Rabbit Hot Pot November 27, 2008

I made this last night and it was AMAZING!! I’ve never cooked rabbit before but Israel and I had talked about it a couple of nights ago. While walking through the commissary in a “grocery store induced haze” I noticed a package of meat that was packaged with a pink foam tray instead of white or yellow, as the others were. I picked it up and it said
“rabbit pieces” and I stuck it in the cart. Perusing online for a rabbit recipe, I stumbled onto this gem. Of course, when I tried to find the site again so I could give credit where credit is due, I can’t find it for love or money. So you will just have to trust me that there is a British website out there with an amazing rabbit recipe. Whoever and where ever you are, “Thank you.”

Seriously, the best roast I’ve ever had. Ever. And Israel agreed. It was amazing. Try it. Here it is:

Rabbit Hot Pot

4 Rabbit portions

2 T flour

salt

black pepper–freshly ground

2 large onions, peeled and sliced

2 large carrots, peeled and sliced

1 1/4 to 1 3/4 C chicken stock or water

2 t prepared mustard

1 T fresh chopped parsley or 1 t dried parsley

1 # potatoes, peeled and finely sliced

2 T butter, melted

Gravy

1/4 C butter

1/4 C flour or 2 T cornstarch

water or chicken stock to make 2 C

1.  Preheat oven to 325F. Season the flour with salt and peper and coat the rabbit portions. Place in casserole dish.

2.  Add the onions, carrots, stock, mustard, and parsley. Cover with sliced potatoes, then brush with the melted butter.

3.  Cover and cook for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, then remove the lid, increase the heat to 425F, and cook for a further 15-25 minutes until potatoes are brown.

4.  Meanwhile, melt the butter in a small saucepan. Whisk in the flour or cornstarch.

5.  When the meat and vegetables are done cooking, remove from casserole dish and keep warm. Pour broth from pan into a large measuring cup (2 Cup Pyrex or similar). Scrape the crusties from the pan as well. Add water or chicken broth to make 2 cups. Pour all at once into the flour/butter mixture. Heat until thickened and bubbly, stirring regularly. Cook and stir 1 minute more. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

Word Definitions November 8, 2008

I just want to say that words can have many definitions. Sometimes the difference between one definition and another can  be something as simple as a capital letter. When orally communicating, it is not possible to determine which definition the speaker is using if you do not ask. This can cause, among other things, anger, confusion, and misunderstanding. 

Example: Savior:  1. one that saves from danger or destruction; 2. one who bring salvation ; specifically capitalized : Jesus.

So “Savior” means Jesus and “savior” means anyone who saves someone or something from danger or destruction.

Example: Messiah: 1. capitalized a: the expected king and deliverer of the Jews b: Jesus; 2. a professed or accepted leader of some hope or cause

So “Messiah” means Jesus or the expected king and deliverer of the Jews and “messiah” means anyone who is a professed or accepted leader of some hope or cause. 

Why do I point this out? Because I’m sick of people butchering the English language because they don’t like someone or the things that person stands for. I don’t especially like Obama nor do I especially trust him. But that does not give me license to assume capitalization where it may not exist. I don’t think Obama will be the savior of anything other than his political career but you can’t just make crap up. It pisses me off.

Language has rules. I know because I’m studying a language and you can’t just change definitions or assume one definition over another. It confuses everyone, natives included.

Gute Nacht.

You’re all right and you’re all wrong November 7, 2008

My sister wrote a note on Facebook and a number of people responded. I don’t want to paste in all the comments, I think this stands alone okay. Here’s my thoughts. Enjoy or not

You are all right and you are all wrong. Anyone who claims to base their world view on the Bible must understand the difference between the permissive and preferred will of God. If God is sovereign than, yes, Obama being President is his will as God is not striking him dead with a bolt of lightning or having him eaten alive by worms as he did to Harod. God’s permissive will also allowed Adam to damn us all to hell. It’s NOT the same as his preferred will.

If we take the “All government is appointed by God” aspect and refuse to differeneciate between permissive and preferred, we must begin to fight for the restoration of the Americas to British rule. After all, our forefathers fought against God’s chosen king. The Jews who fled Germany during World War II should have stayed put, after all, Hitler was God’s chosen. We really shouldn’t have done anything about Suddam Hussein because, after all, he was God’s chosen leader. Obviously, there is a time and a place for removing a leader from power. There is a time and a place for respecting the office of a leader even though you can not respect the person. Do not let fear of missing the fine line cause you to be apathetic and docile.

