Ingredients pesto

05-10 basil leaves
02-05 sage leaves
02-05 fresh strawberries
0.5 tomato
1.0 tsp. dried oregano
1.0 tsp. dried mint leaves (fresh probably even better)
1.0 tsp. tabasco sauce
1.0 tsp. pignolias
1.0 tbs. sour cream
1.0 tbs. tomato purée
2.0 tbs. milk

Other ingredients

0.5 halloumi cheese
3.0 tbs. chopped ham/bacon cubes
200g rigatoni pasta

Directions

cut the halloumi cheese into thin slices and fry them in hot olive oil in a pan. in a pot boil water and cook the rigatoni. meanwhile mix together all the pesto ingredients in a mixer / blender and mash it up. when the halloumi slices are brown and crispy, put them aside and fry the ham in the pan. add the pesto mixture to the pan and stir everything up. add the al-dente pasta to the pan and mix everything up. serve in a bowl and add the fried halloumi cheese. enjoy!

*aş-Şyf Fy Āyţālyā = ’summer in italy’ in arabic language as latin transcript

Ingredients

1.0 cup cocktail shrimps
1.0 cup cocktail tomatos
1.0 onion
1.0 garlic clove
0.5 tsp. red thai curry powder
0.5 tsp. cumin
0.5 tsp. estragon
1.0 tsp. tabasco sauce
1.0 tsp. paprika powder
2.0 tbs. tomato purée
1.0 cup white rum
2.0 tsp. oyster sauce
0.5 cup sour cream
1.0 tbs. brown sugar
salt, pepper, white sugar

Directions

in hot olive oil stew together the onions, garlic, cumin, and tabasco. deglaze with the rum and add estragon, paprika, tomato purée, oyster sauce, brown sugar and cook until the smell of alcohol is gone. add the shrimps and sliced cocktail tomatos and stir it up. finally add the sour cream, stir it and season the sauce to taste with salt and optionally pepper and white sugar. serve with pasta (e.g. Barilla Fusilli no. 98) and enjoy!

mein mitbewohner lasse und ich, beide unverbesserliche videonerds, hatten am sonntagabend die grandiose idee, die feierlichkeiten rund um den 9. november für die nachwelt auf magnetband zu bannen…

…die erwartungen hielten sich von vornherein in grenzen, dennoch schlich sich bei uns eine art hoffnung auf spürbare historie und feierlichkeit ein, die uns trotz angekündigtem regen montag nachmittag den arsch hochkriegen liess.

wir zogen hochmotiviert los, als es gerade dunkel geworden war - perfektes timing für videoaufnahmen ohne extrabeleuchtung. das bvg ticket war beim prekären dealer am schlesi schnell für nen euro gekauft, trotz vergangener schlechter erfahrungen mit zwar raffinierten, aber dennoch nutzlosen fälschungen, die einem letztendlich nur stress mit dem kontrollpersonal einbrachte. in der u-bahn trafen wir natürlich auch gleich nach dem einsteigen mehrere feixende bvg kontrolleure an, die sich ja mit ihrem penetrant asozialen und aggressiven habitus schon ankündigen, wenn sie noch nicht mal im zugabteil sind. da jeder von ihnen aber schon zielsicher ein wehrloses opfer gefunden hatte, dass dem natürlichen beuteschema tourist, migrant, oder intellektueller  entspricht, musste mein illegitim erworbenes ticket keinem geschulten hyänenauge ob der echtheit stand halten und wir konnten unbehelligt umsteigen.
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before moving to kreuzberg ost i really beleived i would miss prenzlauer berg a lot and feel really lost and lonely - the opposite is true in fact.

where else can you get the best burgers in the city at a place that’s 100% focused on the burger itself - Burgermeister - fuck quiet commodity - sit in the middle of an intersection, below the metro tracks in the cold and meditate on the burger. be the burger. i love it.

the intriguing danger about this kiez is the daily opportunity of endless drifting from bar to bar, which seem to never close. from authentic pubs like the Mysliwska with great polish beer, the romantic and pretty but notorious at friday night Salon Schmück, the provincial-squat-style Farbfernseher with straight electronic music in the middle of nowhere on Skalitzer Straße, the exquisite latino-spanish Mezcal and Margarita specialized Lupita hidden in a top floor behind the grey concrete blocks at Kottbusser Tor next to Monarch club, 80s-modernist queer bar Möbel Olfe, or my personal favorite: Hotel Bar, with the finest funk, boogaloo, soul, rockabilly and spanish 60s music - i always get stuck there at some point.

i rediscovered an relaxed atmosphere and unpretentious authenticity i thought would be lost in berlin, but maybe i’ve been stuck in gentrified prenzlauer berg and yuppified mitte for too long, waiting, looking backwards to the old times there, when the NBI was still a small cozy bar and the Kohlenquelle didn’t have toilets yet and unrenovated August Fengler didn’t look like any other hipster bar…

also never before i was able to have coffee breakfast at 7 in the morning on a friday at a turkish bakery after a too long night and have a rather civilized discussion about honor, knives, murder, culture and life itself with a bald 120kg muscles, gold chain and gold rings packed monster of a kurdish hardcore gangster…

let’s see how i think about all of this when i’m not the naive and optimistic xberg-newcomer anymore. ^_^

meine osnabrücker lieblingssportfreunde von kunstrasen haben mal wieder ein hip-hop track aus dem hut gezaubert, der es in sich hat. vom stadion gehts diesmal hinüber zu einem genauso sportlichen thema: politik. genial funkiger track über parteien, koalitionen und die anstehende bundestagswahl. osnabrooklyn in da house! weiter so, jungs!

lucy and me were curious about the treasure hunt the prototypen set up at their awesome annual betriebsausflug in the forest outside of berlin. we staggered through sticks and bushes, from one enciphered hint to the next and eventually found the treasure…

…so the prize we won is a street art stencil of us, based on a photo shot the next morning, hungover and quite spaced out.

really cool! thanks prototypen!

just got my brandnew htc hero ‘iphone killer’ smartfone. it’s really impressive to me, being used to 8 years of ericsson candybar type cellfones. a totally new experience to have navigation and cloud access wherever i go. i love the android OS and the countless applications that exist for it already. i already got a favorite: google sky map - moving the phone around the nightsky it shows names of planets, stars, and constellations. a must have for the romantic beatnik geek!