… especially for the planet, and for Ukaine (both now about to be thrown under the bus) – not to mention Gaza, is that who knows what might have been if stubborn Joe Biden had given his party enough time to find a suitable candidate ……
This definitely needed some crunch, so I made poppadoms, and also fried some salmon skin in the same oil.
200 g beetroot
850 ml vegetable broth
2 bayleaves
1 star anise
1 tsp szechuan pepper
2 cloves
1 tblsp lemon juice
1 pinch salt
6 gelatine leaves
1 tsp wasabi powder
4 dl whipping cream
Soak four gelatine leaves.
Peel and grate the beetroot.
Simmer for about 25 minutes in 700 ml vegetable broth, bayleaves, anis, peppercorns and cloves. Pass through a sieve and measure out 600 ml liquid.
Melt the now softened and drained four gelatine leaves in the liquid. Distribute in four glasses and let cool, then place in the fridge.
Soak two gelatine leaves.
Heat up the remaining 150 ml vegetable stock and add 1 tsp (or to taste) wasabi powder.
Melt the now soaked and drained two gelatine leaves in the wasabi broth. Let cool till it starts to set slightly.
Whip the cream and turn in the wasabi.
I thought this required some crunch so served it with papadams. Probably highly unauthorised 😊.
17 November Jewish Cemetery Weißensee with Umweltladen Mitte
14 November Berlin Zoo between medical appointment and cinema?
Lovely walk in great company and the best November-in-Berlin weather possible. Saw many different birds – did not get a chance to photograph so many.
Bonus tip: We finished with a coffee in the very nice cafe in “Spore Initiative” – interesting place and architecture, close to U Bhf Leinestraße.
Interesting as always, although a very large group in which there are always people who can’t keep their mouths shut while Eckehard is talking. Anyway, the weather was just as brilliant as the day before, if a little colder.
Here just a couple of unedited photos from my smartphone.
Afterwards, I went to Humboldt Forum to see the exhibition on Palast der Republic, which I found interesting.
Then an early dinner in vegan Vietnamese restaurant Sora on the way to quiznight “Let’s get Quizical” in Alte Turnhalle, where the team I was on came in fourth out of 22 teams. All in all, a perfect 72nd birthday :-).
IN PROGRESS
Again, purely for my own use, since Word documents accessed from several different devices are no longer synchronised (??) – at least this way I have everything in one place.
And don’t forget the Poland plans
December Dresden
6-8 January Munich (Lenbachhaus and Dachau)
January Rostock/Warnemünde
February Art Karlsruhe; the new museum in Wiesbaden;
April 5 and 6: Görlitz (two “lost places” photo tours)
April 13: Hamburg (Blende2 plus various exhibitions) (and Bremerhaven?
And a reminder to myself that when I moved to Berlin, I set out to visit as many towns and cities in my new neighbouring country – Poland – as possible. A certain pandemic, and a regime change, put a temporary stop to those plans, but now that Poland is back on my good books, it is time to resume those visits.
| Visited | Visit again | Still to be visited |
| Gdansk | Byalystok | |
| Krakow | Bydgoszcz | |
| Łódź | Częstochowa and Chorzow | |
| Lublin | Kostrzyn | |
| Poznań | Poznań | Katowice |
| Szczecin (x 2) | ||
| Torun | ||
| Warsaw | Warsaw | |
| Wrocław |
A total of five photos to be submitted to Blende2-Hamburg.
Despite the fact that I live in Berlin, with its endless amount of street art, I somehow do not think I will photograph any for this assignment.
As for autumn foliage, I’ll have to wait and see. So far, there is not that much of it around.
But ICM – I have done quite a lot of that, periodically, in recent years, and always find it fun, for a little while, until I don’t, and completely forget about it. But I am always happy when it come up as “homework” in a course.
Below are the results so far (to be continued for another couple of weeks) from which I will have to choose five photos:
Festival of Giant Kites, Tempelhofer Feld, 21 September:
Morning walk at Landwehrkanal/Urbanhafen 24 September:
Visit to Berlin Herbstrummel. Obviously a missing link in my cultural education, although it was a lot like a pre-Christmas fair:
My attempt to make a bundle of “pretty”, pastel-coloured prizes look creepy:
Visit to Tierpark Berlin 7 October:
And finally – an attempt at making a scene look more dramatic – not sure I succeede, plus the odd one out: a multiple-panel with autumn foliage, such as it was, since that was only getting started in Berlin a few days ago:
These are easy and quick – and healthy -, and also great to take with you if you are going to be out and about and with no even remotely healthy food within reach but only those sandwiches made with refined wheat and filled with highly processed meat/cheese/whatever and E-numbers that are being peddled wherever you look when on the move in Berlin.
They can be frozen, too.
Mix 150 g chickpea flour with approx. 4 dl oat milk (or any other plant milk or animal milk, or even water. Start with less and add until you have the desired texture which depends how thin or thick you want your pancakes.
Then add 1 tsp baking soda (natron) and 1 tsp salt, and mix well.
Then add whatever you want as a filling. If you want sweet pancakes, add for example any kind of berry, and some maple syrup.
