My first vegan cookies and some more Rome pictures

We tried to locate some bear's garlic today, but the spot we went to years ago didn't yield any of it. Everything changed so much. We found lots of wild violets, wood anemone, and wild carrots, but the bear's garlic stayed alusive. So we went home slightly frustrated and I spontaneously decided to make vegan cookies. And here they are, cinnamon-and-chocolate-chip-cookies:

M didn't like them too much because they weren't sweet enough, but I thought they were pretty good, soft and chewy on the inside and just sweet enough without being too sugary.

But I wanted to show you some more photos from Rome. Let me show you some photos from the forum and palatine hill.

A spinx on the palatine hill:

The museo palatino hosts a very nice exhibiton on the Iron Age past of the Palatine Hill (roughly the 9th century BC). Here is the cremation urn which was found under the house of Livia. It contained the cremated remains of a ca. 20 years old woman with miniature grave goods. Have a look at the lid, which is shaped like the roof of a house:

There were also fantastically preserved wall paintings from the 1st century AD. They are from the domus transitoria, which was Nero's palace at the time being:

This is from the same time period, but I don't remember whether it is also from Nero's palace:

Here, Apollo and Hercules are quarreling about who will keep the Delphian tripod; this wall relief is from the Augustian period (well, I can tell you this much: Zeus had a stop to their quarreling and the tripod remained in Delphi):

And the latest fashion in hats:

The palace of Domitian:

And a fountain in the backyard of Domitian's palace:

And a look at the forum:

Rome, Easter and the question of what a vegan Easter-bunny carries around

First of all Happy Easter Holidays to all of you. We have splendid weather here in Germany, which gives the Easter hare or bunny or whatever, lots of opportunity to hide it's painted eggs for the children. Here is a nicely decorated fountain at the market square in the town of Schriesheim, not far from where I live.

Now, seeing all these eggs on Easter and not wanting to eat them anymore, I wondered what vegan people would do during the Easter holidays, or what they cooked for Easter dinner, since Easter food is very much connected to either meat (Easter lamb) or eggs. Funny enough most vegan food blogs were shrouded in silence. Some were baking, but nobody talked about what they will have for dinner. Very strange, since usually they use every opportunity to create something fitting for the occasion. Really strange. At least I can tell you what we had for dinner; vol-au-vent filled with an aparagus ragout and roasted spring carrots.

But now back to Rome; there are still so many photos I would like to share. Alas, I think it would take too long. But a little bit more can do no harm, right? Here is a view of the Tiber Island, the only river island of the whole Tiber. On the photo you can see the clock tower of the Basilica di San Bartolomeo. The island has been connected to healing and medicine since ancient times and nowadays there is a hospital on it. It was nice to cross the Tiber over two bridges and an island :)

The last traces of the December 2008 high water, a smashed boat:

And then we headed towards the Colosseum through the arch of Constantine:

It was erected at the occasion of the victory of Constantin I (the Eastern) over Maxentius, die Western Roman emperor in 312.

And here it is, the famous Colosseum of Rome. the largest ever built amphit theatre (in the Roman empire of course). 50,000 spectators could watch gladiators, wild beasts and other spectacles. For its opening ceremony they even flooded the whole theatre and had mock naval battles in it, full sized ships and all. Very impressive it was.

Here is a view from the Colosseum towards Constantine's arch:

Rome and Easter

Now, I just have to post some more pics of Rome, before Easter is taking over.

Here we have the Palazzo Montecitorio, where the Lower House of the Italian Paliament is seated. In front of it you can see the Obelisk of Psamettich II (26. Dynasty). Augustus brought it to Rome to use it as a gnomon for a sundial. Must have been a pretty huge sundial. Anyway, it was rediscovered in the 18th century and erected at this place.

The Pantheon was originally a temple built under Hadrian to worship all Gods, hence the name. It has a very long use-history, being in constant service up to now. From the 7th century onwards it was used as a church. Two kings and quite a number of artists and architects found there resting place in this church.

In the 7th century the bronze ceiling and everything metal was torn down and melted down. Here is a look up the dome towards the oculus, compression ring and lighting source combined. At first I thought this was a modern interpretaion in concrete. But it is actually Roman concrete. I really didn't like it too much because of this modern concrety style. Concrete is not my favourite building material.

