• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
  • Contributors
  • Work With Us
  • CONTACT US
  • Blog
  • Our Sponsors

CaliforniaGermans

All Things German In California

  • Life in California
    • German Food -Bakeries|Markets|Delis
    • Restaurants – German|Austrian|Swiss
    • German Schools- Kindergarten|PreSchools|GradeSchools|
    • German Clubs & Community
    • German Traditions in CA
    • CA For Kids
    • Tips & Guidelines
    • German Cooking & Baking
    • Events & More
    • KONSULATE
  • Education
    • German Schools SoCal
    • German Schools NorCal
    • Kindergruppen
  • Travel
    • Travel
    • Travel CA
  • Expat Stories
    • XPAT Spotlight
  • Lese-Ecke
  • JOB BOARD
  • Forum

Culture

Happy Holidays!

December 24, 2020 by Cornelia Leave a Comment

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Image: CaliforniaGermans

Filed Under: Culture, News Tagged With: Christmas and holiday season, Christmas recipe, holiday recipes, Holidays

German Movie Nights with telescopefilm

December 5, 2020 by Cornelia Leave a Comment

Ready to turn your home into a German Film Fest for the holidays?

The holidays are usually a great time for some cozy family movie nights. And this year with so many restrictions in place due to the pandemic even more so; movies can transport us into a different world and let us escape these strange times for a good two entertaining hours or more, of course, if you like to binge-watch.

Telescopefilm’s ‘German Films Microsite‘

Justine Barda, CEO of telescopefilm.com, a company that promotes international films to American audiences, teamed up with German Films this year to create a German Films microsite on Telescope. This site offers audiences a database with an abundance of German films and series with information about where to watch them online in the USA.

Check out telescopefilm.com/germanfilms and build your own holiday list today. There are many ways to go about finding the perfect movie. Either choose the search function and look for a particular movie or get some ideas on what to watch by checking out the recommendations at Telescope’s Spotlight, which presents a new themed international film selection every week. 

Either way, you can’t go wrong. Be it a movie from the wide international film selection or one of more than 30,000 German films. The choice is yours.

Here are a couple playlists for certain search terms we tried:

“Weihnachten”: https://telescopefilm.com/search?findfilm=weihnachten&x=0&y=0&searchby=0

“holidays”: https://telescopefilm.com/search?findfilm=holiday&x=0&y=0&searchby=0

Just get the popcorn and you’re ready for the show! Enjoy!

.

Image: Pixabay

Filed Under: Culture, Life in California, News Tagged With: German expat, German films, German movie night, Holidays, telescopefilm

Bavarian Oktoberfest Pork Roast Recipe

September 25, 2020 by Cornelia Leave a Comment

Invite Oktoberfest into your home. The perfect time for a Bavarian Pork Roast.

It’s Oktoberfest time, only that the traditional Oktoberfest in Munich won’t open its doors this year due to the worldwide pandemic. 

We didn’t want this to deter us from enjoying some Oktoberfest vibes, however, and decided to celebrate with a Bavarian Schweinsbraten or also called Krustenbraten; simply a pork roast with a deliciously crunchy, crackling pork rind.

Most of the necessary ingredients are some we usually have at home already, like onions, carrots, and of course beer – lots of it. The challenge you might run into is to get the right cut of pork, particularly one with the skin on! We found the latter to be quite a challenge. 

The perfect cut – Boneless pork shoulder with skin 

After calling the best butchers in town, including some from which restaurants purchase their meat, we learned that we could get a hold of a pork shoulder but only with the bone still in and definitely no skin. One of the butchers even told us that unless we knew some independent, smaller butcher personally we will have a hard time finding a pork roast with the skin on. “It’s just not produced that way here and we all more or less buy from the same meat plant or big suppliers”. 

Aha! Well, our next call was to a German butcher in town. They had to have what I needed, no?

Unfortunately, they didn’t, at least not on the day I wanted it. The lady however gave me a great tip: “Go try Stater Brother’s. Their party roast”. Really!? 

How right she was! Stater Brother’s Party Roast fulfilled at least one crucial part. It’s a pork shoulder with the bone still in but with the skin on. Yay!! My crackling pork rind was saved.

How to get the famous Schweinebratenkruste = crackling pork rind

Now I had my meat and it was time to start preparing our feast. 

