The Idea

I have never seen Into the Wild and I have never seen Wild – somehow I feel the need to make that absolutely clear, maybe because both movies caused a wave of new hikers on their self-finding paths, and especially the latter resulted in female hiker numbers rocketing through the sky.  I’m not saying that mine is not a self-finding trip, at least up to some degree it certainly is, but I wasn’t suddenly inspired to do this because an actress looked pretty and went on this wholesome cleanse in nature (again: I haven’t seen the movie but it is Hollywood so that’s what I assume it’s gonna be like. My apologies if I’m wrong. Don‘t @me). I did read Hape Kerkeling’s Ich bin dann mal weg, a personal account of hiking the Way of St. James. (though the German Jakobsweg sounds better. More humble. More fitting to the dusty, sweaty struggle). However, that trail doesn’t appeal to me as much. Not because of its religious purpose, I’m all up for that. Or don’t care. But I am a mountain goat and love the Dolomites, probably even more than the Alps, and it’s high up there on 10,000ft elevation where I find my inner peace. Every year, my Mum (70 years of age and she can still do it, and I’m damn proud of her) and I go on a 2-day-hiking trip in the high mountains. It’s our mother-daughter-time and especially regarding our somewhat problematic relationship. We’re getting better and I must admit, 2020 has been a good year in terms of us. Physical distancing brought us closer together emotionally and I am so glad, I just shed a few tears writing that down – but even before, that annual excursion has always been a perfect combination of spending time together, both of us being in our – I believe it’s fair to say – natural habitat, and since hiking is more of a solo-activity anyway, it was often accompanied by a silence, the good kind of silence, where you share more by not talking and we weren’t force to speak about things we both felt uncomfortable speaking about. When we were little, my Mum would take us with her on all her mountain adventures. My brother often opted out (he did go running with her, back when I hated running, so each of us had their mum-sport so to speak) but my Mum and I both hiked and hiked and hiked and took in the scenery, deeply inhaled the fresh air, relished in the physical strains. On our latest tour up to the Chli Windgälle I was already thinking about a multi-day solo-hike somewhere and so I asked her about her most memorable hiking experience. She didn’t even have to think about it. Her immediate response was: The High Sierra. Yosemite Valley. Mount Whitney. The John-Muir-Trail. Conveniently, that had already been on my To-Do-List, and even more so since Free Solo (which I have seen and I urge you to go see it, and I promise, you’ll be in awe). And so, an idea was born, and a more concrete or rather rock-solid plan formed, and soon, preparations began.

Buon APEtito!

Buon Giorno!

Mi chiamo Julia e sono tedesca. Habito a Friburgo e non parlo italiano which is why that’s it with the Italian and back to English. Even though it is such a beautiful language and I’ve been meaning to learn it for a long time and actually started once and was quite decent two summers ago, like Duolingo owl proud good (I didn’t use Duolingo. I hate Duolingo. Shoo, shoo, you annoying fowl, nobody, and I repeat, nobody needs your pseudo-motivation spam mails or your useless repetitive sentence clusters). But then life happened and time passed and I forgot almost everything, except for a) see above, b) ma non si sveglia, è morte, because I had a Lernkrimi, a crime novel study book, and that poor woman didn’t wake up for she had been brutally murdered and c) a few opera excerpts which are not exactly eligible for small talk either. Such a b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l language though, isn’t it? All those vowels, the overdramatic accompanying gestures, the R (which I can‘t roll properly) – even the most boring stuff sounds nice in Italian. Passare l’aspirapolvere. To vacuum. I mean, come on. No wonder all Italian women are so much into domestic duties. (KIDDING!!!!).

I love the country as much as the language and I yet have to find a place in Italy I don’t like. Tuscany I know best, I would say, and my little insider’s tip there is called Castagneto Carducci, preferably in one of Eva’s casettas. The first night the last time I went, I sat there with a glass of red wine, fireflies were all around, I could hear the boars shuffle in search for food in the forest nearby and suddenly the town band started playing Bella Ciao and you could see the city lights glistening in the clear nightsky. And I definitely fell in love with the Amalfi coast and was gonna write a lot about it, as I proudly announced here, and then the same life happened and the same time passed that let me forget all my Italian, and prevented me from telling you about my adventures in Scala, Amalfi, and Ravello. Damn, I really need to do that one of these days. Until then, I have good news for all Freiburg Italian food lovers – I found it! The best pizza in Green City. So let’s set the mood.

Italian cuisine is the most famous and beloved cuisine in the world for a reason. Accessible, comforting, seemingly simple but endlessly delicious, it never disappoints, just as it seems to never change. It would be easy to give you, dear reader, a book filled with the al dente images of the Italy of your imagination. 

Matt Goulding in: Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy‘s Food Culture

It’s fair to say that Freiburg has some decent Italian restaurants to go (to (in brackets, because right now they are all to go or not opened at all)) – among my favourites is Primo Market, where you sit right in the middle of a supermarket and il maestro comes to your table with a hand-written menu and rattles through it in both German and Italian and you understand neither. But it doesn’t matter what you order, for the food tastes amazing and I recommend to share a Pizza for starters and then each have a pasta dish, preferably one of their seafood options. Quite nearby you find Pulcinella, a tiny busy homely place with walls painted in bright pink. I’m not sure if it is true, but rumour has it that the owner was once quite close to the owner of Primo Market and then Italian drama happened and therefore, I have two places to go to. Primo Market wins Pizza-wise by a mere margin and I haven’t had any pasta or seafood at Pulcinella yet so it’s a close head-to-head with Primo Market first, as it is already in the name. Then there’s Pinocchio, near my favourite boulder hall Boulderkitchen (I miss bouldering. I’m gonna have to start all over again with my confidence and height trust exercises once they are finally allowed to reopen. And pizza after a nice exhausting and exhilarating bouldering session tastes all the better!). The entrance in itself is already an olfactory adventure as the restaurant is located above a car dealer so the first thing you smell is the unique odor of new tires and rubber. Ascending the stairs, you’re suddenly enveloped by that mouthwatering Italian ristorante smell. The food is descent, no culinary revelation but a throughout satisfying experience. Ugh. That sounds more mediocre than intended. It’s not! It really is a great restaurant, it just can’t quite compete with the others.