Next was the Vittorio Emanuele II monument, with the 'altar of the fatherland'. Victor Emanuel was the 19th century king who unified Italy. It is built of white marble and very visible since it sits, gleaming white, on a hill. The equestrian statue in front of the building represents King Vittoria Emanuele II. And the two four-in-hands are lead by the goddess Victoria.

Here are some details:



And a view from the top of the stairs down to an excavation, what a nice view for an archaeologist :)

The Area Sacra di Largo Argentina is the oldest temple complex in the city. It was built in the 3rd century BC and discovered under Mussolini and, alas, excavated in the late 1920s. A lot of information has been lost during these not very sophisticated digs. Here you can see one of the remaining four temples:

Strangely enough, it is also famous for its cats. No sooner was it excavated than it became a 'cat sanctuary' for stray cats.

Rome

It's about time I show you some photos from our stay in Rome. It was a short week, but nevertheless a wonderful time. The weather was not bad either, and thus we could visit all the famous spots without umbrellas and warm coats. Let's have a look at our first day; this is the Piazza di Siena in the famous landscape garden 'Villa Borghese':

Our walk through the Villa Borghese brought us to the church of Trinità dei Monti. And from there we could walk down the Spanish Steps. Although all the post cards show the steps covered by red azaleas there were no flowers anywhere. Maybe we were to early for a show of flowers. However, it was flocked with people or rather tourists.


At the base of the Spanish Steps is the baroque fountain of the old boat, the Fontana della Barcaccia. I was in Rome ages ago, but I couldn't remember this fountain. Neither could I detect it on my old photographs. But, since it was built in the 17th century my brain must be tricking me very badly. I'm just wondering why it wasn't on the old photo. ?!?!? Anyway, I was enjoying it all the more this year.


In the piazza colonna stood, guess what, a column. It is the column of Marcus Aurelius, with an awsome spiral relief. It was built to celebrate the triumph of Marcus Aurelius over the Teutons and Sarmations in AD 176. Had we been in ancient Rome, this column would have been the centre focus of the Martian field.

A further highlight was to go to the largest Baroque fountain of the world, the Trevi fountain. Of course it goes back to much much older aqueducts or waterways, that brought drinking water into the town and used to end in beautiful fountains. And it took 30 years to finish this one.

When I was in Rome (you remember, ages ago) I threw a coin into the fountain, to reassure my return to this beautiful city, and, voilà, here I was again, looking at Oceanus and his shell chariot.

In the 1954 movie 'Three Coins in the Fountain' it is said that two coins will bring you a new romance and three coins will ensure either a marriage or a divorce. Well, I should have known earlier *sigh*.

Pancake Tuesday/Mardi Gras/Carnevale/Faschingsdienstag

Today is Pancake Tuesday and although I didn't bake or carry around pancakes I went to a Mardi Gras event in our little town, the fire wheel. It is said to be an old Germanic custom to roll a burning wheel of straw down a hill. Since the 70s our little community is commited to this pagan custom. The weather was cold, the mulled wine hot (naturally I drank a non-alcoholic kid's punch) and I -of course- forgot my cam. So I can only show you some miserable pics from my handy cam. Here they are:

This is where everything started, with a pyre and the youngsters from our fire brigade forming a guard of honour (on the left side of the photo):

And here firemen, clad in asbestos clothing, steering the wheel down the hill:

If you want a closer look, there even exists a video of this spectacle.

http://www.hvv-wilhelmsfeld.de/berichte/2007/feuerrad.php

Speciesism

We fight sexism, racism, ageism, but never lose a thought about our co-dwellers on this earth. I found this cute button on vegan blog site (http://veganbidraget.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss) and thought I should post it here.
There are a million webpages on speciesism, ok, ok, would you believe half a million? No? How about 122.000? And this is true, try typing the word in google.

So stop being a speciest and become vegan (or at least vegetarian).

Congratulation Mr. President

The time has come, we have a new, the 44th, president of the United States of America. I wanted to watch the live braodcast at the student union's café but what a disappointment. The transmission was overshadowed by a German voice actor. How horrible! I stayed until he took his oath and then went home. I rather watch it on youtube in the orignal than hear the stumbling of a rambling German voice.

