Old & New Update -- New Neighbors

A long time ago I posted a few pictures of old and new buildings next to one another here in Frankfurt.  On a recent walk, I noticed some changes.  The grand old 19th Century building that has been shuttered for several years is being turned into a condo building (Pic 1).  Across the street, a large condo building is going up. 

"Timeless Elegance"

Why didn't they tear down the building in the middle?

Banker Children -- This, too, can be yours for roughly EUR 6,000.00

per Square Meter upwards (that's about EUR 550 per square foot,

cheap by London and Paris standards, but unaffordable still). 

Prices available on request only.

Heart and Soul

Most people who own rental properties regard them as investments and rarely get attached to them.  Real estate is just another commodity, to be bought and sold at market prices and maximized profit.  Back around the turn of the 20th Century, German buildings often contained wonderful displays of loving detail on their facades and in their interiors.  Sandstone sculpture and stucco fixings.  Perhaps this was testimoney to a more sentimental idea of home and hearth.  Maybe it just reflected the abundance of cheap labor.  Today it is unaffordable for most people.  Frankfurt's inner city lost numerous buildings during World War II.  Even though residential areas were not intenionally targeted, a walk through the Westend in Frankfurt quickly reveals where the bad bombing days happened.  The closer one is to the commercial areas on the edge of the residential neighborhoods, the fewer older buildings remain.  The houses built after the war usually lack character.  They were built to satisfy a desperate need for housing, and resources were at a premium.   I hardly bother to look at buildings built during the 1950's and 1960's.  They are obvious and boring.  I live in one.  The bricks in our cellar are made of war debris.  So it is with great joy that I pass by the house below, in most respects a typical 50's building -- but with a twist.  Someone loves or loved this building.  I'd like to meet the owner or owners and learn about the history of the house.  What stood in its place before the war?  What was left after the war?  When and how was the house re-built?  I'd like to meet the person who came up with the idea for the mosaic and the person who created it.  Does the mosaic accurately reflect the atmosphere in the building?  If so, it is a place in which I could imagine living.

K114 Westend

Whenever I see signs of craft, I am reminded of my maternal grandfather.  He was born in Germany in 1903 and trained as a master painter (Malermeister) and electrician.  Everything he did, he did slowly, with great attention to detail.  Our simple wood-frame homes in the US had elegant wallpapers from exotic materials.  The wall painting was flawless.  His old-fashioned canvas drop cloths were splattered maps of strange, unexplored worlds that called me to leave my suburban shelter and travel.  In the last apartment where he lived in Florida, my grandfather had an unfished mural of a Rheingau landscape on his screened-in balcony wall that he had painted on wet plaster.  I salute every flower of love and respect for beauty and place that blossoms in this desert of efficiency.

Creative Advertizing

This one's for you, Mr. Anchovy:

From Copyranter

Another Reason Why I Blog

I have to thank the local blogger, StadtkindFFM, for opening my eyes further to some of the minute details of city life.  He (I'm guessing the gender) regularly posts pictures of street art and graffiti in Frankfurt.  I've got mixed feelings about graffiti.  I like it in inverse proportion to the level of damage done to buildings and other property.

Not Sure what it is but it Caught my Eye.

The little sticker above does not bother me at all.  It reminds me a bit of the famous Kilroy was Here Graffiti that was still going strong when I was a teen.  Anyhow, I find that I pay much more attention to my surroundings since I've started blogging.  I'm looking for new material for my blog, and that is a good thing.

My Creative Juices are Flowing

With a tip of the hat to The Underground Baker and a wink of the eye, I’d like to introduce the public to the latest création of the Bloggerboy Experimental Food Labs:  Huevos Oldenburg ^TM.  The ingredients are quite simple:

2 Poached Eggs
1 Toasted English Muffin
3 large spoons of Kale (ca. 1 cup)
3 to 4 heaping tablespoons blackbeans in chili sauce
Salt & Pepper
Green Pepper Sauce (if more spice is desired)

 I found a can of Fuego Schwarze Bohnen in Chilisauce (sic) in the pantry, so this stuff must be readiily available in Germany.  I used jarred kale “á la Oldenburg” (Grünkohl nach Oldenburger Art). 

Preheat a plate.  Split and toast a muffin.  Mix the beans and kale in a small pan and heat on a low flame.  Add salt and pepper and a bit of water if needed to thin the mixture.  The German chili sauce in which the beans were packed was not very spicy, so I added three shakes of McIlhenny's Tobasco Brand Green Jalapeno Pepper Sauce to the bean and kale mixture (also readily available in Germany).  I find that the green sauce has a “bright”, wake-you-up kind of burn that is well suited to a breakfast dish.

Place the muffins on the plate in the oven.  Poach the eggs and place them on the muffins.  Spoon the kale and beans over the eggs and viola:    Huevos Oldenburg ^TM.  Appearing soon at a restaurant near you.

"deftig würzig".  Yum.

That's Supposed to be "Chili-Soße"!

