august: cleveland county

Hello, reader. It's almost May, which I am really excited about. Hence the blog title: Anticipating May! I love May, despite its often unbearable heat (or, in 2013's case, snow), for many reasons. The two biggest are that school is over in May and my birthday is at the end of the month! I have not yet outgrown being happy about my birthday...especially since this year it is set to coincide with my family's trek to Indiana to watch one of my cousins graduate from high school. Hopefully I'll get to visit Funky Bones while I'm there.

Emily and I are also going to go see Rainbow Rowell in Dallas in two weeks!! I am so excited since she's written some of my favorite books!

Also, Mumford and Sons is releasing a new album in one short week! I absolutely love the songs they played on SNL a few weeks ago, and I'm sure the rest of the album is similarly delightful.

And here are some photos:

Fair reader, there are so many things I could write a blog post about. I went to a wedding two weekends ago and was reunited with 4 of my lovely Fulbright friends. I went to class, which usually lends itself to the absurd. I sat in my room and read several books for fun. The weather has changed from pleasant to cold to hot back to cold. But I'm not going to write about these things. Instead, I'm going to write about the restorative power of Kaffee und Kuchen.

Kaffee und Kuchen is a German phrase meaning coffee and cake. The concept is pretty simple: at four-ish in the afternoon, you drink a cup of coffee and eat a slice of cake. It's really common if you have someone over to offer them coffee and cake in the late afternoon, and it's also common to have an afternoon break in a meeting (like the Fulbright Berlin Conference or Welcome Meeting) to relax and partake in some delicious coffee and cake. Here's some information about the history of this tradition from the German Embassy's website.

However, before you partake in this glorious event, you need to know a few more things.
Firstly, the cake probably isn't going to be quite as sweet and moist as you're used to in the US. It's still absolutely delicious (I recommend the marbled cake or anything that looks like it has fruit in it), but it's a bit different.
Secondly, if there is whipped cream involved, know that it's just cream that has been whipped. It's not sweetened at all! (Do you see a pattern?)
Thirdly, there may also be tea available. It's good too. (I love love love Waldfruechte tea & Vanilla Pear tea.)
Fourthly, there will be no coffee creamer! You'll probably (but not always) be offered milk & sugar. Sometimes they have something called Kaffeeweißer, which is a sort of powdered non-dairy creamer that never seemed to have much taste when I used it, so I stuck to milk & sugar. (My host parents like foam in their coffee, so they'd use this little contraption to turn their milk into foam, which was cool. They they'd tease me for putting 3 spoonfuls of sugar into my cup when I thought they weren't looking.)

Cake from the Polish side of the German-Polish border.

Now you know the secrets of Kaffee und Kuchen! Are you ready for some anecdotes?

On one of my first days in Erfurt, I was really busy with registering for my visa, opening a bank account, and going to work. I was meeting someone for coffee around 3 pm...on that day, coffee & cake were my lunch. It was really quite nice.

On one of my last days in Erfurt, I went to a colleague's house. It was upwards of 85 degrees outside, but we still drank boiling tea outdoors. She got cake from the church bazaar, and it was so good! (Her cat stole my last piece when I wasn't looking though!)

And, finally, today. I went to Walmart this afternoon because I forgot that it's Super Bowl Sunday. The trip took forever because there were so many people there! In the midst of all this chaos, I discovered that you can buy coffee that's in tea bags for people who are too lazy to bring their coffeemaker from its current position in their closet at their parents' house to their apartment. At the end of the trip, I found a relatively short checkout line, but the computer kept on messing up, so it took a really long time to check out! (It didn't actually bother me that much; I knew it wasn't the lady's fault.) However, at the end of all this, I was quite worn out and grumpy. When I got back to my apartment, I realized that I had coffee and I had cake, and the only thing that would make me feel better was coffee and cake! So I had some and now I feel cheerful!

Coffee (the plain stuff with just milk & sugar) always reminds me of Germany because I'd never had it like that before I studied in Holzkirchen and Werner made us coffee during the morning break so we wouldn't fall asleep during literature class. Ahh, good times!!

The kitchen at the school in Holzkirchen, complete with a view of that fateful coffeemaker!

I've resolved to try 12 new recipes this year, just to make sure that I don't eat breadsticks all year long. Yesterday, I made a sort of chicken dish. It's probably already a recipe somewhere, but I just made it up last night!

A Sort of Chicken Dish

Ingredients:
Chicken Breast
Italian Dressing
Mushrooms
Chicken Broth
Shredded Cheese
Salt
Pepper
Onion Powder
Garlic Powder

Preparation:
Marinate chicken breast in some Italian dressing (I would estimate that I used a few tablespoons) for a few hours. After that, put the chicken and dressing in a casserole dish along with about 1/2 cup chicken broth. Slice some mushrooms (I did 5 for 1 chicken breast) and arrange then around the chicken. Top the chicken with cheese, salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder. Put the lid on and cook at 350 degrees for about an hour. After that, check to make sure the chicken is cooked. If not, put it back in until done. When the chicken is done, add more cheese to the top of the chicken and let cook uncovered for 10 minutes or until the cheese is crispy and delicious. Enjoy!!

(It doesn't look super pretty, so there is no picture. It is delicious, however!!)

Devoted blog followers,

December has been simultaneously busy and laid back. It's definitely the best kind of month - much better than when I was a kid and there was a school play, the Christmas parade, holiday parties at all my activities, the Christmas pageant at church, and school until the Friday before Christmas to deal with! (Don't get me wrong, I loved all those things, but now I prefer to spend my free time reading about German politics.)

I finished up my school work with 2 presentations on the first of December, which went quite nicely. After that, all I had to do was give a final for one of my professors. Once all that was over, I got to go home!

To celebrate being home, I went to Fayetteville. All in all, I believe I like the drive to Norman better because it's a state highway and I don't get tailgated by angry Texans.