Thomas Huber and the Deutsch Team

A cunning linguist, I am not however I do consider myself pretty slick in the arts of speech. I started learning my first foreign language when I was 12 in Ms. Osmond's Spanish class. To this day I can say two things, "puerto ir al quarto de banjo per favor" which means "can I go to the bathroom" and "tu es muey picano in el pantalones", which means you are small in the pants. I'll thank my brother and his friend taunting me in spanish outside church one day for that one. I never really got any good at spanish, although it's pretty easy to pick up I'd imagine.

I started seriously studying German in high school and got pretty good with it. I was one of the best in my class for a while and was able to read some pretty tough elementary stuff. I think it was easy because I just thought it was like English but with different rules. Why bother to ask why than to just accept the grammar or whatever for what it is? That's what I believe.

With that, today I bought a ticket to Paris, France (no relation to Germany...well) today for vacation. With that, a trip to Austria is in order and I can test out my German I have totally neglected for 6 years. My friend who I am visiting, is also good with languages and can speak french and japanese very well. I could speak German at one time, so I've added another insomniac adventure to my collection:

yes, you did this too one day.

It's really not that hard. I thought that I would've had to start from square one with this German thing, but it's amazing how much I feel like I've remembered. Don't mistake me for David Hasselhoff, but I think I can get around a pretty good amount. This book set that my uncle had at one time even comes with 4 cassette tapes. Christ, how am I going to play this thing?

German lost to Japanese when I was a jr . in high school. I still got better at German but Japanese really took a stronger hold and started to interfere with it. I could hardly think of German sentences without them turning into Japanese. Germapanese? Ich habe 学校 jetzt. 行こうか？

Dessert for Breakfast at 4am

If you couldn't tell, I am on quite the pancake binge right now. My late night meals once consisted of easy mac, off-brand turkey lunchables (because the crackers are king) and beer. However, I felt as a project to myself I should teach myself a good breakfast round-up to be some sort of "Father of the Year" figure when I'm 45. Until then, I'm still 8 years old and I love candy for breakfast.

Heath Pancakes w/ Salty caramel syrup

part of any balanced insomniac's diet

To this date, I think these were the best tasting. If I opened a restaurant and happened to be a guest there, I would make these my usual. Mark, you make the best pancakes...I know. Since I have been cooking a lot more lately to bolster up some skill there, making pancakes again was pretty easy. I used a different recipe (to this day I spell it recepie and have to spell check it) that was a bit thicker than my ol' school pancakes or the matcha ones.

Salty, Buttery goodness...

Making the caramel syrup wasn't even that hard. I was freaked out when I read in the receipes (dammit, did it again) said that it violently bubbled when you added water to the caramelized sugar. Really underrated there, although it was pretty hot. I didn't have heavy cream to add to the sauce so I subbed out whole milk and a little extra butter. The result was a more viscous syrup...big plus for splashing on pancakes.

Heath Pancakes

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 bag of Heath (at least a half bag!)

In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Combine eggs, milk and oil; add to dry ingredients and mix well. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour the batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto a lightly greased hot griddle. Turn when bubbles form on top; cook until second side is golden brown. Serve hot and garnish with whipped cream, heath bits and caramel syrup.

Salty Caramel syrup

• 6 Tbl butter
• 3/4 Cup sugar
• 1 Cup heavy cream (I used whole milk and 2 tbsp butter)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt (I went a little bit higher on this one)

IHOP beware, I'm crushing the pancake scene in BG for now...but who knows?! Wouldn't it be sweet to own a pancake shop? Until then, I gotta get my late night on!

Backstage Passes Still Available!

Air drumming, the true trainer and annoyance to many. This I can accredit to my superior late night awesome rock band drumming. I remember a trip I took in the 8th grade to Hilton Head and me and my buddy would not stop fake drumming on the back seats of the van. I got pretty good at doing a bass pedal like but got on a hell of a lot of nerves.

With that I recently purchased Rock Band 3 for the keyboard...however I can say that I'm quite the versatile digital musician. Drums are easily my best however I haven't purchased the new pro set (which I'm sure isn't that hard anyway). So after my first late night binge and test to see if I drive the neighbors crazy with my "rat ta tat tat", I played Huey Lewis and the News --

Wait a minute, Doc. Ah... Are you telling me that you built a time machine... out of a DeLorean?

I think that I've played that song twice and got the 100%. Granted it's piss easy, I think it's pretty impressive! I've built myself up to the top 11% of drummers out there so UNH! haha -- I really dig this song for it's pure 80's awesomeness. Keys, the sweet bridge, the big chorus!? Sign me up for neon colors any day!