What I dearly missed so far was a place where they make a proper Neapolitan style pizza which, within the pizza fashion industry, is my absolute favourite. To let the experts speak:

Pizza as we know it didn’t hit the streets of Naples until the seventeenth century, when Old World tomato and, eventually, cheese, but the foundations were forged in the fires of Pompeii, where archaeologists have discovered 2,000-year-old ovens of the same size and shape as the modern wood-burning oven. Sheep’s- and cow’s-milk cheeses sold in the daily markets of ancient Rome were crude precursors of pecorino and Parmesan, cheeses that literally and figuratively hold vast swaths of Italian cuisine together. Olives and wine were fundamental for rich and poor alike.” 

Matt Goulding in: Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy‘s Food Culture

I have the weird habit of always cutting off and eating the crust first and then from there work my way into the centre. With a perfect Neapolitan pizza, I don’t – because a perfect Neapolitan pizza has a perfect crust; crispy outside, soft and airy inside, and full of flavour. And you know what? I found it. By accident, really. I followed this guy on instagram after an orchestra project in Greece last summer, and because he followed them they were suggested to me and curious as I am, I visited their account and found Strombolicchio. A mobile pizza station built into an Ape, that famous Italian mini-lorry on three wheels. And their pizza looked so tasty and right I knew I had to try find them but then always found out about their selling points after they were already done and gone. So I send them a message and shortly afterwards, they proudly announced a regular spot once a week. Yay! But then the first week I was sick, the second they had to cancel because of bad weather, the third I was busy, and then Corona happened and they lost their spot. So close, and yet so out of reach! Was it fate? Was I simply never supposed to enjoy the pleasures of what seemed to be the real deal? Che cazzo (another, and, for a change, useful expression I remember and learned back Birmingham, UK, when my Italian roommate and surrogate Mamma hit her foot on the stairs when she went to the bathroom in the middle of the night and gave a thorough account of Italian profanities that woke us all up thanks to the intensity of swearing and the paperthin walls), oh cruel fate!!!!

Me agonizing about not getting this pizza.

Ma no – eventually, fate or divine intervention or whatever is up your sleeve played into my favours and this day four weeks ago, I finally was allowed the pleasure of what I hereby declare the best pizza in Freiburg. And the couple who makes them is the loveliest – she’s German, he’s Italian and both are absolutely adorable and I have decided to become friends with them (not for the free pizza. That’ll be just a bonus. The cherry tomato on top of the pizza cake you might say). I’ve been there every Monday since if the weather plays along (sadly, not today, so I made a comfort lasagna instead but I miss that perfect Dean Martin-moon pizza pie amore that has already become an addiction) and because #supportyourlocals and such and I really love them, I spread the word and I am glad that many have already followed my advice and share my enthusiasm. I mean look at these!

Alla Norma with tomato sauce, mozzarella, roasted eggplants, olives, smoked scarmoza, parmesan, oregano, basil
Pina e Leo with tomato sauce, mozzarella, grilled eggplant, sundries tomatoes, oregano, basil

Now imagine what they taste like and wipe that drool off your face! It’s that sort of pizza with which any extra topping is exactly that – an extra; and a pure and simple Napoli or Margharita is enough and that, signore e signori, is a sign of quality. Every bite is a burst of flavour and the crust is exactly as it should be.  It’s a culinary break from life and back to Southern Italy without violating any pandemic-related travelling restrictions. And the pizza prep videos on instagram are pure food porn!

Ecco, andiamo mangiare!

And because I have almost forgotten about it and now have it stuck in my head, here’s the best Pizza song out there.

Petit Déjeuner chez nous

Quarantine = Baking Time. But then any time is baking time and I‘m only self-isolating not quarantining and that was a bad rhyme anyway, a so-called unreiner Reim, and we don’t want no unrein, dirty, contaminated stuff, just everything disinfected and hand-washed often. And I can do better. Give me a second for a better opening rhyme.

There you go:

There was a young lady in isolation

Who dedicated her time to the creation

of lots and lots of baking

and currently in the making

is a French and buttery revelation!

To kill the time in these times where killing the time alone at home kills the pandemic, I set out for a project that requires time and patience en masse: I made Croissants from scratch! Et mon Dieu, c’est magnifique! The secret to a perfectly flaky, tasty pastry, of course, lies in the butter. Anything tastes better with butter. And when you bite into a croissant, you gotta taste it. Every bite must feel like it’s worth all the calories and like a pure act of sin and indulgence. So butter use plenty.

Apart from 250g butter, we also need 25g fresh yeast (hard to get by, I know), 500g all-purpose flour, some more on the side, 125g full-fat milk, a pinch of salt, 200ml cold water, 40g white sugar, an additional 3 tbsp of milk and 1 eggyolk.

If you want fresh croissants for the day after tomorrow you better start baking today. That’s how long it takes. But it’s worth investing the time and patience. Oui, oui!

We start easy by simply getting all ingredients ready and out of the fridge about an hour before we really get going. Butter and yeast should be at room temperature. Mix flour and salt in a bowl. Pour water, milk and sugar in a cup and heat it up in the microwave. Just a tad, not boiling hot. Crumble the yeast into it and stir until its dissolved in the liquid. Make a little dent in the middle of the flour and pour in our creamy yeastfeast. Cover it up with flour, cover the whole thing up with a towel and let it rise for half an hour. Time to do nothing, relax, vacuum the apartment, do the laundry, exercise, check instagram and twitter (very important in times of a pandemic. You really don’t wanna miss out on all the conspiracy theories.).

Ready? Have some water and some flour ready, just in case, and start digging in with your (washed) bare hands and start kneading, adding more and more flour from the outer areas of the bowl until you have a smooth dough ball. If it seems to dry or to wet, add water or flour accordingly. Once you’re happy with the consistence of our dough ball, cover it up again with a towel and let it rise for another half an hour. Time to do any of the previously mentioned tasks or something completely different but this time get back to the kitchen a few minutes early and get the butter, a rolling pin, more flour and some parchment paper ready.

