Divided On Tuna

There is probably no food I both loath and love so much as tuna.

I can't stand canned tuna. I can't stand its texture, I can't stand its colour, but worst, I can't stand its stench. I even have to stop breathing through the nose when somebody next to me is eating canned tuna.

However, if you offered me a tuna steak, briefly grilled or fried in a bit of olive oil or clarified butter, I act like Pavlov's dog.



Toño served the tuna steak with a self-created sauce made of shallots, dill, white whine and cream.

I *heart* Boskoop

There are many apple varieties. But only few are suitable to cook and bake with. One of the most grateful is the Booskop, a.k.a Belle de Boskoop.



This was probably the last time, I baked with Booskop for a long time. Boskoop are best between December and March. The ones I'd used had already clear signs that their season will have passed soon.

Quince Yoghurt

A while ago, I plugged Amselspitz yoghurts. They really brought the fun back into eating yoghurt. But like every novelty, the fun has worn of quickly. Just when I was starting to look around for the next yoghurt sensation, Amselspitz managed to turn the wheel around by introducing a quince yoghurt.



However, I had to postpone my exuberance by an entire week, since Toño simply ate the one I bought a week ago. Nevertheless today, Toño had to work and I actually got an opportunity to taste it.

Celebrating Success

Within any successful organisation one of the key criteria of that enabled their achievements is their ability to celebrate success, as we all learned in one of those dull team-building seminars.

However, our brass prefers to celebrate values. Values which haven been commanded top-down. So a week ago, we were invited to celebrate the four values our caring employer has recently given itself. In a year, our personal qualification (and thus bonuses) will be based how we lived those values. It's as silly as it sounds. Whatever, I kind of forgot to go. I was still recovering from the India trip.

Yesterday, we started again a small grassroot movement to celebrate the right thing. The colleague, who spent the most time with me in India, brought some bottles of Gewürztraminer. I went to the Indian take-out around the corner to get some portions of samosa and pakora. Together, we invited who was around of the team to celebrate the success of out latest project in India.

Rotten Socks

The other day I recommended Fritz's Apple Mint Organic Ice Tea. There was none available at the good conscience take-out I went to grab a tandoori chicken sandwich. So I took the Rooibos & Passion Fruit version. Wrong move! I don't like it. It kind of tastes like made of rotten socks.

Where's The Sky?

My caring employer has decided that it's time for me to move to another office. There is a positive side of it. The new one is bigger which is in favour of my areal filing system. However, there are some negative sides too:

• A vending machine is in crawling distance. Not good for my love handles.
• It's on the second floor. The old office was on the fifth floor. When avoiding the lift, this was a free workout I was even paid for. And, it's also not good for my love handles.
• I can't see the sky without breaking my neck.

Old view:



New view:

Salmon Topped Rösti

I'd asked for something with potatoes and Toño surprised me with a rösti.



Toño grounded some apples to the potatoes to add freshness and topped the rösti with Scottish salmon and a mustard and dill dressing.

Probably to compensate for the bad concious of serving aquaculture fish, Toño proffered an organic Terra Sávia Chardonnay to accompany the rösti.

And there is some left for my lunch :)

Getting Healed

It was Tobey Maguire, who single-handedly heeled me from my arachnophobia. It happened when he tried to get the knack of getting the thread controlled out of his wrist in the first Spider-Man.

I think I'm experiencing something similar with my ophidiophobia. This time by Lila Downs and La Mari of Chambao with their song Ojo de Culebra (snake eye).



Did I mention that Toño and I will have front row seats at Lila Downs' concert in Lucerne on June 4, 2009?

Bresaola Chiavennasca

Due to all the dancing on the vibes of spring, brunch had to be postponed to early afternoon.

The table on the balcony was loaded with a hearty Bircher müesli, aged sbrinz, cheese treated with chardonnay, cheese treated with elderberry wine and Manser's Bürli.

However, the pièce de résistance was the delicious Bresaola Chiavennasca from the Valtellina*.



* Valtellina would be part of Switzerland, but it was lost due to the pathetic all-or-nothing strategy of the Swiss delegation at the Congress of Vienna.

