Snow in Tübingen

Snow on the roof of the Evangelisches Stift

Snow on the roofs of the buildings Am Markt

We awoke to snow falling this morning. We welcomed it feeling assured that our marathon, which is now only a week away, would be nice and chilly (or at any rate a far cry from the oppressive heat that greeted marathoners in Chicago a few weeks ago).

The semester has just gotten underway, but much of the excitement and sense of new beginnings has past us by, although that today's sermon assured us that faith is always a new beginning (a contention that met a bit of resistance when the text for meditation detailed Joshua's military exploits in Palestine)! The preaching at the Stiftskirche aside, we both feel a bit behind with respect to some of the goals around which our Fall activity has been ostensively structured. S has, however, found the prospect of the upcoming trip back home an incentive to plod ahead with disseration work. For my part the recent work I've picked up has helped to structure my week, but is draining some of the energy that researching and applying to programs demands. I'm teaching six classes a week and will start picking up additional hours as a Hiwi (wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft [research assistant]) for a theologian at the university here as soon as I can collect the requisite paperwork.

I know I just posted, but here's another.

One of the benefits of training for a marathon (only two weeks to go!) is how much you get to eat. During the last 8 weeks, I've run about 34 miles a week. That's not much when training for a marathon, but given my injury history, I'm so pleased. Not only have I gotten WAY faster (although I am still a tortoise in a world of hares), I also get to eat. All the time. As much as I want. And no, I haven't gained any weight. B's bad eating habits have been rubbing off on me--chocolate, these delicious cream-filled things that one of the half-dozen bakeries within two minutes walk sells--but generally, I've kept it under control.

On Friday, we each did an 8-mile tempo run. Although we were supposed to do a 15-miler today, we had to change it to yesterday as B has a game today. And let me tell you, trying to run 15 miles after doing 8 miles the fastest you've ever gone is no fun at all. So we cut the run "short" at about 12 1/2 miles. We were hurting, and I mean HURTING! Legs, calves, everything--I felt like my lower half was running 7 minute miles while my upper half was running 13 minute miles--no cardiovascular effort, but pain in the lower body! So B just went off to his game. But I, thankfully, have the day off. And I decided that I want sweets!

There's not much in the house so this recipe (without baking powder or sugar, with a bit more honey, and with quantities reduced) with lavender added became the basis for the dessert I just made. SOOOO delicious! Here's the bad part: I just ate the whole thing. If B finds out, he won't be happy! So tomorrow, when the stores open, I'll have to get some more ingredients.

The lavender I got at the local market adds so much to such different recipes! Savory, sweet--a drop of lavender works in many, many contexts.

Now, though, I'm full!

There hasn't been much news coming from us lately, as we've finally had the chance to start... just settling in. Our sofa and chair arrived this week, we mounted the mirror, but the famed guest bed is not here yet as they could not get it up the stairs. Hopefully, it will arrive in about 8 days. Our twisty-turny stairs are a bit difficult to navigate. Sometimes I think this house looks like the basic structure was built ages and ages ago, and then modifications were just made here and there and on top of each other (at one point, coming up the stairs, you see what seem once to have been doors into the neighboring house, but only the bottom third...?).

Without much exciting to report, let's talk about food. I hate pizza, as everyone who knows me knows. I HATE pizza. It is my most-hated food almost of all time. I do not like it. It's gross! There's too much cheese, too much sauce, and too much useless fat. (Fat exists to add to flavor, not to pool uselessly on top of the far-too-much cheese.) Of course, there are exceptions. When my family used to go to Rome when I was 12-14 years old, there was a pizza place near the Pantheon that sold the most amazing artichoke pizza, which basically consisted of flatbread topped with artichokes and oregano. That was it. And it was good! We'd fight over it in the train! Normally, though, ugh!

On the other hand, I LOVE my own homemade pizza. Yeah, I consider myself a decent cook, but nothing fantastic. My own pizzas, though? Amazing! On Thursday, I was wondering what to make for lunch. We had pretty much nothing in the house other than potatoes, and I was HUNGRY. So, pizza it is. You cut the potatoes super-thin (those big holes on the side of the grater are pretty good for this), cook them until tender over high heat with little oil in a non-stick pan, cut lots of garlic into thin slices and combine with crushed dried chiles, sage, rosemary, and (bear with me) a tiny bit of lavender. Sprinkle over the pizza dough, top with potatoes, add a little salt, some goat cheese, and a sprinkling of parmesan, cook in the super-hot oven for about 7 minutes, and bingo! Pizza. Even better is the version we tried last night: with thin eggplant slices (cooked in a hot oven), spread with a layer of non-fat quark, and dotted (thickly!) with homemade parsley pesto from a mortar. WOW!