Give the well-risen dough another knead, take it out of the bowl and divide it into four parts. Quarter the butter as well.  Roll out the first dough portion so that it’s about DIN A4-sized. Use plenty of flour while doing so and frequently turn over while rolling. Place a slice of butter in the middle and roll it out until it’s appr. postcard-sized. Now fold in the longer sides of the pastry, then the shorter ones in such a way that they’re overlapping. Wrap it up in cling foil and store it in the fridge for at least 4 hours. Repeat with the other three portions.

*4 hours later*

Unwrap each portion and roll it out lengthwise, again with the aid and add of plenty of flour and plenty of turn-overs. Two things might happen which we don’t want to happen 🙁 the butter breaks. If that happens, just let it warm up to room temperature or let the room warm up, too, and try again. If the dough is too sticky, it’s gotta go back to the fridge for a little longer. If all goes well, we fold it back up, without the long sides (that was just to keep the butter in), just the overlapping shorter sides. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Yes, we’re doing that whole procedure 3-4 times. French Origami for buttery delights and manifold layers of tender flakiness.

Yum!

After the last roll-out, there’s no fold-in. Instead, we cut each pastry into lengthy triangles and roll each triangle up, starting with the long side. The recipes I found suggested to moisturize the surface before rolling it up so it sticks together but I didn’t and it still stuck. Bend them slightly into croissant shapes and put them on a baking tin lined with parchment paper. Leave a decent amount of space in between for they will rise and shine, and shine even more if you brush them with an eggyolk-milk mixture and put them in the preheated oven at 190°C for 15-20 minutes.

Smells good, doesn’t it?

Das Beste was einem Croissant passieren kann, ist mit einem Stück Butter bestrichen zu werden.

Pablo Tusset

The best croissants, however, don’t need extra butter. They are rich and intense and tender and flaky and tasty and buttery and hey, if you start now, they’re ready just in time for Mother’s Day. So hush, little darlings, and off you go to the kitchen.

Bon appétit!

The Mountains Are Calling And I Must Go.

This is a new section on the blog! For a big, big endeavour. And also a big, big maybe. Due to the current events aka Covid, it is absolutely uncertain if I will be even allowed to travel and do what I’ve been planning for months now. But hope is (second) last to die and what’s the point giving up on a dream now because it might not come true when the outcome is beyond your control? Every day, I allow myself a solid fifteen minutes to worry about it, same with all the other potential and real catastrophes going on. The rest of the time, I pretend it’s gonna happen because what else can I do? So as we stand, let’s pretend! Fake it till you make it has always been my motto.

In August 2020, I will hike the John-Muir-Trail.

213 miles, and an elevation change of 47,000 feet, approximately.

Three weeks. All by myself.

And here, I will keep you updated, write about my experiences, and let you virtually come along on my journey. Not in a live feed, because I’ll be off the grid, but there will be a lot about me preparing and to provide you some background information, followed by a post-trail shortened diary (short: PTSD. Oh, wait, that’s already taken.).

The mountains are calling and I must go. – John Muir

So keep looking here for one of the greatest solo adventures I’ve ever tackled!

Ick bin ein Amerikaner.

Despite my great proclamations of being unproductive – and I really am with anything related to actually getting my shit together, I guarantee you that – it seems lockdown finally unleashed the

Intensifies GIF by Pusheen - Find & Share on GIPHY
BAKER CAT

inside of me and whilst I’m not gonna join the sourdough society, I am doing my fair share of baking and I am willing to share the better results and best recipes with you. As always, feel free to adjust and as always, each and every recipe comes with a story. I’ve read somewhere that food bloggers write such long introductions to make it more difficult (for AI?) to steal their recipes. Well, you may steal mine, I don’t care, I’m here to share, recipes and life stories and what not, unleashing my poet within (who lives right across the street from previously mentioned baker cat, and they get along just fine. Most of us do, in here) and maybe, hopefully, and upmost, for your entertainment. So Allons-y, vamonos, let’s head to the kitchen and travel back to a sweet treat from my childhood, a national treasure even, suitable for Nicolas Cage and really, it should be printed on the US Constitution. In the States, they are known as Harlequins, Half Moons, or Black-and-White-Cookies (editor’s note: they are not cookies), here we’ve got to known and grown to love them as Amerikaner. So I thought since I cannot hang out with my real-life Americans, I’m gonna bake myself some. Others bake their knight in shining armour, or, German idiom, sich seinen Traumprinzen backen, and quick question: why do we bake a prince of all people? So many royal duties. I prefer a knight. Quite more useful when in distress and also he’s gonna be off a lot and I need my independence and alone time. Anyway, I bake new friends to hold and hug while I meet the old ones online. Which tasted amazing and were gone soon enough. The former, not the latter. When we were kids, we always got to choose if we wanted an Amerikaner or a Berliner for coffee. Not that we liked coffee back then, it was usually hot cocoa or tea. Berliner are a some sort of sweet dumpling, fried and filled with jam, and have as many different names as buns or rolls have in English. Don’t order a Berliner in Berlin, that’ll lead to a lot of confusion or you end up with an escort from the capital. In Berlin you order Pfannkuchen, which down here in the south of Germany are the name for pancakes, the lovechild of crêpes and American Pancakes -, elsewhere they’re called Krapfen which is not to be meddled up with Karpfen, because that’s fish and nothing you wanna have coated in sugar and filled with jam. Unless you get the Mardi Gras one with mustard inside. That could go well with carp. Back to the States, though! Amerikaner are called Amerikaner in most of Germany. Apparently, as I learned during a thorough and intense research, that name was a no-go in the GDR (surprisingly), so they referred to them as Ammonplätzchen, where Plätzchen equals cookies and Ammon is short for Ammoniumhydrogencarbonat, some specific baking soda used in the original recipe. Wikipedia says, the name “Amerikaner” either derives from said tongue twisting soda, too, or from the typical WWI Brodie helmet because it resembles its shape. It is also starring in a Seinfeld episode as a metaphor for racial harmony so I say let’s bake in the name of equality and against racism!!

(Includes a manual on how to eat it, too!)

For 8-10 Amerikaner we need:

lots of patriotism, 50g soft butter, a Star Spangled Banner, 40g white sugar, 1/2 package of vanilla sugar, a pinch of salt, 1 egg, 125g plain flour (I usually like to use spelt but I am convinced that this one calls for wheat), 1/2 tbsp of starch, 1/2 package of baking soda (or, I guess, Ammoniumhydrogencarbonat) and 40ml of full fat milk. Which all goes into a bowl and gets whisked up until smooth and gooey. The texture should be less liquid than for example pancake batter but still batter-y and not dough, though.

