Odds & Ends Around the Valley

Turkey and Dumplings

Thanksgiving has always been a learning experience at the West Hills home of Guenter and Traudel Stoss.

“My husband and I are from Germany, so we don’t always observe the occasion the way other people do,” Traudel Stoss said.

She knows about doing up the turkey, but says she once horrified friends by barbecuing it. The dumplings, instead of mashed potatoes, are something she’d rather not discuss.

This year, she says, she might have a chicken instead of a turkey, because the Stosses’ son, Oliver, 21, won’t be there to join Guenter, an importer, Traudel, a licensed child-care professional and their daughter Andrea, an 18-year-old student at El Camino Real High School. Traudel Stoss thinks a turkey would be too much for just the three of them, but she doesn’t know what her friends are going to make of a Thanksgiving chicken.

Oliver is away at college.

Way away.

He is one of the 42 CSUN students who are spending a year studying in a foreign country, in his case, Germany.

“It isn’t very foreign to him,” his mother said, “because my husband and I have relatives there and he’s visited several times.”

But while he has heard German at home all his life and studied in high school and at Pierce College, the writing part, he told his mother, is hard.

All of the 500 students from California State University campuses who are enrolled in the overseas program must be able to take classes in the language of the country. If you are studying in Canada, New Zealand or the United Kingdom, it’s a minimal challenge. The young people in Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, Sweden or Taiwan have it tough.

Then there is the money thing. Traudel Stoss figures that the year abroad is going to cost Oliver about $10,000, part of which he earned and part of which he borrowed from his parents.

But, based on telephone conversations, Oliver thinks it’s worth it.

“He is keeping up in his studies and thinks he is doing well. He also took a trip to Berlin recently with a group of students. It is a historic time in Germany, right now, and he is very aware of that,” his mother said.

Thanksgiving in Germany is not going to be very festive, though.

“It’s an American holiday, of course, so the Germans don’t know anything about turkey and pumpkin pie,” Traudel Stoss said. “Oliver will be attending classes Thanksgiving Day.”

Meanwhile, the Stosses will be chickening out.

Checking It Out

If you are a Wells Fargo Bank customer, check out the automatic teller machine the next time you go to visit your money.

Where you normally see the instructions for how to use the ATM, there is now a piece of clear plastic with raised dots all over it that pulls down over the written instructions so blind people can read the instructions in Braille.

According to Kathleen Shilkret, a bank spokeswoman, the plastic instruction card will soon be available at all of the bank’s 1,367 machines in Southern California, including the 30 or so in the San Fernando and Antelope valleys.

Shilkret said the Braille cards are being attached to the machines by the people who normally service them and should all be in place by the end of the year.

Shilkret said she doesn’t think most blind people would want to do any complicated banking transactions with the ATM, but that the instructions allow them to at least make withdrawals before and after banking hours.

Although the Braille program is in full swing, not all the bank personnel are aware of it.

Mike Askhami, the manager of the Northridge branch on Corbin Avenue, said he didn’t know anything about it, but after going outside to check, reported that the Braille instructions were, indeed, on his ATMs.

“I’m new at this branch so I am still getting acquainted,” he said. He added that he would see to it that he and the staff became familiar with the procedure so that they could provide assistance to anyone needing it.

Dem Bones, Dem Bones

Paty’s Restaurant at 10001 Riverside Drive in Toluca Lake is a badly kept secret.

Weekdays, weekends--it doesn’t seem to matter. People are always spilling out of the doors, onto the patio and sometimes onto the street.

On Sunday, the place reaches critical mass for brunch.

“Well, we’re just a little family restaurant that has done all right,” said the owner, whose name is not Paty, but Kathy Baker.

Baker started out as a waitress 30 years ago when the eatery was known as Gaby’s. She bought it 27 years ago and changed the name.

“When the original restaurant moved, I knew I wanted to keep this location, but I didn’t have a lot of cash, so after I bought the place I just changed a couple of letters in the name,” she said.

She didn’t have a lot of cash, but she did have a plan.

Fresh everything.

Homemade everything.

“It’s like eating nourishing meals at your mother’s,” Baker said.

If your mother could cook.

“When we put in the outdoor barbecue, and people could pick out what they wanted to put on the grill, things really started getting lively,” she said.

Celebrities, particularly the down-home types, followed.

“Mel Gibson came in the other day,” said Jolly Carr, a waiter for 18 years. “He was so paranoid, he sat with a menu in front of his face during most of his meal.”

“Kevin Costner comes in. He’s real relaxed and friendly. A nice man,” Carr said. “Like that Andy Garcia, who’s going to be a star.”

Jonathan Winters used to be a regular.

“He’d come in and just take over the place,” Carr said.

“He’d order his food and then stand in the middle of the restaurant and do 20 minutes of a comedy routine. People probably thought we hired him. It was just his idea of a good time.”

Overheard

“I don’t know why I make red and green Jell-O and have jellied cranberries every Thanksgiving. I don’t think anyone likes them, but if I didn’t make it I’d probably be lynched.”

--Woman at the Studio City Hughes market