Dear Martin,

Shoot.  I am so sorry.  I forgot all about St. Martin’s Day.  Again. I am not so good at keeping track of these German holidays, you know.  November 11… November 11…

And to think, I nearly had to pick my jaw off the floor when you said you couldn’t remember what day Halloween was a few weeks ago.  I thought, “Who could forget October 31?”  (I will work on the eye rolling.  I promise.)

So today was supposed to be all about you because today is your Name’s Day.  St. Martin is your namesake.  I’m supposed to be showering you with gifts and love and yummy sweet breads because in your European family, today is a bigger day than your birthday.

In fact, today is also a big day in all of Germany.  Children are carrying paper lanterns and singing about St. Martin in exchange for candy just like you once did.  St. Martin’s Day is considered the last feast day for Catholics before Advent begins.

And you know what, Martin?  You remind me a lot of St. Martin.  It was generally believed that he was a kind and quiet man who led a simple life.  The greatest legend was the story of the day he cut his cloak in half.  He gave half to a beggar during a snowstorm and thereby saved the beggar from freezing to death.  That night, he dreamed that the man he’d given the cloak to was actually Jesus.

St. Martin was often associated with ducks and geese and the white horses that he rode.  Today people in Germany eat goose; in the Czech Republic, they have duck.  I’m sorry we can’t have any of those things.  They won’t fit in our oven.  They’re not made out of vegetables, anyway.  So I promise to go think of something fabulous right now.  It might have broccoli in it, but Popeye taught me that green vegetables are fun!

Don’t you worry, though, Martin.  I think I am getting the hang of this Namesake Day business now.  I won’t forget ANYMORE.  Promise.  In fact, just to show you how dedicated I am to remembering all German holidays and Namesake Days, you might notice I have gone ahead and marked St. Catherine’s Day on our calendar.  (It’s in two weeks if you want to swing by my favorite craft store or Amazon list…)

Love,

Katie

p.s.  Thank you for remembering today’s date as well as you do Halloween’s.  See you tonight!

(Image of Martin in heaven – I mean under an airplane)

…the sidewalks.

Nothing is so beautiful as pausing to look down at your feet in Germany and seeing cobblestone sidewalks with moss growing in the cracks.

(Image from what I fear may be the last sunny day for the year)

Yesterday as we marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and many of you shared your memories of when the Berlin Wall came down or admissions of being too young to have known or to have understood the significance of that day.  I was truly touched.  Your stories were truly remarkable. (See them all right here.)

I’m still gathering my thoughts and attempting to dry off from yesterday’s rainy activities, so I think it’s important to first back up a little and clarify what Germany and the entire world were celebrating yesterday.  It wasn’t truly the reunification of East Germany and West Germany.  Stores were still open, I still had to go to German class, and life sort of felt like everyday life in Berlin… on the surface.

But stores were closed and classes were canceled back on October 3rd.  That’s Germany Unity Day.. or as most people call it, “Reunification Day”.

The two days are easy to mix up – even for the occasional German.  I haven’t written about Germany Unity Day here in part because it landed on a Saturday this year and in part because I’m not quite sure about the celebration.

You may have seen this picture on my contact page:

That was me on German Unity Day last year.  You can see I’m right in the most famous part of Berlin right next to where The Wall used to run.  The Brandenburg Gate is right behind me.  You might also see that there weren’t a lot of people at the festival at all.

This year marked the 19th anniversary of Germany Unity Day, Martin and I headed out to the Brandenburg Gate again.  Police had blocked the entire area and limited where people could enter and exit.  Thousands of people roamed the outskirts of the entrances; we never made it in.

Everyone wanted to see these enormous puppets that were reenacting an uncle and his niece being reunited.  My own uncle snapped these shots:

I’m sorry to say the only glimpse Martin and I managed to catch of the beautiful puppets was as they were sleeping on a barge going down the city:

Right before this boat cut off our view:

(You don’t realize how big a city of 3 million people is until they’re all trying to do the same thing as you at the same time.)

