Regensblog

Got inspired to try this one after Carolyn and Max sent over some links to the Food Network’s “Good Eats” show on YouTube. I’d read others’ raves about Alton Brown and the show, and I guess it’s a good thing I haven’t discovered the show until now. Neat stuff to be seen, then prepared, then enjoyed.

As usual, there are some recipe fluctuations to be had here, due to availability of ingredients and the particulars of our kitchen. I’m posting our adaptation, but you should compare it with the original if you’re interested in the famous version. Generally we try to stay true to the original, but sometimes that results in less than appetizing results.

There was a learning curve on several fronts in effect. That’s part of the reason why it took us ALL FREAKIN’ DAY to hack up that coconut, make the cake, let it cool, hook up the frosting. And the icing on the cake — so to speak — is that we can’t fit the cake in our cake transporter into the fridge to cool off. It (the transporter, not the cake itself) is too big. So our cake won’t get the chill it richly deserves before we try it out for dessert tonight (and breakfast tomorrow?).

Oh, and speaking of breakfast tomorrow: if you have to tap into a new can of coconut cream just to make this (or another recipe) and end up with some left over, fear not! Substitute it in for cream for a delightfully tropical twist to your morning coffee. On with the show!

• 1 coconut, see Cook’s Note

For the cake:
• 14 1/4 ounces flour, plus extra for pans, approximately 3 cups (can’t seem to find any flour with a lower number than 405 at the Edeka near us)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt (kosher salt? I could swear I’ve seen it here in Regensburg, but we couldn’t find it today when looking for it)
• 1/2 cup fresh coconut milk (we used canned stuff)
• 1/2 cup fresh coconut cream (we used canned stuff) – not to be confused with Cream of Coconut!
• 8 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
• 16 ounces sugar, approximately 2 1/4 cups
• 1 teaspoon coconut extract (we couldn’t find anything like this at the Asian market near us, nor the smaller supermarket — maybe Kaufland? The lady at the Asian market broke into her suprisingly good English (not at our request) to explain that she knew what we were looking for but that it’s hard to find in Germany…wonder why?! Anyway, we had to replace this ingredient with vanilla extract entirely.)
• 4 egg whites
• 1/3 cup coconut water

For the 7-Minute Frosting:
• 3 large egg whites
• 12 ounces sugar, approximately 1 3/4 cups
• 1/3 cup coconut water
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt (same deal with the kosher salt as above)
• 1 teaspoon coconut extract
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (we beefed this up to a whole teaspoon since we didn’t have any coconut extract…hope the coconut flavor doesn’t get overwhelmed by vanilla)
• Grated coconut from 1 coconut, approximately 8 to 10 ounces

Cook’s Note: To open a coconut: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Place the coconut onto a folded towel set down in a large bowl. Find the 3 eyes on 1 end of the coconut and using a nail or screwdriver and hammer or meat mallet, hammer holes into 2 of the eyes. Turn the coconut upside down over a container and drain the water from the coconut. Store the water in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week. Place the coconut onto a 1/2 sheet pan and bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven. The coconut should have cracked in several places. Using an oyster knife or other dull blade, separate the hard shell from the brown husk. Using a serrated vegetable peeler, peel the brown husk from the coconut meat. Rinse the coconut meat under cool water and pat dry. Break the meat into 2 to 3-inch pieces. With the grater disk attached to a food processor, grate the coconut.

That SO didn’t work as planned.

• We didn’t get nearly as much coconut water as expected out of ours. The recipe calls for one coconut and 1/3 cup coconut water. I reckon we got a couple tablespoons, max. And that was after selecting the single juiciest-sounding coconut at the store.
• Baking the coconut as instructed yielded no cracks to speak of and I absolutely couldn’t wedge a cheap, blunt, old knife into the outer shell. It just wouldn’t work. So we had to resort to the web. Thankfully, Sarah found this guide to bashing open a coconut. Method #1 worked for us; which is good because we don’t really have any concrete steps or curbs to do our prep work on.
• The hopper on our food processor lost its plunger a ways back due to mysterious cracks. Consequently we’ve been grating stuff in our food processor with either the weight of the food-to-be-grated as the downward force or by carefully grinding it (carrots for example, when we’re making plov) down as far as we we dare skewered on the end of a fork. That was tricky this time because of the density (lower than a carrot), flexibility (moreso than a carrot) and shape (less fitting to the shape of our hopper) of the coconut flesh pieces. Somehow we managed to get it done, but there was a fair amount of coconut strewn about the kitchen.

For the cake:

Frosting:

OK, as mentioned above we couldn’t get our cake to fit in the fridge to chill and with the weather recently an outside chill is also not an option. Maybe this cake is a better winter option for us just for that reason. We could have maybe sliced our single layer rectangle in two pieces to create a layer and use up our extra frosting that way (and why oh why do we habitually have about twice as much frosting as we need?!), but we definitely wouldn’t have had enough coconutty fluffy love to spread around two layers. Therefore: next time TWO coconuts suffer the vengeful wrath of the blunt side of my cheap Chinese cleaver — and maybe we’ll get enough coconut water out that way — and maybe we’ll get someone to smuggle some coconut extract into the country for us (100ml is still carry-on-safe!). And then we can try this whole thing again from the start.

Good news and bad news.

