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?

Food is Passion

... and even salads can be sexy! I haven't posted in three weeks because a plain salad with bread was the most I created in the last couple of weeks. I was so busy, eating out and being invited to people's places for dinner, or just skipping cooking for a couple of mostly raw food-on-the-go days lately. I know I could at least have taken pictures, but my camera batteries died after 6 years of perpetual re-charging :( Payday will come soon and with it a new month, time to cook, money to buy fancy ingredients and new batteries. For today, I'll leave you with a quote from Margaret Visser's fabulous book "Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos of an Ordinary Meal"

This is my entry for Almond and the Hazelnut's food quote challenge. I would've love to provided a quote from a non food-related book, but everything I read at the moment is either foodie stuff, heavy AR philosophy tomes or event management reading.

"It was the custom in the past that the youngest daughter of the household had to turn the lettuce in the dressing with her fingers, maintaining the "fresh, green, female" mythology of lettuce. Dressing a lettuce made the anaphrodisiac plant "salad" (literally, "salted"); the sexual connotations of salt could add an extra erotic dimension to the girl's performance before mixed company at the dinner table. The French used to say of a still young and beautiful woman, elle retourne la salade avec les doigts ("she turns the salad in her fingers"). (and I thought this was an invention of Jamie Oliver who calls it "fairy fingers" in one of his books!)

Summer has arrived...

And me, I'm feeling depressed and very unsunny inside. I feel like eating a huge salad like this one I whipped up some weeks ago (rocket, lollo rosso, sunflower seeds, peanuts, black olives and loads of olive oil and balsamic vinegar).

BUT, after my quest for vegan chocolate chips in this country has ended, I made the Chocolate chip cookies from VWAV yesterday.
Their lovely chewiness when eaten out of the frigde cheers my up (pics to come).

Tomorrow's bento will be soba noodles with a soy sauce/rice vinegar mix sauce, some apple slices, a small salad of grated carrots, sunflower seed and sesame oil (of which I spilled the majority on the kitchen floor T_T) and some sesame crackers.