Keytar for sure is the next big obstacle to climb and with that I hardly have any experience. I have a keyboard I got for my 16th birthday that I've memorized a few songs for but I can sight read about as good as a blind man playing tetris. Do they even sell keytars anymore?

The Blue Album

Christmas of 1994, my brother and I got the Weezer self-title album otherwise known as the "Blue Album". I loved that song Buddy Holly and couldn't get enough of a few of the other tracks on there when I was young. Now, from time to time I dig through my old cd's and listen to all of the songs I used to throw on repeat x83,819 times and make it 83,820. I did this in the 8th grade and absolutely fell head over heels for the band and even named a screen name, Weezer Rockr, for my love and affection of the band.

One track stood out above all of the rest as my all time favorite Weezer songs...that is "No One Else". I thought I'd showcase my skills on the guitar this time and rock it out!



Great song....great band sans pork & beans, malidroit, and every other album released after green...but that's beside the point. They have fun doing what they're doing and I'm satisfied with blue, pinkerton and green :) =w=

Bob Marley Live -- Late Rasta night

Huge fan of music...love it and couldn't live without it. Like many of you, I listen to it when I can and I am usually caught singing to myself everywhere. I think VH1 had some lame-ass show where they caught people giving the best live show to their windshield on camera. That's probably me and I sell out that crowd DAILY. On to the real live show...

I recently had a great find from a family friend -- a HUGE collection of classic vinyl's all for sale and most of them $5! She had everything from Jethro Tull to Michael Jackson to the majority of The Beatles...you name it! One of the ones I requested for purchase was a Bob Marley live album called "Bob Marley and the Wailers LIVE!" Yes, the title says it all, "Bob Marley Live" and that's a lot of what you get!



I really dug "Them Belly Full" on side one...I think it's the best one played on the album, although "No Woman, No Cry" gets the most credit. I really dig the vibe and the lyrics:

Forget your troubles and dance,
Forget your sorrows and dance,
Forget your sickness and dance,
Forget your weakness and dance

Well put Bob. Although I dance like a white boy from the 80's, you can really forget all the bad when you let loose. The interaction between the background singers and Bob is awesome...you can really feel the flow of the reggae. Awesome vocals here. Perhaps it's just a placebo effect but I feel that the sound really fills the room with this record player and it makes all the difference for this live album. I've got quite a few Bob Marley live tracks around but they don't sound nearly as good as this. RASTAFARIIII!!! (they just screamed that on the record haha)

What you spinnin' mon?

Until the next late night!

Matcha Pancakes

So working second shift and having this uncanny ability to only fall asleep at 6am makes me usually eat my heaviest meal at about 4:30am. So one night after a 12 hour shift, I decided that I was really hungry but remembered I hadn't been to the store for something like 2 weeks. My strategy at eating all the canned goods that have been in my pantry for what seems like years looked impossible at that time. I looked in the fridge only to be pleasantly surprised. BACON. Now this was a full pound of bacon and I thought "This would be amazing to have a pound of bacon as a meal...but I'm sure I'll have the war of the pigs in my stomach the whole night". Having realized this, I thought of my favorite meal: BREAKFAST.

Pancakes are so flippin' easy to make it's not even funny. Thanks to my good friend who has long since moved to Osaka, I scored this kick-ass griddle that I cook my flapjacks on. Today I was feeling saucy so I looked in my cooking cabinet and pulled out some Matcha (green tea) powder. I would have to say this is easily my favorite flavor of anything in the dessert realm so I figured I could make a pretty decent breakfast using this:

Full view of Matcha Pancakes with Anzuki spread, Salt & Pepper Bacon
This was from the 2nd time I made it with more matcha taste (way better)

Matcha Pancakes:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 4 tablespoon matcha (green tea) powder
  
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted
• Anzuki (red bean) sauce/paste (mine came with the powder but you can buy the paste as well)
  

1. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Stir matcha powder with milk and set aside. Make a well in the center and pour in the matcha milk, egg and melted butter; mix until smooth.
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.
3. Drizzle anzuki sauce over top of hotcakes. Serve with powdered sugar and syrup.

I usually get about 8-9 good pancakes out of this recipe. They're plump and fluffy and really don't get incredibly soggy. That's a definite plus to these since they have the Anzuki on top.

Hell of a breakfast and really light too. It felt like a dessert pancake without all of the sweetness added to it. I really recommend pouring syrup on these as well since it has a nice bond with the anzuki sauce. These are definitely a fav of mine! Some east meets west action for breakfast!!