daily delusions

Die Koch Amateure

2009-12-15T08:53:29Z

Gestern beim abendlichen Einkauf hatten wir uns erfolgreich an Schokolade, Chips und Cola vorbeigeschlichen, nur um kurz vor der Kasse beim Zeitschriftenregal kleben zu bleiben.

Schon länger hatte mich – als Fan italienischer Küche – das Hochglanzmagazin “so isst Italien” angelacht. Da ich schon länger mehr kein “Eins Ah!” (sehr gutes Baden-Württemberg Magazin) gesehen hatte, griff ich mir also die Weihnachtsausgabe, es war nicht mal eine Gans vorne drauf abgebildet. Meine dies und letztjährige Dezember Ausgabe von “Lecker” hatten nicht nur fast identische Cover sondern auch viel zu ähnlichen Inhalt … selber schuld.

Zurück zu “so isst Italien”. Also nach überfliegen des Magazins: ich hoffe so isst Italien nicht. Da hatte ich bisher einen besseren Eindruck aus meinen verschiedenen Kochbüchern zum Thema. Das Magazin ist ein bisschen wie ein “findet den Fehler” Bild.

1. Rezept mit Bresaola Rucola Parmesan Röllchen für 6 Personen. Klingt total gut, muss ich unbedingt mal machen. Nur ob für 6 Personen, 16 Scheiben Bresaola eine gute Menge sind?
2. Risotto Milanese: ganz klar das beste Risotto, dass es gibt. Das Rezept habe ich mir dann allerdings nicht angeschaut, nachdem das zugehörige Photo statt Risotto einfach nur gelben Basmatireis zeigt.
3. Ein weihnachtlicher Hexenpunsch. Nachdem ich das Bild gesehen hatte, musste ich dieses Mal ausführlich das Rezept studieren, nur irgendwie fanden sich da zum Glück keine Erdbeeren drin.

Ich will gar nicht wissen, was ich alles noch nicht gefunden habe. Aber ich bin mir sicher, diese Kochzeitung kaufe ich nicht nochmal.

Budapest

2009-10-06T07:34:48Z

Right now we are in Budapest. We arrived late on Sunday and will leave early on Friday to go to a wedding of a relative of Rolland’s. For October the weather is awesome as you can see. I will hopefully upload a couple more pictures tonight.

We had some cake at the Café Gerbeaud.

We had ourselves a nice dinner at the “Jazz Garden” accompanied by live jazz music. Very enjoyable. Now we’re off to another much to late breakfast in the cute café of our hotel. After that who knows what adventures await in Budapest.

Tsunami on Samoa

2009-10-01T07:55:34Z

Among all the many bad news about catastrophe’s these days this one touches closer to home as we spent part of our honeymoon on Samoa and have been to the places that were now destroyed.

This beautiful beach at Lalomanu is said to have been hit as well:

Samoa Live News writes:

The TV cameras have captured the full extent to which the famous Beach Fales at Lepa, Siufaga and Lalomanu have been completely falttened. The popular Lalomanu Beach Fales cannot be seen. The well known resorts of Salani Surf, Coconuts Beach and Sinalei have been extensively damaged and will take time to become fully operational again.

The overseas media are expected to arrive this evening and early tomorrow. The full extent of the tsunami is expected to be transmitted to the whole world by tomorrow evening.

These are all places we have been to.

We are very sad to hear this. We have yet to hear from our friends there to find out if they are well.

PS: I uploaded a few more pictures last night.

Wedding Porn

2009-07-07T15:25:06Z

I finally managed to upload a selection of wedding pictures.

Most of the pictures are not public. If you want to see the rest just drop me a comment and I’ll mail you a guest pass.

Thanks again to Fotosassa for being our wedding photographer!

Travel Pictures

2009-05-30T20:37:05Z

I uploaded a few pictures on flickr finally. Only from the small camera and of course I am holding back on the funny ones for later :P

Here’s the set: Honeymoon.

Mangonui, Far North

2009-05-29T06:06:22Z

We have got internet again. We drove up here from Russell today with a couple of stops along the way: we visited the Treaty House at Waitangi and stopped for pies and slices at the Bake House in Kerikeri, saw the Stone Store and enjoyed the beautiful Taupo Bay.

We had our accommodation all picked out for Doubtless Bay, but when we got there it turned out the owners went banktrupt and the hotel was closed down. So we checked our different guides and nothing sounded quite good. We went to 2 places but neither one looked particularly inviting – names withheld. So we stopped at one we had seen while driving: good choice. We have a wonderfull new room, with an incredible view – more sunset pictures! – over the bay.

