Copyright ©2020 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Hello, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!
It feels like an age since I last posted. If you follow me on Instagram you know that I was in London for most of the Christmas Holiday. That’s why I wasn’t posting or commenting on your posts.
On New Year’s Day, we have a family tradition of eating Hot Dogs, sausage, and sauerkraut for luck. I skip the Hot Dogs, as I don’t care for them, but sausage is good! I made it a mission to find a place to eat our traditional meal on New Years Day. I employed Yelp to aid me in finding a good place.
I thought a German place would do the job and found Herman Ze German in the Soho district. I created a Hot- link for you so you can see their menu. See what I did there? 😜It was wonderful! We all had their Chili Brats which is a beef brat, we had fries and a really good German beer the man taking our order recommended. It was Augustiner Munchen Helles bier. It was so good. Unfortunately, we can’t get this particular beer here in the States. Did I take any photos of my food? NO! I forget to do that all the time, but I did take a picture of the beer label so I could look for it here at home but, I haven’t uploaded it, so on the image score for that meal- Total Fail!
After having our “good luck” meal we headed toward our hotel on foot. We did a lot of walking while in London.
While walking through the Soho we stumbled across Chinatown where I did snap this image. Oh, look there’s a crane for Dan, and Lanterns for Joey! 😀
We’re home, and I’ve still got to get the Christmas decorations down and put away and catch up on all the laundry. I hope your New Year is off to a great start!
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more to come…
Circadianreflections Blog 
I’m glad you had a nice holiday trip. Great image … looks like a fun celebration!
Thank you, Denise. It was a lot of fun.
Nice to see you back, Deborah. I’ve enjoyed seeing your photos on IG. What a great place to spend the holidays 🙂
Thank you so much, Joanne!
Stopped by to say hey and see what you were up to on the blog! Nice tradition, though I’ve not had luck with sausages overseas… Love the Chinatown pic!
Hi! I’m glad we got lucky and found a place we liked on the 1st for our Good Luck Meal.
Thank you for stopping by! I’ll see you on Instagram next. 😀
Happy New Year, Deborah! Your adventures sound and look wonderful. Like you, we ate a traditional pork and sauerkraut meal for good luck.
😍
By the way, your mention of sauerkraut suddenly reminded me now that my mother used to make a sauerkraut that was brown and sweet, no doubt from being cooked with brown sugar. I’ve never come across anyone else doing that, though when I searched online I found some recipes for it.
That’s how He-Man’s mom would do it so, I make mine the way she taught me. She made hers in the crock-pot and so do I. I use brown sugar, and ketchup along with other things to make it delicious!
Happy New Year! When I was a child my family always ate sauerkraut and pork on New Year’s day.
Happy New Year Sheryl and thank you for visiting my blog!
Perhaps next New Year Day you’ll jump-start the tradition? 😀
Sauerkraut for luck? Never heard about this? Good for the gut. And my background is German, so always on our menu. All good with beer. A festive photo of Chinatown. Fun!🙂
I had never heard of it either then I met and married my He-Man who’s background is Polish, and Croatian. He grew up with this tradition and wanted to carry it forward so I did.
So that’s where you’ve been! How cool. I’m reading a mystery that is set in London, and he mentions the red eyes of the cranes. When I looked at your photo, sure enough there was the red eye. Kind of creepy. I hope you’ll share more from your trip. I’m intrigued by London but I doubt I’ll ever get there myself. Your good luck dinner sounds yummy. I think I’ll see if I can get my family on board with that. I’m pretty uninspired by cheese and crackers and noisemakers so usually skip New Year’s.
If you get a chance to go to London go! The museums, people, and architecture are great!
I hope you get your family on board for a Yummy New Year’s Day “good luck” meal and start a new tradition. I cook mine in the crockpot so it’s really good!
Oh, man, all those flavors blending together….love that! I should turn my sights on the Super Bowl now. Can’t stand it myself, but it is an inevitability around here. 😦
Here too, but I occupy myself with photo editing, or going on a photo excursion. I have even been known to go on a trip after preparing the “Good Luck” meal for everyone else. I’d eat a quick spoonful of sauerkraut, and piece of sausage for breakfast and off I went. 😀
You have your paints and canvas to keep you busy while they watch football, and the meal simmers in the crockpot. xx
A trip! That’s not a bad idea….
Where will you go?
There is a gallery in Kenosha I’ve been meaning to visit. Maybe I’ll treat myself to dinner up there, after admiring the art. Makes me happy just to contemplate an art escape! 🙂
Oooh, yes! Go!! I’m happy for you just thinking you’re planning an art escape! 😀🎨
What a wonderful New Year! We always do pork, cabbage, and black eye peas. We’re edging closer and closer to vegetarian, so the pork may go the way of the dodo next year. 😀 Been so long since I ate dodo, I don’t even remember how it tastes.
LOL!!! My mom being a southern gal would do black eyed peas, but I don’t like them. It was easy for me to adopt He-Man’s family tradition.
Wonder how tofu dogs would taste with sauerkraut? Probably good! I like tofu dogs!
I don’t know if I ever had tofu dogs. I love tofu, so I’d probably like ’em, too. 🙂
I admit I haven’t had one in awhile. My current favorite and in my freezer as a staple quick lunch are the Morning Star Veggie Corn Dogs. I have one once or twice a week!
Turkey Dogs are okay and I have used those over “real hot dogs” when making our Good Luck meal on Jan. 1st. before.
My current favorite is the Quorn chickenless nuggets. 🙂
I’ll have to look for those! I’m writing it now on my shopping list. Thank you!
Always read the ingredients list, in case you don’t already; these are made with mushrooms. Some people are allergic.
He-Man can’t eat them! Thank you for that information !
~WHEW~ Glad I remembered to point that out.