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As I said – not [doʊ doʊ]

via GIPHY

If you follow the recipe measure for measure (don‘t be Julia), it should be perfect. Also, have the oven preheated at 180° Celsius. Also, always read the whole recipe from beginning to end first so now you don’t have to wait for the oven to be heated up. With the oven and our batter ready, we take a baking tin, put some parchment paper on it – pro tip: if you put a dash of water in each corner on the baking tin, the paper will stick to it. Parchment paper has a tendency to try and fly and flatter around. You’re welcome. Now, the well-equipped kitchen probably has a piping bag buried under other hardly ever used stuff in a kitchen cabinet drawer somewhere. Go search for it. The less well-equipped kitchen-owner does not need to despair – all it takes is a little plastic bag, like a ziplock bag but without ziplock. Simply put it over a measuring cup and fill the batter into it. Pull up the sides and tie it up with a rubber band. Pull the filled bag out of the measuring cup, tilt it and cut off one of the bottom corners – et voilà, there is your improvised piping bag!

Pipe out 8-10 turds onto the baking tin, like the Maulwurf, der wissen wollte, wer ihm auf den Kopf gemacht hat,

and then bake for 13-15 minutes until golden.

Let them cool on a rack turned over and prepare the icing in the meantime. The traditional Amerikaner is covered half in icing sugar, half in chocolate. Which is how I did it. However, the sugar icing is compulsory and from there you may go anywhere – your imagination is the limit! Especially for or with kids, decorating with gummy bears or Smarties and such is gonna be great fun. If you wanna stick to the basics, you’ll need approximately 150g of icing sugar and 2-3 tbsp lemon juice whisked up. It’s important that the mixture is thick and white before spreading it on one half of each Amerikaner (or all of it if you wanna decorate or have an all-white supremacy). For the black half, take a pan, fill it halfway with water, put a metal bowl in and melt baking chocolate in it and spread it thickly and smoothly. Ideally, you have a brush for that but I’m from the bad-equipped kitchen squad so I used the convex bottom part of a teaspoon and the result leaves no ground for complaint – I definitely have said it in an earlier post: when it comes to cooking and baking, I improvise like a Jazz musician. So let our impro session cool down and dry, and then best eat them the same day or otherwise store them in ziplock bags (with zip this time) in the fridge and they‘ll still be soft and delicious the next day. And that‘s that. 

Hmmmm…. a sugary, highly philosophical treat (according to Jerry Seinfeld)

Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche

….is that title of a satirical masculine cookbook by Bruce Feirstein. And this is a recipe. Not from the book. And counterproductive for all alpha males out there. So everyone with a fragile masculinity should probably stop reading and start on more testosteroic activities – The Manly Art of Knitting should do the trick, another literary gem. Sadly, you will miss out on a delicious springtime dish and that means, there will be more for me, yay! And I prefer betas anyway, less bugs and technical fuck-ups. Usually, a quiche needs three things: a flaky pie crust (which can be bought, but here we’ll DIY), an egg-milk-mixture, and chopped up ingredients of your own choosing.

Alright then, here we go:

For the pastry mix 225g plain flour /125g cold (!) butter, sliced and diced / 1 egg yolk / 1/2 tsp salt together. Have some cold water and some flour ready. Knead knead knead and add water or flour until you get a nice, sticky but not too gooey consistence. Roll it into a ball, wrap it in cling foil and let it chill in the fridge for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/315 Fahrenheit.

In the meantime, peel and boil 6 middle-sized potatoes. Once they’re done, take them out and mash them with a fork. Add some salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Next, we’ll need 300g each of white and green asparagus. Take a big pot (the asparagus should in its length fit in) fill it halfway with water, add a little salt and a piece of butter and get it to boiling. Peel the white asparagus and chop off the rear end. Now depending on the thickness and state of the green asparagus, maybe chop off the end, too, and maybe peel it, too. Green asparagus doesn’t necessarily have to be peeled unless it’s overly hard and wooden on the outer layer. As soon as the water is boiling, put in the white asparagus first and add the green after 1-2 minutes. Close the lid, reduce the temperature to simmering and leave it in there for 5-6 minutes. The asparagus shouldn’t be completely done but it should be significantly softer. Strive for nice and bendy. Take them out of the water, set them aside and let them cool down.

Quiche is like revenge. A dish best served cold.

I lovelovelove asparagus. Spargelzeit = Liebe.

Take the pastry out of the fridge and invite it to a dance: it’s waiting to be waltzed out (I’m aware you can’t say that but in German, we say auswalzen and I kinda like the mental image. Your kitchen work top is the dancefloor and you spread out in all directions.). The pastry should be round(ish) and big enough to cover a greased quiche tin and leave enough for the edge. Slightly press it into the form, take a fork and perforate it.

Spread the potato mashed on top of the base and slightly press it down with a fork. As firm as the ground coffee in a mocha but not as firm as in an espresso machine. Now comes the artsy part. Cut the asparagus in half and slice 100g cooked ham in stripes, approximately as wide and as long as the asparagus. Start on the outside of the inside of the quiche tin and arrange it like this, working yourself towards the centre: a ring of asparagus, followed by a ring of ham, followed by a ring of asparagus and so forth. It should look similar to this. Probably prettier. I’m not good with decorating and arranging food.

Good news is: if it doesn’t look pretty, it doesn’t matter, it’ll be covered anyway in: 100ml cream, 100g sour cream, 2 eggs, 50g grated Parmesan. Whisk all ingredients together and pour that mixture over your culinary craftwork. Sprinkle some grated parmiggiano on top and bake it in the oven for 40 minutes.

Switch the oven off but leave it in for another 5 minutes before taking it out and letting it cool down (ideally) or at least as long as you can resist the irresistible aroma of baked goods. The combination of Quiche dough and mashed potatoes makes it extra flaky and crumbly. Compared to your standard quiche recipe, it tastes less eggy. I love eggs, ut I don’t like it to be the dominant flavour in my quiche. And now: Enjoy! If there are any, store the leftovers in the fridge and have them with a salad on the side the next day for lunch.