Tarte flambée

Tarte flambée is an Alsatian dish composed of thin bread dough rolled out in a circle, which is covered by crème fraîche, onions and bacon.

My recipe might deviate from the original, however, it is fast and I like the outcome.

I take a pizza dough made with spelt flour. and put it into the mould.



Then I spead sufficient crème fraîche all over the dough, and sprinkle at least one chopped onion onto the crème fraîche.



Then I add some slice of ham - I prefer ham to bacon - and put the rest of the crème fraîche on top.



I back it for 15 minutes at 240°C/464°F.

Dancing On The Vibes Of Spring

Who had thought that only minutes before spring started the lovely postman would bring me two items which turned my moody self into a dancer on the vibes of spring. I'm so manipulable by retail therapy.

One of the two items is Howies' Pd Polo in breton blue + citrus. The other one is Yes Pet Shop Boys etc.



I'm on my fourth run through Love and I'm simply loving it. It's both day-glo and pastel, bleeding heart and political, artistic and commercial. The boys are in good shape. The best track is The Way it Used to be - simply stunning. Where is the mascara? I want to dance all day and night.

Tonight will be aera's night of the flowers party. We'll have to go. There is no alternative.

PS: this the thousandth post on gomad.ch

Buy Land

howies

Added later
I found something on the made in Fiji in howies' spring catalogue:

Back in 2000, I fell in love with Merino. I loved its function, its quality and
most of all that nature provided it. And because it came from the land, one day after it had come to the end of its day, it could return to the land too. I was sold. I still am.

It was my answer to all those petro-chemical base layers out there, which I know from using them, just don’t do what the packaging says they do. (Nice packaging though.)

Around a year ago, we started a project to find out what the footprint of each of
our products was. David Hicks sat in front of a computer collating the data, and also working out what it meant. To find out the truths and not just what we had assumed.

And the truth of it is we didn’t like some of the results.

Moving the production of Merino from New Zealand to Fiji a couple of years ago to save a few pennies had increased our carbon footprint many fold. And we didn’t even know.

What we had not been aware of was that the fibre goes from New Zealand to China by boat to be made into yarn, and then the yarn goes back on the boat to New Zealand to be made into fabric. Then it goes off to Fiji to be made into our garments. Once made it then goes back to New Zealand before it is flown onto LA. Then to London. Then finally to Cardigan. No matter how you looked at it, it didn’t make for good reading.

That said, Merino is a truly great product. The best there is.

And because we use the highest grade that we can find, ours has a great reputation. And regularly wins the awards against all the big boys.

But making it right now in Fiji doesn’t fit with our aim to produce the lowest impact clothing that we can. That hurts. But the truth isn’t always what you want it to be. So we have to change.

So right now, we are looking into spinning the yarn in New Zealand and making the garment there. If we can’t, then it makes more sense to make the garment in China rather than Fiji. Doing that would mean each Merino product would travel 17,181 km less miles per garment. And this would cut our carbon footprint down by 95% (down to 0.12kg).

Only when you can measure something can you improve it. A hard lesson learnt.

That Awful Tomato

There are this irrelevant odd things that drive you absolutely mad whenever you encounter them. One of those for me is the pathetic slice of tomato which is put on every green salad I dare to order.



Why putting something red on top of something that has been declared green?

Only 4 Hours & 21 Minutes

to go until spring is supposed to break this year and - yes - it just started to snow again.

Los Abrazos Rotos

Pedro Almodóvar's new drama Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces) premièred this week in Spain.

The film centres on a four-way tale of dangerous love, and was shot in the style of a hard-boiled 1950s American film noir. A man (Lluis Omar) writes, lives and loves in the darkness. He was the victim of a brutal car accident fourteen years ago in Lanzarote. Not only did he lose his sight, but also the woman of his life, Lena (Penelope Cruz). He was a movie director, and Lena was his main actress and his lover, although she lived with a successful mogul (José Luis Gómez)

Más información sobre esta película

No release date for Switzerland has been announced so far. However, I excpect it in august. As kind of my personal birthday present by Almodóvar.

Read more about the film in EL PAÍS' Almodóvar and opinion sections.
Read more about the Spanish title in just some words.

just some words

I was in the mood to start a new side-blog. It's called just some words and it's about words I came across.