I wish Barack Obama good luck, he will need it with all the wreckage he inherited.

This is an excerpt from his speech:

"Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old"

a pre-inauguration dinner

On Tuesday America will have a new president. A lot of Americans are therefore having an inauguration party on this very day. Well, nobody is here at this charming and most of the time too quiet and boring 'spa resort' (Yes, Wilhelmsfeld is a so-called Luftkurort. Haha....)
However, there ain't no fun in having an inauguration party all to yourself, therefore we decided to have a small pre-inauguration dinner with coctails on Saturday:




In real life the cocktail was much more blue-ish, like the blue states. It was an Obama-rama, which P adapted from an adaptation from the famous (? at least expensive) Pink Door restaurant (the alcoholic version is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/fashion/02shakenbox1.html?ref=fashion). It was a real treat :)

For dinner we had a veganized version of the Obama-family chili (http://cookingresources.suite101.com/article.cfm/barak_obamas_chili_recipe) which was spicy and utterly yummie:




I would have loved to do the Flag sheet cake http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/flag-sheet-cake-by-martha, but my oven is still broken, so I just pepped up some banana cream roll (his father is from Kenya after all *grin*):






And my, isn't that patriotic? And I'm not even American. How happy must they be on Tuesday?

Have a nice inauguration day and God bless America! :))

What spice am I???

Your result for What Spice Are You Test...

You are Ginger!

0% Habanero, 20% Sage, 10% Thyme, 40% Ginger, 10% Garlic, 10% Curry, 0% Cinnamon and 10% Oregano!

You are versatile and yet rather erratic!

You can be hot or sweet, it just depends on your mood that day. Sometimes people overlook you and don't give you enough credit for who you are. They try to take advantage of you often, but you aren't one to just sit back and let it happen. When you've had enough you definitely let them know.

You can be a bit moody and have definitive up and down times. It makes being with you a challenge at times, but you have so much personality that being your friend is very much worth the challenge.

You can be very popular, and you don't mind being so. You are more a leader than a follower. You have a wide range of interests and abilities. In your opinion life is too short so you should do as much as you can during your lifetime.

You have your own flair and style, but you still look to see what it trendy.

Take What Spice Are You Test at HelloQuizzy

My first vegan pancakes!! Happy!!

I think I already told you that I am veganizing (I'm not sure whether there is verb at all, but it kinda sounds cool). Plus, I think I told you that my oven is unusable at the time being. Therefore I have to be resourceful and think of stuff I can make without my beloved oven. This is what I came up with today:

Hazelnut-chili pancakes with Oyster mushroom ragout:

Instead of milk I used a hazelnut milk:

I added ground hazelnuts (should have used chopped one's though) and finely cut red chili pepper (should a have used a hotter variety though).

And oh, they were so yummy. Had I known this before I would have made them all the time. At first I thought they wouldn't keep together without eggs and I made a little one but they were just perfect. Not as soft as conventionally made eggy ones but I liked the crispy sensoric experience even more.

The ragout consisted of oyster mushrooms, carrots, and leek, all pan-fried. I added a spoonful of cashewnut butter to give it the appearance of a cream sauce.

So, being a vegan is not that hard after all :)

See yonder, lo, the Galaxyë (Geoffrey Chaucer, 1380)

Today I went to the lecture series about Galilei and the consequences of his research. Today's lecture was about the investigation of our home galaxy, the Milky Way and the upcoming European Space Agency's GAIA Mission, which will map the Milky Way to provide information about star formation histories, merging events, intergalactic streams etc, for nearby galaxies of the Local Group (which is -if I understood the lecturer Eva Grebel properly- our own and the Andromeda galaxy).

Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit

What I expected was an up-to-date synopsis on our knowledge about the Milky Way, but it was more about how the Milky Way was seen through history. Starting with Democrit, who was the first to claim that the Milky Way consisted of stars and not the Greek goddess Hera's milk, she left out medieval Persian scientiest and went straight to Thomas Wright and William Herschel, who made this kinda fancy pic of our galaxy:

Wikipedia

Of course it wasn't accurate, because he didn't know about stars, being variably bright and interstellar gas and dust. After a lot of yaddah yaddah blah blah we arrived in the 20th century. Edwin Hubble could prove firsthand that outside of our galaxy were actually a lot more galaxies.

We then had a look at different types of galaxies, and learnt that our sprial form is due to a black hole and the ominous 'dark matter' which is an arithmetically necessary tool, but otherwise we do have any knowledge about. So I wonder what C is saying in his presentation about dark matter in roughly two weeks. Since we don't know anything it should be quite short *LOL*

DARK MATTER DIRECT DETECTION PROJECT, MIT

The second thing that hurt was her claim that at her institute they are doing 'galaxy archaeology' and that their 'fossils' are the stars. I have to say it again, and next time I'm wearing my T-shirt:

Archaeologist are not interested in fossils and WE DO NOT DIG DINOSAURS!!!!!!!!!!!

______________________________________________________________
From Galilei to Gaia: The exploration of our galaxy. Prof. Eva K. Grebel, Centre for Astronomy of the University of Heidelbergd
Von Galilei bis Gaia: Die Erforschung unserer Galaxis. Prof. Eva K. Grebel, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg

A little bit about food again

Swords and GM soy aside, I just need to post my dinner. As a New Year's resolution I wanted to become more veganized and since I am all alone today AND still had leftovers from my hot-hot peppersauce I decided to make something good, filling, and vegan. So here it is, gnocchi in peppersauce with peas and on top some chive and cheezly, a vegan cheese.

In the background you can see my vegan cookbook I bought whilst in England: Rose Elliot, Vegan Feasts

(http://www.amazon.de/Vegan-Feasts-Essential-Vegetarian-Collection/dp/072254006X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books-intl-de&qid=1231443697&sr=8-2)

Fake designer goods in Viking times

www.hurstwic.org

Oh, oh...they better trust their sword's not too much.

"It must have been an appalling moment when a Viking realised he had paid two cows for a fake designer sword; a clash of blade on blade in battle would have led to his sword, still sharp enough to slice through bone, shattering like glass."

Alan Williams from London Museum and Tony Fry from the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington tested Ulfberht's swords from various collections and found a lot of them being fakes, especially the ones in graves. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/dec/27/archaeology-vikings-sword

Why am I telling you this? Well, you see, we visited the Viking Exhibition in Speyer after Christmas, and, when I was reading the news on these fake swords I remembered that I saw an Ulfbehrt at the exhibition. I wonder whether this one was a geniune one. The museum's catalogue just says it is from Lith in the Netherlands, but gives no information what so ever whether it was from a grave context or from a river. The one's in graves were mostly fake Ulfberht's. Well the dead one wouldn't have known the difference, would he?

The problem was indeed like mentioned in the citation above, that the fake ones scattered on impact, being made from Northern European Iron and welded in old-fashioned manner. A real Ulfberht was a gigantic innovation. It used carbon rich steel brought in from Afghanistan and the like via Byzanz along the Eastern route. Plus, a new form put the balance nearer to the hand which made the sword faster, in stroke and recovery. An Ulfberht was a quantum leap in technology. No wonder fakes are moving around like Chinese rolexes. But since the dead warrior wouldn't use his sword in a real fight anymore it is excusable and he probably would have understood very well that the extra money is better used in form of some decent mead.

www.wikinger.speyer.de

EU approves genetically modified soybean for import

This news on http://www.eviana.org/ slightly shocked me, I have to admit. I always thought, OK, Bush and his blind followers, mainly the red states, were stupid enough to watch Monsanto gain billions in exchange for their health risking, economically insane, morally not justifiable, genetically 'enhanced' crop seeds. But obviously we, here on the Old World are as studpid:

The European Union has authorized imports of a genetically modified (GM) soybean type for sale across its 27 national markets for the next 10 years, the European Commission said on Thursday(...) Developed and marketed by Monsanto, the soybean is destined to be imported for use in food and animal feed, not for growing...www.evana.org (Dec 4th 2008).

