Beethoven and Baking Bread

   As far as traveling goes, I’ve spent this past week pretty close-to-home, but that doesn’t mean it’s been uneventful. The beginning of the week I spent just going to classes, keeping up with running, and doing stuff around the house. I’m really glad that my individual student lecture presentation is over. Now I just have to catch up on some physiology reading, and I’ll be set. Back at home, Andrea and my host mom took it upon herself to educate us in the art of baking the fresh bread that we’ve been enjoying since arriving here. It is always incredibly delicious, and the smell of fresh-baked bread spreading through the whole house is amazing! Since it is sourdough bread, and Frau Mehlis (our host mom) doesn’t use yeast, getting the dough just right can take the better part of a week. In case anyone is feeling industrious enough to try it out, I thought I’d include the recipe:

- Mix ½ - ¾ cup of fresh-ground, whole-grain rye with water until it’s the consistency of oatmeal
- Add rye and water every day for 4 days, in increasing amounts until you have as much dough as you want
- Add 800 g of rye and 800 mL of water and cover for 8-12 hours
- Add 250 g of rye, 80 mL of water, 1 tsp. of honey and 1 tbsp. of salt to the mix
- Add desired flavoring (poppy seeds, sunflower seeds, dried tomatoes, spices, etc…)
- Knead the dough
- Put the dough in bread pans coated with butter and bread crumbs
- Seal pans in plastic bag for 3-5 hours
- Bake at 225°C for 25 min
- Bake at 160°C for 20 min
- Take bread out of pans and bake at 160°C for 20 min
Voila! I had a lot of fun trying it out.

   Andrea’s grandparents arrived in Bonn this past Monday, and I met them today as they did some more sightseeing. I had walked by the Beethoven house before in the group tours when we first got to Bonn, but when we went back today, I got to go in and look around. It was really neat, and there were a ton of paintings and musical score sheets. They even had the organ console and some of the pianos and orchestral instruments that Beethoven had played and practiced on. It puts me to shame that he was playing pieces at six years old that I could only stumble through now, but hey—I guess that’s one of the many reasons he’s so famous. It had been snowing before we’d gone into the house, but by the time we came out, everything was pretty much blanketed in white. It’s funny, because back home everyone remarks on how late in the year it is when it snows near Valentine’s Day, and how we should be getting into warmer weather. Here, although maybe a bit colder than normal, no one is expecting any sort of winter reprieve for another couple of months. At least this way, there’s a valid reason for drinking hot chocolate and sitting around the fireplace well into March. (That’s what I plan on doing.)