Biking

Today, the forecast seemed good enough to go biking.



And indeed it was beautiful.





We found a friendly crappy little restaurant for lunch, that reused its paper placemats, and served a mean Strammer Max:



We got home very tired, but highly energized.

Fries

Meatfest Friday Early Edition

We used the residual heat of barbecuing sardines (not posted) to hot smoke some pork for 3 hours. Together with some homemade barbecue sauce and fresh Semmeln, this kick-started another meatfest Friday.

Buncis!

We are really enjoying the fact that we found some great Asian shops here! Today we enjoyed the smell of fresh galangal, before we threw it into the pan with the other ingredients.

Pine Nuts, Parsley, Pasta

Happy Easter!

Another illegal barbecue

Asian Week Continues

We were planning on making our usual mango and carrots recipe, but the mango was a little too old and brown. So we improvised with the few ingredients that we could find in our fridge, and came up with a really tasty nasi goreng.

Malay Fish Curry

Great tasting food, but very ugly. Therefore just this picture of the preparation.

My first homemade 炸酱面

More noodles today --- we finally mustered up enough courage to make our own zhajiangmian. The result was pretty fabulous. Why were we so scared? It's actually not so hard, and our homemade zhajiangmian beats the Fodor's choice's (top photo) with two fingers in the nose (okay, for you not Dutch reader's, the correct expression would be "hands down").

Kuey Teow

We used to make this so often that it has its own label. It's good!

Sardines

Every now and then we have a flashback to our holiday in Morocco, where we had the most amazing barbecued sardines. These weren't too bad either.





To be continued, as, surprisingly, the neighbors still haven't complained about our illegal barbecuing.

Flammkuchen

Even better than it looked!

Gado Gado

A little bare bones this time: no bean sprouts, no krupuk, no fried onions.

March 23, 1998

I recently found my diary from February/March 1998. This was (just) before I was dating Frans, and the last entry is from March 23 in Harare, Zimbabwe:

"This afternoon I tried to read my email. However, Hotmail appears to experience enormous demand between 4 and 5 pm, so in half an hour, I was able to read only 2 email messages."

Oh, my God, I am so OLD!!!!

(The bright side of the story is that Frans and I would prolly never have dated, had we not been young way way back in the time of bad internet connections and excruciatingly slow servers: The only reason why Frans visited me in Zimbabwe was the fact that I called him when he was bored, and I only called him because the long email I had written got lost through my shitty internet connection...)

Roasted Red Peppers, Preserved Lemon and Feta

Fietsen

We took advantage of the beautiful blue skies and went for a great bike ride this Sunday. Did you guys know about this thing called public transport they have over here in Europe? You can get on a train with your bike, get off wherever you want, bike for a while, and then get on a train to take you back home. Awesomeness!

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Sausages!

This time from Cora: one piece each of all the different kinds of sausages they carry.

Sake

When we had Chinese food in Berlin, our expectations were a little too high. We thought to ourselves that the Chinese food we had in Saarbrücken may actually have been better than this restaurant in Berlin that was recommended by Fodor's. So we went back to Sake (what an awful name for a Chinese restaurant) to investigate.







The food is really quite good and the flavors are really authentic. It's very strange and disheartening to see that there were just two other guests besides us (who asked for sushi to add insult to injury). Go to Sake! It's good!

What have we done!

We miss Mr Bojangles!

Today, at 18:30, Mr Bojangles felt something was up, and decided to hide under the couch. At 18:35, the couch was turned upside down, and Mr Bojangles hid in his litter box instead. The poor little thing!
From there, we managed to force him into his transporter, and at 19:00 his new family picked him up.

And we are left feeling really sad and lonely.

Saying goodbye to Mister Bojangles

Spring means that new things come and old things go. We are saying goodbye to many things this week: today we are sending off Mr Bojangles to his new home, with garden.

After our most recent trip to Berlin, Mr Bojangles has become even sweeter than before. He now throws himself on the sofa several times a day, and demands to be petted by F. When he is not doing that, he walks around F's chair with quivering tail, demanding to be petted. Last night, he even graced us with his presence during the night, and slept on our bed.

Our job in taming Mr Bojangles is clearly done.

Saying goodbye to winter

Laugh and cry - the laughing part

Two photos of how we (=F) can also make children laugh, by illustrating how a prince without teeth proposes to a little girl, and by letting the kids touch his unshaven chin.

Asparagus and Salmon in Puff Pastry

What this weekend missed out on you

A's brother and half of poppamomma paid us a visit this weekend. We "splurged" on 2 kg of SAUSAGES, directly from the Saarbrücker meat factory. We paid a full 5 euros. Oh yes, we don't skimp on the food when we want to show family members a good time!

We illegally fired up the barbecue (not permitted on our balcony, according to our lease) and grilled the full 2 kilos of sausage. Yum-o! It turned out that meat is somewhat of an optional ingredient in sausage, though.

Unfortunately, we did not take any photos of this spectacular event, so you will all have to just imagine what 2 kg of sausage looks like...

Big in Japan

Ellen is big in Japan. Which also makes this a very popular photo on my Flickr account: already 831 views.

A Tearful Goodbye

Our last night in Berlin we visited A's advisor's family. We read stories to their three children and made them laugh and cry.

Hamburger in Berlin

This rather fancy restaurant does not only serve fancy appetizers:



... but also a simple and great hamburger:

Bavarian Foodz in Berlin

Another recommendation of Fodor's, and this one was spot on: we shared a plate of great appetizers, sonderfully crisp Krustenbraten with Knödel, and great Goulash with Spätzle in Restaurant Engelbecken.