Food Stories

Lately I have been really busy. And finally, last Saturday I found the time to go swimming, as if I would have know what was expecting me. Looking at the next pictures, and reading the blog, you probably have the same impression as I have: my "life and luxury" tend to shrink down to one of mankind's most amazing occupation: gastronomy.

After approximately eight or so years I met on Friday a friend from Hamburg, who used to be the former neighbour of my current landlady. We decided to try Corean food for the first time. One little problem: I can't tolerate spicy food well, due to some biological reactions of my body to it. So what to do? I had been waiting for this moment for a few months. My fascination for Corean culture has grown lately a lot and I was so convinced that I would like the food, so much so that I was ready to support the consequences. I picked two dishes (my curiosity was bigger than my stomach - the restaurant owner, who was also the cook, was surprised!) which were supposed to be prepared in a mild way....pfff....it was hot-hot-hot, but still ok enough to tell the other flavours apart.

I don't remember the name of the first dish, unfortunatrly, but there were rice noodles and beef (prepared in a special yummy way), vegetables, all in a sauce which contained a lot of garlic and was also spicy. They also served rice with it.

The second dish, which I found more interesting, and closer to "very traditional Corean cuisine" was a so-called Bibim bap or Bibimbab (or other variations of the name). The restaurant owner, who was a really nice person, explained me that it means: mixing everything together. Indeed, I received a huge bowl in which I had approximately 8 vegetables, rice, a fried egg, sliced beef (very spicy) and kimchi, another very traditional and probably the most well-known Corean food. It was something like pickled cabbage, extremly spicy, but I absolutely adored it! So I had that bowl, and next to it there were two, smaller bowls. One with a red sauce, and the other one with a vegetable soup. I had to mix the sauce with all the content of the big bowl, and then eat the soup simoultaneously with the mixture. The soup was to make the food "less dry", as compared to the first dish which I had ordered, it had no sauce inside. So I tasted the red paste-like sauce: it was a flavour of flowers, then it went into fruity-ness, and then it just burned, all of a sudden, your mouth. I was not able to mix it in the Bibim bap. Nor was I able to eat the soup with it. It tasted very "fishy". It was a watery, clear liquid with few fine sliced vegetables in it, but once you tasted it, you had the impression of swallowing first sea water, and then a fish. It was worth a try, but it really didn't satisfy my taste buds. Nevertheless, the rest in the big bowl was amazing. Most of all I loved the kimchi.

As, unlike my habit, I was too amazed by the food when it arrived, I forgot to take pictures, so I'm using one I found on the internet, just as descriptive purpose:
(Source: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3209/2593507408_db53b7aa2a.jpg)


Pentecost followed on Sunday and Monday, and my landlady and I were invited to lunch, at around 15.00 (normal for a Sunday lunch, haha). What we didn't know was that it would be enough also for dinner! The invitation was mainly for eating lamb, but what we found there when we arrived, was a gastronomic delight in a four-courses-menu, for which we needed two hours to eat (with no breaks between the courses).

First on the list was a light salad with fried mushrooms (came on top after I had already taken these pictures) and a great sauce of at least 10 ingredients, for which I still have to get the recipe soon. Very soon!

As it is asparagus season, this so wonderful ingredient could not be absent from the menu. Here it was served on spaghettis, with pepper and parmesan on top. Mmmmm!!!

Finally, a big pot was open and the lamb cooked in vegetables amazed us with the luring scent. We were all really full by the time the lamb arrived, but it was so good, that we all ate an entire portion of it.


Finally the last course was extremly refreshing: vanilla ice cream with strawberries on a rhubarb sauce.



I have to tell you, it was a lunch I will not forget so soon.

Arrived home and played a bit with my looks, while preparing for other gastronomic encounter on Tuesday. This was when Jella and I decided to go out in Hamburg, in the "Schanze" neighbourhood. The initial plan was for sushi, so we went to a Japanese restaurant. Since I hadn't had a warm meal that day, I decided to get as hors d'oeuvre a chicken-teriyaki in a Japanese sauce which was sweet-ish, and I got two teriyaki sticks on vegetable and with rice served. Actually, this could have been enough for the evening. But the sushi had already been ordered.

