Welcome 2015
Plans and wishes
- Looooong holidays
- Refreshing my Spanish
- Discovering hidden treasures close by and far away
- Going on a girls’ trip
- Visit for the first time the Venice Biennale
- Planting heaps of flowers and herbs on our balconies in spring as to enjoy the spring and summer evenings in our two little escapes
- Wait no longer for the wooden tiles to be painted white and then manufacture my first cupboard
- Redecorate parts of our home with all the treasures we gathered last year
- Focusing on and being happy about the things I can change while letting the other things happen
Good luck to everyone of you out there for 2015! May all your wishes and expectations come true!
Thank you for sharing my thoughts, aesthetics, music and the little treasures of daily life with me!
Visit from Mr. Naïman from Beirut
Mr. Naïman says Merry Christmas!
Mr. Naïman visited me for christmas from far Beirut, Lebanon. Actually he thinks of staying a little bit longer. He so far enjoyed the bee’s wax candles on our christmas pyramid especially when it got dark and he could spot the patterns of the pyramid wings moving on the ceiling while he was lying on my wooden living room table and soaking in the fresh forest smell of the post-officer incense smoker.
He did not know the christmas story so I told him about Jesus, Joseph and Mary while standing at the pyramid with all the members of the christmas family carved out of wood like Mr. Naïman himself. As Mr. Naïman travelled light only with his summer outfit he was very lucky that he could spot the world outside my home packed up in a warm coat only the head looking out when we went on our bikes to church.
Beef wrapped up in ham, pancakes and puff pastry what we call “Beef Wellington” was a dish he tried for the first time. He found it delicious. “It is like wrapping up a christmas present while eating”, he said. He also liked the chocolate mint cookies although he found it strange that we bake cookies in the form of nutcrackers. For the evening Mr Naïman looks forward to tasting hot elderberry juice with vanilla cream topping and watch a real arthouse movie.
Chocolate-Mint christmas cookies
Ingredients (for 25 nutcrackers):
Dough
300g spelt flour (type 630)
100g cocoa (it gives the flavour of the dough, so take a good one;-)
200g cold butter
100g sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
a pinch of salt
some flour for rolling out
Decoration
200g icing sugar
Some mint oil or crushed mint candy
Decorative sugarpearls
Step by step dough making
1. Sift flour and cocoa in a bowl. Add butter in little bits, sugar, egg, egg yolk and salt and mix everything with your hands until you have a smooth dough. Wrap the dough in cling film and leave in the fridge for one hour.
2. Preheat the oven (200 Degrees Celsius)
3. Put some flour on your work space and roll out the dough till it is about 0,5 cm thick everywhere. Cut out the shapes and put them on a tray with baking paper. Then put the little fellows in the oven for 8-10 min.
Decoration
1. Take the icing sugar and add one tea spoon of water. Mix the water in with the sugar so you get a thick white paste. Add a drop of mint oil and/or pinch of crushed mint candy.
2. Use a wooden pick to decorate your cookies with the icing sugar paste and the decorative sugarpearls while they are still warm.
November: Bang Bang
1. iBang – Acid Pauli & Nancy (starting at 3:55)
2. Casino Aquatique – Dirty Doering
3. After Laughter Comes Tears – Wendy Rene
4. Mr. Tambourine Man – Bob Dylan
5. Hoch Oben – Dota
6. Meli Fali – Pepe California
7. Walking With Elephants – Ten Walls
8. Utopie – Dota
9. Atlantis – Mas
10. Die Stadt Brennt – Mick Baff
11. Origami – Daniel Mehlhart
12. Everybody Wants To Rule The World – Lorde
Flowers from the market
Some flowers from close by and far away that I bought at our local market. I love the atmosphere of fresh natural flowers in my home. Eucalyptus, rose hip and hakea also look pretty nice when being dried.
Weekend favourites
The Eucalyptus branch reminds me of warm sunny days in Australia, Northern Spain and Portugal, but also on how much longer eucalyptus must exist than humans, it looks so ancient.
