Things that give Pleasure. July.

Two weeks ago was the longest day of the year, the summer solstice. What have I loved this day, as well as their wintry counterpart, as a child. The mythical stories and the magical long light, in the North more noticeable than in the South.
Time to look back on the past few weeks and write down the things that were and are good. Quite a lot has happened.

For example, the many, wonderful workshops, which I have given at the Food Blog Days together with my favorite Companeuse Sandy in five different cities already, 15 in number. This way a lot of beautiful experiences have come together, countless inspiring conversations about what is sometimes not so easy in the everyday. Doing yourself good, be attentive to yourself and find out how each day can be more heartful and intuitive.

Realized, again, that ‘doing oneself good’ for me is synonymous with ‘sharing good food in wonderful company’. So easy, really. In this meaning Sandy and I ate very wonderfully several times in preparation for these workshop weekends, even once in the train compartment. And thus I want to recommend for many reasons:

Tulus Lotrek. What sounds first funny is the synonym for a very charming evening in the hands of Ilona and Max and it seems all of their friends. And with the passage through the patio door one enters simultaneously into a magical world with dark green-junglesque-patterned wallpaper, tables carrying hand painted names of the guests and savory macaroons, which simultaneously provide a tender temptation and pompous announcement of the expected dinner.
A mixture of a salon in Paris of the 20ies and a place out of this world. Unrestricted, heartful and thus an 1a favorite recommendation.
Tulus Lotrek can be found at Fichtestrasse in Berlin.

Peonies. Again and again.

Learning a lot about food and its effect in the body, for example, a change in diet may show strong improvement on migraine. For more than a year, my cowboy has been plagued by nasty headaches, in which even strong painkillers do not help. Now certainly headaches and migraines are caused by several reasons but I found this explanation pretty interesting, and as it is, in the emergency one attempts anything and reads transversely through the web. Thru this blog I came across a ketogenic and low histamine diet, which has shown its effect after a few days, according to the cowboy. Especially coconut oil in the morning coffee seems to serve migraineurs well, also a gluten-free diet can help.
And although histamine-low foods greatly limit the selection of cooking (fine are fresh peppers, potatoes, turnips, cabbage, carrots, beets, mango, melon, blueberries, cream cheese, yogurt, herbs, to be avoided are (almost) all other fruit, spinach, tomato, eggplant, ripened cheese, hot spices, dried fruits, fermented foods etc.) and would be quite challenging for myself (especially giving up tasty things as fermented foods!). In the end it is about body feeling and health. Therefore, we are having quite a lot of new, very simple and tasty dishes around here.

Discovering this great band.
And very happy about this music production film by Nils Frahm.

My grandma and everything she taught me.
Never stop learning, she said, when I asked her last year what was most important in life from the perspective of 99 years. It was in the morning and we sat in her kitchen at the sides of the yellow checkered tablecloth and she offered a cappuccino to me. She loved her cappuccino, out of the box, sweet and chocolatey, the same we also had in college in our studio, because you just needed hot water for it.
The joy she had at her vegetables from the garden. I do not know how many summers we ate freshly plucked, yet earthy radishes and carrots, lettuce and tomatoes from the garden behind the house for summer supper.
Yeast dumplings. Steaming yeast dumplings with salted butter crust, vanilla custard sauce and apple compote. No one could make them as grandma and up into old age she still made them for all grandchildren at noon, two pans full of Bavarian steamed dumplings. Or apple dumplings which she gladly put in my suitcase for the train ride home. She was a yeast dough queen, my grandma. I wish I had inherited some of her talent. It was a pleasure to watch her beating the dough on the checkered kitchen table. Even with her fingers twisted by gout she kneaded the dough gracefully and quick until it bubbled. Shortly afterwards, it had already gained volume, smooth and sweet scented. Her black forest cake I’ll never forget. What a feast, at every family event. Just sweet enough, quite a lot of cherries, a bit of chocolate and cream – even using her recipe it wans’t the same. She had it easy on it.
For many years I sat in the kitchen in the corner under the clock at the wall at the yellow checkered tablecloth and watched her cooking, the portable radio on the windowsill playing Bavarian Broadcasting. From my grandmother I know that a pinch of sugar or honey brings out the aroma of carrots. And that simple, home-grown food is the greatest joy. And joy she had much, and with a straight face. In an interview she gave last year for the city newspaper, she replied to the question of how to become 100 years old, I won’t tell.
Now, with 100 and half a year she died. And we, for the last time, let balloons rise for her.

Much thought about dying. Talking about it, asking about it, reading on it. How is dying? Who knows what is really happening when we die? This stunning protocol in the German newspaper Sueddeutsche provides information, and also this moving article. Because the departure from this world is somewhat similar poignant, like birth: a powerful process, happening in its own time, something amazing. And somehow very hard to comprehend. The more important to me seems the thinking about it and also about life. Perhaps this book has an answer, unfortunately not yet translated into English, but this book is by the same author. To better understand how this works scientifically, a good life.

Happy, thoughtful Sunday, everyone.