Tuesday walk organised by Joachim Wenzel. Nice walk, although I felt very cold, for some reason. It was not the case for most of the others, who preferred to walk very slowlsy.
The walk ended with lunch in Ristorante da Ponte. I had a delicious spaghetti with octopus and justified that, at least partly :-), by walking the rest of the way home (route on MapMyWalk).
….. especially game, lamb and poultry, although most of the time I eat vegetarian and, increasingly, vegan.
I am so tired of all these vegan creations that try to emulate the traditional, conventional foods we have all grown up with. This can only cause disappointment since NOTHING plant-based can replace meat and cheese. Personally, I have never tasted any “vegan meat” or as some call it “fake meat” or “vegan cheese” that was not more or less disgusting.
Instead, create and invent what can and SHOULD be made without animal products, without trying to copy anything that can only be made properly with animal products.
It is perfectly possible to cook plant-based food, which are great dishes, original in their own right, without being called fake this, and alternative that, and which are delicious, and which those who prefer to use animal products will wish they were able to emulate.
And now that we are on the subject of veganism, I also think people should make up their minds as to why they want to be or become vegans.
Animal welfare concers? Fine, but then I would have thought that trying to create the sensation that they are eating meat would be unpleasant.
Environmental concerns? Equally fine, but then they should not eat all those substitutes which are mainly based on soy, the growing of which is a threat to biodiversity.
And by the way – for personal health reasons, too much soy is also questionable, and when it comes to prevention of for example hormone positive cancers, or the recurrence thereof, soy should only be consumed in very small amounts, if at all.
On the – more and more rare – occasions that I crave meat (usually game, lamb or poultry, and in this season specifically duck and goose), I either treat myself to some but make sure that all the sustainability and animal welfare criteria are met, or I tighten up on my daily diet. I do believe that a craving for meat can be caused by a lack of protein or more specifically all the amino acids, so I sometimes have to re-educate myself on the food group combinations that provide the most complete proteins, which is actually surprisingly easy to achieve without involving animal products and can even provide more complete proteins than one would get from a traditional meat-and-two-veg meal.
And by then, the craving for meat has gone away :-).
Perhaps the day will come when vegan products no longer have to be marked vegan, but conventional products have to be marked “contains animal products” :-).
Reposting, as this is a good winter dessert (despite the ice cream). Too heavy for summer.
When I saw this recipe in Olive Magazine, I was intrigued, not only by the celeriac in a sweet recipe but also because I had never heard of Parkin cake before. It turns out to be a time-honoured, tried and tested classic. That shows how much I know about food.
I made some adjustments along the way. For example, for the parkin cake, I don’t like the idea of “self-raising flour” (as they insist on spelling it, although it is actually “self-rising flour” – but I have discovered that you can’t trust their spelling at all despite the fact that it is an English mother-tongue magazine). I have also translated the rather cryptic “mixed spice” into part cinnamon and part nutmeg.
Also, since I do not have an ice cream machine – I know – big mistake, but they do take up a lot of room – I have changed the procedure of finishing the ice cream slightly. I whipped the cream separately, and since I used organic eggs in a country with strict salmonella control, I skipped the bit where the egg mixture is heated up.
For the ice cream:
Heat the oven to 200C/fan. Place the celeriac slices in one layer on a baking sheet. Bake till the celeriac is dark brown. It is OK if it seems almost burnt around the edges. This will bring flavour and colour.
In a saucepan, bring milk and the baked celeriac to the boil, then take it off the heat and allow to infuse for about an hour. Then blend till smooth.
Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whip sugar and egg yolks till light and fluffy and the sugar has dissolved, then mix with the celeriac milk.
Whip the cream to soft peaks and fold into the mixture.
Cover with cling film and place in freezer. For the first couple of hours, stir regularly until almost at ice cream texture.
For the parkin cake:
Heat the oven to 160C/fan.
Sift the flour, ground ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg into a large bowl, add the oats, and mix.
Melt the golden syrup, treacle, sugar and butter in a saucepan, until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved.
Pour the hot mixture into the dry ingredients and quickly mix thoroughly.
Add the egg and milk, then mix again briefly.
Pour the mixture into a buttered and lined loaf tin. The tin I used was about 25 x 9 cm, and fitted perfectly. The cake rises between 1 and 2 cm during baking. Bake for 50 minutes or until a knife comes out fairly clean. The cake should be dense and sticky.
Cool in the tin.
On low heat, melt the sugar in a frying pan until you have a light caramel. Don’t stir, just tip the pan till it is all melted.
Add the pears and stir gently. Beware of splutter.
Add the spices and keep stirring. If the sugar stiffens, turn up the heat a little and keep cooking until it melts again. Continue to cook until a knife can go through the pear with ease, but be careful not to overcook.
Remove from heat, then add butter and give a final stir once melted.
Pour the pears into a sieve over a bowl, to stop the pears from over-cooking, and to preserve the caramel sauce which is to be poured over the pears and icecream when serving.
Parkin cake keeps well, and gets stickier with time.
Alledgedly, parkin cake can be frozen, wrapped in cling film and tin foil, but I can’t confirm that yet.