A colleague visiting from the U.S. brought us two twelve-packs — one each of Dr Pepper and Mug Root Beer. How cool is that? I’m having a cold Dr Pepper right now. It’s the first one in I don’t know how long. And it’s not even a fountain drink from one of the local Subway restaurants (you can get Barq’s there, but the mix is usually off). Given that we even dilute fruit juice with fizzy water to make Schorles, a full-strength cold Dr Pepper is knocking my socks off.

But that’s not the only of my senses to be teased with a twist of Americana this evening. We just got back from an OV* showing of the most recent (last? please?) installment of the Indiana Jones movie series.

Boo.

There, got that done. OK, ok…it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared, but it wasn’t as good as I’d dared hope. I think I liked it better when it was about pirates, not conquistadors, and the Fratellis were chasing the protagonists instead of the Russians. And yeah, I know both movies were Spielberg vehicles. That’s why there was a smart-aleck kid constantly combing his hair in both.

Oh, and remember that wacked-out Act III of AI? It’s here, too.

Hoo, lots of neat places to check out coming up soon.

August 8th: Hannover (this one’s partly work-related)
August 15th: Zurich (this one’s partly ex-work related)
October 2nd-9th: Southern Ireland

Who’s got recommendations for the Maschseefest? We’ve never been to Hannover at all. We’ll be arriving by train, but other than that, we’re clueless. Fortunately, someone else is taking the lead on this one.

View Larger Map

The Zurich trip is with friends with a car who are allowing us to tag along. We’ll all crash at another friend’s apartment in Zurich, presumably downtown. I bet Jul’s got tons of good tips to impart for the small group with only a weekend to spend in Zurich…right? *hint*hint*

View Larger Map

The Ireland trip is something we’ve wanted to do ever since asking for — and receiving, thanks Susie! — our Frommer’s Ireland 2004 book. We’ll be flying into Cork from Munich, spending a few days there, heading out via rented car to Kenmare, driving around, staying at a B’n'B, driving back, and flying home.

View Larger Map

We’ve got a little page devoted to the trip here. Suggestions welcome!

Not talking about tonight’s soccer game!

Christina organized not just a monthly dinner for local and more distant expatriates in the area, but a whole WEEKEND this time. Sarah took over the reigns for the welcoming committee at Alte Linde as previously documented here, and last night we tried out a new Italian joint over on the Wöhrd, and tonight was the kicker — the EuroCup 2008 baseball tournament, hosted by Regensburg.

It was a pretty good game. As you can see in the photos below, great seats were not hard to come by. The Armin-Wolf-Arena is really working the small-town ballpark feel. The quality of play wasn’t comparable with something you’d expect from an MLB game in North America, but we didn’t head in there looking for that. What surprised us (pleasantly!) was the relaxed, low-key, have a good time atmosphere. And we did.

Tim Russert died recently. He hosted a news/politics show on an American TV network, a show that I’ve admittedly never watched, and he apparently died rather unexpectedly. Sounds sad, like it would be for anyone with a personal connection to him. But I have some honest questions: why have there been three segments on Larry King Live about this? How is it relevant to CNN International’s web or television viewing audience? I don’t get it.

I don’t watch a lot of German TV. In fact, I don’t watch a lot of any TV*, which is included in our cable package as part of our rent (and we pay into the GEZ just like we’re supposed to). But I can’t shake the impression that other cultures wouldn’t flood television or other information sources talking about the death of a person with a similar role.

I mean, do Germans even know the names of their nightly newscasters if you stop them on the street and ask? Maybe they do (but I sure don’t). But I really wonder if this is a particularly American phenomenon. Maybe I’m losing touch with my own roots the longer we live over here, or maybe the limited TV exposure (thanks Mom and Dad) at home growing up didn’t foster a perceived personal connection to the voices and faces in the glowing box. Is this perceived personal connection, or the implication of its existence, a symptom of something very unsettling in modern popular American culture?

I guess what I’m asking is:

• Have kids grown up with so much television exposure that there is a personal connection to media personalities? Of course it’s a one-way street, so how sick is that? I’m guessing television watching hasn’t decreased at all since the time my skull was still soft, so what are the implications for today’s kids?

• Is it important for Pfizer, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKlineBeechWellcome and the like that you are fully aware of the Tim Russert tragedy so that you can ask your doctor* about their exciting new product lines designed to keep you — and your other TV-family members — safe from circulatory system problems?

Now that I’m complaining about the media coverage on the media coverage, it feels like I’m part of the problem, and I’m getting a little woozy from looking into that infinite series of mirrors.

Time to head out to the ol’ ballpark. Stay tuned.

Sarah organized an evening out at Alte Linde which really hit the spot after closing out the work week. We were looking forward to perhaps exposing the less local people to Alte Linde who haven’t been there before, but in the end it turned out to be all locals or local expatriates who showed up (most were familiar to us but there were a few new faces too). It was a little bumpy at the beginning with the reservation (click that to see our review and get the details) but it worked out in the end.

Tonight we’re scheduled for dinner at some Italian place on the island and we’ve signed up tomorrow for the final game in the tournament. Hope the weather stays as good as it is right now.

P.S. — No hot dogs at the ol’ ballpark, but you can get a Bratwurstsemmel, according to Christina and Rainer. I guess that’s close enough.

Hidden in this mosaic are several pictures of someone you may have seen a lot of this week and/or in 2006 and/or a front man for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Can you spot them?

OK, seriously, since the World Cup stuff in 2006 it has been bugging the heck out of me to figure out

• who that soccery guy with the terrible haircut is, and
• don’t I know his son from somewhere?

Finally cracked the code this evening.