No Flowers

I did it again. My brain does not do names. It's even worse with birthdays. Almost a month ago, my sister was celebrating hers and I only remembered today. As a poor consolation is here a song by the lady my sister was named after:

Fritz's Apple Mint Organic Ice Tea

Toño's caring employer had to cut cost and for once an employer let the most pawns on the board and instead moved to a cheaper location. Thus, Toño has different lunch opportunities. One of them is the soup shop Suppenkasper, which besides of soup also sell Fritz's Organic Ice Tea. Toño put one with apple mint flavour in the fridge, called me and asked me to taste it.



That's how I came serendipitously across this beverage. I would never taste ice tea spontaneously. I was under the (now false) impression that there is no bottled ice tea I might like.

The twist with this ice tea is that it's actually refreshing and that its flavour is not buried under tons of sugar or glucose syrup. Nevertheless this ice tea is also sweetened but with agave syrup. Maybe of agaves from Toño's home town like this ones on his uncle's field:



There is only one downside. Where we live, you can only buy this brand of ice tea in shops where copper-wool-bast types are shopping.

I Love Vasily

On this day 15 years ago, I was standing at a street in Moscow holding a sign, which read I love Vasily. How did that happen?

In 1994 I spent some months in Moscow, trying to learn their beautiful language. At 6 p.m. on weekdays, I spun the dial of my tiny transistor radio to 104.7 - home of Radio 7 and the show Vasily's Neighborhood, hosted by Vasily Strelnikov. I've never heard another show alike again. I was literally chained to the loudspeaker.

Every evening the listeners could win a t-shirt in a contest, requiring to recognise 4 tunes, the original artists and the ones in the recordings played. I did not even have to try.

Nevertheless, my opportunity came, when Vasily announced that the show will participate in Moscow's first ever St. Patrick’s Day parade. Everyone holding a sign saying I love Vasily would get a free Vasily's Neighborhood t-shirt.

All I had was a lot of time, a legal pad, duct tape and coloured pencils. My hand hurt like hell, when I had finished my poster.

The parade was on Sunday on Moscow's Kalinin prospect. Nowadays it's called New Arbat street. I was there quite early and went to the beginning of the street. I still remember that I bought some ice cream from a nice lady while walking down that street.

There were quite some people along the street, but nobody was holding a poster. But as soon as the parade started, hundreds of posters appeared like out of nowhere. Also mine.

My luck was, that for once I was early. Vasily was there but he had only 50 t-shirts. I grabbed one of the last.

By the way, picture 8, 9 & 12 are from Moscow's first St. Patrick’s Day parade.



Vasily's blog.

Into The Twilight

On my January trip to India my beloved Lumix LX2 grab & shoot had gone astray. It happened between the moment, my driver dropped me at Bangalore airport and when I entered the airport building.

There is this new duty for domestic flights which had to be paid for before one had entered the building. The camera might have fallen out of my bag in the hurly burly in front of the counter or a pickpocket might had pursued his trade. All I know is that I needed a suitable replacement - like a.s.a.p.

Easier said than done. I was seriously contemplating the new Lumix G1, however, Panasonic seems to deliberately withholding it from the Swiss market. You just can't buy it here. Panasonic deserved to be snubbed, however, I kind of like their cameras.

So I went to the next at hand - the brand spanking new LX3, the successor of the LX2 with an improved twilight capability.

Spring Awakening

My return from India was highly appreciated since the garden geranium needed to be pruned and a soil replacement. Thus on Saturday, Toño and I went to my clan's residence, where we can keep our garden geranium at the right temperature in the almost 400 year old cellar with meter thick walls.



From exactly there, some more disturbing news arrived yesterday. My brother and my father had an argument which resulted in my father walking away. My mother and siblings had no other choice than to call the coppers when night fell. Luckily those had the right instincts and found him rapidly. My father can be stubborn as a teenager. He refused to get in their car. An officer had to walk him home.

I was begging her

... nevertheless, did not make it on the guest list. and she sent me an invitation.



Just another of those facts of life I have to come to terms with. My strong believe in the good in man has been reinforce.

Farewell To India

Once in a while one has to indulge oneself. Like I did today by going for the big Indian buffet at dinner.

