Beer garden time

Met up with friends (old and new) yesterday evening. Enjoyed talking about food innovation, Christo-like and inspired art projects, polite and impolite usage of iphones while socializing, and just general catching up.

Leftovers: Variations on a Theme

It all started with a book review I saw yesterday morning in the New York Times. Three food memoirs (a new genre) reviewed by Christine Muhlke. All sound really good. I think I even put one on my "to buy sometime in the future" list over on Amazon. One of the authors, Molly Wizenberg, ("A HOMEMADE LIFE, Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen") also writes a blog called Orangette. (Although unfortunately, it looks like she is taking a break from blogging at the moment).

Anyway, so after reading the review, I was curious about the blog and headed over there to take a look. I had asparagus in the fridge, and no real ideas on what to do with them, and happened across a recipe that she posted for Roasted Asparagus with Walnut Crema and Pecorino. Sounded really good. So that was dinner last night with a piece of salmon and a tomato salad. I ended up making only one ammendment to the recipe for the crema. Molly didn't add any salt or pepper, but I thought after tasting it, that it needed a bit. So I added a couple pinches of both.

The walnut crema was incredibly rich though, and I didn't use that much of it. Thought about what to do with the leftovers, and decided to mix it with tomatoes, thai basil and parsley, a chunk of leftover salmon, a couple cloves of crushed garlic, and pasta. Which was a good idea. Lunch today...

Cilantro

Three stores to find cilantro today. Really not a good thing when you cook with it by the handful as I tend to do. One extra weekend day and you would think stores were closing for a week with the lines. One of those things about Germany...they take their holidays very very seriously....shopping for food - not allowed.

Sheep Wolf Dilemma

Still loving Hugh.

Eyes in the back of my head

Mid-morning sun nap in the middle of a path. A little eery how ducks
can turn their heads 180 degrees.

Music to Cook By

This morning I was scrolling through some articles and had to smile when I came across this one: an article about Bay Area chefs and what they listen to when they cook . :-)

I laughed and looked for some inspiration in it...checked out quite a number of the artists on iTunes, and even bought one or two songs.

These days, when I have a longer cooking session (perhaps 2 hours or so), I like to listen to Bebe's "Pafuera Teleranas" and the ever-favorite Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack.

Transplant

Just ran into this silly site, where I learned how to do brain and heart transplants on ...gummi bears. :-)

In Sweden Not Everything Is Snowy White

Thomas, who is working on a project in Stockholm at the moment, just made it back to Munich for the weekend. He brought us some of the toilet paper from the apparently more stylish bathrooms in Swedish hotels. :-)




















I received one sheet as a present. Perfumy...

He didn't want to pose for the photo.

Home sweet sleep

Am tired after my 18 hour day. Was fun to post photos throughout. Meeting went relatively well and we'll see what comes of it. Meanwhile, I get to sleep a while and work somewhat less tomorrow. Yawning..,

Currywurst chef

Mr. Drueke made us currywurst for dinner and suggested a few tips for
best cooking results (steam the sausage, don't microwave it.)

Desperation for dinner

Otherwise known as train food.

Done for the day

Go go go

It's supposed to say "how many minutes until we grab a taxi?" auto correct error.

Competition?!?!?

Last few changes

Made it

Schwabian Alps

Halfway point

Sit and Think

Pronto

Working hard for the money

You're in Augsburg, but don't you wish you were in this advertisement?

What happened to ladies first???

One Of Each

Unicycle

Procrastinator

Raincheck

No blogging today (except I guess for this one) unless I find a minute here or there...am running around and traveling to Stuttgart and back today.
Cheers!

Wetter Muenchen

wooooooooooooooooooow.
The world just came to an end here for an hour in Munich. Crashing and banging and wind craziness.

We went from this:














to this:














In about 30 minutes flat. (Yeah, the pictures are labled with more of a time spread, but that's just because of the webcam that was snapping the photos isn't at our offices)

Sitting at the top of our offices today working on a pitch document for tomorrow's meeting in Stuttgart...but yawning now, so headed home and up early.

Rain has stopped and just left greyness in its wake.

Lunch

Best Turkish pide in the world. No exaggeration.

Reading List

I think it's time to put some books away. Just started "A Fraction of the Whole," which seems quite good. Just need to read it a little further in advance of falling asleep.

Nope, couldn't do this. Rather be vegetarian.

Just saw a NYTIMES article: "Meeting, then Eating, the Goat."

If I think about this...logically...this makes sense. I just couldn't do it (pick out the animal I would then cook and eat - thankfully they don't make you kill it yourself). It's bad enough having to chop up a whole (already slaughtered) chicken myself - and if the head and feet are still on (often was the case in Singapore), forget about it. I am suddenly VERY HAPPY with pasta.

This said, I probably should go visit one of these places. Makes what is sitting on your plate take on whole new meaning.

Thinking again.

No, I think I would rather be a vegetarian. I could survive on nuts and beans and vegetables. No question. Maybe fish. Squid. Shrimp.

Yeah, I could kill a shrimp. :-P

Sacrilege

Ingo comes downstairs late in the day, a big grin on his face.
"Did you hear about the Pope?"
"What?" I asked.
"About his facebook page."
"Oh, that," I said. "Yes - two days ago. Funny."
"Pope2You - classic!"
I smile. "Yeah."
Stefan chimes in, "and he's ahead of some of our clients."
"Yeah," I say. "But there was one thing missing."
"What?" asks Ingo.
"A built-in widget right on the page. Where I can send a message to god. Why do I have to talk to the pope? Go direct. Much faster."

Oh...and there is an iphone application too.

Please...buy our Newspaper, we'll pay *You*...

I think the Sueddeutsche Zeitung here in southern Germany is getting desperate.

First I have this little run in with Mallorie a few days back.

Now this: postcards handed out these days:


("Gift Certificate" for 20 euros off the subscription price)

Nice Bike

I think because of Tracie, I have my eye on bikes these days. A couple days ago, I was riding home from work and I couldn't get the camera out fast enough. A guy had a bike (unfortunately he wasn't on it) where the front wheel was almost as tall as him, and the back wheel was tiny - just there for balance. Was one of the craziest things I'd seen in awhile.

It looked like this - just found something like it on flickr...

Paddleboats and Fish Fahitas

A real hodgepodge of pictures here...



































Went paddleboating in the English garden this afternoon. It was HOT, really warm, and quite humid as well. But fun to make fun of some of the strange-looking ducks: "that one looks like a stormtrooper...." and people gaze at the crowds on the shore busy with their baby strollers and ice creams and beer drinking (yeah, Germans are very good at that when the sun comes out. ;-) )

Got home around 5:30. Relaxed for a bit, and then threw together some fish fahitas, which admittedly DID NOT come out of the Diana Kennedy cookbook (I was missing too many ingredients, really a shame, but next time I will plan better), but simply out of my head and plenty of experience eating Mexican food in California, which I really miss once in awhile.

Feeling a bit like this these days (LOL!)

I continue to love this guy's (Hugh MacLeod) drawings. Think he's simply a genius.



BUT...if I am going to be 100% honest, I am also following his Twitter feed, and I think he might be a little too in love with himself at the moment.


But...still look forward to reading/viewing his work every day.

Another classic from him: