Germano-French Pizza

Just before slipping in the theater to see The King's Speech the other week (some movie opening dates here are literally months after they have been released in North America and the UK), we nipped into local favorite Zeit & Raum (Time & Space) for a quick bite. Before I could inhale this, I figured I'd take a photo (food blogging is all the rage, isn't it?) of a regional dish. What we have here is known as Flammkuchen, literally "flame cake." Because this originates in the Alsace region (which longtime readers --and yes, I see you new folks, thanks for stopping by and subscribing!-- may recall in posts like this one and this one is right on the French/German border and has flipped between the countries for centuries), it's known there as the nearly identical flammekueche, and elsewhere (particularly snooty restaurants) as Tarte flambée. Dude, it's really just a type of thin crust pizza. The key with the Flammkuchen is that it needs to be made in a wood fired oven, traditionally of stone or brick. It has a distinct oval shape, and has a very light texture with the crust being pastry thin-- my thin crust aficionado parents would go ape for this stuff--and it's more of a snack or appetizer than a full-blown meal. If memory serves, I had one with peppers, diced tomatoes and diced salami while B had mushrooms and peppers on hers.

You Don't See That Everyday...

Taken this weekend, here's a massive statue outside the Mahler kitchen and housewares store in the downtown shopping district flogging Germany's Meissen brand porcelain.

You Want High Gas Prices? I'll Show You High Gas Prices!

Here in Deutschland, fuel is sold by the liter, and the currency is the Euro, so using the following math, here's what we pay at the pump using gallons and dollars-- this photo was taken yesterday, and Supol is generally the cheapest gas station in the area:

1 Gallon = 3.7854 liters
1 Euro = 1.41075 US dollars (today's rate of exchange)

1 Gallon Diesel costs $7.26
1 Gallon E10 (10% ethanol blend) Unleaded costs $7.80
1 Gallon of Super unleaded costs $8.27

Really folks, you have nothing to complain about. Now you see why small cars like the Mini and the Smart car are so popular, and why over 50% of the cars BMW makes are diesel cars (diesels also get significantly higher mileage). Interestingly enough, according to this report German drivers are strongly resistant to E10 fuel despite its cost savings, fearing that it will harm their car's engine. Feh. Back on the west coast, we weren't even given the option of opting out of it. In what's got to be the best-kept open secret, American gasoline prices are heavily subsidized-- I can't say the same for here. $5.00 gas would be a sweet relief to most Europeans, I can assure you. And if my math is correct, $5/ gallon gas would equate to 0.94 Euros/ liter-- a steal.

Dear European Wine Drinkers: I Apologize

In today's "Supermarket follies" episode, we spot these (cough cough) fine examples of the American winemaking art: Gallo and that staple of 7-11's everywhere: Sutter Home. What? No wine coolers? The tragic/ painful/ funny thing is thaat I took these photos in a pretty highfalutin' supermarket too-- these are pretty much the only American wines we see here on a regular basis. In a strange twist of fate, we ended up talking to one of Gallo's European sales managers the other week at a restaurant-- he seemed a lot more interested in our conversation than the one at his own table, likely because he was an Irishman, everyone at his table was speaking German, and we were talking English. After some pleasantries, we asked what he was doing in Germany. He reared himself up, and proudly stated the following:

Guy: "I work for the largest wine distributor in America. You know who that is?"
Me: "Coca Cola?" [note: Coke owns-- used to own anyways-- a few larger New York State wineries]
B: "Costco?"

When he said Gallo, we oohed and ahhed, and got REALLY interested in the Phad Thai in front of us. Turns out the dude is responsible for military base sales (each base has a Safeway-type store) of Gallo wines, so I figure he's doing OK. I am told that per capita wine consumption in Germany is amongst the highest in Europe (trailing only France), so this stings-- because this stuff is likely all the exposure the locals have to US wines. On a brighter note, I spotted for the first time some non-corporate California Zins and Cabs at the local fancypants grocery this weekend, but there were priced a bit too dear for Johann citizen here-- 18 Euros and up-- That's $25.35 at today's exchange rate.

Photoshop, Do Your Magic

And... we're back. Another successful, short, and intense project in the rearview, and I took a couple days to decompress from it. Actually, in the last week, my cup has runneth over-- an invitation to bid on a project for a Major German Company looms large, more of these smaller jobs are on the horizon, and what has got to be the oddest request happens later today: photo stand-in/ body double.

My neighbor J works as a hired gun for a local ad agency in town, and they are doing some projects with a large local sportswear company. One of the premier athletes in the world right now is that fella in the photo, Argentine soccer player Lionel Messi. For those not versed in soccer, this guy is one of the most recognized people on the planet, and is generally considered the greatest soccer player of all time. He's beyond huge. So big time that he can't make it on down to lil' ol' Nuremberg Germany. This is where I come in. Long story short, they need some guy to be his body-double for a photo shoot, and it was initially explained to me that they would, through the wonders of modern photo composition, place Messi's head on my body. Now, I'm no slouch in the gym, but I certainly do not have the body of an elite athlete-- not even close, let alone a complete mismatch in the skin tone/ hair department (on that front, I am a bit closer to a Swede than an Argentinian). But... these concerns were brushed away. And what of the kids? Legions of fans will be looking at the image thinking it's a soccer titan when in reality it'll actually be... um, a doughy blogger?! Scandalous!

All of these concerns were finally put to rest earlier today when J clarified that I wasn't so much a stand-in as I was a place holder-- in other words, they were mocking up the shot to show the client what they could do and had in mind and this was not destined to be some poster to be distributed worldwide-- they just needed a warm body. Whew, that's a relief, though my dreams of subversive coattail greatness did take a blow. Oh well, at least the photo shoot is catered.