The easiest way to give your pork roast’s skin the neatly shaped diamond pattern is to cut it after having put the roast upside down, skin first, into a pot of boiling hot water . Keep the water low so that you immerse only the skin and keep it there for about 15 minutes. After that take the meat out, tap it dry with a piece of kitchen paper and you are ready to get to work. Your knife will glide effortlessly through the pork skin to give it the desired diamond pattern.

Preparing for a hearty beer sauce – Use lots of dark beer

To get the yummy beer sauce that tastes so delicious with potato dumplings, have a few bottles of beer ready to use. 

After you prepared the pork skin (see above), your roast is ready to be put in the oven. Have the oven preheated to about 350 F, season the pork roast on all sides with salt pepper, sweet paprika and cumin, put it in a roaster, and up it goes into the oven with the prepared pork skin facing up.

After the meat has roasted for about 10 minutes, place the onions, leek and carrots around the roast and add the first bottle of beer. Make sure the liquid is about one to two inches high in your roaster, especially covering all the vegetable. (Burnt onions make the beer sauce bitter!)

Keep the pork roast in the oven for about 1 1/2 hours while routinely adding more beer to the liquid.

Finally, to get the beer sauce’s smooth consistency, pour the liquid into a strainer once the roast has finished cooking. You will need the help of a fork to mash and push the vegetable mixture through the strainer. And, voilà, there is your savory beer sauce!

Don’t forget the Knödel & Brezen – Potato Dumplings & Pretzels, a MUST

In the meantime prepare the Knödel, the potato dumplings that make your traditional Schweinbraten- pork roast dish authentic. I didn’t make my Knödel from scratch, I have to admit, but used the “Rohe Klösse” mix, usually from Knorr. In this case, I only found it from Kartoffelland.

The last touch is a Bavarian Brezen (pretzel), which can’t be missing from a feast like this. If you are lucky you will have a German store near you that can help you stock up on this Bavarian treat. You can never have enough of this German staple food in your home anyway!

Your Bavarian Oktoberfest Pork Roast is ready. Sit back, relax, and enjoy your feast with a nice cool glass of beer!

Ingredients for the traditional Bavarian Schweinebraten – Pork Roast 

  • ca. 2 pounds of pork shoulder with skin (preferably without the bone)
  • salt, pepper, sweet paprika, and cumin
  • 1 onion
  • 1 stick of leek 
  • 1 carrot
  • 3-4 bottles of dark beer (what’s not getting used, drink it. Prost!)

Let us know in the comments how your Schweinebraten turned out in case you tried this recipe.

Images: All food images ©CaliforniaGermans; Oktoberfest lettering image©pixabay.com

Filed Under: Culture, German Cooking & Baking, German Foods & Markets, News Tagged With: Bavarian Pork Roast, German recipes, Oktoberfest, Schweinebraten, Tradition

Merry Christmas! Frohe Weihnachten!

December 25, 2019 by Cornelia Leave a Comment

 

santa-claus-2935222_1920.png

Wishing All Of You a Very Merry Christmas with happy hours of being together with your loved ones!

christmas-4668747_1920

Frohe Weihnachten! Frohes Fest!

 

Image: Pixabay byJo-Band aga2rk

 

Filed Under: Culture, News Tagged With: Christmas, Merry Christmas, Nikolaus, tistheseason, Weihnachten, Weihnachtsmann

“Liberty Train – Next Stop Freedom” DocuDrama at Alpine Village

November 11, 2019 by Cornelia Leave a Comment

Commemorating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall the Consulate General of Germany and the German American School Association invite to a special film screening of “Liberty Train – Next Stop Freedom” at the Alpine Village, Sunday, November 17th, 2019.

The documentary reconstructs historical events that started with Hans Dietrich Genscher’s announcement on September 30, 1989, that the East German refugees occupying the West German embassy in Prague were allowed to leave for West Germany. Special trains should bring the refugees from Prague to West Germany but via the GDR. Dramatic events happen when the trains travel through East Germany, with people trying to jump onto the ‘Train to Freedom’ to the passengers inside fearing they would be taken off the train when Stasi members are getting on the train and start collecting passports.

[Read more…] about “Liberty Train – Next Stop Freedom” DocuDrama at Alpine Village

Filed Under: Culture, Life in California, News Tagged With: Berlin Wall, documentary, East Germany, GASA German American School Association, GDR, Liberty Train. Next Stop Freedom, Zug in die Freiheit

“In The Aisles”, German Movie Opens in Los Angeles in June

May 31, 2019 by Cornelia Leave a Comment

In the Aisles, a German drama film directed by Thomas Stuber opens in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Royal on Friday, June 21. We have two pairs of tickets to Give Away! Details below!

