A little vacation is due ...

… 192 hours and 17 minutes until vacation. Usually I have things packed a week in advance, purchased a few books for the long and lazy days in the mountains, confirmed bookings, boarded the cat and topped up on calcium-beta-caratin. This year however, I let my husband do all this. He is sooo organised. The poor dear even ironed what we’re taking! It’s coming down in buckets outside, a real monsoon, and as I peer out from my office window I can see half the gardening crew watering the trees and the other half cutting the edges of the lawn with a weed whacker. Ironing things before you pack them, watering plants and cutting the grass in the rain. I don’t know girls, what do you think - why are men so complicated? :O) 192 hours and 14 minutes …

Recipe: White Chocolate Cheese Parfait

White Chocolate & Cheese Parfait (6 portions)

300 gram soft goats cheese (chevre)
100 gram white chocolate
500 ml cream

1/2 fresh papaya
1/2 fresh mango
1 fresh red chili pepper
1 fresh lime

Whip room temperature goats cheese until creamy.
Finely grate white chocolate. Whip the cream.
Gently fold all ingredients together.
Spoon mixture into 6 glasses and cool.

Cut papaya and mango into very fine pieces.
Cut the red chili pepper into very fine slices.
Mix together with the juice of the lime.
Serve spoonful on top of each parfait.

Enjoy!! katrin

grill night in garden!

Saturday. I'm a little lobster short and stout, here are my pinchers, here is my clarified butter and some chopped egg and caviar ... sorry ... ahem – is this turned on? … So we dumped in the grill coals and lathered them with the hooch in the plastic bottle and then kicked it up a notch with a match or two and we were in business. We held it together, the other mums and I, this time with grilled peaches, chicken in olive and tomato pesto with garlic head and apples filled with cranberry jelly and martinis on the patio as the sun slowly set on our little patch of heaven. For all the moaners and nay-sayers, for all the hot-heads and complainers, life is what you make it; we were doing just fine and the glow of the barbi drew out the others, the critics and cynics, the basketball Bobs and the volleyball Vals, slowly, slowly from their haunts. Knocking back a few brews between laughs, between sticky chocolate bananas and vulgar vagaries, the night past too quickly. Here’s to next week and maybe we’re grilling on a matchstick held tenderly over a Bic lighter, but we will survive to grill another day, in many ways. Now I’m off to slather on some après sun. I’ve got a mean sun burn happening here. What you get for sitting outside over lunch, playing in the sand with the kids all afternoon, soaking up those rays sans sun cream like a cowgirl. You know the risks but you just can’t be patient in collecting those rays one at a time, building up a base, no. No, you gotta be at the wine festival in 2 weeks and you can’t be white. You decide to sprint the distance. So you hot dog it through the day and end up looking like a damn lobster at night… good night! :O) katrin

salad time in the city ...

sunday afternoon the sun came out just long enough for us to hesitate in lighting the grill but still pack up the girls and head off to the garden to see what had become of it since our trip to Belaruß. the gate creaked open, and the overgrown willow branches sprayed us with the raindrops of the previous day. the garden was an overgrown delight! beneath the nestles and the weeds, once we had our hands and our forks amongst the undergrowth we found early zucchini, a dozen heads of lettuce, strawberries and tomatoes, raspberries and gooseberries ... the herb garden of sage and rosemary, basil and lavender, mint and parsley were a delight! but where were the slugs that last year had cost us so many plants? not so many slugs this year. perhaps they got the message? I see our friend the mole is back in residence, and there is certainly a mouse of or two living amongst the compost... the only stain on the garden recently is the empty chicken coop which had housed four egg laying hens until some creature decided to snap them up. not a pretty sight when you go in search of eggs in the morning! girls mostly found nestles this afternoon ... they will go about without their gloves! bye! katrin

Recipe: Basil Ganache filled Tuiles

200 gram dark chocolate
100 ml creme fraiche
24 fresh basil leaves
One batch Tuile dough.

Melt chocolate, add creme fraiche and basil leaves.
Leave to infuse at room temperature and sieve ganache leaving behind basil leaves.
Do not refrigerate.
In oven and wrapped around handle to form half closed tubes.
Fill 6 tuiles with ganache, when cool, from each end.

Enjoy! Katrin

OH! Tuile dough .... :O)

250 gram white sugar
100 gram melted butter
150 gram flour

2 eggs

let dough rest for 10-15 minutes
180 C or 350 F oven

spread dough on heated baking sheet, spread out a good sized circle.

slide up with a spatula and wrap on handle of wooden spoon.

slide off when cool.

should be used soon! humidity in air makes them soft.

Behind the Windows

Our city never lacks for a tour bus trying to negotiate its' length down the 17th century cobblestone street, past triumphal arches and tree lined academic boulevards. I often see them from the window as I'm washing the dishes, or making dinner, or typing on the keyboard in our second floor flat. So reminiscent of New York brownstones that I have to fulfill my fantasies of living in Boston (not in New York but they do have brownstones in Boston that are still nicely located from what I could see looking down from the Hancock Observation Tower) by carrying my bike up and down the stairs on my shoulder like they do in the movies - but with the girls following behind, bickering or calling or ... I think it's ironic that when I travelled through foreign places I always thought it would be an adventure to live there, how exciting it must be to reside in this city or that, how much better life must be secreted behind those walls living the life of a bohemian or a rich advertising executive; little did I know that behind all those walls were people like me doing dishes. -- katrin

If you can't stand the heat ...

