Auf Kippe. Tilt windows. They rock! You can either swing each window wide like a door, or you can tilt them like this for a smaller breeze. I have installed screens so no bugs can get in - insect screens are not common here.In this photo you can see the temperature - in Celsius. I'm learning it.
Kuehlschrank. There is my fridge door with a mini milk - the grocery stores only sell milk in 1 liters. If you have a big family, I guess you just have to buy several of these. You will see my warning sign, in case my man tries to drink the homemade grapejuice that his parents made for us from our grapes. It has been in the fridge 9 months, it is likely deadly, but my man wants it still. Another ex-pat mentioned recently how people reuse bottles to do their canning. It freaks me out a little but here we have it - this juice is in a salad dressing bottle. That is not the real number for Poison Control, btw.
Here's the rest of the fridge. Any American items were sent from my family or extremely lucky finds. (That "curry" sauce on the middle shelf - DO NOT BUY this. It's awful, horrible! Only someone with no conscience would call that curry.) You can also see how the eggs come in packs of 10 (not a dozen) and yet my fridge has an egg holder that only holds 6. *shakes head*
Eier. Every egg has a label telling you what land it's from, and if the hens were kept in cages or not. These eggs all say 2-NL meaning Netherlands, free range. 
Invisible fridge. I love this how most German kitchens have built-in fridges that match the cupboards. That is the freezer below. You can see in this pic how a stick of butter is much bigger than back home. I never know exactly how much to use when I cook.
Mr. Wasserkocher. These things are amazing. No tea kettles in Germany - everyone uses electric ones, and they heat up SO FAST with this different electrical system they have here. (220 volt) I tried to buy one of these in America once, at Bed Bath and Beyond, and they let me actually try out all the models, timing them to see which one boils the fastest. I left emptyhanded, none were fast.
Steckdose. Our outlets. Recently my man installed new "alu" looking ones. I love them so! Like Sonya said, since the power is different here, bringing your appliances from home does not work, and could be risky. I melted a converter I was using simply to charge an ipod. 
Under the sink (excuse the mess, geez!) You will find no trash compactor in this land. I have no idea why. Most people do not have central hot water that goes to each sink and appliance. That means the sinks will have an "under-sink-heater" thingy, and the washing machine heats the water itself, and the dishwasher also. That is why many people have only cold water in their guest bathroom sinks. (It's really a contradiction in my mind, seeing as how people all heat their homes with hot water that flows into every room's radiator. HM.) You can see in this pic how I had a lucky find - Febreze "winter magic" scent - smells like cinnamon!
Heizung. There's the kitchen radiator. I do enjoy radiator heat, but I can't dry my hair on them like I do on floor vents back home: )
In one of my cupboards, this is how I get my tomato sauce. It comes in these tiny boxes, but it's really really cheap. I think each box has about 10 ounces in it, and costs only 35 cents or so. I go thru a LOT of these! I also love canned corn, (I eat an entire can for a snack), but I have never found a really good canned corn here, oh well.
Muell. How many garbage cans do you have in your kitchen? In Germany, every kitchen contains at least 3. One for trash, one for recycling, one for paper, one for glass, and one for the compost pile. (We have 4 in our kitchen.) It is a complicated way of life here: )
Tomaten Mark. See the tubes? I love that stuff! It's squeezable tomato paste, and it goes in so many recipes. In this house, mostly on little baguette pizza "boats" - and I smother mine with the paste. 
Die Uhr. Last but not least. Can you tell what time it is? Me neither. Just kidding. I'm learning. It is freaky to look at the clock shortly after midnight when it reads, "0:02." I thought the clock was broken at first.If you'd like to see other fascinating European kitchens, click on the following links:
Lost in Translation
Amongst the Tulips
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17 comments:
LOVE your kitchen! espically your flooring! We have alot of the same things in our cupboards..I have the tomato sauce too..lol Im also freaked out how they reuse their jars and what not to make things in..I was given hommemade jam that wasnt made from canning..I was to scared to eat it..lol
That is very cool! Especially the butter - I am still a little weirded out by the butter in Nevada, so yet another style of butter is totally cool!
One of the montessori teachers that I worked with was from Germany. She used to bring her lunch everyday, in various re-used jars and containers. At first I thought it was strange, but now I think it's smart.
We had friends who were ex-pats there too, for 2 years. They loved it there. The wife used to get "talked to" about her lack of recycling knowledge. On garbage day the neighbor would inspect her bins to make sure she had the contents in the correct containers for recycling. She would move stuff around into the right bins for her.
I think we should be doing much more recycing here in the USA. We are so wasteful.
My family is German, and they reused, kept and took care of everything. They could get years of use out of stuff!
Great post, lytha!
I'm laughing out loud at the "egg stamps"...and also, at the white eggs! It's been less than a year that our Minervas have been providing breakfast here at Haiku Farm, but I guess I've really gotten used to what I call "brown" eggs and what Willy calls "skin-colored" eggs.
Jim (German by genetics, if not by environment) re-uses all kinds of glass containers and canning rings. He's very picky about NOT re-using lids for canning, though.
hmmm so that's why I couldn't buy any eggs! Look who's jumping over the border stealing my eggs :-P
I loved your counter tops and floors too!
Love your kitchen. I love the German windows except the lack of screens. Have a great weekend.
God day to you!!
Loved the tour...I still DO dry my hair over the vents!! We have forced air oil in this 1904 home.
