Learn Something New Every Day - Listen To Learn Day 9

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.
Epictetus

I must confess, I am not a very good listener... my attention span just isn't all that good. I always used to (and still do) love to listen to my Mum's stories about her experiences as a child during WW2. Some of the stories made me cry for her, and still do to this day, others make me laugh and yet others have taught me some great tips and tricks.

Often, not listening carefully results in some rather akward or embarrassing situations for me. Sometimes, I escape hurt and confusion by not listening too closely to what people have to say.

I am also very literal, so I have a tendency to just take everything "as it is said" and I can not filter out the social contexts and nuances.

My favourite listening revolves around picking up family recipes... I jot down the general meaning of these in my "Mum's cooking" notebook and always think that I should write them out properly for my kids one of these days.

Anyway, today presented a perfect listening opportunity as Dominic has a mystery basket assignment for Tuesday and wanted to cook something authentically German from the North Rhine area. Having listened carefully for once, I immediately came up with the perfect idea: Schnibbelskook 

The only problem was that I hadn't actually made any in ummm twenty years or so... probably even longer!! So I had to resort to my ever on call personal chef and rang Mum. The result of our conversation: