A blessed Easter to all who celebrate.

It's been kind of a quiet weekend, but quiet is good. (I've often said: peace and quiet are highly underrated in this society). I got quite a few things completed (pictures and discussion tomorrow) and also got caught up on grading and some teaching stuff.

It was also a cold weekend, so no garden stuff. I stayed in and drank a lot of hot tea.

Charlotte: the German meat patties are something you can make at home (I don't know if they're commercially available, like as a frozen foodstuff, or not). I think I posted a recipe once but I realize I left out the egg (They turn out okay without it but I think they are better with the egg).

You use 1 lb. of ground meat. I think pork is probably the traditional meat, but I use turkey instead. (You can use the real low-fat turkey if you put the egg in). Beef or venison would doubtless work too.

Mix in between 1/2 and 3/4 a cup of bread crumbs. This can be "fresh" bread crumbs (rye bread is good) or I've successfully used either panko or regular dry breadcrumbs, and my mother says she's used cracker crumbs.

You season them with 1/4 cup (or less) of very finely diced onion (I usually use less and grate it on my Microplane grater)

Add 1/8 to 1/4 cup of fresh parsley (if you have it; if not, a smaller amount of dry works fine)

Use 1/8 t nutmeg or allspice or both (I usually use both).

Then add the beaten egg, and a bit of milk if the patties seem dry. (You mix it like you would a meatloaf).

Then you form it into patties about the size of a hamburger, dredge them in flour, and fry them in a little fat in a pan (I use olive oil which is probably not traditional.)

I have no idea how "authentically German" they are but they are a recipe my grandmother (who was of German extraction) passed on to my mom when she married my dad.

You could probably also form it into a loaf and bake it as you would a meatloaf, but I kind of like it as patties.

Speaking of German - the German class concluded last week. I think I'll miss it (tho' I won't miss being out until 9 pm on Mondays). The teacher alluded to possibly offering a continuation class. I will take it if she does (unless it's on a Wednesday night, when I'm otherwise engaged).

I also bought the "German, Quickly" book that Lydia suggested (Thanks, Lydia!) I'm really enjoying it - I take about 15 minutes or so each afternoon and read a chapter or part of a chapter. I'm not very far yet but I want to try to absorb the information fully - and it's kind of nice not to be working to any sort of a deadline. Already I'm seeing things about the structure of both German and English that I kind of "knew," but not explicitly (like, the difference between active and passive voice being the relative order of subject and object - and in German, passive-voice seems to be a lot more common and "normal" than it is in English).

And I'm starting to get the hang of the "separable" verbs - where there's an adverb that modifies the verb that you can put at the end of a sentence (and it sometimes changes the meaning). This was a big mystery to me because my dad had a record of German drinking songs and there's one on there where they'd do a sentence...and then at the end say "Um" (pronounced "oom") or "Am" or something like that, and everyone would laugh. I asked him about it and he would always vaguely say, "Well, it's funnier if you know German...you can't really explain it in English." (When I was a teenager I assumed that it was actually a dirty song, and he was just putting me off. But now I kind of see how it works. I still think it's probably funnier if you're sitting around with a bunch of friends after a few beers.)

For some reason learning a language now is a particular joy to me. I think it is because it uses a part of my brain I haven't had to use as much for a while...it's kind of like being able to stretch muscles that you haven't used.

It's so much fun too to look at the "compound nouns" and be able to break some of them down to their component parts, or to find nouns that have a similarity (like, lots of nouns end in -heit. Like Wahrheit (truth), Gemutlichheit (which is hard to translate into English but "coziness" and "friendly-feeling" come close)).

I also like that Wilson uses German proverbs as some of her "translate these" sentences. There's one that is used to describe a heavy downpour, which literally translates to "It's raining bratwurst!" Heh. I'd like to see the Weather Girls take THAT one on.

(There's another sentence, which I'm guessing is another saying, that translates to "Farmers like long bratwurst and short sermons." Hahahah. I assume that's an aphorism or a proverb because it seems too random to just be a sentence made up for the book).

I think if I can find a copy of "Guten Tag" (a PBS German learning program Frau Teuber suggested we could use for further learning if we were particularly interested in grammar), I will either borrow or purchase it.