In this case, I added half a pack of broccoli, from the freezer, chopped; a red onion, finely chopped; two garlic cloves, finely chopped; half a tsp turmeric; a tsp moringa powder; a tsp dried methi leaves; a tsp ajwain seeds, a healthy dose of black pepper, and a pinch of chili flakes, and a tblsp nutritional yeast.
I could also have added for example some fresh herbs and some red bell pepper, or shredded carrot, zucchini, beetroot, ….
Then bake as you would any other pancake.
Here, two were cooled off and went in the rucksack for later, and two were served for breakfast with crumpled feta cheese and thick balsamico.
IN PROGRESS
First, a multiple-panel I made for a photography course where the assignment was fall foliage, before that had really started appearing in Berlin:
My second (or third?) participation in this VHS birdwatching walk, led by Rob Crouch. I have also walked that route by myself several times, and once with a friend, since I now know it well, and even with my pathetic orientation skills do not have to bother with maps and am not likely to get completely lost. It is a very diverse walk with lakes, fields and forest.
There were not that many birds in Moorlinse when we got there mid-morning, but one great white egret I had not seen there before.
A bit later, while walking further on, we saw many geese arriving and descending towards Moorlinse, reportedly for a rest before continuing their travel south.
We also saw two herons circling (or were they actually storks?):
By the way, there were also some large caterpillars on the paths. Thank you to Agata for styling one of them for a photoshoot :-).
Stopped for a break at Karpfenteiche before proceeding towards Bogensee:
At Bogensee, I was lucky to get some photos of a great white egret. For a moment, I thought it might be the one from Moorlinse escaping from the onslaught of geese, but after the walk, I went back to Moorlinse and saw that egret still there, seemingly unperturbed by the geese.
Below are the kinds of photos I also find interesting, but I have included some pretty landscape photos above since those are what most people seem to like. (“Pretty” is not my kind of thing. I find most of it quite puke-worthy):
Somewhere along the way, we also saw a cow and a buzzard (the latter actually too far away to be photographed with my slightly limited equipment.
And finally, the view over Moorlinse after the walk:
It may be a bit of a stretch to categorise a visit to Tierpark Berlin as a nature walk, but there are many different trees, bushes, grasses – in addition to the zoo animals. I went there in search of some ICM photos for the Blende2 assignment. Those will be posted in a separate post. Here are some of the more “normal” photos I took:
A super enjoyable walk in the most perfect weather.
And a photo walk ably organised by DJ in InterNations Photography Group – a very nice event, starting with a cup of good coffee in Mehringdamm, followed by a walk around and to the top of Viktoriapark, and ending with a tasty meal in Mama Rosas Taqueria in Mehringdamm.
Photographed two white flowers on the way there.
Last time I needed physiotherapy, it was a less than positive experience. The first clinic I tried turned out to be totally disorganised, had not joined the 21st century yet (no computers!), so everything from phone numbers/addresses to appointments to notes and journals was scribbled on scraps of paper which were floating around everywhere and appointments were cancelled frequently without notifying me because they could not find my phone number (and of course they were not using something as modern as e-mail – this was about six year ago ……).
The next one I tried I just for some reason did not particularly like, and the sessions were really heavy going to get through. I remember seriously considering skipping the last couple (out of ten) sessions. It has to be said that they seemed competent enough, and I did feel an improvement.
This time, every session was a breeze. Praxis für Physiotherapie near Alexanderplatz was extremely organised in terms of giving out appointments, and the appointments were kept completely punctually. Valentin could not have been more competent, knowledgeable, pleasant, and plainly good company.
I have gone from hating to liking physiotherapy and if and when I need another ten sessions, I will definitely go back there.
One on 28 September with VHS Pankow in Freizeitpark Marienfelde, and one on 29 September, found in Umweltkalender, in Britzer Garten.
I am finding it a little bit strange that they would organise the one tomorrow on the day of the – fiftieth! – Berlin Marathon. For anyone living inside the route, not to mention those who live north of Berlin and somehow have to make it across the city, it might be difficult if not impossible to get there, since many bus routes are suspended and many streets blocked off. (And no, I am not complaining about the marathon like so many others – it is a feast, if you ask me, and it is one weekend each year, so either just stay at home or go out and enjoy the spectacle and stop whining).
Anyway, both walks were very pleasant. In Marienfelde, we saw a heron and a largeish flock of long-tailed tits, as well as a buzzard and a kestrel.
In Britzer Garten, we saw five jays at the same time in one tree, several types of woodpecker and tit, and a sparrowhawk. On my way out I saw a bird of prey being escorted to the nearest exit by two crows.
In the end, 13 people were signed up. Three of those actually turned up. I will forever wonder what it is in “please do not sign up unless you plan on attending, and if you do sign up and then discover or decide that you are not going to attend, please cancel”, or similar words to the same effect, it is that people do not understand.
Other InterNations members are wondering why I have so few “Contacts” in my contacts list. Apart from the fact that I don’t care about having contacts in InterNations contact list, another reason is that I block no-showers from being able to contact me directly. Sorry.
Anyway, it was a good day out, the weather was perfect, and the number of visitors must have broken all records.
Here are the (too many – sorry :-)) “normal” photos I took:
