Day 2 [Germany] Searching for butcher shops, another day of making our pre-packed groceries and quick fresh shopping work

Well, we all went to sleep at 9 PM and my daughter woke up at 1 AM. After 2 hours of trying to get her back to sleep I gave in and we all woke up. She kept telling me "I am done with my nap Mommy". To which I replied "That was not a nap - it is night time". Negotiating with a 2 year old is near impossible when they are well rested and in their own time zone - negotiating when in another country - impossible I've determined. 

We ate instant oatmeal, dried fruit and nuts and watched movies. Around 6 AM we went back to sleep and my intent was to sleep only a few hours but our bodies decided to sleep for another 6 hours. At noon I finally woke up and got ready and then got my  husband and daughter up. 

This is when I remind myself that it was a great idea to leave the Thursday night before my husband had to start work on Monday. 

Lunch was leftover pasta with a big salad. I had no vinegar but it was surprisingly satisfying to just have lettuce, olive oil and himalayan pink salt. The big salad was important for two reason: 

1. I didn’t have much pasta toss leftover so I had to fill up on something
2. Fiber is key to keep your bowels healthy while traveling. The tendency is to eat a lot of dairy, gluten and not a lot of water. As a result, many folks end up not ‘moving’ the same way as at home. Replacing the majority of a meal with something light, green and high in fiber is a great way to manage this. 

At 3 we finally left the house to go exploring - my husband had scoped two butchers to go meet. The first, was closed. The second, closed at 12:45 on Saturdays and was closed Sunday - nein and nein. I should have known - I think this is standard practice for European companies. 

We headed to a grocery that is probably akin to our Safeway/Vons in the States called Reve, right next to the BioMarkt we went to yesterday. We picked up a few staples like water, tissue and checked out what they had here. My daughter started to throw a fit so exploration expedition was cut short on reading ingredient lists in German and trying to recall the little knowledge I have and using my Google translate tool. If we don’t build an app, please Google or someone else, build an app where I can scan a package in another language and have it translate to my own locale. Furthermore, identify ingredients I have personally tagged that could be problematic for me (not just gluten or dairy - but ingredients I personally decide I don’t or can’t eat). This is do-able but it is frustrating in times when you are tired, jet lagged, and dealing with a toddler who screams and cries when she is jet lagged and exhausted. Have mercy!

Butchers will have to wait until Monday - stay tuned for that experience. I am praying their English is decent to chat about ingredients. These are the times I really wish my dad had non renounced his German heritage and refused to speak German at home with us. Miss him every day, but man!!! this could have made my life easier. 

Between Reve and Dunns we grabbed the following to put a dinner together:

Chicken breast

Chickpeas (will soak today, cook tonight and prepare/season tomorrow)

Red Lentils

Onion

Organic salami and turkey breast (what they call “turkey ham”) in pre-packaged form

For dinner we had:

Light curry chicken

Jasmine Rice

Red Lentil stewed with carrot and onion

Sliced cucumber

Again the focus was:

1. Quick

2. Wholesome (not packaged - especially since reading ingredients is like reading a novel when you are in another country)

3. Balanced - I missed having true greens here, but figured the sliced cucumber balanced that a bit along with the stewed carrot in the lentils

This is real life. In my real life at home, almost every meal includes greens (lettuce, chard, kale, mustard, dandelion). I will get to that here in Germany, but for now, I am still jet lagged and managing a toddler with massive jet lag. Do the best with what you have and try to make it work. I am still feeling insanely positive about this whole thing!

Recipe for Light Curry Chicken:

Saute diced onion (about 3 very small onions) over medium heat until nicely golden

Toss about 1 tsp of cumin and 1 tsp of mustard seeds into pan until just fragrant

Toss in diced chicken (4 breasts) and cook until almost brown on edges

Sprinkle 2 tsp garam masala and 1 tsp tumeric and 1/2 cup water

Bring to a boil

Simmer until liquid is cooked down and chicken is cooked through

Season with salt as needed

Recipe for Stewed Red Lentils:

2 small onion, diced sauteed until soft

Then add

2 medium carrots, diced, sauteed until soft

~1 cup red lentils (ideally these have been soaked and rinsed)

Cover with water by about 1 inch above the lentils

Bring to a boil and then let simmer until the carrots and lentils are well cooked. Season with salt as needed. 

