The end is in sight

No, not the end of this road, dummy! Only two more weeks, and then our time of separation is over. 

During this time, I have learnt to make my own breakfast...
 

... and Tiroler Gröstl...



 I was in charge of the yard...

 
and in charge of photography...

 



(yes, that is my finger that you see on the top right.)

So far, this semester has been busy so I was never bored, but this weekend was kind of quiet work-wise, so I went for a bike ride.

  It turns out, it is only 25 minutes to here:
 

Although you do have to pass this:

 
 ... and this
 

All these crosses have always freaked me out (and to be honest, the three crosses have always reminded me of the KKK).

 

Today's bike ride was informative as well as quite gorgeous, and I found out that the land-and-farm-with-too-many-crosses are in fact part of the National Memorial to the Progress of the Colored Race in America founded by Lightfoot Solomon Michaux.

 That just goes to show that I still don't understand s**t about this part of the world.

Happy Easter!

YAW (Yet Another Waffle)

Cheese Waffle today. (Can you tell it is spring break?)

Waffle Breakfast

We copied what we learned in The Pig and made a waffle with egg and bacon, and some maple syrup.

The Pig!

No, I am not talking about Tuncay. It's the name of the restaurant he took us to for brunch!



They make their own cured meatz, and they do it well! Another recommendation.

Great Food

After these photo ops on the Mairspitze, we arrived at the Nürnberger Hütte. We enjoyed the sun, and their spectacularly good food!



There was home smoked bacon, Hauswurst, great cakes etc. Also beer.



Gröstl.



Goulash mit Knödel.



And a "Tris" of Schlutzkrapfen, Käseknödel and some other deliciousness. Many good reasons to stay overnight in huts!

All Too Familiar

Our last dinner we went to one of our favorite restaurants. Again, maybe not the best restaurant in Beijing, but very comforting dishes and flavors. The restaurant is appropriately named: it translates to something like "all too familiar".

We had Taiwanese Style Pork, Sichuan fish, Beijing duck, and other stuff that I did not take pictures of.



But I just had to take pictures of these delicious balls!

For Old Times' Sake

Su Shi is not the best restaurant in Beijing. But we ate there the first night we arrived in Beijing, and many times after that. We cubed the cycle and had another duck.



Another favorite is this egg with veggies. They outdid themselves with both, and gave us even more happy memories!

Boiled Lamb

A bus trip of a few hours brought us to Langmusi, an interesting little village with a mix of Hui, nomadic people, Tibetan people and also some Han Chinese. Many of the little restaurants were owned by Hui, who are muslim. The main specialty: boiled lamb, pictured above. We had it twice, it is really good.



Here is A in our favorite Hui restaurant.



And this is a view of the village from the mountain.

Wedding II

Having arrived at Liu Ke's parents house, Amanda was put on a bed and to some tests. Also, she was fed some egg (I don't really know the significance of this habit).

Her family (of which we were honorary members that day!) was extended all the hospitality we could wish for. Who can wish for anything more than beer and candy in the morning?

We were called into the room where Amanda was being tested (?). One of the tests she had to perform was lighting cigarettes for Liu Ke's cousins.

This was harder than it sounds, because they sneekily kept blowing out the flame.

Liu Ke to the rescue!

Amanda withstood all tests, and we were ready to move to the restaurant where the wedding would take place.

Easter breakfast

Today, we are celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. Or, maybe, we are celebrating spring. Or we are celebrating the fact that F's paper finally got accepted to a good conference.

But, most of all, we are celebrating the fact that A got two job offers! Huzzah!!!

And, what better way to celebrate our imminent move to another continent, than to buy some egg cloches to schlepp across the globe with us?

Happy easter everyone, and please take the poll at the top right corner to help us decide where to go...

Eggy Breakfast

Eggs, more eggs and salmon on a croissant.

Spaghetti Carbonara

A treat every single time.

Spaghetti Carbonara

Wishing we had a garden and a smoker again!

Cheese Souffle

Breakfast!

Quiche Lorraine

Quiche Lorraine, using Escoffier's recipe. Somehow these simple recipes of his have amazing results. I learned that I need to blanche and slightly fry my bacon (in thin rashers) for my quiche lorraine, and that the filling can be fluffy!

Gordon's Scrambled Eggs and Smoked Salmon

I saw Gordon Ramsey's Christmas special on the plane to the US, and really liked his idea of baking up old croissants and serving it with scrambled egg and salmon. (I really liked everything he was making in that show --- but this one I could easily remember.) Last weekend it was time to try it ourselves. It was as good as I hoped it would be.

Barf-O-Rama

To the untrained eye, this may look like a bowl of puke, but our more discerning readers will no doubt recognize this Kyoto delight of roast chicken with egg sauce.

Time for Another Random Restaurant

We felt lazy, and just wanted to have some food whilst biking back to the hotel. This restaurant looked nice from the outside.



We enjoyed many small dishes: some salad with fish...



... some barbecued peppers and meatz...



...shiitake on a stick...



...almost raw chicken liver...



...eggplant two ways...



...chicken (I think)...



...and tsukune (according to a Flickr commenter).