Well, there is this German saying without any English equivalent I'm aware of: die Rechnung ohne den Wirt machen. Literally it translates to something like making the bill without the landlord. It means there is something you haven't considered.

In my case, I haven't considered the in-your-face manager of the restaurant, who made me taste every single dish on display. Now I'm overfed like a French duck. There is a huge mess in my stomach. The wafer-thin mint were these Kuja Karti made with figs and cashew nuts and covered with vark:



However, I have to admit that every single dish was simply delicious. I have adapted a bit too much for my taste. It's time Toño regains control over my diet.

I have to pack anyway. In half an hour I will head to the airport. I hope my plane will not be delayed due to the nasty weather in Zürich. How do people only cope with that?

Spring & Love Etc.

Are you ready for spring? Love etc. the new single by the Pet Shop boys is already on high rotation and on March 23 follows Yes, the new album. Yes, this will be a great spring.

Mission Accomplished

Although there is no banner and presidential speech, I'm quite glad that it's over and the customer has cleared the system for exploitation.



There will be no flight back till Thursday. I'm forced to recover from the deprivations and hardship of the recent weeks in the lush Taj Lands End close to Shahrukh Khan's residence at Bandra in Mumbai. I wish Toño were here. But soon...

Not Yet Into My Arms

However deep you indulge in procrastination, you will never beat our client. My colleague does not longer condone this behaviour and buggers off in due course. I, on the other hand, am about to extend my stay for another week. With a sailing starting tomorrow evening and lasting till the middle of next week.

Last weekend one of the condensation devices broke down, which derives water our of the ambient air's humidity (there is plenty of this). The water still produced was needed for the boilers so the crew had to go without washing for two days. And yesterday, an engine had problems and we had to chuckle back to port with 8 kn. I reached the hotel at 2:30 am.

Talking about hotels. Of course mine has no vacancies to extend the stay. I'll have to switch to one that is 1 hour from the port during night and 3 hours during commuting times. But I will stay on board for most of the time anyway.

Anyway, I'm caring less by the minute. I'm actually humming The Great Song Of Indifference for hours. This is another song that's on my mind right now:



...and when talking about ships.

A Club For A Hero

Me and my colleague are stuck here in Mumbai for another week with another sailing starting on Tuesday and lasting (probably) three days.

But it's not as bad as it seems. We've received a pep talk email from a caring employer's brass, calling us true heroes for so stoically enduring these hardships. On our return, they will probably have named a corridor after us. We are dead certain about this. The only open questions for us are, who will unveil our roll of honour and which champagne will they serve?

How do you celebrate being called a true hero? Well, I stuck to a tradition I anyway have on trips which include staying at lush hotels. I ordered a club sandwich. I have got this tradition since July 1989, when I was deflowered* in a hotel in Damascus.



* with respect to club sandwiches

Kylie Is With Me

I'm not alone here any longer. Kylie joined me.

Mumbai, February 27 (ANI): Australian pop sensation Kylie Minogue on Thursday arrived in Mumbai to record a song with Oscar winning music composer A.R Rahman for forthcoming Bollywood film 'Blue'. Catcalls and cheering crowd greeted Minogue as she landed in Mumbai. The film starring actors Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt, Zayed Khan, Katrina Kaif and Lara Dutta is touted to be India's first 'official' underwater film.

Dulces Sueños

The Laundry Roses

My derioulsy beloved Toño is a man of many talents, among which is his faculty of letting me discover that there is a (kind of) romantic in me. Not that I'm now writing poems. I have no idea what forces are required to let me develop those sacred skills. It's just that I can't look at these roses without getting goose bumps and thinking of Toño.



I've got those roses with my laundry. The hotels of the Taj group put a rose onto every basket with the washed, ironed and nicely packed undies and shirts. Yesterday, I was in my room when a couples of baskets were delivered. I took the roses, put them into a water glass and got myself a medium to be with Toño. Then I know, that there are certainly some flowers in our resident as well as at Toño's office.

