Happy Mother's Day! and Outings

Sitting under the wisteria tree attached to the building

We went out with Christoph on May 1st, Labour Day here and a holiday. He had a tour to do in the morning so booked a table for 2 pm for lunch at a restaurant in Staufen that shall remain nameless this time. We’ve been there before but the service was truly awful today. They didn’t give me the right meal, they didn’t give Christoph the right meal either! We sent them back and waited for the correct ones.

Yes folks, the white on the strawberries is salt, nice presentation though.

Salt was on Christoph’s desert strawberries, (how does that happen?!) a mistake they rectified, we waited ages for coffee. Food is good when you get it though and presentation is lovely, just today was not a good one service wise.

There was a brass band playing throughout lunch which was very good, just limited conversation a bit. Music played was much like what the Canadian Brass plays if you are familiar with them, good quality music. Very enjoyable outing! The fields are covered with spargel/white asparagus nets like long white worms. The strawberries have mostly been picked now, it’s a very pretty time of year with flowering trees also, we sat under masses of flowering wisteria, beautiful!

On the way back Christoph told me about a stork in one of the villages who steals socks off washing lines to line his nest, his name is Hansi and because stork nests can weigh up to 1000 pounds which would damage a rooftop they took his down. Many build platforms for the storks to nest on, but when they took Hansi’s down they found 60 unmatched socks in it! Here’s another little tidbit you may not know, Germans always wear socks, even with sandals, so I suppose we could consider Hansi a real German. Cute story, and true, it made the local newspaper.

Bird watching...

I truly believe we have birds that visit Lexi, tonight one brought her a worm, but they do visit and she talks to them. This is a common blackbird from this area, tail goes up when it chirps.

Into the Kaiserstuhl with Christoph on Tuesday, he is teaching in Strasbourg, France and it is a national holiday there on Tuesday May 8. He likes Strasbourg but it is an hour and half drive each way. We ate spargel/asparagus at the Krone, always good there, a bit expensive, but good.

Olives on the tree.

Then went to Landerer for wine, I think this is our fifth year. They employ Polish workers they like and trust but the season has started early this year and they are not available yet so lots of vine trimming needed to be done by the family. 

Bruce found a recipe for Swedish meatballs so we bought all the ingredients and planned to make them up on Ascension Day, a national holiday, May 10. Woke up to heavy rain, so what better thing to do - cook. Except dumb me didn’t think and I hard boiled the eggs we had. Now what?, everything is closed for the holiday. So I tram to a nearby bakery that serves breakfast and using the translator on my phone, ask to buy a couple of raw eggs from them, probably one of the more unusual requests they’ve had but they did for 80 cents! Now I can cook, Swedish meatballs here we come!

Admittedly I’ve never made meatballs before, and won’t again, fiddly buggers, decided after this lot I’m better with casseroles or one pot dishes. Anyway, they did turn out well, definitely not low fat, but tasty. The best Swedish meatballs, recipe critic, thank you, and Bruce loves it! If you want the recipe, let me know.

Happy Mother's Day to those that are! Cheers, Bx2 & Lexi Cat