The government does have a responsibility to care for the poor. Part of the tithe money was for taking care of the poor. The harvesters were to leave the corners of their fields unharvested for the poor. Every 50 years there was supposed to be a mass redistribution of the wealth (Year of Jubilee). The church’s role in caring for the poor is simply as a substitute for when the government has failed in it’s duty.

Reinterpretation of the law is fundamental to our government’s functioning. The founders of the constitution did not think women should be allowed to vote and yet, here we are, voting. Blacks didn’t have rights until the Americans of the late 1800’s decided to “reinterpret” the Constitution. Right now, the law is that it’s okay to kill the unborn. In order to have this changed we must “reinterpret” the law to see it as NOT okay.

You are right. Nothing happens without God’s allowance. Ask Job if that was fun. God allowed the Jews to die by MILLIONS. God has allowed millions of unborn babies to be killed. The fact that God has allowed something does not mean that we roll over and expose our soft underbellies.

The fact that Obama has promised to make inaccessible health care acessible and improve the state of poverty doesn’t mean he’s going to do it. He’s a politician and the furthering of his own political career will be his primary goal, as it is the goal of all politicians. He will be held by the same constraints that kept George W. Bush from accomplishing anything of consequence.

The poverty rate, as reported by the US Census Bureau, is almost half of what it was in 1959. “After 4 years of consecutive increases, the poverty rate stabilized at 12.6 percent in 2005- higher than the most recent low of 11.3 percent in 2000 and lower than the rate in 1959 (22.4 percent), the first year for which poverty estimates are available (Figure 4).” US Census Report, page 20. “Roe vs. Wade” was decided in 1973. The poverty rate is basically the same, give or take 2 percent. Now, I think abortion is terrible, too, but you can’t say it’s the cause of poverty. Nor can you say that homosexual marriage is the cause as there has not been enough time for evidence to be gathered.

And yes, having a mom and a dad in the home might greatly decrease poverty, especially for those under 18. So lets decriminalize marijuana and send the non-violent offenders home to their families so they can start supporting them again. Let’s fight the illiteracy rate, which in the US is about 20%. It’s awfully hard to get a good job when you can’t even read the want ads. It’s hard to read the Bible or make an informed decision about anything if you can’t read. How can we expect to change anything when 20% of our citizens can’t read? All our pamphlets and signboards? Wasted on one out of five people.

No, we shouldn’t trust the government to do anything. They will only do or not do the things which we, as the people, hold them accountable to. We must be more active than simply voting every four years. If you think a person should be in office, start sending their campaign money. If you want to see the poor taken care of, start tutoring kids to help them read. If you want to see abortions cease, start taking girls in and supporting them and their children. If you want the government to stop lying to you, start holding them accountable. Minimum wage has not gone up at the same rate that Congress has voted themselves raises. Why are we content to allow this to go on?

And the definition of “messiah” is “a professed or accepted leader of some hope or cause.” It only means “the expected king and deliverer of the Jews” if it’s capitalized. I don’t think hellfire is necessary for saying that Obama is the professed leader of hope for the American poor.

HHG Shipment November 4, 2008

For you non-military members out there, you might not know what HHG means. Well, let me assure you, it means a lot to us. It stands for “HouseHold Goods” and the shipment part means they are on their way here. As in, in two days they will be unloading all of our crap out of a truck and into our home. YAY!!

We are very excited. And a little nervous. Our house has been very hard to keep clean because we don’t have any furniture. So now more stuff is coming but not much of it is furniture. (Before we moved, we got rid of 75% of our stuff – including most the furniture because it was junk we didn’t like and didn’t want to have to get rid of over here.) So while we have plans of making a large purchase from Ikea, we haven’t actually done that yet and so we will have more stuff and still, no where to put it. We may have to keep some boxes just to contain the madness for a while.

But our stuff is coming which is great since I have one mixing bowl and it’s too shallow. I have almost no tupperware type things. We have silverware for four. Do you have any idea how many things you use silverware for besides eating? And our silverware was one of the few things we actually liked. Oh, and our vacuum. I love our vacuum! I am soooooo ready to have it. It’s wonderful and fun and has cool features and we have cobwebs on our ceiling that we’ve not brushed down because we have no vacuum and I am READY for them to come down.

