Germany | Enchanted Seashells by Princess Rosebud

Before there were the Angels 2.0, there was the brilliant original version. As I’ve often said, I wasn’t a helicopter mom, I was a drone mom, hovering ever so near…

During his junior year at university, my son signed up for a three-month program in Germany to perfect his language skills.

We discussed it and agreed the better idea would be to take the full year abroad to completely immerse himself in the language and culture. (And that’s totally NOT what a drone mom would do, by the way…)

He stayed in a dorm and went to the UCSD program partner at University of Goettingen.

I visited him for about a week in February of that year. We spent a lot of time walking and and took a couple train rides to the Harz region, including Goslar, a historic town in Lower Saxony, Germany, known for its medieval old town and half-timbered houses. We took the Harzer Schmalspurbahnen, Germany’s famous narrow-gauge steam railway. (That’s another story.)

I brought back some of what that area is known for, a bewitching elixer called Harzgeist. It’s similar to Jagermeister, but more herby and spicy and incredibly delicious. I wish I had some now!

One day, my son said it would be fun to take a hike to visit a nearby castle. He assured me that it was about four hours round-trip, and I believed him because we could see the castle off in the distance.

Somehow we ended up walking through what looked to be a dense forest of mature pine trees. Were we lost? I’m still not sure. When we finally found our way back to the road, I looked up and saw, off in the distance, a sky full of ominous looking clouds.

“Hey, those look like snow clouds to me. How far are we from the castle?”

I asked the question because we had been walking non stop for a couple hours and we seemed to be no closer to the castle then when we first started out.

“It’s not far, let’s keep going.”

“Are you sure?”

With a sense of unease and foreboding, I had no choice but to follow his lead. Not only did I not know where I was, I couldn’t speak German at all, and my son was fluent.

A few minutes later, I insisted we stop and eat the lunch I had packed. I spotted a bench and we sat down.

I looked up and said, “I told you so” as the first giant snowflakes came down. It didn’t take long before the wind picked up and the fluffy snowflakes turned from a gentle dusting to a full on, blinding blizzard.

In just a few minutes, we were covered in snow. The bench was covered in snow, inches of the white stuff. I refused to walk any further to this non-existent mirage of a castle, and we headed back to Goettingen. We could barely see the road and I hesitatingly trusted my son that he knew where we were going.

I took a picture of us so we’d never forget, and every once in a while I’ll remind him of the time he should have listened to me when I told him there was an approaching storm.

By the way, that castle (can’t remember the name) was actually more than TWENTY MILES away, and there’s no way in the world we could have day hiked there. Later, my son laughingly told me he biked there and it was awesome…uh, thanks a LOT, Angel Boy!

I wish all of you could taste a freshly picked juicy loquat. It’s not a kumquat or even a distant relation… I posted a pic of our loquat tree on my Facebook page and was really surprised to learn how many have never tasted this juicy sweet fruit.

Thin velvety skin embraces yellowy orange flesh that tastes like a cross between an apricot and a peach.

If you have a chance to try them, just remember, the seeds are extremely toxic! They contain many toxic alkaloids like cyanogen-glycosides.

Loquats grow all over my SoCal neighborhood — everyone seems to have at least one or two trees and they’re very prolific producers — but no one knows what to do with them, which is really too bad because they’re full of nutrition.

Low in calorie,, rich in insoluble dietary fiber; pectin.
Excellent source of vitamins A and C, rich in potassium and some B-complex vitamins such as folates, vitamin B-6, and niacin.

Plus, loquat jam is delicious.

A couple days ago, I made a batch of loquat jam with this simple recipe:

Loquat Jam

Time: overnight
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Directions:

In a large pot, add…

Twelve cups seeded loquats.
Leave the skins on but cut off the blossom end.
Five to six cups of sugar.
I used white sugar, but I’m sure you could play around with the amounts and use agave nectar or honey.
Two tablespoons cinnamon. Loquats are slightly bland and really respond well to spices. Pour over enough water to cover the fruit.
Cover with a lid, quickly bring to a boil, and allow to boil for five minutes.
Turn down the flame to simmer, uncover, and cook for a couple of hours, stirring with a wooden spoon so it doesn’t burn.
After a couple hours or so, take an immersion blender pureed the fruit (the skins disappear), and continued to cook for another hour.
After tasting it, I added a bit more cinnamon and three tablespoons of lemon juice which really helped the flavors develop.
I wanted to turn it more apple butter-like and thick, so I carefully poured it into a crockpot and let it cook on low all night.
In the morning, wash canning jars and lids with hot soapy water, rinse with hot water. Fill jars with hot jam and put the lids on, but don’t tighten too much. As the jam cools, you’ll hear popping sounds which means the lids are sealing. When the jars are cool to touch, tighten the lids a bit more and refrigerate.