No doubt, you’re probably wondering why Germany didn’t combine the two celebrations – honor unity and the fall of The Wall in one big day.  That was something the country seriously considered.  November 9th was actually a pretty historic day before The Wall.  It’s the anniversary of:

• the proclamation of the German Republic in 1918
• the defeat of Hitler’s first coup in 1923

Unfortunately, November 9th is also the anniversary of the first large-scale Nazi-led riot against Jews in 1938.  The newly unified country could not justify a day of celebrating their new union on such a tragic day.

Don’t you think that’s a beautiful, fabulous reason to have German Unity Day on a different date?

(All images by Martin on Reunification Day except two puppet shots by my uncle)

Today, November 9, 2009, marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I’ve been thinking a lot about today.  I’m not sure what to expect or what to think.  All I know is that there are a lot of tourists and a lot of emotions here today.

Perhaps I can explore a little and come back here to share with you everything I experience.  Would you like that?

Please take a moment and leave a comment about where you were or what you were doing when The Wall came down.  I think it was one of those days for so much of the world that we will never forget.  Me?  I was sitting in Mrs. Thomas’s class in the United States, and we were all being handed Scholastic News or Scholastic Kids or whatever the little magazine we “read” was called.  I could barely read words like “cat” or “dog”.  She told us it was an enormous day in history that we should never forget. So I tried my very best to remember.

Berlin seemed so far away.

It seemed like a different world.

What would I have thought if Mrs. Thomas had said, “And one day, one of the people sitting in this very room will live in Berlin.  She’ll call it home.”

Would she have pointed at me?  Would I have been just as overwhelmed as I am today?

* * * * * * * * *

Where were you when you heard the news?

(Image by Martin for Making This Home)

We used to be an instant rice family. It wasn’t something I was proud of. I was soaking my own beans and cooking them on the stove, yet I couldn’t figure out how in the world a person could cook rice. No matter how hard I tried, my stovetop rice was always a disaster. It burned to the bottom. It never cooked all the way. Or it ended up burned and soggy. So we went with instant rice.

Until two years ago.

I was seriously thinking of buying an appliance that could perform only one function, and I hate the idea of filling my kitchen with one-use items.  I like multipurpose.  But a rice cooker was calling my name.  My struggles could finally come to an end!

Before I broke down and bought one, Martin asked his step dad if he had any suggestions for my struggles.

“You don’t know how?” my father-in-law gasped. His mouth dropped a little. I swear he was looking at us like we were the biggest cooking dorks of all time.

Maybe we were.

Yet ever since he told us his secret for cooking rice (not instant rice), I’ve been sharing it with everyone I start talking food with, and none of them has had any clue either.

So maybe you already know this. Then again, maybe you’ve been as clueless at cooking rice as me. Either way, you’ll never have to buy instant rice or burn rice again (unless you want).

So you ready for this?

Bake your rice.  That’s all.  The key is all in the medium.  No stove. Put your rice in the oven.

* * * * * * * * *

Baked Rice

1. Pour rice (not instant rice) into the bottom of a glass baking dish and heat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Boil water and pour over rice until rice is fully submerged.  Add more water until it’s approximately 1/4 inch (or 1/2 cm) above the level of the rice.
3. Add butter, salt, and seasoning to suit.  Cover with aluminum foil.
4. Bake 20 minutes.  Since each rice varies in cooking length, check your rice often.  Fluff with a fork and add additional water if needed.  Return to oven and continue to bake.  Our preferred rices usually takes about 45 minutes.

*If you already have the oven on for something else, consider slipping some rice into the oven along with it.

*For a unique, moist flavor, we like to add about a half a can of coconut milk in exchange for some water.

* * * * * * * * *

So there you have it.  The world can be a better place now… or at least kitchens around the world can be!  If you have any secret know-how, please share.  No need to keep rice secrets.

(Image from Flickr)

…no stickers on my fruit and vegetables.

Oranges aren’t a huge deal.  But tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers?  We’ve eaten a lot of sticker and sticker glue over the years in the United States.  Stickers on every piece of produce.

Thank you for not doing that, Germany.

(Image of my after German school snack)