I've always made pesto in a food processor (and yes, I know, PESTO is really only made with basil, pine or walnuts, and a mixture of parmesan and pecorino, but whatever!) and am addicted to every version I've ever tried. But one of the best ever is parsley pesto, made of course with flat-leaf parsley (the other kind has no flavor). In the food processor, it takes about 90 seconds to make and comes out really good. Here, I have no food processor, but I do have a mortar and pestle (the heavy marble kind). I tried making basil pesto the other day, but it came out a little stringy (probably because the basil wasn't quite at its peak). So I decided to go for some parsley pesto. I rough-chopped the parsley into the mortar with scissors, added some salt, and started pounding. Soon I was greeted with the most intoxicating of aromas. Throw in a clove or two of garlic, keep pounding, then rough-crush the walnuts and start tossing them in (I think walnuts have more body and stand up better to the earthiness of parsley pesto). Finish with a good drizzle of olive or walnut oil (bought at the regional market last weekend, so I know it came from local trees--cool!). Then stir in a little grated parmesan or pecorino. Amazing, in any form, but perhaps most especially with runny eggs in the morning.

Hey, primitive living has its compensations, right?

Our new place is everything we could have hoped for minus the fact that it has demanded a lot in the way of human labor to make it livable. Here are a few before and after shots of the bedroom and kitchen (the only two rooms that in anyway approximate completion). Bedroom before

Bedroom after

Kitchen before

Kitchen after

Kitchen before

Kitchen after

We've moved! Sort of. The stove in our new place came yesterday, but it still has to be connected. The living room is partially oiled (the wood needed some treatment), but we ran out of oil and couldn't get more, so it's not quite finished. We did install a cool closet treatment in the closet room, a couple of racks in the kitchen, and we built a workspace/cart that we got at Ikea yesterday since there are no countertops, cupboards, or anything similar in the kitchen. We have no hot water and the toilet seat is not attached to the toilet. BUT: we have a bed. If we compare the current bed with the king-size bed of days of yore, it shrinks into insignificance. But if we compare it to the mummy-shaped camping mattress in the tiny hole? It suddenly seems like acres of paradise. Although the bells of the Evangelische Stift do not intend to allow us lazybones to sleep beyond seven am, there is little or no traffic here and that is delightful after listening to the 3am road races at the old place. We still go back to the other apartment to cook and shower, but we'll be out of there tomorrow.

It was great to have a visit from an old friend who is also over here in Germany this weekend. Not only were we able to use his strong muscles to help us carry our new (antique) Spanish chest from the Flohmarkt (flea market) to the new apartment, but we were able to eat, talk, and plan dissertations and trips. After he left, B and I headed out for what promised to be a delightful, relaxing 15-16 miler after last weekend's 20plus. I'd carefully planned out a new route that took us past the cloister at Bebenhausen, up through the woods, and back along the Neckar. The first hour or so was as delightful as promised, but then we started having trouble finding the way. This broke things up a bit so that it was hard to settle into a rhythm. As long as we remained in the woods, it wasn't so bad. At the point where we were supposed to be returning along the Neckar, however, it turned out that we were initially returning along the Autobahn. Far less pleasant! Eventually we hit the path that brought us through clinging vegetation along the bottom of a cliff--much nicer than it sounds, except that it was getting dark. Neither of us could figure out why it was getting dark so early, though. Stranded at last on a two-way highway bridge with deceptive footpaths that lead us onto the bridge and then left us, we finally climbed down in the dark and accosted a man with two children and some glow-in-the-dark balloons. We were only a mile and a half from home, but when I turned off the heart rate monitor to check the time, we realized that it was so dark because we had somehow spent 50 minutes along the way looking for the way! In other words, a run that was thankfully, gratefully forgotten as soon as it was over.

Today is a holiday in Germany (Reunification Day), but no one celebrates. Unfortunately, the stores close anyway, so we won't have oil for the floor or screws to attach our new Ikea purchases to the wall (don't get me started on our trek from the Ikea south of Stuttgart to the subway station... sweat, misery, and cross-training with heavy heavy furniture are all involved, plus locals calling us crazy). Coming home to discover that the new bathroom lamp was half missing, the new mirror and towel rack have no screws included, and so on? Not fun! But as I write this over the stable internet connection IN BED!! and watch the sun stream in through our (multiple!) windows onto the wood floor and the newly laid bedroom carpet, who cares?