I have not really mentioned cooking so far. The tramp, having spent much of his life on the road living in hotels and eating in restaurants, would be very happy never to eat in a restaurant again. The trampess, while always having enjoyed cooking, nonetheless enjoys the odd (well perhaps more than the odd) meal at Tom Aikens or similar. The WLW while as I have said luxurious for its type is not a patch on the home kitchen. The Dometic (the absence of the s already gives a hint that it is not quite complete) would be embarrassed to be in the same room as the Viking (again the names says everything – this is a cooking machine to feed the starving millions and well). Of course, the tramp understands this, but even so he is used to a certain standard and the lack of firepower should not stand in the way. While he had no choice on the fitting out of the kitchen, he did leave the rest to your trampess (before I arrived the hob had not been used – the tramp existed on the stone age diet of nuts, fruit and salads – with the odd kneckerbrot for ballast – as the Germans so appositely refer to fibre).
First principles must be followed especially in cases of diminished capacity. Your trampess sought out the best cooking shop in Koblenz and dressed in her most obviously (and unattractively) tramping gear promptly bought a limited but exceedingly high quality set of cooking pots. It pays to surprise the natives. I was showered with little stickies and a book in which to collect them as well as a form to fill in to allow for extra discounts. This enabled the tramp to get a man sized set of serving tongs for practically nothing. While it always pays to have good pots, believe me, on an inferior hob it makes a huge difference – especially in the washing up – another little gift from me to the tramp (I like him to know that I am thinking of him when I make what to the untrained eye is an extravagant purchase).
The challenge is of course to find raw materials worthy of the pots. All of my friends told me how lovely it would be to visit villages with markets selling local, fresh produce. True. Of course you have to be in the village on market day, you can only pay in cash, and, if the truth be told not all the produce is in fact local – though no one goes to great trouble to write in large letters – from Spain – on the tomatoes. So it was a blessing to find the beloved Edeka – once you recognise the big E (the whole name is not spelled out on the masthead that can be seen from the road) on what appears to be a warehouse (German marketing is not quite up there expect for maybe cars), you are in a food emporium which approximates Whole Foods. Not perfection, but worthy. Fresh vegetables and fresh fruit in reasonable abundance. Fresh fish and fresh meat (organic even) and a decent cheese counter. Many, many aisles of superfluous packaged goods but those are easily overlooked. Imagine, as we were driving along the Saar, your trampess spotted a big E off of a small roundabout (these small roundabouts are a treat – the tramp’s driving skills are so clear when one realises that the WLW with the trailer take up nearly half the roundabout) – the tramp made one of the fastest exits ever. He knew fish would be on the menu if we made a stop, so stop we did.
Three small burners (and one smaller than the other two) with less than ideal maximum heat present a challenge even with superior pots. Browning requires patience and new techniques. I have made stews successfully browning the meat first on the hob and then cooking in the very small oven but so far have not tried roasting - and with limited space for leftovers it seems an extravagant use of the oven Рassuming that a chicken would even fit! (Besides it could take several hours to roast a even a small bird and one cannot feel entirely comfortable about leaving the oven on and going for a long walk when said long walk might take an hour longer than one thought Рat the same time hanging around the WLW seems a waste of the countryside one came to visit). So all in all, I have arrived at a repertoire of simpler dishes preferably cooked in layers (mange tout added at the last minute to chicken saut̩ed in ginger, garlic, and chilli for example, worked extremely well) are both tasty and generate less washing up. You will remember the dis-balance between fresh water and grey water Рthe problem is not getting better Рthe more I cook, the worse it gets. The tramp has reached the point of saying that we will have to surreptitiously let off grey water whenever possible. The alternative is too grim Рhe cannot face returning to a pre-trampess diet.
Lest you think that we have arrived at a high level of cuisine, I must aver, but it is tolerable and certainly better than the local eateries (heavy on breading, bratwurst and kartoffel). In the end, I must also say that a wonderful coffee and a small piece of edelbitter chocolate (I am becoming the world’s expert on plain, perfect, simple, dark chocolate bars which I buy in quantity) taken while sitting on a very comfortable chair only feet away from a gap in the trees and the Mosel within toe distance, at the end of a even the simplest lunch can make one feel very content with the world and indeed willing to set out on one of those well marked 4 hour walks uphill. In the evening, with the sun setting behind the tramp and a glass of Piesporter Goldtroepfchen in my hand (a wine the tramp’s father used to drink at night after dinner – and tracked down in Peisport – very satisfying),after a simple salad with bit of cheese and possibly, just possibly followed by Stippmilch with a modified Rotegrueze (the number of opportunites to buy berries has been limited), is remembered fondly as a perfect summer supper. It is, in the end, the little touches that count.
