You know we’ve recently moved into a new apartment which btw also means that I am now as broke as a self-employed, tax-paying idiot can be by the end of the year. And still I urgently wanted to get my hands on such a dishwasher – found a good (= used) machine for sale here in Frankfurt for a really low price. You’ll especially learn to appreciate such luxuries if you’re the one that will have to carry it up to the 4th floor on the evening of December 23rd – with all your friends (= free help) being away due to public holidays.

Now as the year is coming to an end, I thought about publishing a blog post on some of my favourite luxuries that money can buy: foodstuff that I like buying from time to time:

Pictured above are just some of the various things I’ve bought today:

1. (Japanese) Green Tea Mochi from Taiwan
2. Sheerpera (from an Afghan bakery in Hamburg) – Afghan sweets made from milkpowder, sugar, almonds, lots of cardamon and pistachio
3. deep-frozen vegetarian dumplings
4. soy beans for a salad with soy sauce & sesame
5. Japanese seaweed (Nori) for some sushi
6. fresh Tofu (from Germany)
7. Japanese Udon noodles (from Taiwan)
8. sesame
9. fresh green pepper (Biber) from Turkey
10. Mixed congee with red beans and sticky rice (it actually is a red bean soup which is very much appreciated during winter times, see also here)
11. Turkish cheese, very smooth. Many Germans actually don’t know what feta cheese has to taste like and go for the much cheaper Greek supermarket version which isn’t that nice. Sure, there may be many different versions and tastes, but this one is my favourite (i.e. Turkish > Greek).
12. (Japanese) sticky Sushi rice
13. Chana Masala Ready-To-Eat mixture (chickpeas + onions + herbs)
14. Fried & dried vegetable chips from Taiwan. Cheap & tasty, new product.
15. PG Tips tea – because the black tea for sale in Germany just doesn’t do it for me.

So…..yes, good food is important to me. I know there are others who are willing to spend a fortune on high-quality and/or exotic food, but the one I like is very basic and I usually prefer locally produced food. A purchase like the one above is thus very special to me.

Our next task will be to set up a vertical garden on the balcony, i.e. fill a bag with soil & seeds in this Kibera-style and wait for good weather.

Everyone, please have a good start into 2010 and may the Gods of good food and fine taste always be with you! :-)

LEBENsmittel.

Lindt easter bunnies made of chocolate and already on sale although it’s still some weeks till Easter.

They btw started selling Xmas cookies as early as September last year.

Scary.

Leek Flower Paste. I still haven’t figured how to use this on food (@KPT – weißt Du es?) but it was really cheap so I HAD to buy it. Looks interesting.

Daifuku Mochi. I love these little sticky rice cakes and so often forget about buying them when buying food @ the Asian supermarket. The ones pictured were a little bit salty though – coming from Korea…

Sushi rolls for a hefty price in Frankfurt downtown. I love Japanese food but not when it’s that expensive + most of these rolls are filled with vegetable and other special combinations for the European market.

This new mall opened in Frankfurt downtown – the picture above is from Thursday last week when it opened. People stormed it until late in the evening like there’s no tomorrow. I haven’t been inside yet because – after all – it’s just another mall. Tapio was there and did a video on it.

Very interesting architecture. It’s also very impressive to see what modern reinforced concrete construction is capable of – such thin walls and floors, statically interesting (for an engineer, at least).

I can’t even remember if it was a new year’s resolution, but it’s January 2009 now and the wife (“she”) said we’d have to go on a diet. South-Beach Diet.

If you’re married or at least engaged, you’ll know that wise men never oppose a female decision (but instead wait for them to remorse on their own). This especially applies to those poor fellows who are married to Thatcheresque characters.

The painful truth is that she’s right. We both urgently need to lose weight – not because we’d been surviving on junk food only (she’s vegetarian anyways), but because food in Germany is just more than nutritious. Whenever I am in Kenya, I lose weight. But here in Germany, it’s just massive. And then all these sweets!

Sweets, dear readers, are one of the two fine reasons why I like German food (the other is Bavarian Leberkäse). And not only packaged Haribo winegums and liquorice, but also fresh cakes from a bakery:

Choice 2.0

Now compare that with the usual “variety” of marble cakes as found in the average Kenyan supermarket. What a difference and sweet temptation!

Choice 1.0

Ati? Do I hear you longing for the typical BlueBand (instead of butter) “butter” cream cake?

The strange Barbie cake found in Nbo the other day

See? That’s the dilemma now. Living in a country where the sweets section alone can fill up a whole supermarket and even provides a bigger variety than the usual and rather boring marble & butter cream cakes as found in ex British colonies (sorry, but I blame this heritage purely on the British inability & disinterest in cooking & baking), you’ll quickly end up eating too many sweets. Just because they are readymade food and can be eaten quickly. And of course because I love sweets.

Other members of the extended family already tested this diet – or let’s say: change of diet, and it worked quite well for them. You’re basically not allowed to eat any bad carbohydrates during the first two weeks, which obviously also includes sugar, bread, potatoes and so on. The list of the NO-GOs is actually quite long – the one of those things you’re allowed to eat rather short.