Suitable for all sexes and genders.

Stuck Home Syndrome

The probably obligatory (and four weeks behind) quarantine commentary you‘ve not been waiting for. But what else are you doing anyway?

Hello from within the Covid-proof walls of my apartment in the middle of Freiburg. It’s March the 653rd or so, I lost count. Anyway, it‘s anno Coroni and like all of you, I’m living the teenage experience and follow Angie’s national curfew. Although, not to brag, but I started self-isolation before it was cool aka before it went viral. A week prior to all of you, in those innocent days at the beginning of March, when the dangers of Corona were belittled and the advisory precautions met with mild amusement and little understanding. Feels like a century ago, doesn’t it? That was one month ago. Anyone seen 28 days later? Yeah, that’s where we are on the timeline. So there I was, on sick leave, and observing how the world followed my footsteps (I’m not an influencer, I’m an influenza). I had a major breakdown before the ERs. I dropped out of society and suddenly, everyone self-isolated, too. I will not tell you about how these past few days and weeks have been for me. That is a topic for another time. Today, I wanna reassure those of you who feel bad, or guilty, or intimidated by all those instaposts, TicTocs videos, all the social media proof of how productive and active everyone is. Learning new languages, trying out recipes, baking loads of loaves of bread, binging the whole Digital Concert Hall, FaceTiming everyone and anyone, renovating homes, working out, and being fabulous human beings. Don’t feel bad if you do nothing of the sorts. I spend a great amount of time just sitting and staring out of the window. I’m not even thinking clever thoughts to justify it. Just blank, mindless, empty staring. And you know what? That’s cool. Yes, of course I still go running. If you know me or you’ve been following this blog, you know that running is my therapy. Now, it has also become my survival mechanism. Anyway, that’s about it regarding my active lifestyle. Energizer bunny has finally stopped. And I hate it. But apart from my personal anti-motivation, we are experiencing an unknown situation. And that is scary. And fear paralyses. Energizer bunny is as frightened as anyone. It’s a wild circus of rumours, false news, and conspiracy theories and hovering above it the big question of how long this will last. Economy and humanity seem to clash, people are polarized, easily offended and feeling very, very insecure. Some struggle with home office in their non-suitable for home office homes, some fear for their job, some have already lost their job, some cannot see their loved ones, some have to endure lockdown in toxic company – however your situation is: it is a pandemic and you gotta cope with it. How you cope is up to you (as long as you don’t harm others, of course, basic moral standards apply). I for myself need to feel at least to a certain degree like I’m in charge of myself and in control of my life. So I came up with a set of everyday tasks I wish to complete. None of them are major but they all improve my overall well-being, physically and psychologically, and create a sense of structure in this wibbly wobbly timey wimey era. What I like about this list is that it is achievable and realistic and very often I end up doing more and if I don’t – well, then at least I did this, right? So if you feel lost, maybe this will help you, too, and that’s why I’m sharing it with you. Here it comes, in no particular order:

Eat one proper meal.

That means cook, or support your local restaurant and order something, or sit down for a decent Brotzeit, or treat yourself with a nice breakfast. Doesn’t matter. But make sure, at least one of your meals is proper. Sometimes, that’s my only source of food per day. Happens. I’m not a big eater, or rather I’m not anymore since I lost my appetite and had lost my taste buds for some weeks. But at least, if that is the case, it’s not some crap I shove in but something nutritious, something healthy, something sustainable, something made with love. No need to pressure yourself to finally try out all those recipes you’ve bookmarked or highlighted. Go with your comfy-zone. The important thing is: Eat. And enjoy it.

Pancakes with wild herbs, later served with asparagus and wild garlic pesto.

One Act of Kindness.

I gave all my Enid Blyton CDs to my neighbours’ kids. I donated blood. I wrote various little letters with tiny little presents and delivered them myself to the recipients’ mailboxes.  I went grocery shopping for others who couldn’t. I’m being extra friendly and polite, especially to supermarket employees. It’s the little things. And it’ll make you feel less worthless.

Read a book.

Not a whole book a day (unless you want to). Even if it’s just 5 minutes, or 2 pages, do it. I’ve gone back to reading right before bedtime, when the phone is already on silent mode and I’m all wrapped up in my warm 2,20x2m duvet, feeling protected from the chilly night air (because my window is always open at night. I feel like suffocating otherwise) or on my French balcony, enjoying the sunshine (I know I am very lucky to have that opportunity) and watching the less busy pedestrian zone below. I have just finished Frankls Man’s Search for Meaning, Haruki Murakamis What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, and J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan (Tinker Bell is such a little bitch in the book. WTF.). Right now I’m reading one of Arto Paasilina’s books because they’re easy to read and light and quirky, and John Muir’s My First Summer in the Sierra in preparation for the summer. The first few days of being stuck home I could only read cheap thrillers. I simply couldn’t concentrate on any “heavy” literature. Again – whatever works for you is great. Dan Brown is as good as Marcel Proust during quarantine. Just don’t read Twilight. Honestly, that was so bad, I couldn’t finish it and it had already been degraded to a Klobuch (aka the ones that lie in my bathroom, next to the loo, so I have something more interesting than shampoo bottles to read. Although, it is with great shame and regret that since phones have gone smart, Klobücher have become an endangered species). So read anything but Twilight (the same is valid for its equally popular fan fiction).

Reading like a Pro.

Exercise.

I run, as mentioned above and in various other occasions. But I also try and start my day with 15-20 minutes of stretching, planking, Yoga, whatever. The best thing is, I suck so much at Yoga (so much, Rachel Bloom should make an anti-Valencia song with me), it makes me laugh so much at how much I suck and what better way is there to start the day than with laughing about yourself? Not everybody is a morning person like me, and if you’re not – try take that time each day, and give your body some stretches and some healthy exertion. Don’t feel like you gotta come out of lockdown totally ripped. But do if you want to. And even 5 minutes is better than nothing.

Hot‘n‘Sweaty run along the Dreisam. That‘s me trying to smile but I was staring right in the sun so it looks very squinty and tortured lol.

One Mental Health Exercise.

