Switzerland

Time flies indeed. All along I wanted to post a couple of pictures from our stay in Switzerland, but well, you know ...

Now I quickly put some up, so you can see that we really had a beautiful, albite short weekend at Lake Neuchâtel. First of all our hotel, the Palafitte near Neuchâtel, was really great. It is built as a pile dwelling, but we had a pavillion on the shore which left some money to eat lovely crêpes and galettes.

The interior was impressive, a spacious bathroom,


a working area, big LCD TV, and an addictive espresso machine.


Best of all, to my greatest surprise, they had a case with replicas from archaeological finds. Now how cool is this? Can an archaeologist have a nicer lookout while making their espresso? I guess not.


I don't have a photo of the lake view terrace (no it has nothing to do with the eponymous movie) and I wished I could have spent more time just sitting in the sun, reading the odd potboiler. But well, maybe some other time....

Mom-alone-at-home-food

Today is Mom-alone-at-home-day. I didn't want to cook, but I was hungry, so I boiled some pasta, threw wild rocket, spring onions, a teaspoon full of cashew butter and two teaspoons full of chili paste together. Turned out a bit hot, but for a 10-min-meal you can't complain.

Speyer and the Vikings - again

I decided to go and see the Viking exhibition in Speyer one last time. Since you can't take any photos I wanted to burn an image of the most beautiful pieces into my mind. So we arrived at a cloudy day. Here is a glimspe of the cathedral's towers through the trees.



Just across the cathedral's square is the Historical Museum of Speyer.

Well, I can't show you Viking age artefacts, but we also went into the general exhibiton and here I finally could bring my camera to good use.

Here is a nice piece of a pot from the La Hoguette group. This group is interesting because it too used pointed-based vessels so uncommon for the Linear Band Keramik (LBK) culture and they formed the Western frontier to the incoming LBK. It was under a megalithic grave that they found this type of pottery for the first time. It also has very early dates (at least as old as LBK or older) and a lithic tradition that is clearly local and mesolithic. That's why I love this culture group. They used crushed bones as temper for their pottery and that's why I don't love 'em too much. Interestingly there was pottery from a megalithic grave in England with bone tempered pottery, too.




a whole pot would have looked similar to this one:

Lüning et al. 1998

The dots represent sites with finds from the La Hoguette group; The shadowd areas are the LBK culture and the Cardial group, respectively.

http://www.archaeologie.bl.ch/Pages/Museum/auston/auston_2_2.jpg

Ok I, I get the message, you are slightly bored by my 'very interesting' artefacts, so I just quickly show you some very beautiful items.

A lided container (early bell beaker culture) from Ludwigshafen-Mundenheim:

The famous golden hat from Schifferstadt:

An Iron Age bangle from Rodenbach (460-400 BCE) :

Wine harvesting with Bacchus, a scene from a Jupiter column from Roman Speyer:

And a bottle of Roman wine, vintage AD 325:

On our way back to the car park, I saw a playground with a brilliant - no, not a merry-go-round but a giant ant. A superb method to avoid insectiphobia in children:

And what for dinner? A caramelised onion and lentil wellington from uk-tv food (http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/516620). Good to prepare and then just pushed into the oven. In 20 min dinner was on the table together with new savoy cabbage and carrot veggies and a wild rocket salad. Yeah, I know, the photo doesn't look very nice. I took when it was still on the baking sheet fresh from the oven. But believe me it was really really tasty.

The merry month of May or the dreaded asparagus time of the year

My friends probably know, I'm not a friend of asparagus even less white asparagus that is so common in Germany.

But well, M is a big fan and once in a while I have to give in and cook pancakes with white asparagus and sauce hollandaise. While white asparagus is nasty in itself, in combination with a fatty and eggy sauce it is nearly unbearable. However, on my way to veganism, I choose to not only replace the pancakes with oatmilk pancakes but also try a vegan hollandaise. I used a recipe from vegetarian times (http://www.vegetariantimes.com), a well-known American journal for vegetarian lifestyle and made some adjustments to give it the taste my usual hollandaise would have.

I didn't tell M and he loved it. He said 'mhhh your sauce is really great today' and swished the pot clean with a last bit of a pancake. Well, see, it works without animal (dead or tortured) involvement.

And here is a photo of completely vegan 'pancakes with white asparagus and sauce hollandaise':

I am just wondering whether I let my unknowing spouse die in ignorance or whether I should tell him that he ate (and liked!) something very healthy today.

Baking Frenzy

There is probably something I miss in life, since lately I calm down my agitated melancholia by going into the kitchen und yanking out muffin and cake tins. Well no matter what the deeper meaning behind this outlandish behaviour is, P and C are obviously enjoying it or rather the result thereof, like blueberry muffins

or banana bread.

Unfortunately there was no time to get the camera ready. It was gone too fast. R.I.P. banana bread.

I guess I will try to make a lemon bund cake tomorrow.

Forgetfulness is good for creativity

Today, I came home late from my Japanese class. On my way home I was pondering what my spouse, who was also late because of a fitness class, would have for dinner today. Did he go to the uni cafeteria? Did he stop over at the Chinese fast food shop? Or will he buy Döner from our village's only Döner fast food? And then it hit me! I promised to unfreeze the leftover quiche I made him a couple of weeks ago and heat it up till he would arrive. A glance at my watch: 20 min left till he comes home. Oh my god, why am I so unmindful und forgetting things all the time. It was not because he doesn't deserve me cooking for him, although being true, this is a completely different chapter.

Well, there is a positive side to everything in life. So I made one of my ingenious scrap-together-everything-from-the-fridge-apart-from-the-mouldy-thingies recipes.

And here it is: pasta with walnut chilli:

It was darn good. I chopped some onions and fried them. Usually I add soy chilli, but of course, I didn't have any at home, so I used chopped walnuts and fried them, too. Tomato passata, corn kernels, peas, fresh spinach leaves, and some spices and voilà, a perfect chili. I thought it much better than with soy chilli, so walnuts will be my favourite meat substitute in chilli from now on.

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*.