Almost there...

sorry, no food again. I'm sort of in between everything right now and don't really have access to the internets. Not too bad since the weather is awesome at the moment and the last thing you want to do is sit inside!

Anyway, I'll be in London from next week on. Then it's jobhunting time, which also includes time to cook, and bentos to make = stuff to blog about.

Just wanted to let you know this blog isn't dying.
I hope you're all having an awesome summer!

You're a terrorist, too!

Ok I've decided to take the food-focus off this blog. I don't feel like running two blogs at a time, but
feel I need to blog about other things I'm into, too, while not being able to hold up a frequently updated food blog, especially since I won't have a kitchen anymore soon.

The name might change, but for the time being I'm keeping the old one.

One reason that added to my general Anti-Germany-ness is that we're having a Nanny state in a few more horrible ways than US citizens... thank you, Mr. Schäuble!

(and yes, when I applied for my passport two weeks ago, I actually had to give my fingerprints!)

Vegging out...

Now my written exams are over and all I have to do... is hang out for goddamn 6 weeks for 20 mins of oral exam before I can move on in live.

At the moment the "meh" overbalances the "yay" part of the whole situation. I've been eating crap, felt bad as a consequence and yeah... I think I'll soon change the focus of the blog and make it a culture/London/food blog.

Last post's bento swap turned out to be a good idea, today I received a lovely parcel filled with vegan goodness from Margot of the undead vegan. Some of the chocolate stuff and tofu snack wiener got devoured immediately as I had to run a bunch of errands after work.
Thanks a lot Margot!

With it came a bag of kutjera powder... is says it's good sprinkled on almost everything and google doesn't tell me much more, either. Aussies plz? What do you use it for?


I also cooked a little bit:
pasta with Rübstiel (rapini) from the veggie box some time ago. Ok-ish, but nothing exciting, this Rhine area vegetable.



soba with ginger, scallions and cauliflower from vegweb, because you can never have too much soba!

super ugly but extremely tasty stewed potatoes and tofu in miso gravy from VWAV. I can't believe I've never made this before. the dark miso I used was a bit overpowering, but apart from that it was lovely with some good baguette.

Bento swap

I've been off work this week- officially to study for my finals, but in reality, I don't care much.
So I did a lot of lovely things... going to the farmers' market every other day, visit friends I barely see and travel spontaneously.

Also, I had a bunch of paper stuff translated... cleared out my wardrobe and found that I have too many bento boxes, too!
More than I can possibly take to London with me... so I'll have to give some away. This is mainly for readers in Europe and the UK as shipping overseas is quite expensive.

The bentos below are up for grabs, and I'd love to swap them for some food goodies :)
(if you want to buy one instead, drop me a line, too)
I have tons and tons of accessories (sauce bottles, onigiri molds, food picks and such) that have to go too, so I'd put a bunch of those in as well (if there's anything in particular that you'd like, let me know).

Super cute Cinnamoroll box, comes with one divider, holds about 300ml.


matching side dish container with one built-in divider, holds about 100ml.

sweet Hamtaro side dish container, about 120 ml
Simple black two-tiered box, holds about 550 ml, the upper tier has a waterproof lid.

"Little dolphin" two-tiered box from Japan Centre in Picadilly with awesome Engrish. Holds about 480 ml, the upper tier has a waterproof lid.


Mister Donut's two-tiered Pingu bento box, comes with a Pingu water bottle and big bento bag with zipper, the box holds about 480 ml and has a waterproof lid, too.

Vernal Nosh

Yup, I learned the word "vernal" today. No idea if it's combinable with nosh though :)

Internet-free days in the office make you learn unusual words... work is funny at the moment because our phone and Internet connection is all messed up so we can't email orders, read our mail or look up at Wikipedia who Rostropovich and Skrjabin are or whether Brecht wrote any funny plays at all.

(talking about All Messed Up, Paul, if you're reading this, let me know you're still alive!)

Well, it's spring and my veggie box delivery makes me do a little happy dance in the office every Wednesday.

I didn't take a picture of last week's box but it had wild garlic and green asparagus, so I made wild garlic risotto with roasted asparagus!
An odd thing is that Germans love their white asparagus. It's nearly impossible to buy green asparagus here except for a few weeks in spring. Sadly, I love green and hate the pale fellow.