Well, because I need it. And since I can’t get the Therapieplatz I desperately need, that’s the least I gotta do. But even when you generally feel fine in that department, it’s never wrong to take the time and maybe just breathe for 5 minutes, or meditate, or even let the tears of fear and insecurity come and give your anxieties room. Don’t suppress them.

Check up on your family.

Or whoever you consider family. I try to contact my Mum and my brother every other day. Can be a short text, a voice messages, a call. Whatever. But a quick update on everyone’s well-being helps. Especially since my Mum and I have only just started reconnecting and we have a long way to go and I am very insistent on our almost daily updates, as superficial they may be.

Tidy up

or clean something in the apartment. To make sure that chaos doesn’t reign. One tiny task is enough, and usually, once I’ve started, I do a little bit more. No need to go full Marie Kondo.

Plan your JMT.

Which is, agreed, very unpractical advice for you unless you plan on hiking the John-Muir-Trail in summer like I do. Assuming the world is back in working order by then (please be). But even if it is not – we don’t know and we can’t do anything about it (apart from staying at home, keeping our distance, wash our hands, you know the drill) so how about we focus on what we can do? All other questions regarding my future are too overwhelming at the moment (it is very difficult to plan a future when you don’t even know if you’ll make it through the day) but with working on my summer plans every day for a little bit I savour the anticipation, and I control the situation. I’m in charge. And I can be in charge of it from my home-is-my-castle. Whatever your JMT is – hold on to it.

Reading up on Mount Whitney in preparation for the JMT!

Contact at least one person outside your comfort zone.

Because now is probably the worst time to have a textophobia. I tend to eliminate my contact to a minimum and give everyone the silent treatment when I’m not well. Since I usually just happen to see people, I am now, like all of us, depending on non-face-to-face communication and in order to make sure I do and at the same time make sure I don’t get overwhelmed by the pressure of doing so, I have decided one person per day is compulsory, more than that is optional and that works surprisingly well I must say. I’m also dedicating specific periods of time for communication and I have noticed that my text messages or voice messages are fewer but much more elaborate and meaningful. If you happen to get one, it means I made time for you, and dedicated this time to you, and show you my appreciation by giving you my time and attention so feel honoured and loved. And don’t be mad if it takes me forever to reply.

So there you go. I hope you find inspiration in this or you felt at least entertained for the 3 minutes it took to read this and whatever you do: Here’s the obligatory reminder and well-wishing:

Stay safe, stay healthy, stay home! Xx

Run, even if there’s rain, dear

We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves, the more restricted our society and work become, the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom”

Sir Roger Bannister

Even for newbies on the blog it should be a well-known fact that running is an important part of my life (you can find my first post about running here). I‘m on an average of 4 runs a week, with a distance ranging between 10-19k, the standard being 11 or 12k. I‘m an all-weather runner. I love long Dreisam sessions in the sun where I most definitely will pull up my shirt and go crop top, see my wibbly-wobbly mozzarella ball of a belly bouncing up and down, get embarrassed, let the crop top flop, until it gets too hot so I scould myself for body-shaming myself and the top gets cropped again.

Captured that moment when I exposed my blazing white belly to the sun on a run for the first time after a long, dark winter.

In winter, on the other hand, when the temperature drops towards or even below freezing, I wear nothing but running leggings and a T-shirt (yes, you sissies, no long-sleeve) and gloves (because no matter what, my fingers will go numb. That’s the only part of my body that seems to be affected by the cold and behaves as it befits a lady). Sometimes, I get lucky and it starts snowing while I’m out there and the snowflakes dance around me while I run and it all becomes an early morning whirlwind of snow. Magical. I love to feel the coldness on my arms, I love to see my breath and I love the fresh and cold air and I love to come back home and enjoy the hottest shower ever, lobster style, and boil myself back to room temperature till my skin’s all red and my bathroom a hot and steamy Turkish bath.

And then there‘s rain.

Wenn man nur lang genug in den Regen sieht, ohne einen Gedanken im Kopf, spürt man, wie der Körper sich löst, wie er die Realität abschüttelt. Regen besitzt eine hypnotische Wirkung.
Haruki Murakami, Gefährliche Geliebte

It costs quite an effort to get motivated when its already pouring. I usually find myself procrastinating, fiddling around, checking Instagram, there might be something new, you know? So I unnecessarily delay what I will eventually do anyway: go out and go for that run. I guess it would be much more convenient if I wore rain gear. But I don’t. Don’t like them. They’re itchy and no matter how active and permeable they pretend to be, they are not and make me sweat in the stinky way. They increase my body temperature and I am already someone who’s never cold but always hot so hard pass. Ergo it is the same range of clothing as for every other run (although for heavy rain I wear my old pair of running shoes in order to not ruin my shiny new ones yet. Only reason I still hold on to them. Soon, they’ll be dumped for good and the now shiny and new ones will become the old ones and replaced by shinier and newer ones. It’s the circle of a runner’s footwear life. Nants ingonyama ♪♫). Dressed and ready and having picked the right playlist, the moment of stepping outside gets delayed further more by another safety pee, just in case, another insta check, just in case, and then I’m out of excuses, I leave the flat, jog down the stairs, leave the house and the shelter of our roofed patio and step into this inconvenient, wet world. I’m like 90% sure Susannah Clarke saw me on one of these occasions when she wrote

She wore a gown the colour of storms, shadows and rain and a necklace of broken promises and regrets.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

With that mood settled, I run off and it’s ew for 2 minutes and then I don’t mind anymore. Oh, isn’t it the sweetest pain in the world, when it rains these hard, aggressive, needle-point like raindrops that prickle your skin and you suddenly feel so, so alive? Especially when you’re indeed nothing but broken promises and regrets. It will lift your spirits. Also, people can’t see your tears if you go for a cry run, which I do a lot. Echt. (Which reminds me of another of those distracting side stories you’re all probably very annoyed with but they give you sneak peaks into my past or present life, so yay, and hey, you may always just skip the parenthesis, that’s what they’re here for after all: I use to have a huge crush on Kim Frank. And one day, he went back from blonde dye to his natural hair colour because he didn’t want his fans to like him just for how cute he looked as a blonde. Well, turns out I did so this was the end of my Echt-fan phase. Yes, I’m that shallow. (guess I wasn’t a real fan, cause real = echt, for non-German speakers (woah, lots of bracketswithinbrackets. Inceptional! And I‘m gonna close them all now, adding an old-fashioned smiley to add yet another closing bracket and you managed to read through all of this, you have probably forgotten where we were so maybe we continue with our main plot, shouldn’t we? Ready? Here we go: :)))))

We have been out running for a while now. We are thoroughly soaked, our shoes squeak from the water we’re treading (I call it the Kneipp-effect of rain-runs). We come back home feeling alive and refreshed.

