Whoever invented some of the oven mitts out there clearly was not thinking of the average hand – especially the average cook’s hand, which I suspect is quite often female.  Considering that I am beyond a head taller than just about everyone in my German class, my hands are also longer.  Still.  My mitts are waaay too large.

My hands flop around in my oven mitts like fish.  And these little fish are getting burned all the time.  I can never manage.  So you know what that means…

My sewing machine was out on the dining table.  It was time to reshape my oven mitts.  Here’s how:

1.  Turn the oven mitt inside out

2.  Make the mitt narrower by bring in the side of the mitt along the length of your pinky finger and hand.  I sewed a line about 1 inch (2.5 cm) from the top of the mitt to bottom.  Make sure you back stitch.  If the binding/trim along the opening of the mitt is a little thicker than the rest of the mitt, be warned.  That’s probably too thick for your machine, and the needle will break.

3.  Narrow the area below your thumb.  I just sewed a long, narrow letter “C”.

4.  Try on the mitt (still inside out) to see how it fits.  You may want to bring it in a little more.  Remember, it’s always easier to bring it in than rip your stitches and try again.

5.  Cut off the excess fabric about 1/2 inch (1.25 cm) from your new seams.

6.  Turn the mitt right side out and test with something yummy coming from the oven.

I should have done this alteration months ago.  Even Martin’s hands fit better in our “new” mitts from IKEA.

How are your oven mitts looking?  Do you flop around in them, too? Or have you ever noticed?  I’m also curious – what do your oven mitts look like?  Anyone else out there have Basic Blue ala IKEA?  How about something a little cuter or baker tempting?

We went to the grocery store on Friday afternoon to buy eggs, perhaps a little chocolate bunny, and general groceries.

Good Friday: the grocery store was closed; everything in Germany was closed.

Saturday: just about everything was open again.

Easter Sunday: everything was closed.  (Restaurants, flower shops, and a few tourist shops are the only businesses open on regular Sundays)

Today, Monday: everything is closed.

I’m always thrown off by German holidays.  Our grocery store had no notice posted on the door to notify customers of the change of schedule.  The website mentioned nothing.  Why?  Well if you are German or you have lived here for years and years, you KNOW that everything will be closed Friday, Sunday, and Monday.

I had to adapt to everything being closed on Sundays.  I’m so used to the possibility of walking into an American grocery store any time I need eggs – even Easter Sunday at 10 at night.

Ahhh culture adjustments.  The average American has a two-day weekend; Germans celebrate with a four-day weekend.  So other than the grocery store confusions, I am totally okay with this.  I think that Easter deserves days off to celebrate and embrace.

Plus I will tell you this.  The Easter Bunny in Germany is amazing.  I honestly don’t know how he did it.  Or if Martin did it.  Or what happened.  Either way, I am beyond speechless with the goodies in our little make-shift Easter basket:

American peppermint paddies and a box of Girl Scout Samoa cookies.  Oh thank you, thank you, EB!

Did the cute little guy with a puffy tale bring anything delicious to your house?  Did you get your eggs dyed?  Or did you struggle to FIND eggs like us?  We weren’t even looking for an Easter Egg hunt.  I’d love to hear how your holiday went.  Or if you live in a country like Germany where the holiday continues today, how is it going?

I still remember the first lunch Martin and I had when we returned to the United States in 2008.  We were suffering from major culture shock (yes – the biggest culture shock in my entire life happened when I went back home to America.).  We practically spun out of the parking lot with my brother’s-in-law car to hit up our favorite burrito place.  We were feeling seriously deprived.  And we actually had to wait a couple of hours for the burrito place to open.  Darn jetlag!

If there is one thing every American expat craves in Germany, I think it’s safe to say the answer is always, always the same:

Mexican food!

Berlin has a lot of German “Mexican” restaurants.  But they’re pretty weird.  Think funky salad dressing and corn sprinkled on everything.  That doesn’t count as “Mexican” in my book.  And once when I ordered a burrito, the waitress couldn’t understand my American accent.  ”Burrito,” I said.  ”Huh?”  I tried again, rolling my r to sound Spanish.  ”Burrrito!”  She didn’t get it.  I finally had to just point in the menu.

Gosh – the world needs more American-style Mexican if you ask me.  More tortillas.  Corn chips.  Cilantro.  Oh my!

So this post goes out to all you in Germany.  If you weren’t already thinking, “Boy, we should really swing by Berlin to visit the Pergamon Museum and Katie,” well now you will just have to hop on over here.  In fact, you can even buy me lunch.

This lunch to be exact:

At this restaurant right off of Alexanderplatz:

That’s my fab friend from high school sampling her first burrito in YEARS.  She actually married a German and moved to Germany, too.  (Seriously – what are the odds?)  I’m so lucky we reconnected, and I love making people like her happy with this little shop oozing with American food.  It may just be the ticket to get her back down to Berlin for another weekend!

The address is:

Dolores Gourmet Burritos Americanish
Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße 7
10178 Berlin

I’ll see you there!

(Huge thanks to the FIFTH Katie I’ve met in Germany for introducing me to this shop.  IOU.)

And now I’d challenge all of you to think back on a food from your past that you haven’t had in ages.  Would it be something your grandma used to cook?  Or an every-day food from where you grew up?  Maybe it was the local favorite in the town where you grew up.  Whatever it is, I hope you share.

I can’t make any promises about finding it for you.  But sometimes, it’s beautiful to think back on our senses because a funny thing happens.  You’ll seldom just remember a food.  You’ll start remembering the places and the people and the details of life that went with that food.

Pssst… are you an expat living in Germany?  Stop by our Expat’s Guide to Life in Germany for gobs of info (right down to the details like finding filing supplies or vanilla extract).