Endlich Fruehlingszeit in the German Corner

[admylin]

'All welcome, Austria & Switzerland & any German-speaking Leute too'

Thank goodness it's over at long last! That was a long winter. Welcome Spring!

nice to see you back taipo! i have to agree about germany being a great place to live (and i also agree about the supermarkts - why are the till people so grumpy!!!)

hope you're all recovered from your Mai Baum celebrations! ours were a bit of a washout with the weather and dh was on call so couldnt have a beer but i still had a good time! and the Mai Baum in the village hasnt been stolen (unlike last year)! it was good to see most of the village out enjoying the festivities!

so i need some advice about Spargel! i bought some the other day and cooked it today! i just boiled it in a pan of salted water for about 20 mins! was that right? it tasted ok but had gone a wee bit stringy in places! i love it so much but want some expert tips on cooking it! ta!

hi all

call your mother-in-law canella, she'll be chomping at the bit to tell you how to do it the right way. Always stringy when I make it which is almost never tbh

hello zzen - long time no hear from!! hope all good with you!

did think to phone MIL but worried i'd be on the phone for the rest of the day! asking on MN seemed like the easier option!

we're fine thanks Canella, I was just winding you up with your MIL.

Ask a neighbour, German housewives will be up on the intricacies of Spargel, IME German families are into asparagus big time. Mine is always droopy and watery or stringy. Maybe you need to drown it in more sauce hollandaise?

it was tasty today but just a bit stringy! and you're right i did drown it in hollondaise sauce!
will ask around at the bus stop tom!!

Did you break enough off at the end of the asparagus? I think a few cm have to come off. I only like green asparagus, the kind you don't have to stand and peel! It's also less stringy.

Most of the beer gardens opened around here for the season and alot of the open air pools - bad luck there as it's been dull since Friday so I bet they've been quiet! We tried a beer garden on Saturday, was nice but still abit cool. When we move there is a lovely beer garden in the forest by a small man made lake about a 5 minute walk away and a greek place down the road with big terrace restaurant so not far to o to relax on a warm evening!

Have a sick ds at the moment, he has a mysterious rash a la slapped cheek but doc says it's a virus but not slapped cheek. Dd had it a couple of weeks ago and they've both had it a few times over the past 3 or 4 years. Very strange.

what's this about then?

German man marries his cat

like the name Possendorf, somehow appeals to me.

You nice, me düsseldorf

ach you are all off researching Spargel. I have to talk to myself.

Everyone in Lena Meyer Landhut fever then? Do you like her song - unser Star für Oslo:

next=1&index=33 Lena

I find she has a weird way of pronouncing some things. I just ran it past dd and she says she can't understand a word. I can but I find it a bit pseudo Australian or something in parts I dunno "oi" for I and so on. Or is it my own English that has become so weird?

next=1&index=33 Lena

Satellite. Do you like it?

Not researching Spargel, was supervising gerbil run in dc's room and getting them off to bed.

I read that Lena is trying to speak with her teacher's accent - no idea where the teacher spent time, a mixture between London/Cockney and South African maybe? She goe sto school around the corner from where we live (claim to fame)

Now off to trawl the net for holiday in France, last week of June. I hate organising these things but it has to be done. Brittany, beach, self catering - any tips? Good/bad experiences? Positive thing is, most places seem to be booked out for end of July and August but June is still OK.

OMG hope the teacher is not an MNer!

No idea about Brittany. We are supposed to be going to Mexico, thanks for the oil spill. Set to go end of May, brilliant. Last time we were booked to go to Mexico was that big tornado and the tourists were all evacuated. We managed to rebook in time

Something or someone does not want us to go to Mexico. Why I wonder?

Is Lena Meyer Landhut that woman who sings "Oi eyven painted my toe nails for you, Oi just did it the ither dy"

well, I suppose it is traditional to enter complete tat in eurovision! Such a pity, when german music is so brilliant (Silbermond, ich und ich, Rosenstolz, Söhne Mannheim etc).

and my fave ever: Die Ärtzte!

thats rubbish about mexico zzen!! will you get your money back if you cancel?

not sure what i think about Lena - the song is catchy enough but she really annoys me! she's sooooo arrogant for an 18 year old! think i heard somewhere that her father was a diplomat and she'd grown up in lots of places - maybe that explains the funny pronounciation!

admylin - i took a fair bit off the bottom of the Spargel (mostly so it would fit in the pan!!). i dont have a proper Spargel pan like so many other germans! think i really will have to phone my MIL to ask! might lose my sanity in the process!!

that's so well transcribed NN.