In the Aisles gives an affecting and bittersweet glimpse into the shared connections of a motley group of nightshift workers at a warehouse superstore, with the reclusive Christian (Franz Rogowski, TRANSIT) and the charming but mysterious Marion (Sandra Hüller, TONI ERDMANN).

“The story’s main focus is Christian (Rogowski), a tattoo-covered loner with a troubled past and a socially awkward manner that borders on autism. Christian has just begun his probation period as a shelf stacker at an unnamed warehouse superstore in a faceless East German backwater town. His avuncular mentor is old lag Bruno (Peter Kurth), a chess-loving ex-trucker who misses the mundane certainties of the former Communist era. The young rookie also develops a shy crush on Marion (Huller), a flirtatious married woman 10 years his senior whose abusive husband commonly features in hushed workplace gossip.” (excerpt Hollywoodreporter.com)

TICKET GIVE-AWAY – If you would like to be one of the first to watch this movie then send us an email with “In the Aisles” in the subject line, letting us know that you would like to be considered. We will give away 2 pairs of tickets to 2 lucky winners out of the first 10 people emailing us. The winners will be informed by the end of next week per email. Good Luck!

“In the Aisles” is in German with English subtitles. It will open in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Royal on Friday, June 21.

Buy Tickets Here: http://gwi.io/oovflj

Image & YouTube: ©MusicBoxFilms

Filed Under: Culture, News Tagged With: film drama, German movie, In the Aisles, Laemmle Royal Los Angeles

“A Tale of Two Émigrés” – Arnold Schoenberg & Erich Wolfgang Korngold at Pittance Chamber Music

May 23, 2019 by Cornelia Leave a Comment

A Tale of Two Émigrés with James Conlon presented by the Pittance Chamber Music

Pittance Chamber Music, known for featuring the extraordinary resident artists of the Los Angeles Opera pit and stage, presents A Tale of Two Émigrés with James Conlon. LA Opera Music Director James Conlon curates and conducts a unique program that tells the tale of Jewish émigré composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Arnold Schoenberg, who left their homelands and ultimately settled in Los Angeles as a result of the Nazis’ rise to power. The program will include a talk by Maestro Conlon, who will also conduct works by Korngold and Schoenberg performed by a large ensemble from the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra. The concert takes place at Zipper Hall, Colburn School in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2019 at 3:00 p.m.

This special program features E.W. Korngold’s Sextet, Op. 10 and Arnold Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony #1, Op. 9. According to Lisa Sutton, Pittance Chamber Music Artistic Director, “Both pieces are extraordinary masterpieces of late romanticism, requiring a high level of virtuosity from the performers.”

James Conlon, Music Director of Los Angeles Opera and Principal Conductor of the Italian RAI National Symphony Orchestra, is one of the world’s most important and successful advocates for the music of composers suppressed during the Nazi regime. He is the founder of the OREL Foundation, an organization created to encourage interest in and, especially, the performance of works by composers suppressed as a result of Nazi policies from 1933 to 1945 in order to allow the greater musical community of today and tomorrow the opportunity to determine the place of these composers and their works in the history and canon of twentieth-century music.

Lisa Sutton, Artistic Director and Assistant Concertmaster of the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra founded the Pittance Chamber Music in 2013.

Single tickets for A Tale of Two Émigrés with James Conlon are $10. Tickets are available online at PittanceChamberMusic.org or at the venue on the day of the concert if tickets remain. Zipper Hall is located at the Colburn School, 200 South Grand Avenue, downtown Los Angeles, 90012.

WHAT:
 A Tale of Two Émigrés with James Conlon. (Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Arnold Schoenberg). The program will include a talk by Conlon, who will also conduct works by Korngold and Schoenberg performed by a large ensemble consisting of members of the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra.

WHEN:
Saturday, June 15, 2019
 at 3:00 p.m.

WHERE:
Zipper Hall, Colburn School
200 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90012

PROGRAM:

E.W. KORNGOLD                  Sextet, Op. 10
ARNOLD SCHOENBERG     Chamber Symphony #1, Op. 9.

TICKETS:
Single tickets $10

Information:  
www.PittanceChamberMusic.org

Image ©Los Angeles Opera

Filed Under: Culture, News Tagged With: A Tale of two Emigres, Arnold Schoenber, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, James Conlon, Los Angeles Opera, Pittance Chamber Music

Frohe Ostern – Happy Easter

April 21, 2019 by Cornelia Leave a Comment

Osterhäschen

(Ein Gedicht von Friedrich Güll, 1812-1879)

Drunten an der Gartenmauer
hab’ ich sehn das Häslein lauern.
eins, zwei, drei: legt’s ein Ei,
lang wird’s nimmer dauern.