I am writing this on a laptop kindly lend to surf a bit. We got a “chilly bag” to pack a picknick for our trip to Cape Reinga tomorrow, a map, tons of tips where to go and what to do and why not to do the bus tour to the cape, which I was not in favor of anyway. And we got a really nice TV for tomorrow’s rugby finals. Rolland already declared he wants to get a six pack and watch. I still think we should find the local pub (they always say tavern but the sign always says pub …) for that occasion.

On a different note: I got totally eaten by sandflies in Russell. I have 22 bites on the right foot and 16 on the left, legs not counted. It really hurts. At night I have to get up every couple of hours to cool down my feet with cold water. Only other thing that helps a bit is tiger balm. I think I am allergic to the salve I got at the pharmacy. Sandfly bites are not like moskito bites! They sometimes start bleeding without me even scratching them right after I was bitten!

Our Bay of Islands cruise the other day was also very nice, we could not go through the hole in the rock because there was too much wind and waves but we did see dolphins and baby dolphins and I think I got a couple of nice shots. According to the crew they were not very playful that day but it is nice enough to see so many wild dolphins swim alongside the ship.

The Treaty House was well worth that trip as well. After all it is one of “the” historic sites of NZ. The grounds are very nice and they have a lot of information on the Treaty of Waitangi, the history surrounding the treaty, the times and the people.

Kerikeri was not quite as cool as it is made out to be for the bus tours they offer – of course we did not visit all the places but we have already seen a winery (ate at one actually) and plan to go to Waiheke on our last day. The historic sites are nice.

So now we need to go do some shopping for breakfast and picknick and of course get us some dinner – if I can get Rolland away from watching Simpsons.

Greatings from the Far North!

PS: we saw a pink and yellow katamaran anchored near Russell yesterday. We named it Sponge Bob.

Russell, Bay of Islands

2009-05-26T22:47:00Z

We are nearly up north now. We made it here despite 24 hours of rain in Whairangi. We spent 2 days around Whairangi. The second day it was raining so we did some bad weather activities, like visiting the clock museum, tasting the remaining 2 beers at the Frings Brauhaus (Drought and rye beer ‘Catcher’), eating hokey pokey ice cream and taking pictures of the most photogenic waterfall of New Zealand which had become a steaming mud monster due to the rain.

We got started on the drive rather late and it turned into an adventure of itself. It was dark and raining. The street was always in danger of flooding or landslides. The meadows to left and right had turned into the swamps they used to be before the sheep came.

Sometimes it seemed there could not be civilization at the end of this road, in the end we made it here in one piece and found a very nice place to stay and that is where we will remain for the next 2 nights before finally going up to Cape Reinga. After that it is back south, to Auckland and then on to Samoa.

far away posting

2009-05-14T08:14:25Z

our two days in hkg were very nice – of course one cannot explore all of the city in that time. i still managed to take a lot of photos. we had a most wonderful room with a great view of the habor at The Excelsior. too bad we missed out on the 34th floor bar because we wanted chinese food and not steaks.

we went walking around the island the first day and took a trip up to Victoria’s Peak. spectacular view of the city plus some nice souvenir shopping.

the second day we went to kowloon with the ferry and did lots of walking again. no museums even though we passed several.

the afternoon we returned to the hotel to get ready for the second flight. the plane was verry uncomfortable and we arrived here very tired.

flight over auckland was great, nice weather – though autumn is irritating. rental car pickup was nice and easy. everyone at the airport was so helpful and friendly.

we found the hotel easily – the nokia does very well as navigation system. however since the rom was not ready we walked around a bit. discovered we are located near the university campus and managed to find a helpful kiwi who showed us the next atm before we tried to buy a snack and a drink.

so for now we might go out a bit. more here soon and also on twitter as delusions_de (closed profile need an account to follow sry)

Just Married

2009-05-11T06:27:47Z

So here’s the reason for the quiet season around here: we were too busy preparing for this:

I hope I will be posting a bit in the next few weeks – so stay tuned.

Whisky Books

2009-03-06T15:08:21Z

I have not written a lot here about our hobby – or should I say habit? – of Whisky (meaning mostly Scottish Single Malts) drinking.

But I just pre-ordered another book on Whisky and thought some of my readers might like to know about it.

99 Drams of Whisky by Kate Hopkins from the Accidental Hedonist, one of my favorite food blogs.

I pre-ordered with Amazon.de. Until this one will be available in May you may also like Raw Spirit by Iain Banks of “Wasp Factory” fame.

I am glad that more books on Whisky are appearing. I already own many books on food – not counting my cookbooks! – and reading more on Whisky is a great thing :)