Enjoy!

Day 1 [Germany] Making it work with a quick pre-packed meal and quick fresh grocery shopping

Day 1

It’s day one. We just landed. My husband slept maybe one hour and I slept about 2 hours on the 10.5 hour flight. Our daughter has slept about 5 - she usually sleeps for 12. 

Trouble is-a-brewing.

The flight was great, the landing was a bit choppy but we are alive and safe and have all of our luggage. Getting our passport stamped was a breeze. Honestly, the quickest international arrival I’ve had. The rental car pickup was epic! Quick, no line, brand new car and an attendant in the special garage to make sure you are oriented and comfortable with the car (perhaps now is not the time to re-hash that we should ask him for help with the nav and my husband saying no - but yet it took us 30 minutes to try to get the nav from German to English!!). It was about a one hour drive from Frankfurt to Walldorf and my daughter is crying because she went to sleep right when we landed (specifically saying “we are in Germany now. I take a nap.”) and woke up when she realized I was putting her in a car. She’s tired. She’s hungry. She’s in another country!

It takes us about 2 hours to get into our hotel and shower (man we stink!!!) and figure out that the grocery we looked up, Dunns (a “BioMarkt” as they are called here), is about 6 minutes away. We jet over and find that it’s less than we expected (the advertisements online make it seem like our Whole Foods) but we can deal with what they have. 

We buy:

Chicken breast

Mineral Water

Olive oil

Onions

Lettuce

Carrots

Zucchini

Apples

Nectarines

Capers

Olives

Cucumber

Wine - much, much needed wine!

What was surprising about Dunns is there is no meat counter. Cheese and pastries/bread, but no meat counter. We are going to ask our local co-workers, but I think the deal is that folks use a butcher and not a grocery for their meats here. 

Dinner:

1 pack Andean Dream pasta we packed

chicken sauteed with onion, seasoned with salt and olives and capers

[toss with pasta]

onion sauteed with diced carrot and zucchini

The focus here was: 

1. Something quick (this took under 30 minutes)
2. Something balanced (protein, carb, fat and veggies)
3. Something wholesome (nothing refined or packaged)

I will note that next time I will either go alone or send my husband. If you are traveling with a toddler who is jet lagged and/or just pure tired from a plane trip  - don’t take them grocery shopping. Some of you might already know this - I didn’t. So, we were those Americans in the middle of the grocery store begging our daughter to stop screaming when we asked her to not run the mini kid cart into people or the walls and her insisting we don’t tell her what to do - and then my husband was the American carrying the screaming, snotting toddler out the door to cry outside.

I was also the American who didn’t know that groceries in Germany require you to put 1 Euro in this little slot in the grocery cart to ‘borrow’ a cart to do your shopping. Day 1 I just took one that was on the side. Day 2 Ben took a cart from  man who kept hovering and it was about 10 minutes later I noticed “AHHHH ha! there is a Euro in this tiny slot and that is how they get the carts - oh snap Ben! you took that man’s Euro -that is why he was hovering!!!!” #embarrassed  

Everyone was much happier after dinner!

Packing for a Celiac, Toddler and Multiple Food Allergies [Germany]

When my husband first told me he had to go for a minimum of 10 business days to Germany for a business trip, we both panicked a bit - a celiac in Germany (homeland of bread, beer and pastries)?!!?!!

We decided, let's do this together, with our daughter, 2 years old, and get a place with a kitchen - we can totally figure this out...right?

It's not just celiac disease, it's also our daughter's {seemingly random} allergies to different fruits including: mango, any kind of berry, grapes, raisins and banana. And my own sensitivity to dairy, gluten, pork (again - in the homeland of pork - really?!) and anything in the nightshade family (potato, peppers, tomato, goji berries and eggplant) and my husband's secondary allergies to brown rice and eggs from his celiac disease. 