Following the picture of my teriyaki is a chicken-? (forgot the name, but it was delicious) in a peanut-sauce - one word: amazing!

After the starter, I received my six makis and four nigiris (4 makis were left which I took home in a doggy-bag), all fresh and nice.

With filled stomachs and happy faces we walked once again in the neighbourhood and sat down in a pub (?) for a drink and a conversation. When I got back home I was smiling, feeling that I had just had one of the best times lately on that evening.

And today? It's back to swimming, to get fit for who knows what new gastronomic delights will come my way.

Harbour Anniversary in Hamburg

Cold weather and warm people, probably a typical atmosphere for a harbour in autumn, but NO, it was this weekend as well.

Foggy and windy and rainy. But there were over 1 million people who during 3 days of crazyness kept each-other warm - unwillingly - because you were really trapped in a mass of moving bodies. Hamburg alone has 1,8 million inhabitants, now imagine that Saturday, when I went there, there were approximately 650.000!!! Just the people. Count the stands with food which also block the roads and the crazy bands and you can imagine the wacky atmophere.

It was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience,... because it was nice but I will probably not be tempted to join such masses soon. At least not in Hamburg.

821 years were they celebrating, and I went there to actually see the tug-boat ballet (which I ended up seeing only on TV as I did not get from one dock to the other on time).


I arrived earlier and took a look around. Managed to see the BMW regatta.

In order to take a picture I had to ask for permission for people to move a bit out of my lense. It was incredible!!!

There were a lot of stands there, offering from sweets, drinks, to the traditional Fischbrötchen, fish sandwiches, or the Backfisch (a way of fried fish served either in a bun or with potato salad. I had mine with salad).

Here was a very funny stand, where the Backfish would be cooked upstairs and then arrive through a slide downstairs to be served to visitors and tourists.

It looked amazing but also terrifying: rescue simulations with helicopter from the sea:

This what you see here is a Catamaran, functioning with solar energy. The biggest boat using solar energy until now.

Nevertheless, the highlight of the show was this beauty: Queen Mary II. On sea since 2004, this wonder of human ability is breathtaking. It is 345,03m long and from 41,15 to 45m wide, has a height of 71,94m (plus some extra 9,75m under water) and comes with a crew of 1.253 people to cater to approximately 2500 passengers. The floating city which costed around 870 Million € has 17 decks, of which 13 are open for passengers.

I tried to take a picture in which one would realise how big this floating city is, but it was without any luck, I think. The pictures cannot give back the sensation of being next to such a huge vessel!

So here is a comparison for you, taken from wikipedia:

And to end this blog entry: here's a picture taken for me by some organisers: just me, surrounded by floating luxury.

(source: http://www.qm2day.de/)

Food for the soul and for the stomach: a wonderful weekend!

My weekend was wonderful!

Woke up, as always, around 9.30-10.00 and had a nice and long breakfast. On a 1st of May in Romania I would have went out in the park, to the seaside or to have the traditional grill. But I had been told and had also seen on TV that people here avoid going out this day as some,...or better said many, violent protestants are on the streets throwing with things, putting cars on fire, destroying the city. I wonder why! Another "tradition" from here is to dance into the May. But the news which followed on Sunday did not mention any dance, but rather just violence. This didn't stop me from having a good time.

On Friday I had gone to a shopping mall in the search for a special something to buy. Unfortunately it was sold out, so I had to eat my frustration into some other goods (gosh,...consumerism is mean sometimes to your bank account). I came back home with two types of cake, a DVD containing a Gregory Peck movie ("The Million Pound Note"), a book for learning a language (not going into more detail as I have not started the DIY-course yet), a 12 CD collection about all a person should know ("Bildung. Alles was man wissen muss") and some ingredients which I used on Saturday for some cooking.