Really canella, didn't know she was well-off. I find her alright, at least she isn't one of those whack-o OTT women with too much hair, stomping about with some sort of barbarian clan half clad behind her - I forget the name , some Ukranian woman and vrarious others of that type. Also sick to death of smarmy ballads. UK's song is though. Have you heard it?

Will try and dig it up. Yes, I like the Ärzte too NN.

Tell canella she must absolutely get on to MIL about the Spargel NN. Wasn't she having a go at your dh because you were not calling her asking for advice on how to run your household?

I'm annoyed about Mexico but heigh- ho. What can you do?

We can get out of it still. Dh will be there on business trotting round South and middle Am so would have been convenient to fly out and join him for a beach hol at the end. Had already started reading up on it and getting mildly excited etc...

thats exactly what she was doing zzen but she's laid off me since we had a huge bust up at the end of last year! i still phone her for advice tho from time to time just to keep things sweet!

this is not good

honestly
gah gah gah.

can't imagine you having a bust up canella! Sometimes I think you just have to let it out, don't you?

I have to say I have always been quite flabbergasted when I see Germans go up in smoke at each other. It seems to happen very fast and be extremely heart-felt and then it puffs out and they just mutter "so was" or "ist doch wahr" and then it's over and they seem not at all bothered by it anymore.

I quite like the UKs song actually. But why is it sung by a 12 year old boy?? And those dancers are scarey!

Serious question: how do you watch eurovision in gemrany? I havent seen it since we came here. We only have a few channels, no fancy satellite stuff, which channel is it on?

canella, I cooked the Spargel for a few minutes in boiling water, it was fine. Dont overcook it.
Re the stringiness, I think the quality varies. We just bought some fairly expensive, but really nice Spargel. Other years, Ive bought it later in the season ,a nd from a chepa supermarket, and it hasnt been nice. So Id try buying from a posh supermarket.

Ah, Die Ärzte - now that was my era! Yes, so much good German music around at the moment - but it would be wasted on Eurovision. I've never heard of Lena Meyer Landhut but the accent does sounds strangely familiar. DH is always astounded by my knowledge of 80s music, i.e. the fact that I can actually most of the songs - but as I point out, this is only because DJs in the UK would tell you what song they were playing whereas they just don't bother in Austria.

I think the closest I've been to Brittany was a school trip to see the Bayeux tapestry several decades ago. I usually try and avoid France as it means I have to - shock horror - speak French and I just find it too depressing that I'm now virtually incapable of holding even a basic conversation in French any more. And even more embarrassingly, find German words slipping in.

I was put off asparagus for life by having it day after day at the company I used to work for in Germany during Spargelzeit. I'm sure it can be quite tasty if it's cooked well, but it was always very watery and stringy there - plus three sticks (or whatever they're called) of asparagus don't make a main meal, in my opinion.

I'd forgotten (repressed the memory of) supermarket cashiers in Germany. I always used to get tutted at if I tried to pay for anything costing less than about 40 marks with a 50 mark note. And the car drivers too - far too impatient and aggressive for my liking. Interestingly enough, we got beeped at far less often once we'd swapped our Austrian numberplate for a Mannheim one; you'd have thought they might have cut a probable holidaymaker slightly more slack, but no.

they will not easily forgive Austrians for trying to pass off Hitler as a German and Mozart as an Austrian

Is Austria in the Eurovision song contest? LOL you like it NN, maybe my taste is strange. Eurovision is always good fun though in a way. It is shown on German tv but I wouldn't know which one. NOt a satellite channel though, one of the regular ones since you need to ring in etc (in theory)

supermarket cashiers

I will include them in my great novel one day and I will get my own back

seriously

Switzerland:

il pleut de l'or

background vocals get on my nerves