Seems complicated to outsiders, but we manage to eat amazingly well and varied at home - we know we can do this outside our usual shopping routine and access to our normal 'go-to' products. 

I want to inspire others with similar matrices of complicated eating habits to know that you can still have fun in another country, outside your routine and comfort zone with some prep and packing ahead. That is my hope at least!

After a lot of preparation, here's what we pre-packed. Stay tuned for what we actually did in Germany. Note that this amount of food did take almost an entire piece of luggage and we knew we were getting a place with a kitchen, pots, pans, etc..

The items noted with stars are items I specifically packed 2-3 of for each of us on the plane:

[Costco] 3 bags of  Krave turkey jerky [lemon and garlic]

[Amazon] 2 small containers Mana Loa Mac nuts*

[Whole Foods] Nature Valley gluten free chocolate chip granola bars*

[Amazon] 1 whole box of Island fruit leather apricot bars*

[Amazon or Costco now carry 3 lb bags of Nature Valley all natural] Dried apricots and figs

Chocolate bars*

[Costco, Amazon, Whole Foods or New Leaf] Justin Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

[Amazon] Sahale pomegranate cashews*

3 packs Andean Dream quinoa pasta

[GlutenFree Mall] 3 packs rice noodles

[Amazon] 1 pack Bob's Red Mill certified GF Oats

[Amazon] 2 packs GlutenFreeda apple cinnamon instant oatmeal *

[Amazon, New Leaf or Whole Foods] 2 boxes Tanka Bars*

[Amazon] 1.5 boxes Cashew and Sunflower/Chocolate MacroBars*

[Costco] Living Intentions Pumpkin Seeds and Sunflower Seeds

[Amazon] Individual packs of Annie's gluten free vanilla chocolate bunnies*

[Whole Foods or New Leaf] Prunes (excellent for times when you or your little one need a BM)

[Whole Foods or New Leaf] Coconut oil in a plastic container (I plan to pick up olive oil, but coconut oil is so good for you and your skin that it was a great alternative in case we couldn't get to the store or wanted to save money - usually I buy everything in glass but opted for plastic since it would be packed in our bags)

[Whole Foods or New Leaf] Organic peanut butter (in plastic) (again, I opted for plastic because it would be packed. We live off peanut butter as an emergency protein and fat source and Europeans are less keen on PB than us Americans - so to save $$ and hassle, I packed it on my own.)

For spices I did the following: 

Himalayan pink salt

And using Oxo Tot food (toddler) 2 oz food jars I pre-packed a few spice mixes like:

Mustard and cumin seeds (equal parts)

Tumeric and garam masala (1:2 ratio respectively)

Herbs de Provence

Cinnamon

Bauman Spice of Life (nutritional yeast, dill, seaweed mix - high in B vitamins and chromium!)

And separately I packed poultry seasoning, annato seeds and arrowroot powder to make some high seasoned dishes with little effort or packing space. 

My so-called 'natural pharmacy' included a series of teas as well. Here is the list:

1. Green tea: fantastic antioxidant to battle airplane radiation and general flying stress

2. Nettle tea: good to tone the liver and help with detoxification

3. Raspberry leaf: excellent for women and PMS

4. Ginger: good soother for the tummy whether in the air or during the trip

5. Tulsi tea: Amazing at soothing the nervous system from traveling stress (or stress of dealing with a toddler who is jet lagged!) I personally like the sweet rose tulsi tea

Lastly, I love the collapsable silicon lunch plates for travel. I packed each of us rice, chicken/apple sausage, steamed carrots and greens for our dinner (note, dinner was served on the plane - however most airlines will only allow you to request a special meal for ONE type of allergy - so if you are like myself and don't eat gluten and dairy - sorry, out of luck - bring your own). We ate before we boarded and stuffed the containers and lunch bag in the stroller bag. There are several brands offering this now and they are all great. Reviews to come soon. I packed a few extra in our bags to store extra food and lunches for when we go into work as well. 

Stay tuned - we will make this a reality for 3 whole weeks in Germany. You can too!