Sprung!

After a particularly lengthy and brutal winter-- I was wearing my down jacket up until a few days ago-- it's sure nice to see that spring is making a go of it. It was flirting with 60-degrees today and the sun was out (finally!) so I tore myself away from work and NCAA basketball tournament updates, and B and I had a nice stroll. Here's a shot of the crocus plants by the Tiergartnertor entrance to the Altstadt using the Tenin Technique (aka "put your camera on the ground"-- I can be such a nerd like that). That's the outer city wall in the background along with the guard and castle towers.

Going Dark For A Bit; Everybody Carry On

Another project for me, meaning long days staring at a computer, and consequently limited time and desire to file blog entries. Expect things to be pretty quiet here for a couple of weeks-- at (optimistic) best, entries will be sporadic. In the meantime, feel free to check out the boffo links on the right side of the page-- all vetted for your reading, viewing and listening (the Deezer link works only in the EU-- sorry rest of the world!) pleasure. See you on the other side!

Arty Farty

I've had this one in the archives for a while but never got around to using it. This is a photo taken in the St. Johannis Friedhof (St. John's Cemetery) in the northwest part of Nuremberg outside the city walls of the Altstadt. The graves here date from 1518 to the mid-19th century. We're not being ghouls by going here-- it's recommended in the city tour guide (their claim to it being "world famous" should be taken with a grain of salt though). This was taken last spring, and the bike was already there-- nothing staged, and the flowers in bloom. For more photos of the Friedhof (including some taken during December's snowstorm), check here.

Riot Ready

A nice enough day (brisk! almost sunny!) and a hankering for the insanely addictive Nuremberger (3 im Weckla-- 3 in a bun) sausage sandwiches brought us downtown this afternoon where we were greeted with a roaming motley crew of goth-y, punky ruffian types drinking beer and singing fight songs. Ah yes, soccer Saturdays in Germany-- the opposing team's fans were fueling up in the city center before heading down to the game. This time it was the notorious fans of the German Soccer Federation's most unique team, FC Saint Pauli of Hamburg. St. Pauli supporters are known as "Kult" fans, because they are more interested in being part of the fan group than necessarily what's going on the soccer pitch, and despite their rough appearance, St. Pauli fans are anti-Nazi, anti-hooligan, and anti sexist straight-edgers. Which is odd, because they are ready, willing, able-and quite happy to fight anybody who disagree with their views. That means that wherever the team plays (the German Bundesliga is an 18-team league with a 34-game regular schedule, and thousands of fans typically travel with their team to away games), security is beefed up. This photo shows a small staging area of police vans loaded with cops and riot gear-- there were several more staging areas and a lot more vans than this, trust me. Nuremberg played probably its most complete game of the season and handily beat St. Pauli today 5-0, and no trouble was reported. As an extra bonus, here's a piece of trivia: St. Pauli is the rough part of Hamburg, and where the red light district is located-- St. Pauli girl beer is not a celebration of some fine German lass in a dirndl; it's a lady of the evening!

... Because Nothing Says "Party" Like A Gimpy Clown

Here we are in the shank of the German festival of Fasching (aka Karneval), a huge blow-out party which culminates next Tuesday, and everyone is getting in on the act-- bars are putting up celebratory balloons and streamers, bakeries are selling Krapfen (donuts), stores are flogging costumes (Fasching is a bit of an amalgamation of Easter, Mardi Gras and Halloween)... so why can't pharmacies get a piece of the action too? My local pharmacy, known in German as an Apotheke (also known to expats as "those drug stores that don't actually sell drugs") always seems to have some amusing and interesting window displays-- somebody please remind me in summer to get photos of the Frisbee-sized plastic ticks used for the herbal Lyme disease med displays-- has this clown pimping a walker. Now, clowns are almost universally associated with Fasching/Karneval, so why not spice up the usual boring window display with, um, a clown that needs assistance in walking???

One Building; One-Third Awful

Here's a quick lesson in building "modernization" (and I use the term advisedly). This is actually one single building-- look closely and notice how the parapets on the top corners are of the same design-- but the right side of the building (apparently owned by somebody else-- that happens here) has been updated. Like a lot of buildings of this vintage, this portion of the building simply has its red brick surface stuccoed over and painted, the parapet roof covered in green copper cladding, and all architectural elements like the stone window frames-- the only things of interest really-- buried and/or removed. Granted, the dark red brick building is so commonplace here that well-meaning landlords are trying to jazz things up to make it more attractive to potential renters sometimes-- but this is a clumsy attempt. Bit of a shame really-- the rest of this building ain't half bad.

Sideways Shot

In a lame attempt to diffuse the previous posting's saucy subject matter, I'm taking this post a little upmarket. Here's a shot of Nuremberg's Neues Museum, dedicated to contemporary and modern art, taken from the side of the building. The Neues Museum (German for "New Museum") has a curved front of mirrored glass. As a bit of a bonus, the museum shop is a lesser-known and quite underrated place-- it holds a lot of art, design and architecture books (at least 20-25% in English), plus the excellent Wallpaper City Guide travel book series, and an entire section dedicated to cool design-y gifts. Having been to a show or 2 at the Neues, I can safely say that the museum store is the better bet.

Admiring Glances

This interesting quartet of photos awaits the users of the men's room at Bar California in the Nuremberg Altstadt, one over each urinal. The drunk D-bags who frequent this pace every night (no doubt drinking Grey Goose and fist pumping to the latest Empire of the Sun club hit/ abomination) must be pleasantly surprised.