my little family in franconia

i mentioned in this post the importance of my fellow fulbrighters in franken (franconia) ((whoa, alliteration, much?)) and how, despite living in different towns, the group of us managed to get together regularly.  we liked to meet on the weekends, on the rare occasion that all 7 of us were in franken; usually, at least one of us was traveling. 

i think my favorite gathering of ours was a “franken party” that took place in nuremberg at our friend matt’s apartment – a very old, very cold, very charming and very cozy apartment.  he made a vegetarian chili and i brought a box of jiffy cornbread as well as funfetti cake mix and icing to go along (courtesy of one of my mom’s care packages).

fun fact: matt has a german roommate (aprx. 68 years old) who, like most of the germans i know, takes ‘eating green’ very seriously.  i think this is great – very inspiring.  suffice it to say, though, she was horrified by the jiffy cornbread and the cake mix/icing combo.  every time i referred to the cornbread as such, she corrected me by saying “you mean corn cake” and i more or less made the actual cake under the kitchen table out of fear that she’d inspect the box’s list of ingredients as she had the cornbread (which, as you can imagine, did not go over well).  and thus, the night included an unexpected little lesson in patience/self-control for me, as every time she announced, “i will absolutely not be eating this cake”, i fought the urge to say “that’s terrific! more for us unhealthy americans to consume! yaaaaay!”.

all jokes aside, the night was very pleasant, the veg. chili + cornbread was to die for, the cake + milk was a delicious success (despite the near-crisis of not having a cake pan, quickly averted by using a bread pan!) which tasted just like america (what more can you ask for in a dessert, really?) and we even enjoyed a second dessert, in the form of chocolate chip cookies (made by matt), which strangely resembled the cookies in the berenstein bear books a great deal.

and then we ended the evening with a reenactment of HIMYM’s slapsgiving song.  with a room full of HIMYM fanatics and a piano, it was only inevitable.