Since I'm not a poet at all, I have to resort to Pablo Neruda, a master of this art, who wrote the “The Herbalist’s. Rose,” devoted to flowers, branches, and vegetal growth:

La rosa del herbolario

Dejo en la nave de la rosa
la desición del herbolario:
si la estima por su virtud
o por la herida del aroma:
si es intacta como la quiere
o rígida como una muerta.

La breve nave no dirá
cuál es la muerte que prefiere:
si con la proa enarbolada
frente a su fuego victorioso
ardiendo con todas las velas
de la hermosura abrasadora
o secándose en un sistema
de pulcritud medicinal.

El herbolario soy, señores,
y me turban tales protestas
porque en mí mismo no convengo
a decidir mi idolatría:
la vestidura del rosal
quema el amor en su bandera
y el tiempo azota el esqueleto
derribando el aroma rojo
y la turgencia perfumada:
después con una sacudida
y una larga copa de lluvia
no queda nada de la flor.

Por eso agonizo y padezco
preservando el amor furioso
hasta en sus últimas cenizas.

The herbalist's rose

I consign to the ship of the rose
an herbalist's decision:
whether to honour the rose for its strenght,
or the wound of its odor:
whether all is intact, as he likes it,
or stiff as a corpse.

The terse ship will not say
which death it prefers:
the prow thrusting itself
through victorious fire
crowding its sails and ablaze
in its clustering beauty,
or wilting away under its regimen
of medicinal comeliness.

I am that herbalist: friends,
flinching from every complaint
because I can never agree
how to resolve my idolatry:
the rose's investiture
burns love on its banners,
time flays from its skeleton
the juice of a scarlet aroma,
the perfume's tumidity:
then, with one blow of the weather,
a great cupful of rain,
nothing is left of the flower.

Here I am moping and mowing
to preserve the full fury of love
till the last ash flickers out.

Penn on the 'Issue'

Josh: What effect do you think this film [Milk] may have on audiences, especially audiences grappling with their own feelings on gay rights issues?

Sean Penn: Even the word “issue” about this—it’s only an issue because of ignorance in the first place. If we could criminalize—we don’t have an excuse of being ignorant of the law, so if we could have no excuse of being ignorant of human history, then any support of Proposition 8 would be, minimally, manslaughter, because history tells us there will be teenage boys who will hang themselves out of a reach for an identity they can’t get. As long as it’s an issue it’s an obscenity, and if this movie is part of an engine to help reveal that, that’s going to make all of us really happy and proud. I also think it’s important to remember that the tension is not between the gay and faith communities, but between the gay community and a pseudo-faith community which has nothing to do with god, love, or anything of real faith. It’s really just hypocrisy and hatred. So any faith community that deserves the title of “faith community” really won’t have a problem with these issues.

Read the interview.

Dull

My life is rather dull right now. I'm again on one of those business trips at and off Mumbai in India. Actually this is were I spent the last six days between 7:30am till 11:00pm:



Yes, I'm pretentious and only travel with two laptops. The picture is not quite accurate, since normally two dozen Indians were also present. The rest of the time I was either eating rice with something in the wardroom, was lying in my berth or was sipping tea with cardamom and milk. I actually spent 120 hours in the ship without breathing fresh air once.

However, a poxy gun broke, and we had to suspend the trials. Now my workplace looks like this:



I haven no idea how long this will last. I have got a return ticket for March 1. And since I've checked my mailbox, I know that there is another ticket to Rome on March 2. Some here think I should stay until March 7, although the Taj will kick me out on March 1 since they promised my room somebody else. And all I really want is a little hug by Toño. But nobody cares of putting this into my plans.

How did i get here?

I will spent the next six days at sea on a 26 year old pest-infected vessel. Water too clean my precious alabaster body will be heavily rationed (don't even dream of a shower). And, I will be fighting with rats and cockroaches for access to my keyboard. However, if are luckier than we deserve, the customer will accept the system and we can bugger off.

And you may ask yourself - well...how did I get here?



Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was..

Lovesong

I came across this song this morning. It still gave me goose bumps and made me longing for Toño even more.

Diddled

I cycle or I get driven. I hardly ever drive a car myself. Nevertheless, I loath using taxis, even more since yesterday.

I arrived late yesterday afternoon at the domestic terminal in Mumbai. At the international terminal you can hire a pre-paid taxi. I like this. You pay a little more than when driven on a meter, however, you know what you pay and what you're likely to get upfront. This is fine with me.