As I have mentioned, Saturday started really nice and quiet. After breakfast I talked to a friend I hadn't seen in a while. Then I opened my collection of CDs and explored it like a treasure which I had just found. They really cover everything. Or better said, everything important. So I took out the first CD and started hearing to happenings from the past. The Greek. It's funny, I thought for a moment, how they have influenced the world and Europe, and how they do it even now, but unfortunately it's on a financial level now rather than an intellectual one. But this blog is not on politics. It was around 14.00 o'clock when we decided "to have coffee". Of course, this means we are engaging in a ritual from here, serving cakes and cookies with coffee. I still sticked to my tea, you cannot bring me to drink the other liquid! While having the most amazing chocolate cake I have found here, we watched the DVD and traveled through time. I always have to say, when I see movies like this one, that "they don't make men like that nowadays". No offence! There is a certain way of the gentleman which is getting lost in the high-speed era of multiple gadgets. There is an attemp to a prank in the movie concerning someone's honesty, but when the tailor threatens to take the suits away, the one making the joke thinks he has gone too far. Imagine how important a tailor and the place you bought your clothes must have been at that time. Now it's a bit different, even if brands count...it's another way of counting!

Later in the afternoon I started making some puff pastry filled with goat cheese. The first time ever I tried this, and I must say, I did it well! Great job it was, it was tasty and no filling had dropped, no pastry had cracked, nothing got burnt. I was missing this kind of snack from home, here I haven't found it, unfortunately. Only thing you might find is tasting sweet, such as croissants.

The evening came and, as usual on weekends, we ate snack-like dinners. This doesn't mean that we reduce the pleasure of our taste buds, on the contrary, we indulge in more tastes in small bites. For example here you can see a ciabatta on the left with a shrimp-garlic salad, further on the right a ciabatta with river crab salad and so on... . I also prepared a fresh salad for myself with a sour cream dressing.

Sunday I woke up to the usual brunch. But we did not have the English bacon and eggs but had a special treat: scrambled eggs with smoked eel. A combination I first tasted here, in Hamburg, but which is so delicious due to the eel which simply melts once you eat it.

I took then my backpack and embarked into a journey I will probably remember all my life. A journey which made Horward Carter one of the most famous people of his time. He was the one who, after a search of more than five years revealed the lost tomb of Tutankamun (Tutanchamun, Tutankhamun or other variations...).

It was located in the Valley of the Kings under the tomb of Ramses as seen below. When he first opened the tomb he took a small candle to look inside the opening he had made and what he saw inside he described as "a lot of beautiful things".

Number 10 from this representation of the tomb is where the mummy of Tutankamun was found.

The exhibition showed some movies in which the genealogy of Tutankamun was presented as well as his short life history. Then we (the visitors) were asked to go to the next room where the treasures which were found in his tomb would be revealed to us, exactly in the same way as Carter and his team got to see them when they made the discovery. Of course, the pieces in the exhibition were not the real ones, but extremly well done replicas. Carter had made drawings of their positions and pictures also documented the treasure, so that it was possible for this project of reconstruction to be created. 2002 was the year when the recreation began, and now, 2010, the exhibition is in Hamburg.

The following 2 pictures are of two chambers. Burglars had also been in this tomb, but they took very little. Unfortunately they creatd mess and distruction.

In this picture, the middle sarcophagus of the pharao is being shown.

The minute someone becomes pharao, he starts gathering things and preparations start to be done for the after-life. In the case on Tutankamun, the time was too short, as he died when he was around 18ish. This is why his two outer sarcophagi were wooden and not solid gold as the inner one. Nevertheless, they were gold-plated, as we can see on the bigger one, or plated with gold and coloured glass (a real treasure at that time).

The inner sarcophagus contained the jewelry decorated mummy. Being made of solid gold, this sarcophagus only weighs around 115kgs.

One of the pieces which remains symbolic and is of great beauty is the mask of the pharao.

One of the most valuable findings in Tutankamun's tomb was this collection of Gods. From any other pharao there hadn't been a full collection found like this one. Each God had a purpose for the pharao's transition to after-life. Nevertheless, he had to pass a test. His heart would be weighed by a God and if the good deeds would weigh more than the bad ones, then he would be accepted. Apparently Tutankamun passed the test.