To think that my edamame is GM....yuck yuck yuck

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Edamame_by_Zesmerelda_in_Chicago.jpg/800px-Edamame_by_Zesmerelda_in_Chicago.jpg

A report from the Ministry of Health in Austria clearly showed 'a diet-host interaction that should be further evaluated'. In it's conclusion this report clearly showed the underlying danger by genetically modified soy or corn fed to animals:

'Summarising the study, the maize with the stacked event NK603 x MON810 affected the reproduction of mice in the RACB trial. Whether similar findings could be expected for other animals, needs to be evaluated in studies including reproductive traits. Future studies are necessary to determine the impact of normal and transgenic dietary ingredients on the organism.' (The full report can be downloaded here: http://bmgfj.cms.apa.at/cms/site/attachments/3/2/9/CH0810/CMS1226492832306/forschungsbericht_3-2008_letztfassung.pdf).

But hey, why wait till we know more. Fertility of the mice used for this experiment was severely impacted on. Litter size went down 25 to 30 percent. Birth weight was on the drop. Men become infertile from hormones (mainly the 'pill' in drinking water), so let's do something against discrimination and let us make our females unproductive. This way we will soon face obliteration
and earth can breathe again.

But until then Monsanto will feel really good.In the last 5 years, Monsanto’s stock price is up over 700 percent, and the company’s directors are getting their shares, and oh they are doing good too:

And how good (in deceiving) these influential companies are can be seen by the fact that their own studies show their products causing severe harm and they can still succesfully sell their products and now to the EU market

"A Monsanto study on a new type of GM Bt maize shows significant harm caused to
rats fed on the variety, called MON 863. The study shows kidney abnormalities and unusually high levels of white blood cells. It raises serious concerns about the impacts of GM foods on human health." (http://www.organicconsumers.org/corn/index.cfm).

And that transgenetic genes flow even into my organically grown veggies are certain:

"In Mexico researchers have detected widespread contamination of traditional

varieties of corn, caused by surreptitious imports of genetically engineered
corn into Mexico ".

I have read German studies which confirm this but was too lazy to look them up.

So what are we? A generation of nutcases? Or silent tax givers for funding companies that would rather kill off people than reduce their profit. Oh well they would only kill the most dim-witted animal on earth which wouldn't be so bad at all.

Sorry for blabbering, but I needed to vent my anger. I will close with the words from Ben Cohen (a co-founder of Ben&Jerry's ice-cream):

"Outrageous! That’s what you’ll say over and over again when you read how the biotechnology companies have manipulated the government, our food, and the media, and put an entire generation at risk."

Again a year hurried away from us. 2009 already, a bit terrifying I have to admit. Therefore I will resort to the old year, for a bit, just to finish our lovely Christmas dinner presentation and so on.

Unfortunately I can't show you a photo of our red beet risotto. A long time ago when people actually used coated films to shoot photos, it could very well happen that you forgot to put in the film and only much later noticed that all your doing was in vain. I never thought this could happen in our digital age. But be warned, there are still memory cards you need to insert before shooting. To make it short, we didn't and so the pic of the risotto is in some other space-time-dimension. However, we managed to take a photo of the Christmas pudding. Not everyone's favourite, but hey, it's a tradtion that must be upheld. I bought it (oh, come on, you didn't expected me to do it from scratch, did you?) in my favourite organic food shop in London, Whole Foods Market, http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/kensington/. Europe's largest organic supermarket by the way. I think it was Tiptree's, but I'am not quite sure, I bought it some time ago. As you are probably well aware, Christmas puddings have to mature over weeks or even months.


Instead of brandy butter or mint butter, we decided to have custard with it and we were in no way dissapointed. Just awsome (if you like puddings, of course).



We spent New Year's Eve and New Year's Day in Austria with my friend and her husband in Nenzing. This is pretty much how it actually looks, with all the mountains around it.

de.wikipedia.org

Now we are back in Germany with my library account frozen, my oven exploded, our entrance door shattered and I'm waiting what good 2009 can still bring me.

Luckily the ceramic hob is still working and what better to cook in a pan (or in this case a wok) than Chinese fried noodles:

Cook some Chinese noodles, set aside. Meanwhile heat sesame oil in a wok, add carrots, brussel sprouts, red bell pepper, leek, garlic. Season with a Chinese mixed seasoning and a bit of tamari sauce, add the noodles, toss well and garnish with lemongrass. So yummie!