I Feel Like Schnitzel Tonight!

Although my cooking utensils are limited, I have been enjoying going to the grocery store and figuring out what to make each night for dinner. After all, one can only have so much Duner before they turn into one! The other night, I cooked Frankfurts and tonight, I’m going for Schnitzel!

I had conveniently forgotten that Schnitzel just happens to be a popular dish here in Germany. Coincidentally, it’s a very popular dish in Israel, only they don’t use pork but chicken. During my confirmation visit to Israel, we had had so much of the stuff, we all started calling it sh*tzel. Well, that was at the age of 15 and although I won’t give you a number, that was quite a long time ago and I feel I am now ready to venture down the Schnitzel path again. Only this time, sin of all sins… I’m going pork. GASP! I am Jewish, but I’m not kosher.

The main reason that I try to cook new things every once in a while is to be able to get out of the apartment. There aren’t many child-friendly places to go in downtown Landstuhl. The only children that I’ve seen around town are older. Weird… For some reason I do see people at the grocery store with little ones. After all, parents gotta eat sometime right? I also don’t have my drivers license yet. And here’s why:

• I have to wait to get my license until I can put Samuel in childcare to go to the orientation and take the test.
• I can’t register him for child care until I update him on all of his immunizations.
• I can’t update him on his immunizations until we are able to set and go to our appointment at the hospital.
• To do that our sponsor has to make the appointment. Right now, we are a little bit glued up with other priorities.

Honestly, I should have updated his immunizations Stateside… bad mommy! bad mommy! That is a bit of a complicated story as well. Our insurance in California for some reason really SUCKED! I have a bunch of choice words for our insurance company and the administration in most of these pediatricians’ offices but I will leave that for another (private) time.

I’m sure most readers out there are just skimming the blog entry wondering when I will get back to what I was cooking. In real life, I have diarrhea of the mouth. I absolutely love to talk to anyone that will listen. I will then most likely ramble off as I go and before I know it, I’ve forgotten what I set out to say in the first place . I wasn’t this talkative before I had kids and I’m sure it has to do with my excitement over an opportunity to talk to a grown audience. I suppose my little idiocies carry on into my writings.

I'll start again from here. I walk to the grocery store with Sam to get out of the apartment mainly. Today it’s been snowing just about nonstop. I imagine that in Germany this is just a part of life. Time is not halted because of white flakes and icy roads. As I’ve heard some Germans say, “It’s November after all.” Because I’m a newbie to all of this snow business, I decided to still tough it out and walk to the store on the slippery icy side walk. I learned very fast that I need a set of good snow boots. Samuel was in my Beco carrier (if you are expecting, please buy one. They are fabulous. Like the Ergo but better looking and made in the USA) in the front and I was navigating the icy sidewalk. Slipping and sliding the whole way to the store. It was alright though. I’m sure that it worked my core and was a nice little calorie burner. What I conveniently didn’t think about is that snow melts wherever it lands making your hair… wet. Duh. Samuel should have had his hat on and I should have had my hood on. Next time I will remember this.

At the store, I (of course )got the car cart for Samuel (If I knew where we were going to be living, Santa would definitely be dropping off a Power Wheels. He is OBSESSED with driving cars). I had to dry off and warm up so we took it slow going down the aisles. I walked down the gravy mix/spice aisle and saw a package of Schnitzel and that’s when the idea popped into my head. It’s looks easy enough and it’s German. Since I’m going to be making Brisket and potato latkes tomorrow night for Hanukkah, I wanted something easy tonight. The package is Yellow and Red. The brand is Maggi, which is a Nestle brand… the package strangely looks like a cross between package for Lipton soup mix and Knolls Spinach dip. I’m sure it’s the same concept. With the help of babel fish, I think I know what I need to do to make this happen.

I’ve become a little braver. From specifying what color candles I need on our advent ("rot, lila, lila, lila") wreath to the florist all the way down to deciphering cooking instructions.

I haven’t done it yet but it seems fairly simple. Wish me luck!