And that’s how you get back from a rain run. Notice the drop on the tip of my nose where Echt would be wondering if it was the rain or if I cried  ♪♫
Spoiler: it‘s both.

And if we’re lucky, we get to stay inside, make a Chai Latte in our favourite mug to hug and warm up with, and watch the rain pelt against the windows, as if it tried to get in and aggressively so because it knows it isn’t welcome and we can feel saved and sheltered from the demons within and without and protected from and by the pale curtain of rain estranging us from the world and vice versa.

If you’re going through hell, keep going

Said the very brave and rhetorically well-educated Winston Churchill. Or at least it’s widely accepted that he said it. Doesn’t matter if he did, the words remain true and he certainly had the background to know what he was talking about. Ladies and gentlemen –

Welcome to hell.

My personal hell and just so you get an idea of what is happening when someone goes there – maybe you have a partner, a relative, a friend or a colleague going through something similar, too – and what you can do to support them. Maybe. Everyone’s different after all. So, here I am, spiralling down and not in an Alice-in-Wonderland happy trippy fashion but down into the abyss of me where there is nothing but a suppressing darkness, a void, an overwhelming nothingness. Sow Ay knows what I‘m talking about. He has a talent to capture the worst and most distinct aspects of mental illness(es) in cartoons and he brought me over the edge so many times because I could relate to someone with something that is impossible to put into words (and yet here I am, trying, lol).

Where am I? Oh yes, spiralling down. I got a text this morning, saying “if you’re spiraling (spelled with one l only because American and I’ve read somewhere that is because newspaper used to have to pay their journalists by letter so every letter saved was a penny saved. Or rather, cent, saved. Don’t know if that‘s true or merely a myth but it sounds plausible, capitalism and all. Do you think they charged extra for CAPITAL letters? Hehe. And yes, you can be completely and devastatingly depressed and still make stupid jokes. NEVER assume someone’s happy because they laugh a lot and banter around. Never. Not so long ago, my friend’s mum told me she loved my laugh and that it sounded like a laugh that wants to be heard and heard often. And now I sit here and it breaks my heart because yes, it wants to be heard and I love laughing but it gets harder every day and I can’t even fake it anymore and I really really don’t want it to fall silent. Anyway, the text continued it can be stopped“ and I genuinely laughed at that because it is such a sweet attempt to comfort me and nonetheless doomed to fail. The thing is, I experience all of this from two different angles. There’s emotional me, feeling all the feelings. And then there’s brain me, observing my behaviour. Scheler and his philosophical anthropology would be proud of what a prime example of a human being I am. Self-reflected, objective, and observing myself with a contemplative eye and from an almost neutral distance. An ability that makes us special from all other living beings, Scheler says. Another human specialty according to Scheler is that we can say no. We can exit out. Of anything. Of life. And isn’t that, well first of all true, because apart from yeast that kills itself off to produce delicious alcoholic beverages, we are the only ones with the will-power to end our lives on purpose, and isn’t this scary and at the same time very reassuring? To know the way out has genetically or whatever, been planted in our system, just in case? The human ejection seat. Unfortunately, the latter doesn’t get a say in what the former experiences.

When Not to do is the Answer cause To do is out of the question.

The main problem is that little word, that verb, mostly used as an auxiliary but here in its full semantical purpose. To do. German tun. We even named our verbs after it. Tun-Wörter. So here is a lesson: the widespread assumption about depression that you don’t have the strength to do anything and just stay in bed is wrong. Yes, it’s a common symptom. Yes, it has happened to me, too, occasionally. And for many, this is how their depression takes action – by taking the action from them. I, generally speaking, am a very active and energetic person. Energizer Bunny they call me. Squirrel on speed. I do get up. I get ready. I go for a run. And boy, do I need those runs. You have no idea. How often have I woken up way too early, waiting for it to be day enough that it is finally socially acceptable and a decent time to go running? Too often. I‘m always on edge, always ready to go, always stressed and under tension. I do a lot of things. Like, my schedule is packed. So how could it even be a thing that I have problems mobilizing my motivation, my power, my energy, myself when I clearly do A LOT when I’m depressed? Because I re-shift all of the above mentioned attributes. Because I know I need to have an excuse, I need to be busy otherwise to be able to defend myself against myself why I haven’t done this or that yet. Why it’s been two months and I haven’t sent out a single application yet. And everybody keeps asking and asking and asking and telling my how they’re not the least worried and convinced I’ll be doing something amazing and I know they mean well but y’all be very disappointed because I don’t believe it. I can‘t even get started because to get started you need to have a vision and I used to have so many and since some point last week or the week before they’re all gone and there is nothing but this infinite vastness and nothing beyond it. There always were ideas, dreams (unlikely and unrealistic as they may have been). They were there, and now it’s all gone and gone for good it seems. There’s nothing but a big pile of well, nothing.

So this is how it goes:

Anything triggers me these days. This time – you may laugh because it’s ridiculous – it was a WhatsApp group chat about a reality TV dating show. (Quick side note: I’m not good with group chats. They make me very anxious. In my second-to-last panic attack I quit all my groups, was labelled a drama-queen by the same guy who then invited to join his new fancy group chat. And I felt ready and allowed him to proceed. And it went well. Until it didn’t. From one moment to the next every single text intimidated me and sped ud up my heartbeat and not in a good way but in the bad panicky way and for the next couple of days I read every single message sent by the other group members (and we’re talking HUNDREDS here, at least) and I had funny comments to make and thoughts to share, some definitely genius and hilarious, some more of eye-rolling or face-palming quality but mentionable nonetheless and I couldn’t. I just couldn’t and every single new notification felt like someone punched me in the stomach because why couldn’t I?? After months of consulting I couldn’t even handle a stupid WhatsApp group about a trashy Netflix show? And that’s where I realized there is no point. Maybe if I had started earlier. Maybe. But as things are now, I’m nothing but a massive failure and I have 863+ texts to prove it. And it’s too late. It feels like the only reason I quit my job was to make sure they’re making sure someone will be there to take over so I don’t feel like betraying and abandoning Anne, my orchestra, FB. And now I can be assured: once I’m gone they’ll all be okay (even though now they say they’ll miss me). They’ll get on and are probably better off without me anyway. And that’s good. I want them to.

