leads to a lot of subtle differences that aren’t that easy to explain. And while most Germans CAN speak English, most DON’T speak English on a regular basis, so when you have only talked to a German in English, you probably haven’t been able to pick up on some of the cultural differences that you would recognize had you been talking German.

– The measuring system is different. Everyone knows their height in centimeters (I am about 173 centimeters tall) instead of feet and inches and their weight in Kilograms instead of pounds. Milk is sold in liters, the average bottle of coke is 500 ml, the average can of coke is 0,33 liters, and almost all beverages are sold in 1,5 liter bottles. They also sell eggs in sets of 10 instead of a dozen (12).

– Most Germans live in apartments. Most Americans have the desire to own a house at some point in their lives.

– Germans think that debt is the worst of all evil. They are extremely frugal and don’t spend more money than they earn. Almost every American, on the other hand, has “managable” debts (or debts that aren’t quite manageable). But it might help that higher education is very cheap.

– The schooling system is different. In Germany, it is decided after 4th grade to which school the child will go based on their performance at that point. The lowest school is the Hauptschule. There the students learn basic skills and are done with their schooling by age 16. The next level is the Realschule, and the highest is Gymnasium. One can only go to University if they get an “Abitur” degree from the Gymnasium. But it is also possible in Germany to learn a profession without going to University.

Yeah. There are definitely other differences, but I can’t think of any right now. So I am going to go eat some bread and cheese. Oh yeah…the bread in Germany is WAY BETTER than American bread. Any day. And you can go to one of the many bakeries whenever you want fresh bread.

2011
02/08
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Whew! Windows not better than Linux!

A couple of weeks ago I posted that the software for simple graphics on Windows (MS Paint in particular) far excels in comparison to the graphics software available for linux maschines. But I have found an alternative that trumps even MS Paint: Google Docs. Several years ago I was very pumped about the new Google initiative, Google Docs, which enabled you to write one document online and then just share it with as many friends as you wanted, so that they could edit the original document and not have to keep downloading copies of the same document over and over again. The idea was brilliant, but at the time the execution left much to be desired. I tried it out, but the lack of formatting options made the use of Google Docs extremely impractical for a college student who was required to turn in a paper double spaced with 1 inch margins all the way around.

Disappointed, I turned my back on Google Docs. Even as the world became more and more internet app friendly, I remained strictly program based in regards to my word processing needs.  Of course it helped that two months after my bad google documents experience, I began to code for the first time. I was very impressed with the speed and efficiency of using text documents to record simple information instead of having to open up a word processor every time. But last week I happened to really look at Google Docs again for the first time since 2008.  I was impressed! It is quick to open up a new document. And there are just as many tools and settings as microsoft word and open office, while at the same time it is better organised than word and easier to find things, and it is definitely better looking than open office.

But the best feature? Google Docs works on any operating system including Linux with no problem at all. And that goes for the drawing feature as well. I made this tree diagram in approximately 10 minutes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And it even looks better than the diagram I made a couple of weeks ago with MS Paint. The software even creates guiding lines that allow you to align shapes to make them look their best. And it has a tool for drawing spiffy arrows.

So I am happy to declare to the universe: LINUX IS AWESOME! And just as good as Windows, if not better.

 

2011
02/07
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Update!

I now updated all of my info, and my picture, to match the new spiffy skin that I put on this blog. The main change is the title. I am pretty excited about it, so welcome to:

Freude im Ausland – An American studying in Germany

Freude im Ausland is German that roughly translates to “Joy abroad” which is a play on the word “joy” and my name “Joy”. But it is the truth. I am an American studying in Germany, and I have maintained my joy abroad, although it is often difficult for foreigners to integrate well in German.

2011
02/07
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New Site Look!

Well..the old skin that I had wasn’t showing the links, which was getting pretty annoying, because I always try to put some pretty cool links on my blog, and nobody actually ever clicks on them. I tried to edit the CSS, but that is reserved for people who pay for their WordPress accounts.

So I am going to try out this theme. Like it everybody?

I probably should design a blog from scratch (HTML and CSS) sometime. But I don’t have the time for that right now.

The other issue: The Title.

