Thanks to my gracious God for not making we wait too long before relations with my first German teacher improved. The very morning after I complain about it in a post we had a session so tolerable I almost enjoyed it. Today wasn’t bad either. Maybe we’re all loosening up, but whatever it is, it’s in the right direction.
I’ve been walking to school and back and realizing that there’s not much space between tram stops. It takes me only about a half an hour now that I’m not stopping to take pictures (oh, except for this one) or getting lost.
Yesterday was also a breakthrough with Tamino. Imagine some strange person moving into your house, taking away a room and the attention of your loved ones by speaking in some mumbo jumbo language, and never listening to what you say (is she stupid?). Would love her? I would think not. It’s been a little tough on Tamino to deal with me, but today we had a grand time playing with each other and we’ve gone right from “Go away!” to “Don’t go away!” I’m happy to say that part of my way “in” was reading the “Goodnight Florida” book I brought for him that he’s finally showing some interest in. We read it a number of times over and he always says “goodnight!” at the end. The activity that really gave me big points, however, was all thanks to my knowledge of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” in Japanese. I read the book with Tamino in German, but when we got to the page where the caterpillar eats through all kinds of junkfood, I decided to demonstrate how the Japanese pronounce the English words for the items. The rhythm and sound of Japanese is very different from German, Swiss German and Hindi, so he found this amusing and asked for it over and over again. Sometimes he supplies the “toh” which means “and” and he also imitates some of the words.
Dance classes last night also went much better. I’m only sometimes lost and just a little behind now. I managed to write down the Renaissance dances we did, so I hope I won’t forget it all this time. I attended the advanced Baroque dance class after the Renaissance class (the one I watched last week) and it wasn’t as completely over my head as I thought it would be. They were very patient with me as well, but I didn’t feel as though I held them back much. “Tis fun!
Today I decided to try to make Siamese Chicken Curry with Broccoli and Peanuts. I really rounded out the measurements in the conversion to metric, and I was a little worried about the white sauce since I’ve only made it once before and it didn’t work. This one thickened up nicely, and maybe a little too much. Actually, the consistency was fine when I put it together, but the color was too light. Maybe I didn’t let the sugar caramelize enough. I added some soy sauce (of which I can only get tiny 1 cup bottles here!) to help cover the milk/flour taste and help the color, and it came out alright. I think next time I’ll use more curry paste. Any ideas on the color? I seemed to cook the chicken a long time in the oil and sugar, and it was bubbling away.
Ouch. I’ve been at the computer writing emails and updates since dinner and my chest is in flames. I’m too smart for that kind of behavior! Let me just finish . . this . . . one . . .sentence . . .
Random Happiness
What’s this cool bike/car contraption?
Windows (no TM) are more advanced in Europe.
Carmelization of the sugar is important both for the flavor and the color, I think. I have experienced the same problem, and here's a secret I'm sure isn't in the recipe. If you let the sugar/garlic/curry paste mixture get a head start before you put the chicken in, it carmelizes better. The problem with the chicken is what Heather mentioned -- water is drawn out of the chicken as it cooks, and that lowers the temperature and dries out the chicken at the same time, not a happy situation. The soy sauce certainly helps with the color, but the carmelization is worth working for and gives it that lovely, dark, rich brown color.