As you may know or not know: Germans love to have a sweet breakfast (e.g. bread with jam), so this diet requires her to switch to scrambled eggs and bacon instead (ok, this is what I like about UK kitchen at least).

As for lunch and dinner, we’ve so far prepared vegetable dishes based on chickpeas, eggplant, garlic and sometimes even meat (for me, not for her). The meat part actually is quite nice because I didn’t have a proper steak until Xmas and until my good old ex-vegetarian sister Zora recently informed me she’d switched to being a carnivore. @Zora – in case you’re reading this: see how your actions influence my life! :-)

A snapshot I’d already twitpic’d: looks like Githeri to me, bila potatoes and beans. That’s dal fry, actually. Lentils + onions + tomatoes + some chick peas + curry. Delicious!

Eggplant/Aubergine with Turkish cheese and garlic + sesame. Grilled in the oven. This really is a perfect dish anyone can prepare within a few minutes.

Some kind of steak I’d cut into pieces because I wasn’t sure about its age (@intelligensia see “Rost and mboilo”, p.46 , “How to be a Kenyan”). Next time I will just choma this kabisa in the grill. Love the fresh broccoli though, very al dente (mushy food is a no-go except for Irio). I shall have even more meat during the coming weeks. Yay!

—–

Other, food related matters that are worth mentioning and actually require their own post is Vegefarm – a vegan/vegetarian restaurant opened by very good friends of mine in Bremen – a city in Northern Germany.

What they do is serving special dishes that almost taste like real meat or fish, but are purely based on gluten, tofu and shitake mushrooms and probably also other vegan ingredients. Quite SE Asian – they used to have a Chinese restaurant (already serving vegan dishes back then) but have since switched to this cuisine only. And best of all is that you can order these fake meat and fish balls based on Tofu & Co. online. I’d seen them importing these directly from Taiwan some years ago, so it’s extremely nice to see them coming up with a full restaurant these days that only serves such dishes.

Those dark green “leaves” on the image above are algae from the sea – and since I grew up on Japanese food, I really, really love the taste of this green seaweed.

—–

Yes – that’s about it so far. From seaweed to ugali na sukuma to sweets. And there you go wondering why I’d gained weight.

Interestingly though, and the intial reason for blogging all of this: it seems that if you want to survive on staple food only (starch), you’ll pay much less. Try to find decent (!) vegetable during winter season in Europe and you’ll quickly realize that the only place where vegetaboools taste like having grown under the sun (and not in some artificial greenhouse in Spain) is among Turkish supermarkets, next to those Afroshops downtown.

Of course, once I’m done and have lost my targeted 10kgs (hey..easy!), I will have to start my Leberkaese business idea in Kenya :-) Serving tasty meat snacks to commuters – how’s that for a change?

p.s.: I consider this post part of my lifelong Bantu-food-bashing-meme which aims at spreading Swahili food culture from the Kenyan coast to all parts of Central Kenya. Eh!

In other words: there’s this public shamba next door that delivers free food for those who just don’t see a green wilderness but instead an ideal source of natural ingredients for the afternoon tea healthy drinks!

Because just like Ishtar, I also prefer fresh food! :-)

After picking a bag full of fresh blackberries, we decided to use half of them to create a milk-shake. And since I like to try out new stuff, I also added oats and some leaves of fresh lemon balm:

Now, what do I do with the other half? A blackberry-pancake? Blackberry sorbet? Blackberry salad with lovage (from the garden)? Blackberry cake?

[edit: I eventually mixed the remaining blackberries with an apple, some milk (rice) pudding and some shots from a French & evil almond cognac.]

…soaked in water for 3-4 days:

“In a secular world with a never-ending search for a deeper meaning, climate protection is the new ersatz religion.” – read this somewhere the other day and instantly thought: yeah, Kyoto would actually be a good name for a child.

No, seriously, this kind of natural food is great and a welcome change to spice up the rice or salad. So where’s the connection between climate protection & healthy food?

Here.

Grow Bags are somehow similar to keyhole gardens – let’s see how future generations will start turning urban areas into micro-allotment gardens. With a possible re-use of nutrients contained in waste streams, this could be a smart way of closing the loop on the burning food security issues and also improve our living conditions in urban areas.

As for the sprouted seeds mixture above – I mixed them with carrots, peas, chashew nuts, rice and some soy(a) sauce. Delicious! :-)

You know I’d found Mochi from Taiwan on sale at an Asia Shop in Seville, Spain the other day and was wondering why it isn’t sold in Germany as well (the red bean paste is sold though).

I used to make Mochi myself as a child – don’t ask me what kind of mochi that was (Japanese name for it?), but basically I would just mix glutinous rice flour with water, literally pound it until it becomes a homogeneous mixture and then form small balls which would then be thrown into boiling water. Once they’ve changed their colour from white to semi-transparent and floating on top, they’re ready. Just leave them to cool off and then dip them into a mixture of soja bean flour & sugar.