Bojack Horseman once said (and I love this show):

And one day, you’re gonna look around and you’re gonna realize that everybody loves you…but nobody likes you. And that is the loneliest feeling in the world.

And you stand corrected, Bojack. Because one day, you’re gonna look around and you’re gonna realize that everybody likes you… but nobody loves you. And THAT really is the loneliest feeling in the world.

Why am I telling you all of this? I don’t know. I think it is because I am sick of crying all night, and during the day whenever I am alone. I’m sick of not being able to sleep properly. I am not sick of listening to all Mahler symphonies over and over again because I’ll never be sick of Mahler but I don’t think it’s the healthiest music to listen to when being depressed. I think the reason I’m telling you, oh wonderful anonymous internet, is because there are people I really want to tell all this and much more but I can’t and it’s the same stupid I can’t, the anti-do I was talking about, that keeps me from doing. And somehow the safety barrier of a keyboard and a screen gives me the necessary confidence to talk about it. Write about it. All I really wanna do though is call J or call M, have one of them come here and be able to just be weak and sad and lie in their arms and tell them that I am afraid and lonely and cry and I know they offered and meant it and I know so many others offered and meant it, too, and therefore I don’t only feel like a failure but like betraying friendships and letting them down and then I wonder why anybody would even benefit from having me as a friend and I honestly can’t think of a single reason.

So my advice to you is this: don’t be mad if people pull back. Don’t be mad if they retreat into their (emotional) bunker and ghost you. The worse it gets the more difficult it becomes to stay in contact with the people they hold closest and the easier it is to chat with anybody else. Sending out reassuring messages without expecting anything in return helps, though. And makes it worse. Because it evokes guilt. Because of course the pressure is there to reply. But overall these messages help a little. And a little can mean everything when you’re balancing on the gallows.

Wednesday is full of blue blueberries

And because it is Wednesday and I am feeling blue I had another of my famous late night baking session. Today is my Dad’s birthday (or would have been, for that matter) and every year, I try to make something with crumbles, zu Deutsch Streusel. He loved Streuselkuchen, plain and simple – a sweet yeast dough (500g plain flour / 100g white sugar / 300ml milk / 100ml veggie oil, the-answer-to-life-the-universe-and everything grams of fresh yeast, a pinch of salt) topped with crumbles (400g plain flour / 250g white sugar / 250g butter), baked in the oven for appr. 30 min at 180°C. Since I’m not the biggest fan myself, and my Dad’s not around for eating it, I rummaged through my mind and freezer and found a bag of hand-picked blueberries from hiking in the Vosges last summer. Perfect! This recipe has been tried, tested, and approved by my colleagues on 4.1 – and therefore I am happy to share my

BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE WITH GINGERBREAD CRUMBLES

First, we need a shortcrust pastry. Easy. 250g plain flour / 100g white sugar / 150g butter / 1 tsp baking powder / 1 egg. Mix and knead (IMPORTANT EDIT: I was today years old when I learned it’s pronounced nIIIIId, not nEd. Pronunciational revelation. A dough needs kneading. Niiiidz Niiiiiding. Nice.) and chill in the fridge. The pastry, not you. No, you get out and go to a symphony concert and listen to Tchaikovsky’s 6th, the Pathétique, and if you feel like shedding some tears because life or because you, too, are feeling a little blue, go for it. That’s what B minor is here for.

I’ll be back before you can say Blueberry pie.

Bruce Willis as Butch Coolidge in Pulp Fiction

Back from our emotional musical intermission, line a greased springform with the pastry (or remember that you threw yours out and use a square Mediterranean clay form instead so the blueberries get to swim with turquoise fish. Mix the following ingredients: 800g low-fat curd (aren’t we healthy!) / 1 pk custard powder (aren’t we lazy!) / 120g brown sugar (aren’t we sweet!) / 3 eggs and some egg liquer (aren’t we eggstravagant!) / and, most importantly frozen or fresh blueberries ad libitum.

Pour our now violently purple (nod to Schube’s for coining this expression in his amazing, hilarious, and very entertaining Potterless-Podcast) mixture into our baking form.

Doesn’t that look fantastic?

Now to the important bit: THE CRUMBLE. Generally, you make them exactly as mentioned above in the basic Streuselkuchen recipe. Oh, fun fact about Streusel: in Colmar, France, there is a tiny little Tarte Flambée restaurant where they have one that says “Pommes Streusel” and of course I know it is basically an apple crumble served on Flammkuchen base but for us Germans, it translates as “French Fry Crumbles” and I find that very amusing. Anyway, let’s get this cake done so no further interruptions! Of course you can just go with the normal Streusel ingredients. Alas, I felt fancy and inventive and I still had some gingerbread cookies left from Christmas and so I crumbled them up, mixed them with flour and melted butter and ta-da: Streusel with a whiff of winter.

Pepperkarka drenched in butter and streuselled up. Oh sweet, sinful indulgence!

After sprinkling out Streusel on top of the cake, our blueberry cake goes into the oven at 180°C for, well, I wanted to tell Siri 50 (fiftYYYYYYYYYYYYY) minutes and she refused to hear the absence of an n at the end and kept setting a timer for 15 (fifteeNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN) minutes and after the fourth attempt, I was too annoyed to try again and I gave up and deliberately changed the baking time to 55 minutes approximately. And that turned out to be perfect.

And while we enjoy a slice in the middle of the night, because why not, let’s read a very long poem by Robert Frost, titled Blueberries from which I shall quote the beginning and bid you farewell with blue tongue and full stomach.

You ought to have seen what I saw on my way

To the village, through Mortenson’s pasture to-day:

Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb,

Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum

In the cavernous pail of the first one to come!

And all ripe together, not some of them green

And some of them ripe! You ought to have seen!

Robert Frost, Blueberries