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!

J-Drama and Pasta Cravings

So I'm back to work tomorrow... I've started missing making bentos over the last few days!

Anyway, being the old Japanophile and anime otaku that I am, I spent the last couple of days (rainy weather) watching far too much anime and j-dramas online.

One of them especially caught my eye- "Bambino!" is based on a manga and is about a guy who wants to become a chef in an Italian restaurant. How awesome is that? It's a lovely coming of age drama with a very good cast as well, having Ayaka Komatsu (who also did Sailor Venus in Sailor Moon live action) and Sasaki Kuranosuke (whom I loved as hot engineer guy in Zettai Kareshi!).

The story is realistic, doesn't have any silly romance (yay!), and it's mostly about pasta, so you will feel an urge to cook some after watching. How about that, East Enders/Grey's Anatomy/*insert any other mainstream Western series?

I watched all 11 episodes over the last two days and it was so fun... take that from a TV-hater like me.

I felt like embedding a video, but unfortunately, crunchyroll doesn't have that option yet and lower quality, so watch it with Spanish subtitles on youtube if you can (they have a few episodes in English, too), or pay a visit to crunchyroll, which totally rocks about Asian drama and anime, anyway (there's also a drama about cake that I'll check out next).

It's also peak season for red currants here... seems like those are not popular in other countries, but I remember growing up stealing red currants from the garden in my kindergarten and also my grandma making red currant jam.
I love the tart, sour taste of red currants and don't mind eating them on their own.

So I bought a kilo (for a 1.50 €) at the market the other day and decided to make a red currant cake. Turned out tasty, but the berries sunk to the ground (must flour them next time!) and I made it an improvised upside-down cake which was totally fat-free yet moist and fluffy. I also kept cooking stuff from the awesome Irish foodie magazine, including this not really picture-worthy but delicious miso ramen: Apart from that, it's summer time anyway, so I mostly did Italian cooking (even before Bambino!), as a simple gratin of zucchini and tomatoes with lots of garlic, thyme and olive oil and risotto with loads of arugula. I'm not a summer person, but still don't want it to end, harvest-wise!