Kinder, lasst uns niederducken!
Seht ihr’s ängstlich um sich gucken?
Ei, da hüpft’s und dort schlüpft’s
durch die Mauerlucken.

Und nun sucht in allen Ecken,
wo die schönsten Eier stecken,
rot und blau, und grün und grau
und mit Marmorflecken.

(Friedrich Güll)

Image: Pixabay.com

.

Filed Under: Culture, News Tagged With: Easter, Frohe Ostern, Ostergedicht, Ostern, poem

“So Ein Theater!” – The latest production by the German Theatre Group of San Diego

March 15, 2019 by Cornelia Leave a Comment

Vorhang Auf! It’s time for another production by the German Theatre Group of San Diego: “So Ein Theater – Oh, What Drama!” plays April 13 & 14 only!

Be prepared for an evening of German Cabaret about the quirks of daily life! Funny and thought-provoking skits and musical numbers about work, kids & family and getting older.

Tickets: General Admission $14 – Student (with ID) $10 – At the door (limited availability) $16 – Get your Ticket here!

The German Theatre Group of San Diego started out with “Ein Abend mit Loriot” (famous German comedian), which premiered in 2017 to a packed house in San Diego. This was followed by “So Ist Das Leben! (That’s Life) – A German Cabaret” in April 2018.  The cabaret-style skits, poems, and musical numbers from well-known German authors took a humorous, sarcastic, and fresh look at modern life. Tickets to the two performances sold out weeks before the opening night, which means the productions resonate with the German community and beyond.

Founded in October 2016 by Astrid Ronke, the group is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization and part of the German American Societies of San Diego.

Image: Pixabay

Filed Under: Culture, News Tagged With: Cabaret, CaliforniaGermans, German expats, German theatre, German Theatre Group of San Diego

German Composers Fill the Air – L.A. Phil Concerts in Los Angeles

February 15, 2019 by Cornelia Leave a Comment

Ready to brighten up your day with some classical music by German composers? February and March, the LA Phil have special German programming in place for you!

Check out the upcoming concerts below and note that violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter will be in town on March 6th!

Anne-Sophie Mutter • Lambert Orkis – MAR 6 – 
[Read more…] about German Composers Fill the Air – L.A. Phil Concerts in Los Angeles

Filed Under: Culture, Life in California, News Tagged With: Anne-Sophie Mutter, German composers, German Concerts, Gustavo Dudamel, LA Phil, LA Philharmonics, Violinist

  • Page 1
  • Page 2
  • Page 3
  • …
  • Page 22
  • Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Follow Us Online

  • Bloglovin
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Join us on Facebook

Join us on Facebook

Subscribe to our News

Featured Sponsors

Notice

Please note that CaliforniaGermans is not affiliated with the California Staatszeitung. Thank you!

Featured Post –

Christmas cookies - California

Zimt Bakery ships Christmas Plätzchen in California

No time to bake “Weihnachtsplätzchen”? No problem. Let Zimt Bakery take care of it this year! The … [Read More...] about Zimt Bakery ships Christmas Plätzchen in California

Featured Posts – Travel

Traveling in Times of Covid-19: Regulations & more

Are you unsure if you can travel to Germany this summer? What about your … [Read More...] about Traveling in Times of Covid-19: Regulations & more

  • Travel As a Dual Citizen. Do You Know Which Passport to Use When?

More Posts from this Category

Follow us on Twitter

My Tweets

Advertisements

RSS DW-Top News Germany

  • German police arrest 20 suspects in drug raids
    The alleged offenders are accused of importing tons of drugs from southern Europe to sell in Germany, including cannabis as well as cocaine smuggled from South America.
  • Germany to implement supply chain law against exploitation
    Few German companies are ensuring basic labor and human rights standards are respected in the supply chain. Germany will now introduce a law obliging companies to take responsibility.

Footer

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

important links

Privacy

Terms & Disclosure

Copyright

©2009-2020 CaliforniaGermans. All Rights Reserved

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Privacy Policy

Categories

Archives

Work with Us

RSS Links

  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments

Newsletter

Follow Us

  • Bloglovin
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2021 · News Pro on Genesis Framework · Log in