Friday, 23 May 2008
Sunday, 11 May 2008
Cabin Fever (cont.)
I was so carried away with technical problems last time, that I failed to touch on cabin fever. As you can imagine, when one step down takes you from the bedroom to the bathroom and another step forward takes you to the kitchen and one more step forward and you are in the dining room/living room, it does not take a genius to figure out that as comfortable and as well-equipped as those rooms are, they do not give, even an average English or American woman a sense of Lebensraum. If the same space is also your mode of traveling , albeit one more step forward, there is a need at a certain point to stretch the legs and MOVE. Panoramic views from the cockpit are not enough. One cannot live by view alone.
Happily the Germans are a nation of walkers, cyclists, and even runners. The walking element was of course one of the reasons Mark Twain chose Germany in which to become a tramp. The other reasons were his desire to study art (and to learn to paint) and to learn the German language (for the first and the last he could , of course, have also chosen Switzerland or Austria), though some purists might dispute the thought of learning to speak German in Switzerland; Your trampess aspired to much the same on her first excursion around Germany with the tramp in 1972 (in fact the tramp has such fond memories of the trip that our WLW sports a licence plate with the number 7208 – to signify the first trip and the current one). Like The Tramp, I respectfully await the Germans to accept the 8 modifications he respectfully suggested to their language to make it easier on themselves and to make it possible for a foreigner to learn within a lifetime (which even after 100 years they have failed to recognise as sensible – although my tramp, to his credit, totally agreed with them after he recovered from a mild heart attack brought on by severe laughter following his reading of The Tramp’s chapter on the Awful German Language. But then the tramp always prefers to speak English as it is a “clearly superior language” – only a German could make such a logical statement. Perhaps one day, all Germans, compelled by logic, will follow the tramp’s lead, thus obviating the necessity to adopt The Tramp’s helpful suggestions). In the meantime, I do the best I can with a combination of international words and some from Wagner -- how else would I know how to say, “My Hero” to the geek at Media Markt? No doubt The Tramp was hampered in his ability to learn German because he hated Wagner, having dutifully sat through Lohengrin for a mere 4 hours without a moment’s pleasure.
But I digress. The countryside is magnificent and there is nothing like a 10km run through beautiful fields to restore the body and the mind. The small problem of thinking (erroneously) that I was on a track that would take me around town back to where I started was discovered before I was committed to a half marathon (there are only so many allowable paths when one is in the midst of asparagus fields). No doubt the natives thought I was a little crazy – most women my age are on bicycles dressed as mature women should be. I was, of course, in my Nike running gear (winter length – slightly out of place now that it is no longer snowing), i-pod tracking my distance and pace as well as providing the necessary incentive by way of hard hitting rock provided by number three son. After dinner, the tramp and I went on a long walk in a different direction. “Connecting to the earth,” he said, “That’s what this trip is all about.”
Happily the Germans are a nation of walkers, cyclists, and even runners. The walking element was of course one of the reasons Mark Twain chose Germany in which to become a tramp. The other reasons were his desire to study art (and to learn to paint) and to learn the German language (for the first and the last he could , of course, have also chosen Switzerland or Austria), though some purists might dispute the thought of learning to speak German in Switzerland; Your trampess aspired to much the same on her first excursion around Germany with the tramp in 1972 (in fact the tramp has such fond memories of the trip that our WLW sports a licence plate with the number 7208 – to signify the first trip and the current one). Like The Tramp, I respectfully await the Germans to accept the 8 modifications he respectfully suggested to their language to make it easier on themselves and to make it possible for a foreigner to learn within a lifetime (which even after 100 years they have failed to recognise as sensible – although my tramp, to his credit, totally agreed with them after he recovered from a mild heart attack brought on by severe laughter following his reading of The Tramp’s chapter on the Awful German Language. But then the tramp always prefers to speak English as it is a “clearly superior language” – only a German could make such a logical statement. Perhaps one day, all Germans, compelled by logic, will follow the tramp’s lead, thus obviating the necessity to adopt The Tramp’s helpful suggestions). In the meantime, I do the best I can with a combination of international words and some from Wagner -- how else would I know how to say, “My Hero” to the geek at Media Markt? No doubt The Tramp was hampered in his ability to learn German because he hated Wagner, having dutifully sat through Lohengrin for a mere 4 hours without a moment’s pleasure.