Saturday was Anne's birthday, and what do you make the co-workette with the bluest eyes in the world for her birthday?
Clafoutis! It was my first time baking with silken tofu and it worked like a charm, so easy and everybody loved it (except for the not-fruit-eating-no-not-even-in-cake-male)!
And it was pretty too... yes I actually baked something that wasn't butt ugly!

pre-baking:

finished:


And this weeks' box, containing apples, oranges, bananas, an avocado, swiss chard, onions, parsley, courgettes, and Rübstiel (similar to turnip tops).
I'm excited about the Rübstiel, I've never had it before but apparently it's a traditional green of the Rhine area.

Foodie media!

Can't somebody tell stupid Germany that there is weather and temperatures somewhere between 10°C and 30C° ? I know I should be happy, but everything above 25°C makes me feel lethargic. I miss the British Isles' gulf stream influenced weather!

Yesterday I started watching Lunch Queen so I guess pretty soon I'll be all about Japanese food again. Japanese and their obsession with food produces awesome things.
Can you imagine a Western soap opera focusing on food?

A couple of weeks ago I did a swap with Kendra from vf... look what I received from England:
gummi bears, vegan shells and cheese mix, a nakd bar, raspberry licorice, a tangerine chocolate bar, ramen, noochy rice cakes, mandarin sopa and a tea tree facial mask. Thanks a lot!
I was surprised by how good the shells and cheese actually were, for something that came from a box!

Have I already written about how I love Italian Foodies ? It seems like blogland is full of Irish/Italian couples! Not vegan, but oh so nice!
Kittens gone Lentil is another awesome (vegan) blog discovery!

Lately I've been obsessed with rice soup... o-kayu, congee, jook, you name it. And after our trip to Mönchengladbach for the fake meat grocery store, I have vegan Asian meatballs and prawns!
I could eat this every day... and I do, for breakfast!





And well, more media: If you speak/understand either French or German, Arte has got a "good food" theme week at the moment, I guess 3-4 documentaries every day.
I've been enjoying the documentary with Sarah Wiener and a bunch of kids staying and cooking at a farm in Provence... I wish I was in France where nice weather also means nice surroundings!

Happy Easter! You can watch a lot of the videos online at Arte +7 .
Thanks Arte for bringing my French back to life!

Happy Spring!

Or happy Easter, belated Ostara or just: a happy long weekend!
I'm looking forward to 4 days with no plans at all except for two nights at the theatre.
I can't seem to remember what the word "free time" means.

Thanks to y'all for the advise on the fish issue. I guess it's really an Omega 3/6 issue. To be honest, with all my nutrition research, I never paid attention to it properly.
(I wrote "y'all"... damn you Rachel!)

And no, of course I haven't been studying for my final exam in 4 weeks... actually, I don't care much about my grade - work reference and my English exam is much more important and those are both ace (the latter because I'm going to write it myself probably) :)

I have been busy helping out a friend who has been diagnosed with acute leukemia. I shouldn't let myself get dragged down by this, but it's really tough. Doctors say he'll be all right, but it is awkward to see someone who used to be the most energetic and sporty person I know suffering through chemotherapy.

Anyway, to the food - my camera isn't actually broken; I assume my rechargeable batteries have come to the end of their recharging life.

A couple of days ago I finally made Pasta Alla California from V-con. Why didn't I make this earlier? It's got pasta, wine, rocket and broccoli... well I guess I had to make friends with avocado first.
This was an awesome salad including tomatoes, mango, avocado (again!), pea sprouts, cilantro and a lime-soy sauce dressing. It was awesome and the picture sadly doesn't do it any justice.


Three weeks ago, I visited Azumi in Fulda and we had a taco night... now is there a trick how to eat taco shells in a not messy way?

taco supplies!


Anyway, I'm planning to do some Easter baking tomorrow. I plan on making hot cross buns (how I miss them!) and maybe a German hefezopf (tribute to Grandmother). Also, it's Anne's bday tomorrow and I offered bake something for her when she gets back to work on Wednesday.

Has anybody got any suggestions what to bake including nuts or chocolate and fruit (that's what she suggested)? Any new recipes in blogland that I might have missed?