My sleep was broken at precisely 4:15 am by the staccato ring of my telephone.
“… mmm Yes?”
“You’re not going to like this, but the fire alarm’s going off in the main kitchen …”
“Great. Yeh, that’s great, perfect, thanks …” What is this conspiracy?
I get dressed and cast a bleary look into the mirror before grabbing my car keys. I can just make out the sirens coming from down the street. Just great.

The main kitchen is vibrating from the klaxon’s belches. As regular as a heart beat the sirens pound out their call: “WAKE … UUUUUP … WAKE … UUUUUP … youregonna BUUUUUURN …. youregonnaBUUUUUURN …” The building is empty except for the security team from the main gate and some chattering students from the student bar passing by outside - a swirling cloud of girlishness as loud and bright as a gaudy funfair on a sunny summer afternoon in Nantucket. God bless ‘em …

The darkness inside the kitchen swirls and vibrates with red lights, the belch of hydraulic brakes, diesel fuel, and the clatter of men and machine as the fire trucks arrive. Within minutes the place becomes a pumping mass of testosterone as firemen and police mingle about, writing notes, chattering into walkie talkies, checking the air ducts, doors, moving through a fine white powder on the floor leaving behind footprints as clear as on any dance school floor. Then as suddenly as it began the sirens end, the testosterone slowly ebbs away, the carnival midway of candy floss and cracker jack retreats into the night.

"Looks like one of your fire extinguishers self activated in your hood here ... should get that replaced in the morning." I am handed a pink copy from a clipboard and then I am once again alone in the silent, depth of the night. I make a final round, lock the door behind me and drive home. I drink a glass of milk, sitting back gratefully in my own kitchen. Kitten purrs with joy to see me back, stained and warm from her nightly prowl. She jumps up onto my lap and purrs gently as I run my fingers through her thick black hair. Her eyes consider me for a minute before she jumps down, stretches her back and jumps daintily onto the couch.

“You’re such a parody kitten.” She smiles, if cats can smile. I undress again and crawl back into bed, turn off the light and fall asleep. - Katrin.

where does it all go?

I just don´t understand recycling; I mean, I can understand recycling glass and metal and paper but then why, when you buy it back, does it costs twice as much. Why do I want to spend twice the price of fresh new paper on old uneven grey paper? Doesn´t make sense does it? The biggest question I have is where does recycled toilet paper come from? I don´t want my toilet paper recycled! I want it to go away and disappear somewhere in a big pipe. I certainly don´t want to see it back on the store shelf! Was it mine? How do they recycle it? Is there a wet and dry section down there somewhere? concerned - katrin

Raising Children, Mah Jong and Baking

Just returned from a long day and evening preparing for big event tomorrow. The girls are in bed and my darling man has cleaned and defrosted some salmon. But not left any wine to chill. Hmmm - well then I will go on the wagon tonight. As I was driving home I was thinking about raising my children - who rarely see me it seems, but who at least don't starve. Which is easier, raising children or baking?

Well, have you ever sat in on a game of Mah Jong? You just line up your tiles, move them about and get your ass kicked. It´s a very complicated, stressfull game and I compare it to raising children; because you don´t know the rules. In fact I have yet to discover any rules at all. My girls certainly don’t know what they are because I’ve asked them on many occasions. Children don’t come with a users manual, even though I did write one for my father when he once had the girls for a fortnight. You spend all your time raising them as you would have liked to have been raised at the same time feeling guilty if you aren’t being as good a parent as the woman down the street who’s kid plays the piano and wears clean shoes all the time or the guy in your office who takes two weeks off each summer to take his son to father and son hot air ballooning school in Austria. The guilt and need to ‘keep up with the parent-Joneses’ springs from your subconscious if you even so much as yell at them.

Then there's baking. Pure science - there is one way to bake and you need to follow a recipe. Baking is science, while cooking is art. So perhaps raising children is a bit more like cooking than baking. There is no one, right, guaranteed perfect way to raise them - most of the time you learn from experience what best results from what goes in the pot.

luv - katrin (v tired)

Recipe: Chocolate Cake

I love this cake ... now of course I feel the need for a coffee to go with it. What ever happened to really good, thick, coffee anyway? The best coffeee is either in Erfurt (must be the heavy metals in the water) or in Vienna ...

300 gram dark chocolate
75 ml cream
200 gram butter
200 gram sugar
6 eggs

Melt chocolate and cool.
Whip softened butter with sugar.
Whip egg yolks with melted chocolate.
Whip egg whites. Whip cream.
Gently fold all ingredients together.
Pour into cake pan. Bake 25 minutes 300 F/150 C.
Let cake cool 3-4 hours.