But I digress. The countryside is magnificent and there is nothing like a 10km run through beautiful fields to restore the body and the mind. The small problem of thinking (erroneously) that I was on a track that would take me around town back to where I started was discovered before I was committed to a half marathon (there are only so many allowable paths when one is in the midst of asparagus fields). No doubt the natives thought I was a little crazy – most women my age are on bicycles dressed as mature women should be. I was, of course, in my Nike running gear (winter length – slightly out of place now that it is no longer snowing), i-pod tracking my distance and pace as well as providing the necessary incentive by way of hard hitting rock provided by number three son. After dinner, the tramp and I went on a long walk in a different direction. “Connecting to the earth,” he said, “That’s what this trip is all about.”
Friday, 2 May 2008
Technical competence, globalisation (again) and cabin fever
Survival in a small, mobile space (even if it is larger and more luxurious than most small spaces) requires technical, mental and physical skills that are surplus to requirements in a normal, roots-firmly-planted-in-the-ground house. I would not claim more than one of those skills and some might not even give me that. As you know, the tramp feels that there are so many new skills to conquer, it is important to divide them between us. It will not surprise you to know, that having allocated AV and navigation systems to me, he has also allocated computers. Now, that may not sound too bad (though frankly, to me, it sounded horrific – I always allocate computers and technology in general, to the boys – the younger the better) since I am tolerably competent in using my desktop computer, but let me tell you that being mobile, especially across several countries is a lot harder than , well to be honest, I can’t think of anything harder at the moment except maybe re-inventing calculus. This is compounded, of course, by the fact that my computer is not only a Mac but an Airbook. Vodafone Germany admired it, marvelled at it, but couldn’t figure out how to upload the date in order to be able to use the cute little stick that enables one to capture the internet from the ether no matter where one is. This is partly because there is no room in an Airbook for a CD rom. Well, it is possible, of course, to attach a box (via the one port on an Airbook) which does has space for a CD rom.
Unfortunately, when I got back to the WLW to look into my computer bag for the magic box, the bag was nowhere to be found. It seems that in his culling of useless bags, boxes and other things taking up too much space, the tramp cast off my bag. I won’t mention what other priceless items were in there, the good news is that my i-pod connector had already been transferred to the technical compartment of the WLW. The bad news was, obviously, that I did not have the means to upload a CD. Those of you cleverer than I will have instantly thought of transferring the CD to a stick and importing the data that way. Of the non-simplicity of life! It didn’t work. My Airbook positively rejected the data (it seems Macs and PCs are a bit like Rhesus negative – a complete transfusion is required before the data sits happily in the Mac). By now, believe it or not, it was the end of the day and I returned to the WLW a dejected woman. I had managed to buy a contract (I won’t even mention that this required a German address which I don’t have but convincingly made up, and a bank account which I do) for unlimited air time but was unable to use it!