My new cooking pot I am very proud of: perfect for surviving the cold season in style with tasty soups and self-baked warm bread…What I still can’t get is why it takes me so much longer to eat a soup than a plate of pasta..
Perfect weekend-read: The weekender. My favorite article is about a university in Piemont, Italy, where you can learn the art of slow-food cooking. Well, my new cooking pot fits perfectly for slow -food and now I know why it takes a while to eat a soup. That is mean to be..
The girl seems to walk on freshly fallen leaves in sunshine. There is only the skateboard or bike missing, then it could be me…
What I like about the cold season: oranges become cheap and I can drink heaps of freshly squeezed orange juice.
Smallest escargot ever seen
I spotted this little fellow on a leaf in front of my home. Hopefully it makes it through winter.
Kitchen of fall: stuffed oven pumpkins
Ingredients (4 Persons):
4 ”clown” pumpkins/ 500g mixed minced meat (or Italian salciccia)/ 200g risotto rice/ 1 big onion chopped /1 old breadroll in small pieces/ 250ml white country wine/ small bunch of fresh thyme and sage chopped/ ground salt and pepper/ olive oil
Preparation:
1. Preheat oven (150 degree Celsius)
2. Remove the “head” of each pumpkin and the seeds and put the pumpkins on a tray. Put a little bit of oil on every pumpkin and season with ground salt and pepper. Bake the pumpkins in the oven for 20 min.
3. Prepare the stuffing by frying the chopped onion in a pan. When onion turns glassy add minced meat and fry until brown. Now add the rice, salt, pepper and wine. Bowl until rice is soft then add the fresh herbs and the little pieces of the old breadroll so the remaining moisture of the minced meat/rice mixture is soaked by the breadroll pieces.
4. Stuff the pre-baked pumpkins with the minced meat/rice mixture and put them into the oven for another 25 min.
A glass or two of white wine fits perfectly to this dish
October: Cycling under falling leaves
1. Rome wasn’t built in a day – Morcheeba
2. Tout petit la planete - Plastic Bertrand
3. Mimi (Vocal Edit) – Hannes Smith
4. Das Leben, das – Lukas Meister
5. The Watcher – Dr. Dre
6. coast 2 coast ft wyclef jean – Angie Martinez
7. Schlaraffenland – Electronic Swing Orchestra (Monolink Remix)
8. Put the Lime in the Coconut – Harry Nilsson
9. Poison – Kai Kurve
10. The Man Who Sold The World – Nirvana
Fall is all about…
1.) learning new creative stuff: Crocheting flowers to make a colourful granny square blanket for the cold winter days to come.
2.) Writing down crochet patterns , recipes etc. you got from your friends straight away so you do not forget them.
3.) looking forward to spending hours in bed with new books and a fresh hot ginger and organge drink while it is getting uncomfortable outside. Well, as we still enjoy warm sunny days this book by Lukas Bärfuss needs to wait for an other little while before being read.
4.) Lying on my bed with my new flatmate Pepe showing him the glow-in-the dark stars and playing with my still flying helium filled birthday balloon. The balloon seems to enjoy the warm air from the heater as he is dancing gently on the ceiling even if I am not holding the string.
5.) admiring this hand-made postcard and lucky stone by my friend. I would not have the patience to create it and put this filigree pattern on a stone. You can get the work of maasarbeit at the “1.Tübinger Koffermarkt”. This postcard by some other friends reminds me of summer in Portugal , the luck of having such wonderful friends in my daily life and of my time in kindergarden where I spent hours painting wax Crayon pictures putting black watercolour on top of the painting and afterwards letting a new picture come into being.
6.) trying new Polaroid films while enjoying the colours of fall and the warmth of a truely Indian summer
7.) metterschlings that wait to be put on postcards and send to friends
So lovely to see your face again. Happy new year and may all your plans come to fruition! I have been to the venice festival and can highly recommend it. Looking forward to sharing 2015 with you *wink*