… I swear the battery on this laptop has a half life of 15 minutes … but let’s not go there – I fear that my gut pounding, tear choking prose might make many of you nervous – therefore the tone of my discourse while the cake bakes will be much cheerier, off key, bouncing, fluffy, jelly jammy ….. me? Me, I’m dead tired. Tired of eating over-cooked fish in other people’s restaurants and tired of repacking chocolate sculptures into bubblewrap filled boxes …

…but I have a flight to catch kids – have to fly to Vienna to scare the straights with my chocolate perversions – scare the people right – you know, next time you stick a wad of chocolate into your mouth then think of the 200 000 plus that work as slave labour to get those cocoa beans into the shops … well, we’ll see how this plays in the big city right? Last year the small town punters loved it, goggled it up, literally walking about with the pieces in their grubby little hands licking them content as pigs in …. The big question is of course, will it play in Peoria?

Well, now I’m all out of licorice, the coffee maker is gurgling and screaming, and my man has just padded barefoot past my field of vision with a croissant in his teeth and a twinkle in his eye, so it’s time to go. Let’s keep this happy boys and girls – Vienna is a very long way away. It’s almost not even really western Europe, much – I mean, pull out your Atlases – it’s teetering on the brink of the Ottoman sultanates. You need patience – you need a taxi and a train and another train, a bus, a plane, yet another train, and a subway before you are there. But damn is the coffee worth the trip …

It’s drizzling rain as I enter the Museum Quartier 21, snuggled in between all those temples, all that art, all that money, all that pretence and whispered critique and well – the organiser of the show confided to me over a beer at 2 in the morning of my arrival that only “serious art” makes it here. Serious art. So I’m feeling pretty good. As you would, wouldn’t you? As you would.

7:00 pm. There is a hushed silence as I enter the roped off area in a sparkly blue body stocking wearing nothing else but a pair of swim flippers and accompanied by six dwarves dressed in sackcloth and ashes. The block of chocolate awaits me in trembling anticipation beneath the hot lights. The crowd holds it’s breath as the music crescendoes and I attack the chocolate block’s girth with a vigorous urgency and a battery of instruments including an electric toothbrush, a hair dryer, surgical tweezers, nose hair clippers, an electric whisk all lending a virile and yet somehow unclear significance to the performance.

When it is done I motion to the dwarves who wheel over the iron basket of glowing coals on squeeking coasters to my side. I remove one of the red hot branding irons from the fire and as the halogen spots explode in intensity ram the branding iron into the middle of the chocolate sculpture where it sizzles, leaving my initials. Then all is darkness and silence. The crowd goes absolutely, fucking, bananas … Vienna. Eat at Treszenewskis Buffet. Wear Dorothy Strange. Tear out your heart and cover it in marzipan. The coffee’s to die for and don’t forget to bring back some chocolate …

Cassandra

"Mom? ... Mom? Why did you cook the chicken with nuts? A nut doesn’t belong in food. A nut is a nut. You wouldn’t put a marble in your food would you ... ? ... Mom??" My eldest daughter tears the chicken from the bone with a furtive, feline quickness like she hasn’t eaten for many days. She looks up from her plate across at me, her fingers go from the greasy chicken to the bread she has saved up on her plate against 'her black days', to the chicken, to her hair, she draws the small bones from her mouth and concentrates on the meat between her fingers now, calming, aware the meal won’t be stolen from in front of her. She begins humming, softly between chews … All the Angels sing, Hold on to Jesus’ hand, we will all be safe ... "Mum, can I watch some TV?" I raise my eyes from the keyboard and stare at her over the rims of my glasses. "Cassandra, sweetie, do you mind? Go find your sisters, I have to get this blog written … "

Dandelion Wine and Onion Marmalade

see, when i was growing up my father made wine. not from grapes, but from whatever we had in the garden: plums, peaches, pears, apple and of course dandelion. the basement smelt delicious each fall and summer as he created ciders and wines and softdrinks -and my mother canned and froze whatever was she could fit into a glass or a freezer bag. it was like being raised by hamsters, darling! my father wanted to bring a bottle of his dandelion wine to his parents one trip across the pond to england - this must have been 1975 ... and the pressure in the cabin released the cork and the entire overhead filled with the fragrance of dandelion wine. and onion marmalade? long before it was fashionable to make the cute little puree often coloured with port or brandy reduction and plop it down next to your steak, everyone knew the succulent tastes of caramalised onions left to sweeten in the pan after the meat had been taken out. when i was in college i was dying to try something- anything - out in the kitchen to take home and show i wasn't a complete loss to my parents. all i had was a pound of sugar and a pound of onions. toss in some olive oil, garlic and my travelling companion herb de provence - well, i'm still making jars of this today and everyone is STILL shying away until they have it in their mouth. then the jar is quickly emptied. i'm sure if i called it onion compote there wouldn't be such a performance. but i'm not about to.

dandelion wine and onion marmalade. and while i have not yet made dandelion jam i'm sure to before this blog is complete. time for a nightcap. katrin