One of the treasures also found was the collection of his inner organs. Only one was missing, as it would have been thrown away by the priests: the brain. Apparently, for them there was no function more than just the filling of the skull for the brain. It was picked through the nose and thrown away. The heart was for them the center of both feelings and thoughts.

Another amazing finding was this one which you can see in the picture below. It represents "the people who answered to questions", as translated from their Egyptian name, better known as workers. Normal people could affor 2-3 of those in their tombs, Tutankamun on the other hand had more than 400. 365 for each day of the year, plus 12 superiors, one for each month, plus some others. This also described his wealth and power.

This is what he used to wear! These sandals are so amazingly fashionable nowadays...I wish i could have taken them home ...

Then there was a throne which captured my eyes. The small chair for the pharao's feet had drawings of asians and other enemies. He would so symbolically step on them.

After such a long and interesting travel through the luxury of the past, I returned home and smile at the wonderful pink flowered tree in fron of our balcony. It was getting dark and I wanted to go again, slowly in my mind, over all the impressions I had gathered this weekend.

I Love Good Food!

It had to happen to me as well...eventually...I guess. I am down with the flue. Or so I think. The doctor here was never really clear about what I have. Probably she doesn't know. Went to her on Thursday and she prescribed homeopatic treatment. I am not really a fan of it, but took it, and things got worse and worse over the weekend. Hence the repeated break in writing.

But the topic has been on my mind since Friday night. Didn't know if I would have the power to go on the field for some fresh documentation, but Saturday I was already feeling better. So I dressed well and went to look for what I love most to shop for: food! I had the target set to the Alsterhaus, a department store belonging, just like the KaDeWe in Berlin and the Oberpollinger in Munich, to the Karstadt Premium Group. The Alsterhaus is open since 1911. It has a long history, for the city, for the group, and for myself and my family. I think that even my grandmother stepped through this store. There have been many changes for sure, even I saw it before and after the latest renovation. But there is a certain atmosphere which seems to rest between these walls on the Jungfernstieg.

After a 30-40 minutes relaxed Saturday ride in order to get there, I get off at U Jungfernstieg and 1 minute later I am entering this must-see place for shopping in Hamburg. Ground floor walking to the escalators and memories of my mother come up. Not just today, but every time I come here. I think it's normal since here are the perfumes and cosmetics. It was funny how I used to be her tester years ago. Of course there were testing papers available, but you all know that the scent develops differently on skin. And since she likes to change a perfume according to season, but more according to mood, she tested a lot. Probably that is why I am so loyal to a scent...and only one!

My feet take me to the 4th floor and when you see the picture below you might anticipate just a tiny bit of what gastronomic treasures lie there for the customer to discover.


The 4th floor is the delicacy department. The best place to be (at least for me). On the right you can already see my favourite bubbly drink: Champagne. Just whatever brand you like. There's even a Champagne-bar, where they serve - you've guessed it - Champagne at the ideal temperature.

There is also a wine collection. And you can choose from a huge range of cheese to go with the wine. Or maybe you want to sit at the caviar bar? There's a big collection of soft drinks from all over the world. Kusmi Tea is also available there, yet there is also another teastore. Food from around the world is also easy to find, they even have a Japanese store with fresh ingredients for the Japanese cuisine. There's also a "house" of the truffle. And you can eat there fresh dishes including the tasty ingredient. A wonderful place I could spend hours in. Chose some colours of food and spices for you to see:




After several rounds and the time I would never spend in a hypermarket while doing a week's purchase, I leave this empire of good taste (literally) and start my way back home. I take 2 more pictures (the weather is a bit warmer - 10 degrees - for mid April - so that's why there are a lot of people outside) and stop for a while to see the swans which are back.



Once arrived home I open my little purchase and, before taking a nap, I already dream of the lovely dinner:
Truffle tagliolini in butter with freshly grated Parmesan and a tea spoon of sour cream. Lovely!!!