I decided the next morning, fuelled with porridge and a determination not to be defeated, to go to Media Markt with my Airbook and all my Vodafone discs and sticks and see what I could come up with. Dear Reader, Media Markt is not my natural habitat. I avoid such places. Give me Marks & Spencers Food Halls, or Giorgio Armani and I can create a dinner and be dressed for it in no time, but Media Markt??? I found my way, again, to the computer section and saw another woman of a certain age discussing her computer problem with a jolly computer geek. I waited. Other people came and went; I stood patiently (if you don’t speak the language well, patience is the only thing that gets you anywhere). Eventually it was my turn. I held my Airbook, the stick, the CD and explained as best I could my problem. The wonderful thing about geeks is they love a challenge. He loved my Airbook; he knew instantly that the not-geek-enough geeks at Vodafone didn’t understand Rhesus negative, but he did! And he had a magic machine to perform the transfusion. Hurrah! It worked! He uploaded the data onto my Airbook and I was once again connected to the world. All was well and I hoped that my day was over as far as computers were concerned. I won’t bore you with the fact that the tramp has an older model because it has a programme that he loves and that won’t work on later models and so I had to go through the whole process again, or with the fact that when I got back to the WLW and plugged in, my mouse wouldn’t work – it was in semi-death mode – no move and then a sudden spasm in a totally random direction, nor will I mention that when I went back to Media Markt (now rapidly overtaking M&S and Armani for feel good shopping) the mouse instantly worked for my now favourite geek. What I will tell you is, that just before buying a plug in mouse, it came to me – the inverter (you cannot have forgotten the inverter!) was causing the electrical impulses to be sent in a non-continuous way!! My geek agreed. I can only tell you that champagne and sardines never tasted so good as they did that night.
Oh yes, and the final prize is that instead of having to have an address and contract in every country that we are to visit (as the first not very impressive Vodafone geek suggested) I only need one. In the other countries I can go into wander mode and still get the local tariff. This probably means that I should have used my UK contract to begin with. But I am not complaining as what I have works, and Dear Reader, that is everything.
Unfortunately, when I got back to the WLW to look into my computer bag for the magic box, the bag was nowhere to be found. It seems that in his culling of useless bags, boxes and other things taking up too much space, the tramp cast off my bag. I won’t mention what other priceless items were in there, the good news is that my i-pod connector had already been transferred to the technical compartment of the WLW. The bad news was, obviously, that I did not have the means to upload a CD. Those of you cleverer than I will have instantly thought of transferring the CD to a stick and importing the data that way. Of the non-simplicity of life! It didn’t work. My Airbook positively rejected the data (it seems Macs and PCs are a bit like Rhesus negative – a complete transfusion is required before the data sits happily in the Mac). By now, believe it or not, it was the end of the day and I returned to the WLW a dejected woman. I had managed to buy a contract (I won’t even mention that this required a German address which I don’t have but convincingly made up, and a bank account which I do) for unlimited air time but was unable to use it!
I decided the next morning, fuelled with porridge and a determination not to be defeated, to go to Media Markt with my Airbook and all my Vodafone discs and sticks and see what I could come up with. Dear Reader, Media Markt is not my natural habitat. I avoid such places. Give me Marks & Spencers Food Halls, or Giorgio Armani and I can create a dinner and be dressed for it in no time, but Media Markt??? I found my way, again, to the computer section and saw another woman of a certain age discussing her computer problem with a jolly computer geek. I waited. Other people came and went; I stood patiently (if you don’t speak the language well, patience is the only thing that gets you anywhere). Eventually it was my turn. I held my Airbook, the stick, the CD and explained as best I could my problem. The wonderful thing about geeks is they love a challenge. He loved my Airbook; he knew instantly that the not-geek-enough geeks at Vodafone didn’t understand Rhesus negative, but he did! And he had a magic machine to perform the transfusion. Hurrah! It worked! He uploaded the data onto my Airbook and I was once again connected to the world. All was well and I hoped that my day was over as far as computers were concerned. I won’t bore you with the fact that the tramp has an older model because it has a programme that he loves and that won’t work on later models and so I had to go through the whole process again, or with the fact that when I got back to the WLW and plugged in, my mouse wouldn’t work – it was in semi-death mode – no move and then a sudden spasm in a totally random direction, nor will I mention that when I went back to Media Markt (now rapidly overtaking M&S and Armani for feel good shopping) the mouse instantly worked for my now favourite geek. What I will tell you is, that just before buying a plug in mouse, it came to me – the inverter (you cannot have forgotten the inverter!) was causing the electrical impulses to be sent in a non-continuous way!! My geek agreed. I can only tell you that champagne and sardines never tasted so good as they did that night.
Oh yes, and the final prize is that instead of having to have an address and contract in every country that we are to visit (as the first not very impressive Vodafone geek suggested) I only need one. In the other countries I can go into wander mode and still get the local tariff. This probably means that I should have used my UK contract to begin with. But I am not complaining as what I have works, and Dear Reader, that is everything.
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