At the domestic terminal there is no such service. I was on my way to the taxicabs, when I was approached by a fellow informing me that the prepaid taxis are at the other end. Although a dozen alarm bells were ringing within the next five minutes, I somehow ended in a mouldy smelling car with two fellows, still not knowing how much this trip was gonna cost.

One of them showed me a tariff card, indicating that it would cost 2100 rupee (about 50$). A pre-paid taxi at the international airport cost between 850 and 1000 rupees. For 2500 rupees you get a leather upholstered sedan with a driver dressed in livery. I knew, I made a big mistake getting in this car, but matters wend from bad to worse pretty quickly.

I handed over 4x500 + 1x100 rupee banknote. The bloke claimed to have received only 1x500 + 4x100. I was immediately reminded to a story a colleague told only a day ago from the same airport about a banknote trick being played on him in a cab. But stupid as I am, I took back the money and handed him again 4x500 + 1x100. This time he claimed to have received 3x500 + 2x100. I grabbed my money and yelled Stop that car! I took me some more shouting to get my luggage out of the trunk. The hideous bloke even claimed that I'm offending his honour. I could not have disagree more, since he had 1600 of my rupees.

It was only a few hundred meters back to the airport, where I grabbed a black and yellow (kaali-peeli) which cost me 515 rupees. This was ridiculously overpriced, but it's what I should have done in the first place...

However, I'm back at the Taj Mahal hotel and it went upwards ever since (although I was given en a room without DVD player). The positive news are:

1. Word came through, that the management buy out by Toño's boss went through (letter of intent state). So Toño economical future looks brighter than it has been for a while. If you haven't yet, you should subscribe to Vinum magazine right now. You will not only be helping Toño but might learn a lot about wine and its culture in the process.
2. A hotel butler just knocked on my door and brought me a complimentary dessert.

My Kingfisher Experience

This Saturday I had my first Kingfisher Airlines experience. I did not know what to expect, nevertheless I had had some expectation since Kingfisher promises the journey of a lifetime.

Lounge
This was a bad start for Kingfisher. The bartender had an attitude I did not like, the AC was either off or on blizzard mode, and you had to make a kowtow in front of the receptionist to get any information on the two hour delay of the flight.

Boarding
You can let porters carry your carry-on. This increases the queue at security and causes some shoving in the aisle, because the porters have to leave somehow after they dragged the bags into the overhead compartments.

The Seat
Unlike in Europe, you actually get a business class size seat. It's not the latest model, but you get sufficient room. The interior design (and crew uniforms) have a light sixties touch - the time when flying was still something exiting.



Comforts
There are some nice thrills like your jacket gets ironed and your spectacles get a nice polish.

Dining
The appetizers were amazing: An asparagus and broccoli soup with Parmesan croute, and almond crusted Camembert with fig and Port reduction. There were four main courses to choose from, two non-veg and two vegetarian. I went for an Asian style steamed halibut, which left no room fro dessert.



Entertainment System
The flight was only close to 2 hours with all the fine dining and a well written book at hand, there was no time to check.

Bottom line
You are really well taken care of as soon as you are on the plane. That's about it. The real experience of the day came after the flight. More on that in the next post.

Saturday Cardio?

Do you plan a cardio today? Put Kylie Minogue's LA Riots remix of her song "Boombox" on the palylist.



I will not do a cardio (slept in), but will fly Kingfisher in a few hours. I haven't been so full of curiosity before a flight in ages.

Unsuckeable

My caring employer handed out brand spanking new water bottles* to each employee to encurage us to drink more water and less coffee.



I assume the bottle was designed to use the nipple on the top to drink from it. Which you can't because:

• A) the nipple smells like a tire
• B) the bottle is (unlike a normal sport drinking bottle) made of rigid material which can't be squeezed (or only once after weeks at the gym). If you try to suck it, you might choke to death.

It just does not suck around here.

* with a sticker listing the compulsory company values (which was torn off by somebody rather quickly)

Getting Ready

Tomorrow, I will embark again to India. But today, since there were no Bürli left at the canteen (the Bürli is the only reason why I eat there), I went out to grab a sandwich. And guess, my hand grabbed a Tandoori Chicken Sandwich (and a Traktor smoothie).