The Title was “Abenteuer in Deutschland – Joy traverses overseas on a new adventure”

I really don’t like that time title, because I really am not very adventurous. So I made the title “Joy in Deutschland – The Hub of All Things Joy”

But I don’t really like that one either.

Anybody have an idea for a new title?

2011
02/01
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Do you remember…

Today, while I was sitting in class and my mind wandered off to the past times. I was experimenting drawing with a ball-point pen instead of the colorful felt-tipped pens that I usually use. I like how the result looks like more of a sketch:

It was the titles that I wrote on the pictures that really got me thinking about my childhood. Bowser was a picture of a dog in one of my sister’s favorite books. My father always read the book to us, and then when we got to the picture of the dog, he would ask “Where’s Bowser?” and we would have to point to Bowser. But Kitty Kat Kotty stemmed from a completely different source entirely.

The computer games of old, while being less graphically detailed, were awesome in their own way. There was one game in particular that I have vivid memories of was Rodent Revenge:

The trick is to try to trap the kitties in a 1×1 cell by moving blocks. Then they turn into blocks of cheese. My dad always called the cats “kitty cat kotties” (or some spelling variation of that) and I was always traumatised whenever the cats actually got to the mouse and ate it which would inevitably happen at some point. I have never liked getting eaten by anything. Still don’t. I did some searching today, and it turns out that many of the old programs are available for download online for free. Click here to download the version that I found.

There were also some other games that I was always scared of and I have managed to find copies of them online as well. SkiFree always traumatized me as a child because there was this monster thing that always comes and eats you before you get to the end of the hill:

Yeah. He still scares me. I also have distinct memories of my brother making me watch the monster eat the skiier. *shivers*

There was another game that we played ALL the time as children. We even got together and crowded around the computer screen. Together as a family we managed to solve every level. That game was Chip’s Challenge. I wasn’t actually that great a help in the solving of the problems. But I do remember loving to watch. And I always was shocked when the monsters ate Chip. I still am actually. I played this a couple months ago, and when Chip got eaten I seriously jumped and screeched a little bit. I surprised everybody around me and they all wanted to know what exactly I was doing.

There were a lot of other awesome computer games that we used to play.

R.I.P. Microsoft Puzzle Collection

This included Rat Poker, Mixed Genetics, Fringer, and other awesome games. In my opinion, it was one of the best pieces of software that Microsoft has ever come out with. Way better than the games that come preinstalled on Windows 7. But, unfortunately, unless you are in the mood to do some major software tweaking, you can kiss playing any of these games goodbye. After 13 years, the software is STILL not free for download online. You can still get the demo version, which I downloaded just to see those rats dancing around again. But the .exe file isn’t compatible with the current Microsoft Windows operating system. I managed to get the demo version running in Ubuntu with the help of Wine, but the music component didn’t work. Which makes me very mad at closed source software. Look at that! Excellent games going down the drain simply because they are closed source. If they were open source, not only would they be free for download, but someone would have taken the time to update the programs to allow them to run in Windows Vista and 7.

There are two other programs that I would like to mention. They are CD games, so they are not available for free any where online (legally anyway). The first one was actually a trending topic on twitter a couple of weeks ago:

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

I have very fond memories of sitting at the computer with my brother, sister, and father, and trying to figure out who had committed the crime. It was very educational, and very entertaining. We had an old set of World Book Encyclopedias and we used those to try and figure out the answers to the clues that the witnesses told us. I think that was really the only time we ever really used those Encyclopedias.

The other CD game I used to play was Oregon Trail:

I literally spent hours playing this game when I was in 7th or 8th grade. I even had a little journal in which I kept track of all the food that I had bought and all of the clothes. It got to the point where I could always get families to the other side of the country with nobody dying.

I have never been much of a gamer, but those games that I did play, I played over and over and over again. Some of these include:

Age of Empires, The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis, Midtown Madness, Bejeweled, and Solsuite

What were your favorite computer games when you were a kid?

Also, a shout out to my sister! She put a picture of a comic that I drew for her on her blog.

Click for the original download locations of Chip’s Challenge, SkiFree, and Rodent’s Revenge.

2011
02/01
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