I know what I am doing this summer!

Growing my own vegetables!!

I just found out that they have this unbelievably awesome possibility here in Cologne: you can rent space on a farm! The owners of the farm plant rows of different vegetables and flowers for you and take care of them until May. Then you take care of your on parcel using their tools and water (and informational help when you need it), and eating your own results! This seems like such a fabulous middle step for people like me, who don't have the space or the experience to do this alone.

A cousin of my friend Beate told me about it-- he's part of a group of students that are in the farm. He assured me that you can get there without a car.

Jeremy and I were subscribers of a farm near NYC our last summer there, but we just picked up the vegetables once a week. This way, I can learn how to actually grow the vegetables myself!!

The only problem is that I will be on tour for about 6 weeks in August and September, so I will miss the best harvest time... But hopefully we can find another couple to share the plot of land, so that it won't go to waste.

If you want to see the yummy pictures on their website, click here. It's all in German...

Awkward

Man, do I wish we had a car. Lugging costumes and props on the subway while trying to stamp the ticket during rush hour is a bit of a pain. Hmmmm.

I am a shameless promotion machine. Tonight Jeremy and I are playing pool with the scientists (and I should really be spending that time sewing ribbons onto Julia's costume and fixing Corinna's wig...but, well.) and I will be wearing my The Punks Delight t-shirt. Sample conversation:

"Cool shirt! What's The Punks Delight?"

"It's this performance group here in Cologne. They have a show next week. You should come!" (I whip out my handy supply of postcards)

Awww, yeah. Gettin' those butts in the seats.

The Tagestipp!

Here it is-- check it out!

Dirty Vegetable Alert

Meine Damen und Herren,

In my eternal quest for weird foods to enjoy, I have found the tuber Salsify.


It looked just like this! In the bag that I bought from the grocery store, these long beauties were completely encrusted with dirt. After scrubbing and peeling them, the bag helpfully suggested that I cook them with chesse. Done! I made an easy gratin with garlic rubbed on the baking dish, milk, a little butter and some Emmentaler. I served it with lentils, beets, and pesto. Now, if you are thinking how lucky you are not to be married to me, I would like to assure you that this was delicious (and Jeremy does agree). Horray for winter vegetables, I say.

On Saturday, I taught a baroque dance workshop at the Music Conservatory in town to the early music students. About 30 people showed up, and we had a nice time-- they very nicely overlooked all the German mistakes I made while trying to teach. I was invited back in April to listen to the students play in order to coach them on how to play for dancers. Cool!

Piece by piece, the show is coming together. Now we are rehearsing with the musicians and the singer! Everyone knows what they should be doing on stage, so at this point it is a matter of running it so that everything is smooth and meaningful. Our media blitz continues... we are supposed to be a "Tages Tip" (tip of the day) in the magazine Kölner Illustriert-- it comes out tommorrow, so I will run over to the nearest store to pick one up (and it should be online, too. I'll let you know.)

Liebe Grüße,
deine Sarah

Louis XIV as he really was...

Whoever did this is impossibly brilliant.

Now I have to stop fooling around and work on the talk about my show I am giving at the Amsterdam Baroque Dance Conference. Check out the abstract!

Obamas Vereidigung

Jeremy and I decided to celebrate the Inauguration with actual people (not sooo many, though. The Germans may love Obama, but I think with their parliamentary system, they find the pomp surrounding the inauguration of a person bizarre.) at Joe Champs American Sportsbar at Rudolfplatz. We were grateful they were broacasting the proceedings on their big screens-- otherwise, we would have been huddled around the computer screen at home. We went there with some Americans who just arrived in Cologne on sabbatical-- Rebecca Harris-Warrick and Ron Harris. They are both professors at Cornell, and Rebecca is a musicologist/dance historian and the one who invited the New York Baroque Dance Company to do a residency and performance there last year. And Ron is a biologist!

Some American design group or ad agency was also having a party at Joe Champs to celebrate, and we were treated to a 10 minute speech in German with a THICK American accent. Fabulous!

Today is my first rehearsal with all of the musicians! Whoo-hoo!

We're on Dance Germany!

Quick update: I posted the notice for our show on Dance Germany. I think it looks pretty cool-- check it out (you can toggle it to English in the upper right-hand corner).

It's On!

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is so on.