This trip to India will have two premiers:

I will be in New Delhi for the first time. This means, that I will have to travel with both white collar outfit (meeting in New Delhi) and blue collar outfit (sailing off Mumbai).

I will fly Kingfisher for the first time. The eyes of all Indians start to shine as soon as you mention that you will fly Kingfisher. They are not allowed to serve any Kingfisher beer in the air, so there must something else about this airline. I'll tell you as soon as I'll know.

Bad Boy

Procrastination is such a bad thing. I new it was gonna be bad, since I haven't actually checked my inbox for about a momth. But more than 1000 unread mails is a bit too much...

Charlotte Russe

For a change I did not make a Charlotte Royal but her sister Charlotte Russe. This dessert had been invented by the French chef Marie Antoine Carême (1784-1833), who named it in honour of his Russian employer Czar Alexander I (Russe is French for Russian).

The fists stage of this dessert requires more the qualities of a mason than of a pastry cook. You have to arrange ladyfingers seamlessly in a mould, which involves a lot of accurate rasping.



I dared to divide slightly from the original recipe by using raspberry jam rolls for both top and bottom.



The filling is like in the Charlotte royal a Bavarian cream...



... however, for the Charlotte Royal one is supposed to use cherry brandy (Kirsch), for the Charlotte Russe Maraschino (Marasca cherry cordial) is used. Of course, we have both on stock - the Kirsch though is home-distilled by my clan.



The Charlotte Russe can't deny its Russian heritage. It clearly resembles both an Ushanka and a Papakhi.

Toppled Cheesecake

You can not always win. Thus I hastily invented a new dish: Toppled Cheesecake.



It will be served with cherries cooked in tawny port, which might cover some of the mess.

Added Later
It might look a bit strange, nevertheless it was well received. Only a tiny piece is left

Comfort Spaghetti

This week I felt like a hamster in its wheel. Before I dragged my sorry ass home, I'd asked Toño to prepare me my favourite comfort food: Spaghetti with chicken and peas in cream sauce. It's simple, it's fast, it's yummy and it contains all of my favourite ingredients. Well, that's exactly how I created the recipe some years back: Put everything you I like in one plate.

I *heart* Шпроты

My brother has a young Udmurtian farm help from Ижевск in the Western Urals. She went home to celebrate Новый Год (New Year) with her parents. For that, she wanted to bring them a cuckoo clock from Switzerland. Since I'm always cruising around the world, Toño went to buy one for her.

Toño has a distinguished taste and so he did not buy just any cuckoo clock, but The Cuckoo Clock (hand made, Swiss made, precise, beautiful, you name it). Of course, this was beyond the budget of a farm help being exploited by a Swiss farmer.

Well, we are no brutes and gave the clock to her as a present. Татьяна offered to bring something from Russia in return. Bring us some cans of Шпроты (sprats), I demanded.



Tatiana is a smart girl and got the hint. She brought some cans of sprats and the only thing that goes along with them - right, Vodka.

It's not any vodka but Kalashnikov Vodka (Caliber 500 ml x 40°), since Mikhail Kalashnikov, the inventor of the AK-47, lives in Ижевск.

Matthew Mitcham On The Advocate

Olympic diver Matthew Mitcham - my personal Best Poster Boy 2008 - made it on the March issue cover of The Advocate (read the story).

Call Me By Your Name

I'm always a bit reluctant, when a book is hyped a bit too much. Nevertheless, after both Josh & Josh had gave it a clear thumbs up, I caved in and got myself a copy of of Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman.



It has been a while since the pages of a book rushed through my fingers that fast. Reading this book was like diving into the ocean at the dawn of a hot summer day. It's ravenous. It's about love. It's emotional. I haven't been daydreaming about the protagonists of a book since I read At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill.

Josh & Josh claim that it will be even better the second time. I can't wait to jump into it again.

Premier With 77

Today, we could celebrate the 77th birthday of my mother. I made her a Charlotte Royal for the occasion. It was well received, however, my father pushed me out of the limelight. He gave her flowers. Like for the first time ever.