Me too! 😀
Oh Deborah! The lanterns! How thoughtful! It’s like lamps and twinkly lights smooshed together! ❤
Do I want brats and beer now? Yes, I do!
Thank you, Joey! I hope you get some brats and beer soon.
That German beer must have been bright as hell.
I had to look that up! There was no yeast in it that I could see or detect, and to our surprise and delight it was chilled! It was good. Not too heavy or light.
Is that what you meant by bright?
I was playing around with the beer’s name, “Augustiner Munchen Helles Bier.” The German adjective hell (of which helles is an inflected form) means ‘bright.’
The word can also be translated as ‘light,’ as in a light beer.
I think it would be considered a light beer.
Ah! Interesting.
Happy New Year! Your photo of Chinatown is interesting. So much color, such a festive vibe.
Happy New Year, Ally! I wonder if they don’t leave those lanterns up all year? The Chinese New Year isn’t until January 25th this year.
I bet their parade and festival is awesome!
Sounds like you had a marvelous time! Happy New Year!
Thank you, Judy! It was fun. Happy New Year to you and yours!
I’m loving your coastal sunrises, and views!
What a lovely trip and holiday. My son was there just before the holidays. I think you owe us some food photos though! 😉
Well, I did manage to remember to take one food image. I’ll share that for you. xx 😀
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London?!! WOW, Deborah!! I’m looking forward to your trips’ photos! Happy 2020!!
Thank you, Donna! It was fun and different.
Welcome back, hope you enjoyed your little excursion to our fair land.
Thank you, Brian! We had a great time! I didn’t do much of any birding. Just a little by a pond in Hyde Park or Green Park? I think they had Egyptian Geese there!!
You have to love New Years’ meals and tradition. Good on you for tracking down a venue. German sausage does sound pretty good. Thanks for the crane. I love that show of Chinatown at night. It looks so alive!
He-Man grew up with that food tradition on New Year’s Day. When we got married he asked me to prepare it for him, and it became my new food tradition. Now both our children eat it on New Year’s Day …on their own! They both hated the sauerkraut as kids, but I told since the meats were cooked with it it counted. 😀 They’re so funny they still don’t like it, but eat one bite smothered in Ketchup on their dogs for luck! Baby Girl is passing on the tradition to her boys and family now. It’s pretty cool.
It was so busy, and crowded in London! Lot’s of people had the same idea about spending the Holidays there.
Great post! Love the photograph!
Thank you so much, Kendal!
Welcome!
Cool, that was a surprise trip! I was in Cancun just before Christmas for a week, so I was out of touch, too! If you have Bev and More near you, try checking them out; when I got back from Germany several years ago, I looked for a dark Stout which I enjoyed and found it hidden on the shelf gathering dust (it had an expired date but it didn’t affect the taste of the brew. I just goggled online again and it looks like they have it at Total Wine where they opened a store about 1.5 miles from me.
I would buy you some but I’m getting ready for an epic trip so will not be traveling too far from home now.
Glad you have a London Christmas; a Charles Dickens type of vacation!
Thanks, Gordon! I knew for months I was going to London, but didn’t say anything online about it for security.
It was fun in London, and very crowded! A lot of people had the same idea.
An Epic trip! It sounds exciting! I’m going to write you off this thread to hear about it!
Herman Ze German is funny. The ‘ze’ really is how Germans pronounce ‘the’ (and, for that matter, most of the Dutch 🙂 ) German beer is nice. I dare however say that Belgian beer is the best. Happy New Year Deborah!
It was funny, but we thought really good and they were so friendly! Their motto is pretty funny too. It’s “Our Wurst is ze Best”. 😀 I’ll have to try a Belgian beer. Which one do you recommend?
Happy New Year to you and yours Peter!
Lol for the slogan! 🙂 You might want to try a real Trappist, brewn at a convent. My favorite is Westmalle triple, but Rochefort, Chimay. Westvleteren and Orval are more then worth their price as well.
I’m writing those down in my notes on my cell phone so when I’m at a store that carries beers from around the world I’ll have those names on hand! Thank you, Peter!
Their slogan is pretty funny. We asked for clean basket liner papers so we could have one for a souvenir. They happily gave us some! 😀 Someday I hope to get a scrap book together of this trip.
What a wonderful way to spend the holidays! Funny, I have a very, very similar picture as yours at the bottom of your post, that I took in Chinatown in San Francisco a couple of years ago. Even the buildings look the same). It was around Christmas time so I wonder if those red lanterns are a tradition… although come to think of it, Christmas isn’t a thing in China so it would be interesting to know what they symbolize.
I like your New Year’s Day tradition of eating sausage and sauerkraut… yum!
It was fun and different. I have an image of the same place in San Francisco you have, but I have to check it I think the lanterns are round or different from these in shape. I’ll have to hunt through my archives to find it. The architecture…it struck me too how similar it was to what we have here in some places. It’s classic!
Oh, I think Red is Good Luck for their culture. On their New Year’s Day they give out little red packets with money or something inside.
The hot dog, sausage, sauerkraut tradition is from He-Man’s side of the family. He grew up with it and I adopted it when we married. Now our children are eating it on their own on New Year’s Day! The beat goes on! 😀
Wow, Deborah! What a terrific way to spend the holidays. I love the fun photo. Plus the New Years food tradition is fabulous. Happy New Year!
Thanks, Teagan! It was a fun and different way to ring in the New Year. I didn’t grow up with a New Year “food tradition” but He-Man did so when we got married he asked me to make it for him and Voila! A new tradition was born for me, but he carried it forward. Now my kids have it on New Year’s Day. 🥰
It sounds like a good way to spend New Year’s Day. Happy New Year, Deborah.
Thank you, John! It was fun.