So many reasons to be excited.

I’ll let you know later how it goes. And hopefully I’ll report that they didn’t destroy anything. Oh, and our computer. As much as this little laptop has been a lifesaver, I am ready to have Ubuntu back. And I’m hoping Rosetta Stone will work better with Ubuntu than with Limpus. It won’t recognize my keyboard or the microphone so no writing and no speaking for me. Oh, and music! I’ve missed the five solid day worth of music our computer has on it. Thanks, Alex!

I think German door to door evangelists from some religion just knocked on my door. They were dressed in suits and started to tell me about this flier they were handing out. I said, “Ich verstehe ein bischen Deutsch,” and one said he spoke English. He said they were handing out information to German and English people but they only had German fliers. Someone would be by later to give us an English one. Then he asked if the upstairs neighbors where German. I said yes and instantly felt like a traitor. Maybe it’s not the “ARGH! WEIRDO’S AT THE DOOR! FREAK OUT!” that it is in the States. Maybe they will be glad these men in suits stopped by. Tweed suits by the way and not black. They didn’t give me the Jehovah Witness vibe. As much because they were older. The one who spoke English was my father’s age and the other was at least ten or fifteen years older.

Anyway. I’m off to Spangdahlem to see if I can find a fan for Israel. Have you ever tried to sleep in the same house as an awake Jael? My in-laws know what I’m talking about. It’s insanity. But at least we have doors we can close.

These are the things I’m doing November 3, 2008

I am studying German. That is always in the back ground of my brain.

I am reading a number of books. A couple of crappy young adult books. One I just started called “Brunettes Strike Back.” The title got me on that one. I got a couple of books from a trilogy called the “Prime Dragon Trilogy” and a couple from the “Hollow Kingdom Trilogy.” The first book in the Hollow Kingdom series sounds really familiar, like I swear I read it but I don’t remember it being a series and I can’t actually remember what happened. I just remember the sisters/cousins Kate and Emily. I just finished “Over Sea, Under Stone,” a juvenile fiction about three siblings who do battle against evil and triumph in the end. Good stuff. I’ve also started “The House with Seven Gables” but I am unable to get into it. It’s so “blah blah blah” and “let me spend two pages telling you about how it would take soooo many pages to give you the history of this blah blah blah,” and “let me spend three pages telling you about how I’m not going to tell you about this person and that person.” Ug. Also have a bookmark in “Emma” by Jane Austen but I have little to no hope of finishing that one. “Pride and Prejudice” I was able to read because I enjoyed the BBC production of it so much. I was able to visualize Mr. Darby as all dark and sullen and handsome. Emma, not so much. I requested the “Twilight” series, thanks to Angie. Hopefully it doesn’t consume my life as it did hers but we’ll see.

I am trying to get our finances sorted out. We owed over two thousand dollars to the travel card and when I called for the balance so I could send a check, all but $36 had been paid. ? Israel got an email saying that the AF had overpaid us like $240 on our housing allowance so he wrote them a check for the amount. This last LES had an extra $240 paid to us as “Advance Debit” or something. Anyway, I don’t have power of attorney so they can’t talk to me at all. Of course, Israel is working nights right now so him going in to check on these things is a little difficult.

Our stuff is here. Well, not in our house here, but in the area waiting for us to give them a call on a delivery date, here.

We have priced most the stuff we need from Ikea and will probably spend a couple of thousand dollars there. Weee!!

I’m trying to find a PS2 for Israel’s birthday. I got outbid by two dollars this evening. Argh! Oh well. Maybe someone will read this and want to give me one. Eh? Eh? Sounds good, doesn’t it? Maybe you can claim it as a deduction on your taxes because you gave it to a service member. Yeah? Sounds real good, doesn’t it?

Okay, I’m disgusting and really tired. I’ve stayed up far too long. I think it’s after midnight and Jael no longer sleeps until nine.

Halloween Night November 1, 2008

Guten Abend meine Fruenden,

(Good Evening my friends)

We are doing well here in the Walker household. Tonight is Halloween and we are back from Trick or Treating with Jael. She dressed as Tinkerbell but unfortunately she wanted an authentic Tinkerbell costume, which meant a very tiny dress. I took a turtle neck and cut the sleeves off. I sewed the arm holes shut and cut the hem into a zig-zag. Jael wore it like a tube top with the turtle neck being the bodice of the dress. I made a pair of wings out of two coat hangers shaped into wings, covered them with a pair of white pantyhose and then sewed a couple of pieces of elastic to them and Viola! Tinkerbell. Of course, being that it looked an awful lot like Tinkerbell’s actual clothes, Jael was freezing and so wore her winter coat over the costume. I told her that next year she needed to dress up as something warmer, like a dog sled musher.

