Not Boring, but Slightly Obscene

Today we are trying to hide the boringness of this blog by posting obscene lemon chicken pictures. We did not even want to eat lemon chicken, but our muslim shop did not have cilantro. I felt like calling Wilders, but wasn't sure what good that would do me.





Tomorrow we will have offal, inshallah.

Frans is a winner - yet again!

F is an awesome photographer. Not only did he win in the great White Monkey Photographers' Contest last year, and did Getty ask him if they could commission his huitspot photo, but he also won the Fodors Photo Contest. Twice.

I am reposting his award winning and best selling photos here for your enjoyment.







It is just a tiny bit of a shame that F's reading skills are way behind his photography skills, and he failed to notice that he had to be a US resident in order to enter in Fodors contest... So no free guidebooks for him. Which is too bad, because he could have used them to practice reading.

P.S. More evidence of F's awesomeness is that his photos even get used without his permission:
The first image in this movie and this one are his.

Bo-ring

It's not just you, we think this blog is getting a little boring too, now we don't have any work related conflicts. Maybe we should create some?

More fun on the webz: Ellen's beautiful looking (and prolly also tasting) foodz, Emmanuel's fall bounty, and much much more.

Today was meatless Wednesday:

Everyday Etiquette, or "Hoe hoort het eigenlijk?"

You are eating great food, with a wonderful sauce. What is the appropriate way to let your hosts know that you enjoy the meal?

Allow F to demonstrate...

Meatfest

It is not even Friday, but we're in Germany, so every day is meatfest.

(The sausages from the French hypermarches are much better, however.)

More Risotto and Strudel

Liberty Cabbage

Alsace

A little more than a week now, and we will finally have a normal(ish) place to live. No furniture, but plenty of room.

So come on by all of y'all!!!

Sure, nothing to do here in Saarbrucken, but the Alsace is oh-so close:

Rocquet Pizza!

And figs as dessert.

Bad Pictures of Great Food

We rented a car last weekend to get some real French food.



We found a restaurant and hotel on the Michelin website...



... and were impressed with all the good food we got.



These pictures are from eating at Au Bon Gite twcie, in case you are wondering.



The quality of the food cancelled out the quality of the pictures, hence this post with below par photos.



Mission accomplished.

So Last Week

But so good!

Calling Emma!

This is so up your alley! Look at these pictures and think how much better yours will be, not to mention the potential for a movie!

Pumpkin Risotto

Also, we signed our lease today. We will move in a little more than two weeks from now.

Water Test (the Sequel)

We use a lot of water, so it was time for a quick water test! We were not very enthusiastic about any of them, but, we were happy to see that we actually enjoyed the cheapest waters the best. Our winners: Tip and Purania. (Also, one of the most expensive waters was the loser on steroids: Gerolsteiner.)

Tested waters: Wendenquelle, Black Forest, Gerolsteiner, Bergquelle, Vittel, Volvic, Purania, Weisensteiner, Tip.

Guest post from China!

Because we all miss China a bit, we are happy to have a guest post by Henk today.

He was in Guangzhou yesterday, and his hosts wanted to give him lots and lots of face. Lunch started off with a soup filled with scorpion, lizard and chicken foot, which was apparently did the job of impressing Henk quite well. Unfortunately, the interesting bits were not eaten, but only added flavour to the soup. After the soup, they had snake and some simpler dishes.




We miss Beijing a bit, but not the pollution, which was at "hazardous" levels for four full days from October 6 to October 10...

For Ellen and Christiaan

... who have this dream of a "non-burgerlijke" (non-bourgois?) camper van.

Thi is the most beautiful VW van I ever saw. Among others, it featured a beautiful little kitchen decorated with mosaics, and a rooftop terrace with a parasol.

More German than the Germans

My big fat Apfelstrudel!

Wall -- check

In case you hadn't noticed, I (Anke) was in Berlin this week. I visited my phd advisor who is on sabbatical here. It was cool and really different to work with him as a (somewhat) "equal" instead of as a phd slave :)

Today, I saw remnants of the wall. Now it seems time to go home.

Couscous and Orange Salmon Pizza

Not on the same day, of course, that would be weird.

And yesterday, another little bike ride:



And restaurant food, a Lyonerpfanne:

High terror alert in Germany

... does not seem to scare the tourists in Berlin.

"From the Old Box"

... as we say in Dutch. Today I decided to enter Fodor's China Photo Contest. So I might as well post them to the blog as well, even though I posted one of these already. Remember our first visit to Lao She Teahouse? (Or maybe the second?) Anyway, I cropped one of the photos of our first visit and submitted it to the contest:



The second picture I chose was from our holiday in Yunnan. Somehow, I did not like the picture at the time, and it was never posted:



The description I mostly stole from A's blogpost:

"There are some great adventurous hiking opportunities near Xishuangbanna in Southwestern China. Besides enjoying the beautiful surroundings, you will also enjoy trying to find the way through the dense jungle, and, the most exciting adventure of all, trying to find a place to sleep.

According to our information, the locals would spontaneously offer us food and accommodation... We wandered around the town a bit, hoping someone would notice how hungry and tired we looked... Many smiles, but no luck... On our second try, the best house in town made the international coming and sleeping signal. Yay, we would not have to sleep outside!!!

We stayed with a wonderful family, who were able to cook fabulous meals on their little fire, with just one type of vegetable, some eggs, rice, and some seasonings. We had a great night's sleep, and were woken by the pigs, cat and the chanting of the monks in the monastery next door.

This photo is taken on the morning after. In the foreground is the hut that we were welcomed in the night before, together with one of the family members."

Flammkuchen

Kurbis-risotto in Berlin

Not as good as at home.

One for the new Dutch Government

And especially for the party/guy who is only supporting the new government, and confuses radicalism/fundamentalism with "islam".

Groceries --- Part the Second

More grocery shopping in France today, which resulted in this wonderful lunch:



For dinner we went with a fall theme. Red cabbage...



... and barbecued boudin noir with apples



... and some mashed potatoes.



A paired this with a Gigondas, that worked really well with the food, even though on its own it was a little flat.