backen - baking

we had a great day today! we slept in, then we went to the zoo and the aquarium. the zoo was awesome. i highly recommend it to anyone visiting berlin. they even have farm animals in the zoo, we think it's because the west berliners were walled in. kids here had probably never seen a chicken in real life. it's a very well laid out zoo and there were lots of little baby animals to ooh and ahh over. the aquarium was fine but we are spoiled for aquariums with monterey so close to home.

then we came home and decided to bake. dan thinks this is a fun "together" activity. which means i stand there and occasionally stir something while dan works the magic. we got some nestle tollhouse chocolate chips from brian and liz when we were in england (they can shop at the american military base there) so dan decided he would make some chocolate chip cookies for his coworkers to be nice.

you know what they don't eat here? cookies. so you know what's hard to find? cookie sheets. but you know what actually has no german equivalent? baking soda! it's true!

after a call to dan's dad the chemist and mom the really good baker, we decided it was okay to use a similar product called "haus nutrum" which neutralizes acid and, like baking soda, is also a carbonate.

dan was so happy with the product that, despite my pleas to stop, he sang and danced around the kitchen. one bite of the cookies and i was dancing too.