We went to Trier last weekend. We’d planned on taking the train but I must admit, the score is “Train system: 2; Walker’s: 0.” We’ve not figured it out yet. I think we are going to ask our landlords for advice. So we ended up driving. Which would have been fine except that we didn’t have a good map of Trier and the route I’d planned had been based off us starting at the train station. The first hour of our time in the city was a little frustrating but once we were parked and had figured out where we were, we were good to go.

The first placed we stopped was the Imperial Baths (Kaiserthermen).

The first cool thing about the baths was that I had to speak German in order to get our tickets. I said, “Zwei Erwachsene, ein Kinder,” and the man behind the counter told me the total and I almost understood him. Small victories.

We were able to go into the service tunnels underground and walk through the cave like labyrinths. As we walked along the outer wall, I noticed the holes in the walls for archers to defend the city from invaders. It was strange to walk along a wall, enjoying the beautiful sunshine and know that men had died on the ground we walked on, defending the city we were enjoying. It was strange to walk through a building that was so big. Not just physically but in importance. The Imperial Baths were a big deal. Trier was a big deal. The same people who built the “Colosseum” built the building we were walking through. The same society that gave us the constitutional republic, built this building. We were, literally, walking through history and it made me feel small.

We walked to the Porta Nigra, and I, again, got to practice my German. Again, success! The two things I remember the most were a loud and enthusiastic tour guide in period costume and Jael’s hunger. Sie hast hunger (She is hungry, or literally, she has hunger). I’ve not learned past tenses.

We went through town to find something to eat and I think we may have walked through the biggest crowd we’d ever seen! It was a little nerve wracking. I worried about losing Jael but luckily, she was perfectly happy to hold tight to a hand. There were street musicians playing with their cases open at their feet, playing for the few odd coins passerbyers might throw in.

We stopped at a park on the way back to the car and Jael played for a couple of minutes. She attempted to play with two sisters but they just looked at her like she was insane and continued to play amongst themselves. They even got a little mean, going out of their way to exclude her but she just kept playing. She’s a resilient kid.

Then we headed home. A successful trip. We were very tired by the time we got home. I think the crowds tired us out as much as the walking; at least for Israel and I.

Oh, and I passed my driver’s license test last week. It’s a hundred question test and you can miss up to 15 and still pass. I missed 7. I missed two sign questions and they were stupid mistakes. I don’t know what the other five were so WATCH OUT!!  ha ha.  Anyway, it’s been very good to have wheels again.

Our furniture should be here somewhere around the 17th of November. We are very ready to have some furniture. You might think it is hard to keep your house clean…try it with no furniture. No bookcases for books. No desk for paper, pens and tape. No file cabinets for paperwork. No dresser for clothes. No toy box for toys. Our house constantly looks like a tornado tore through here or a “miscellaneous stuff” bomb went off.

Jael went to Kindergarten today. I left at 8:30 to clean a house and at 8:45, Maria, our landlady who works at the kindergarten, stopped by to ask if she could take Jael with her to work. I had called last week about enrolling Jael and was told that they didn’t have any openings and that they had to offer any openings to German students first. Anyway, Israel said that was fine so when I got home, Jael was gone. Israel told me the deal and to my surprise, tears began to fill my eyes. Israel’s eyes welled up and we spent a couple of minutes holding each other as we realized how grown up Jael is getting. Israel asked what I wanted to do and all I could think was, “I want my baby back!” But we waited until 2 and picked her up. She was not happy to see us (very typical. She’d always rather stay and play than go home…makes me feel great!). She’d had a great time and brought home a little ghost she’d made.

We came home and carved our Jack-O-Lanterns. Jael drew the face for one and Israel did the other. They both came out great. We set them out and lit the candles. I was really pleased. I wish I had a camera and I would send pictures, but alas, we don’t so I can’t.

I can’t think of anything else. I have got to write more often so I don’t end up with such long letters. But I probably won’t. Anyway, that’s what’s going on here.

Becky