The show is in complete full swing--- the it of it is very thick right now. I am sending out the press release (in German!), rehearsing the dancers (they are sweet and doing great!), choreographing the singer's gestures, trying to organize the musicians' rehearsals (on Saturday), correcting the postcards (I had the wrong area code for Cologne! Noooo! 6 hours of cleverly positioned stickers and all is well), fitting the costumes, and trying to figure out where to buy props... among many other tasks. All while rehearsing myself in two of the trickiest baroque dance choreographies (The Passacaille of Venus and Adonis and The Turkish Dance) because I am certifiably insane.

It is really winter here. Below freezing! With Snow! I can't ride my bike, and the radio had a little bit about how the mail is not getting delivered. The train on Wednesday was 20 minutes late because it was too cold. Geez. It really proves the cold is unusual here (it wouldn't stop the New York City Transit!)--- on koeln.de it says this is the coldest it's been in a thousand years.

I am now completely in love with Julia Child. I picked up "My Life in France" in America, and I can hardly put it down (but I had to in order to affix all those stickers to the postcards!). If you want to read a romantic and lovely ex-pat book, this is the one. All the magic of being a foreigner and discovering your true love.

Life is beautiful, no?

Christmas Pictures!

Ha! My brother is a weirdo, too!!



I have to do the pictures in reverse chronological order, so hast blogger decreed. I finally figured out how not to make them all randomly scattered over the page (ummm... centering). Heavens.

We had so many great visits on this trip:
with my friends and fellow baroque dancers in NYC in addition to my little sister, Daria and honorary mom, Sue
with the gang in Virginia Beach, and we totally hate the weather for making us one day late (but are so grateful it wasn't more than that!!!)
with Kathy and Thom in Center Township, PA, home of a top-notch and Lebowski-esque bowling alley
with my Mom and Dad and Chuckie and the rest of my side of the family, including a lovely and hopefully-not-too-rare-in-the-future visit with the Edgar side and my adorable cousins Ashlyn and Danica who are both scarily smart

And THANK YOU to everyone who donated to The Punks Delight. It is now entirely possible that I won't lose money on the show!!

Yay for Family!

We begin here in NE Ohio---

Mom, Dad and my huge, football-playing, 15-year-old cousin Ty at Aunt Jenny's house for our Renna Christmas extravaganza. Back in the day, there where about a hundred kids at these gatherings, pushing each other around in laundry baskets and sitting in a decorous circle to open presents one at a time (this took about 3 hours).

The new kids, Izzy and Evie, thanks to my cousin Shanna! They are seen here playing with my present to Izzy, a wooden veggie cutting set.

That kid can wield a knife!

All the cousins that were there! I was so happy to see so many of them.

Just in case there are some European readers out there, here are Chuckie and Shanna modelling the latest giant slushy designs.

In Center Township, PA-- we didn't take so many pictures (bad kids!!) because there were no babies around.

This is my patented bowling technique. Don't copy it.

Jeremy and Kathy are about to kick my butt in bowling. Kathy used to play in school, so it only took her a few frames to start kicking out the spares and strikes.

On to Virginia Beach...
Nicole, Ken's girlfriend, looks cute in her new hat, no? I had to really control myself and not steal it.

Uh-huh.

We didn't set Martha's kitchen on fire!! We were making feuerzangbowle, the German party treat. You make mulled wine, then set a cone of sugar on a metal thing with holes in it, pour some rum on the sugar, and set it on fire so the melted sugar drips into the wine.

Grandpa Phil and the amazing Baby Ben!

The dinner Jeremy and I concocted! Lamb, brussel sprouts with chestnuts (some very nice elves helped us with the peeling!), and roasted sweet potatoes and parsnips.

Ken is making Ben step on presents. Hilarious!

Martha, Phil, and Ben. Isn't his sweater unbelievably adorable? It was so sweet of Steph to pack it in all the trip frenzy. Luckily, the bamboo yarn from which I crafted this little number is designed to wick off baby drool!

Ok, this picture is just cute.
And doesn't Jeremy look like a giant??

Perfect.

Jeremy and Kris whilst we prepared the semi-annual Lynch Family Dinner, famous for its use of many of Martha's fun kitchen tools.

For the start of the New York series, Daria demonstrates that our feet are now the same size!

Jeremy at our Dirt Candy deep-fried extravaganza. We ate jalepeno hush puppies, deep-fried poached egg, and deep-fried ricotta balls! The potobello mousse was yummy, but the dessert was totally crazy and good: the ricotta balls placed in a pool of tomato jam with lemon-olive oil ice cream and a freeze-dried tomato slice. I didn't take such a good picture because I am embarassed to take pictures in a restaurant.

Daria wiggling her tooth in Kati Rolls, where one can have the best Indian street food in NYC.


Happy New Year everyone!