Conclusion: Celeriac ice cream is nice, but only as a novelty and together with these other two components. I would never make it to be eaten on its own or as part of any other dessert.
I would also look at other ways to caramelize pears – in this version it was quite difficult as the sugar kept lumping up.
But star anise in a caramel sauce – why have I never thought about that – from now on I will remember that whenever I caramelize anything – sweet or savory.
I went in the hope of seeing some of the new residents. Three of my favourite animals (red panda, gold takin, and sumatra tiger) had young during summer/early autumn. Also, rumour has it that a group of gnus have moved in.
I saw the whole red panda family, but only the male tiger, and I could not find neither the gold takin nor the gnus.
Tierpark Berlin – Europe’s largest landscape zoo.
And the eternal question: Black and white, or colour?
In view of the current situation, I was thinking of doing this for the winter anyway, but now I have had to: In order to keep a reasonable temperature in those rooms that I do use, I have closed off my two bedrooms and am only using the living room, and sleeping there, and kitchen.
This is working out fine and I can do that till spring, except I am still only able to reach an indoor temperature of 16 to 17 C. (Once again, Gabi Fastner comes to the rescue in order to keep warm :-)).
I am not sure whom I have to thank for this – Putin? Merkel? Schröder? Or Schön & Sever? In the beginning, I thought it was the same for everybody, but I am not hearing from anybody else that they have the same problems, so I am starting to suspect the latter, i.e. our Hausverwaltung.
The good nesws is that the fact that I don’t have a stinking cold by now, or even a hint of a sore throat, probably means that my immune system is back to normal, if not better than in spring.
But I am searching for another expression to replace the usual: “I am freezing my tits off”…….
EDIT AFTER the event was supposed to have taken place: When I got there, there was a sign on the door saying that the shop was closed today. I guess they just “forgot” to cancel my appointment. A wasted trip to Friedenau – thanks in petto berlin. So now I can continue the debate with myself, and include the question whether I can be bothered to try again. Astonishingly, considering the increasing number of women diagnosed with breast cancer, they are the only place in Berlin who offer this kind of service (there is also a branch in Mitte, but they are even more unprofessional. Perhaps most women opt for reconstruction, or make do with other bits of “padding” which I have been doing up to now.
ORIGINAL POST:
So. I am doing it. Getting prostheses. I have an appointment today with someone at in petto berlin for measurements.
I have been debating with myself not only whether I could be bothered, but also whether it would be hypocritical and go against everything I have been preaching. “We don’t need fake boobs in order to feel like real women”, and various other bullshit. (I have previously explained why I decided against reconstruction, and that was one of the reasons although in that context a minor consideration).
The thing is, after a radical mastectomy, you are actually beyond flat in a way. So much has been removed that you get a kind of scooped-out look, and in some clothes I notice it every time I pass a mirror or window, and I see others noticing it too, and there are just days where I do not feel like rocking that look and would like a bit more of a silhouette that goes outwards rather than inwards.
Conditioning, conformity, convention …. I know, but it might be nice to have the choice, depending on mood and choice of clothes.
Lovely walk organised by Anne from Sprechlaufwandern.
PS: It WAS a slightly misty morning, but not as spooky as the first photo might indicate. That is just what happens when you forget to check the exposure settings first.
But first, I went to check out the ever changing gallery scene in Leipziger Straße around the Julia Stoschek Collection. It is very confusing, galleries are in and out of several locations around Leipziger Straße 47 to 55, but there now seem to be two more permanent (as permanent as that sort of enterprise ever gets in Berlin) fixtures: KVOST, and Sweetwater.
Then on to Nikoliaviertel. An area I usually shun due to my allergy towards buildings that have been completely reconstructed. One thing is renovating what is still standing, but reconstruction from scratch just gives off a totally fake aura.
Anyway, the exhibition Aufbrüche. Abbrüche. Umbrüche. is shown in the Ephraim Palace and in Museum Nikolaikirche.
The Ephraim Palace is, at a stretch, suited for this type of exhibition, but Nikolaikirche – or any “old” church for that matter – is definitely not. What a mess that exhibition is, although with several interesting works.
And then I just played around with long exposure of the atrocity that is the ferris wheel on Alexanderplatz, which I guess is the German version of a kind of “winter wonderland”.
From Dammheide to Wuhlebecken along river Wuhle through Wuhlheide Forest to Karlshort.
Lisa K. organises shortish (about 8 to 11 km) Sunday walks. All communication is by e-mail and in English or German. Contact her on this e-mail address to get on her mailing list.
Start at bus stop Deutschhofer Allee. The route on MapMyWalk here, except I forgot to switch it on till about a km into the walk, and also to switch it off again as I boarded the S-Bahn at Karlshorst :-).
The very enjoyable walk (and nice to see some new faces) ended at the christmas market in Karlshorst. Possibly the most unattractive of all the christmas markets in Berlin. It had to be tried. So now I know, for future reference. I don’t like christmas markets at the best of times. I have no idea what the geezer in the photo was doing but it smelled like burnt something or other.
The walk also took us past the site of the former forced-labour camp Kaulsdorfer Straße 90.