Not my Best Poached Eggs

Gotta work on the Food Photography.  (not fully in focus)

Tasting Notes and Musings:  Kale is not one of my favorite foods.  I never crave it.  If mixed with the beans and chili sauce as here, it adds texture (think sawdust), and the musty flavor (the jar label uses the term “deftig”, which might best be translated as “down-to-earth”) remains under control.  The splashes of green chili sauce really make a difference, brightening up the meal.  I had huevos rancheros on my recent trip to the US, and I really miss this dish at breakfast places in Germany.  I’ve had huevos served in the US with three basic kinds of sauces, the last one being quite rare, in restaurants at least:  1. Tomato-chili sauce or salsa; 2. Enchilada sauce; and 3. A meat sauce similar to American chili con carne. 

I don’t remember where I was when I had huevos with meat sauce, but I bet I was in Texas.  It strikes me as Tex-Mex.  I’ve never seen huevos with meat sauce since then.  It certainly was a fusion dish, but it really hit the spot.  In San Diego, the huevos were served with an enchilada sauce mixed with re-fried beans and a generous cumin note.  Cumin!  That’s what my recipe needs: the classic Mexican spice known as Kreuzkümmel in Germany. You will notice that I substituted English muffins for tortillas, following the tradition of Eggs Benedict and Eggs Florentine.  We're fresh out of tortillas at the local grocer, but they do carry English Muffins, a recent development.  I notice that eggs with black beans also have a tradition in Mexico as the dish Huevos motuleños.

If you are not familiar with Oldenburg, well, there isn't much to say.  It's in the north but not on the water.  A quiet place.  I think of the town as, well, down-to-earth.  The dialect is "Platt" or Low German (literally "flat" German), and Oldenburg's "national dish" is, you guessed it, Kale served "fatty and down-to-earth".  ("Oldenburgs Nationalgericht ist der Grünkohl. Das Gemüse wird fett und deftig zubereitet und kommt bevorzugt mit Pinkel, Kochwurst und Kasseler auf den Tisch.")  Attentive readers will remember that Kale made an earlier appearance at this blog.

So, I have ventured into unknown territory, combining the peasant food of two radically-different cultures and serving it on the bread of a third country.  This is fusion cooking at its best!  Burp.

Pictures Added

As promised, I added a couple of pictures of the upstairs at Baguette Jeanette to my earlier post.  We were the first breakfast guests at nine a.m.  The Germans really do follow a radically different weekend schedule than I do.  A place like this would be full by eight-thirty in any decent-sized US city.

Who are You Wearing?

It must be Oscar Night!

Another reason why Billy Crystal is the best:

"Nothing can take the sting out of the world economic problems better than millionaires handing out gold statues to each other."

Call me uncritical.  Call me sentimental, but I really liked the Oscars this year.  It was tightly-produced and scripted, but Crystal was masterful, and everyone was wonderful.

San Diego

Our final destination was San Diego.  This time, I simply asked nicely for a room with a view, and the pleasant Californian behind the desk kept her word.  We had a great view of the harbor and could also see Coronado Island -- and the ocean if we stretched a bit.  This was my first trip to San Diego but certainly not my last.  Although this was a business trip for me, Blogger Boy Junior and I managed to have a great sushi meal on Fifth Avenue one night.  We ate Mexican food two nights in a row.  The best meal, however, was the breakfast buffet at the hotel, where we stocked up on all the comfort foods that we know and love:  french toast and waffles with fresh berries, all covered with maple syrup, huevos rancheros, bacon, breakfast sausages, naturally sweet orange juice, and all the coffe you can drink.  I tacked on an extra day before we flew home so that we could do some shopping at a nearby mall and then meet friends for lunch.  My friend, a colleague from my first job in my prior life, now lives in Irvine with his family.  He and his wife drove down for lunch and showed us around.  We drove out to Coronado Island and had lunch there.  After that we drove back around San Diego to Point Loma, getting to the park, with its great view of the ocean and San Diego, just before it closed.  We then took a quick drive past the zoo and a couple of other points of interest before we were dropped off at our hotel.  It was a real whirlwind tour for which we were grateful.  

Room with a View -- USS Midway/Harbor from our Hotel Room

San Diego Skyline from Coronado Island

The Pacific Ocean near Cabrillo Monument

Cabrillo Monument at Point Loma

The Real Vegas

Few know that The Las Vegas Strip, a portion of Las Vegas Boulevard famous for its casinos, is not really located in Las Vegas.  Downtown Las Vegas has its own casinos and traditions.  I met friends down there for drinks one evening and was happy to get a different view of the Las Vegas experience.  The Strip has grown very expensive and upscale these past years.  (The cup of coffee from the water boiler in my room on the Strip cost USD 11.00!)  We spent way too much money on breakfast and dinner on the Strip.  Downtown Vegas is less expensive, not as classy as the Strip, but more authentic in many ways.  If you are nostalgic for lots of flashing lights, take a cab downtown to compare Fremont Street with your digs on the Strip.  You'll not regret it.

Fremont Street w/ Fremont Hotel & Casino on the Right

Room with a View

I slipped the man at the desk $ 20 to get a good view.  It paid off.  I fell asleep two nights in a row in the little lounge chair next to the window.  Bloggerboy Junior was along for the trip.  Too young to gamble (in Vegas) and too young to drink (in Vegas), he concentrated on the food and shopping and made plans for after he turns 21.

Paris to the left; Bellagio to the Right -- it must be Vegas.