Me too...liked the built in fridge Lytha... and whoa stamping eggs..seems to be micro managing things a bit! I thought we had tons of standards for things here.
Another fascinating post, I loved it!
This was really fun!
Hah! That's military time: 2:15. Right?
Do you also write your dates 'backwards' with the day before the month?
I, too, love a can of corn for a snack. My favorite are the white little peg corn. So sweet and yummy!
I suppose everything appliance you use must be bought in Germany or Europe?
I had no idea in Germany there were Whilrpool mondels, though. Does Germany make their own appliances using a German name?
I love how the fridge and freezer blend in. Very cool! But wow! Your eggs look HUGE! Or is that because the fridge is smaller than the typical size we have here? It's hard to tell, but they look like XX-large size.
And why do the eggs come from the Netherlands? Aren't there any egg laying farms in Germany?
We would be broke if we only could buy those tiny milk containers. Our family of 5 goes through a gallon every 2-3 days! I think if we lived in Germany, we'd have to get a dairy cow for our backyard. hehe!
The butter is a similar size the discount/bulk size our loca grocery store carries. It's interesting that you leave it out when here the warning say that it is a dairy product and much be refrigerated.
I sometimes leave my butter out for a few hours during the day, but I do notice it gets an off taste if I leave it for more than a day or two. I like my butter spreadable, though. bah!
Thanks for the tour of your fascinating, and charming kitchen :)
~Lisa
Actually, Lytha, that IS the number for poison center, at least here in Washington state--I just got done teaching the Mr. Yuk lesson to my first graders.
As far as recycling goes, the two of us generate ONE trash can of garbage a MONTH, the rest goes to recycle. I always feel a little snobbish when I see all the neighbors' cans out on trash day...
I like the windows, but how do they work?
Sonya, I would like to see the statistics on improperly canned food deaths before I agree to eat/drink it, hehe.
Funder, I'm waiting for I can't believe it's not butter. I just love that name.
Jill, going thru the garbage helped that wife, because they won't pick it up if it's improperly sorted. You get a big sticker on it scolding you! Every piece of paper is used twice here, because every piece of paper has two sides. In fact, you rarely get a full sheet or piece of paper, Germans like to rip a piece off so they can use the rest for other things.
Aarene, It was the very first Little House on the Prairie episode where Ma took her eggs to town to sell them to the mean shopowner, Harriet Olsen. Harriet gave her less money for the brown ones, and then sold them for the same price as white. Can you remember what happened next? We can't, but we remember that Ma won in the end, and got her price: )
Candee, I only went to Holland to see Avatar, I did not buy groceries, *lol*. I never know what my eggs are gonna say on them when I get them at Aldi. I love our floor too, I picked it out. It is so dark, you cannot see dirt on it, so I can be lazy about sweeping if I want.
Frau, let's see yours!
Kacy, you dry your hair on the vents too? I found that it's the perfect way to get a lot of body, because you're drying it all upside down with the curls pressed together. No hair dryer can do that! I thought I was the only one. It used to scare my mom - she'd come around the corner and find me with my face pressed against the carpet!
Melissa, I'm glad you enjoyed a NHR post!
Marla, I hope we expats can do more of this, it is fun to share what oddness we live in.
Lisa, Ha, I'm not the only one who leaves such long comments!: ) And you caught my mistake. I intended to type the following but forgot: "No, our eggs are not huge. They are normal sized. Use the eggs as a reference to see how incredibly small fridges in Germany are!" omgosh and the deal with refrigeration - do you know our eggs are on the shelf at the grocery store - not kept cool? How is that possible? And the food handling here is so different - meat is left out uncooked or cooked. People sample bites of raw hamburger, and do not fall down dead. I have even taken to storing a pan of leftovers in the oven until the next day. Something I wouldn't dream of back home. Also, Germany does make its own appliances - but we ended up with Whirlpool in this kitchen. Our eggs come from Germany or NL or wherever, I never know. Wish we could get them from our neighbors with chickens! We also write and say the date backwards here. It is so confusing for me still. You know military time! I'm glad I'm not the only one who eats canned corn as a snack: ) One thing I forgot to say: when you buy or rent a home, you generally have to buy a kitchen. No idea why, but kitchens are completely gutted when people move - you cannot even tell it's a kitchen except there is a water outlet on the wall. Weird!
Evensong, I remember Mr Yuk! I don't know how kids make it to adulthood here without those stickers.
Thanks for sharing all the little German kitchen tidbits. I think I would love the tomato paste tubes.
The stamps on the eggs are very useful. You know exactly which kind of livestock breeding it is, you know the country where the egg comes from and the number tells you the farm where the chicken live. Watch out (english):
http://en.was-steht-auf-dem-ei.de/en/
Btw i only buy eggs with a 0 (organic) on it.
No antibiotics and the chicken are happy.
:-)
Lytha, one of my favorite things is miniature Nuremburg kitchens. I would KILL to have one.
Thanks for the tour, it was pretty neat. I got a bit of a giggle at the 24 hour time (which I can tell by the way) :)
We have a real transformer, large enough to run our paper shredder and our Cappucion maker. Next time I visit the US, I'm bringing a Kitchen id back with me- the difference between 200 dollars and 500 euros makes it worthwhile for me. Most small electronics (not all, not the Wii) just need an adapter for 5 bucks, not a real transformer. Even my hair dryer worked here. Look at the box on the cord- if it says 100-240, then all it needs is an adapter.
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