Note to myself: this is one of those recipes where Mr and Mrs Calories will come during the night and pull out their sewing kit to work on your clothes. Bad.

Anyways, this time I tried a Daifuku recipe I’d found on the net and mixed 150ml of glutinous rice (flour) with 150ml of water, stirr it in a heated pot until it changes its colour and then let it cool down. After cooling, form little balls (~ hush puppies) and fill them with red bean paste. Didn’t work out that well. I will stick to my old method in future and mix everything once it’s still cold, then boil it et voilá. There’s nothing more sticky than glutinous rice…

(Talking about calories, the current schedule is 2x/week running and 1x/week swimming – how plausible is this disclaimer btw? :-).

Jeera Rice, von priya. Schmeckt genauso fad und ölig wie es auf dem Teller aussschaut. Ich bevorzuge ja klebrigen Reis dem locker luftigem, aber dieses ölige Gemansche war dann doch zu viel Pappkram. Außerdem: mit den 30 Kreuzkümmelsamen, 2 Blättern und so bekomm ich das auch noch selber (besser) hin.
So etwas weiß man jedoch nicht, wenn man im Asia Shop vorm Regal steht und es einen für 1,39 EUR anlächelt und zuflüstert: “try me, jke”.

Kam, sah und probierte.

Der Milchreis vom Penny schmeckt auch zu sehr nach Wasser und Milchpulver. Und überhaupt, diese pasteurisierte Milch. Ein Verbrechen…

Palada Payasam, noch so ne Ready-To-Eat Pampe, die sich ebenfalls hübsch auf dem V&B Geschirr meiner Vermieter ausbreitet. Eine Art Milchreis mit Zimt, Safran und weichgekochten Cashewnuts. Auch hier gilt: gut zu wissen, aber nächstes Mal mache ich es lieber selber. Schmeckt dann wenigstens.

Das Schöne am indischen Essen ist, dass es oft leicht zu kochende Gerichte sind. Das Schlechte (und irgendwie typische) daran ist, dass die Zutaten oft interessanter als das eigentliche Endergebnis sind.

Und außerdem: ich kenne mehr Asiaten, die auf Fertigessen oder zumindest Natriumglutamatdurchtränkte Speisen stehen, als selber am Herd die Kelle zu schwingen. Find ich irgendwie bißchen enttäuschend.

[UPDATE] : Die Sarah schreibt mir grad:

>>Ich weiß nicht, ob Du Dir dessen nicht bewusst bist oder warst, aber das Wort [Endergebnis] wird eher negativ belastet, in unseren Breiten. Denn das wurde, genauso wie “Endziel” bei der Judenverfolgung sehr oft verwandt, genauso wie die Parole: “Jetzt geht’s los…”.<<

Interessant! In der Tat hatte ich beim Texten einen kurzen Moment gezögert, da es mir seltsam vorkam. In Ermangelung eines brauchbaren Synonyms habe ich es dann trotzdem ausgewählt. Weniger weil es mich an irgendwelche NS-Verbrechen oder Sprache erinnerte (in der Schule hat man uns damals verboten, BRD zu sagen, weil das zu sehr nach DDR klingen würde), sondern weil es für mich so ein Pleonasmus ist: Endergebnis. Ist am Ende nicht immer ein Ergebnis zu erwarten?
Als ich die e-mail zu dem Thema sah, dachte ich erst ich hätte Kritik an meiner Verallgemeinerung zum Essen zu erwarten (“das Schöne, das Schlechte, das Typische” – schreibt man das eigentlich groß?).

Female frogs apparently have the most tender and juicy tighs.

Muahahahahaha….. as seen @my new fav Asian (Food) Shop. Packet of frogs’ legs sells for EUR 9,50. The Chinese chashier told me they’re delicious…

Buying ready-made food is a bit strange to me, especially as it comes packed within multiple layers of paper, plastic and aluminum foil, but….

UDON nudoools actually look like tapeworms..

…being able to create a tasty UDON soup, enriched with fresh carrots, seaweed and tofu, in just 10 minutes is unbeataboool!

I really dig these Indian ready-2-eat food packages. They are nice for those moments when you don’t want to cook for one person (+ I can’t cook stuff in small portions, so when I prepare aloo mutter or chana masala it will always last for at least two hungry eaters). One of these MTR package costs EUR 1,80 – which of course is somewhere in between of what you pay for the same dish in India and in an Indian restaurant abroad.

@Kang-Ping: can you see that bag of red bean paste? Sweet & lovely!

This was supposed to be my first post from Kubuntu 7.10 + Konqueror and later on Firefox browser, but something went wrong + my WordPress 2.5 installation has tendencies of behaving like Rucy Kibaki, especially the media upload script will prolly need a user rights correction (i guess – or is there a bug?).

The best way to ruin your sato afternoon is by installing Kubuntu 7.10 and figuring out why the packet manager is behaving like Jeff Koinange after being asked the meaning of Perestroika on Omo-Pick-A-Box.

Well, that’s what weekends are made for, right?