Lineanongrata

A favorite recipe (the advent calendar giveaway, day 13)

Much to my regret even I cannot live on Marshmallows and peppermint creams alone, handmade or not. So during the colder months I'm always on the lookout for recipes that are warm but still include salad or other green things. After all, one can't live on soup alone, either.

Recently I stumbled over this lovely warm radicchio salad recipe on Jamie Oliver's website. It's fast becoming one of my favorites and I can proudly recite it by heart, like a poem. I'm willing to take this as a good sign because I seem to forget almost everything else at the moment. If the thought of good food sticks that's surely a positive sign of sanity, right?

What's your favorite winter or late autumn recipe? Care to share? If possible, it should contain one of the following vitamins (otherwise I probably won't like it):

- The Marshmallow vitamin

- The chocolate vitamin

...

Have I mentioned that since I get to teach illustration classes my ambitions as a class clown have grown disproportionally? Sometimes I even coax a laugh out of my students.

 

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Allison, you're yesterday's lucky advent winner. Will you write me an email with your address, please?

For those of you who are new to the Lineanongrata blog and would like to participate in the advent calendar giveaway: Just leave a comment on each daily post until the 24th of December and you'll automatically enter the draw. Each day until Christmas I'm giving away an advent gift to one of my readers. Good luck to all of you!

 

Peppermint creams and Marshmallows (Advent calendar giveaway, days 9 and 10)

Advent is not only the right time for Advent wreaths (which are nice but look decidedly out of place at Easter) but also he absolutely right time for diabetics and hypoglycemics. They are easily recognized. Look around you. Who's the one producing treats and cookies with the most sugar? They'll tell you it's all to give away to family and friends. But don't be fooled. The question to ask is 'how many have you already eaten whilst making the marshmallows?' or the peppermint creams or the macarons or whatever else can be made out of icing sugar and egg whites.

Ugh well, the answer would be... a lot. But it could be worse. Because I did give most of what I made away today.

What? How many I have left still lurking in my cupboard? ... Enough. But it could be worse. Because you know, there's no icing sugar left so I can't make new marshmallows tomorrow. Right?

The marshmallow recipe I used comes from Smitten Kitchen and it worked like a charm.

My peppermint cream recipe goes as follows:

1 egg white

400 g icing sugar

1/2 tsp peppermint extract or oil

 

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Add icing sugar and peppermint extract and beat until smooth and shiny. Form a ball from the sugar-egg white mixture and roll out until about 2 cm thick. Cut out circular shapes and put them on a tray dusted with icing sugar (I use a lot of icing sugar to dust because otherwise the peppermint creams have a tendency to stick and break). Let your peppermint creams dry.

Enjoy!

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This post will produce two lucky winners, one for today and one for yesterday, when I accidentally fell asleep on the sofa early in the evening and woke up early the next morning. Accidentally with a stiff neck.

For those of you who are new to the Lineanongrata blog and who would like to participate in the daily giveaway: Just leave a comment on each post until the 24th of December and you'll automatically enter the draw.

Oma & Bella (the Advent calendar giveaway, day 2)

A couple of days ago I came home after a long day and found a notice in my letterbox telling me that one of my neighbors had a package for me.

When I picked it up the name on it sounded vaguely familiar - my own name, too, but I meant the name of the sender - maybe someone I ordered something from? Etsy or DaWanda? But I couldn't, for the life of me, remember what I had ordered. Every day tends to be a surprise when you have too many things to remember.

But it's not every day I receive neat little packages and I'll take what I can get.

Upon opening the box a card with the photo of two elderly ladies on it fell out and it was immediately clear whom the package came from.

Months ago I backed this project ('Oma und Bella' by Alexa Karolinski) with the tiny bit of money I could give. I found both the two women and the way the granddaughter portrayed them immensely touching.

The box I received was the equally touching thank you they sent.

Coming home after a really long day (who would have thought that adult students in their early twenties can be so challenging and so contrary sometimes!?), and not at my best when tired and worn out, I started to cry first. Too much humanity for one day.

Then I ate the sugar cookies that came with the recipe cards in the box and I do assure you the world looked a whole lot brighter after that. Thank you.

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Janet Clare, you are the winner of the first Advent gift. I have your address somewhere I'm sure but if you want to get your package this year you might want to write it down for me again. As I said, I'm not at my best or my most organized when tired.

 

For all of you who are new to the Lineanongrata blog, I will be giving away one gift each day to one of you readers. Just leave a comment each day and you'll automatically enter the draw.

 

2012 calendar sneak preview and the plum jam recipe

The 2012 calendar turns out to be quite an animalistic affair. I'm always baffled by how long I can go absolutely clueless as to what I'm going to illustrate for next year's calendar, and then, all of a sudden, ideas just suddenly materialize. Let's hope they'll continue to do so. It would be much less fun to wait until December 31st one year without any ideas magically showing up in my head.

There have been a couple of emails last week asking what plum jam recipe I use. I'm flattered you'd want to know.

 

So here it goes, Freund's best and illustrated plum jam:

3 kg of plums

500 g sugar (in Germany we get special jam-making sugar that has some kind of thickener in it, but I've used regular sugar to the same effect)

3 organic lemons (the original recipe calls for one, I like my jam a bit more lemon-y)

2 sticks of cinnamon

10 cloves (or less if you're not a clove-fan)

 

Wash and dry the plums. Cut them in half, take out the pit. Mix plums and sugar and let them sit and rest in the fridge for a couple of hours. This will draw some juice.

Use some kind of mixer to puree the plums.

Now put the plum puree in an oven-proof container or pot, stir in the cinnamon and the cloves, the lemon zest and the lemon juice you got out of however many lemons you chose to use. Put the mixture in your oven and let it cook and thicken for about two hours. I put my oven on 200°C and it takes about 2 hours. But do check your mixture, stirring it every once in a while so the top layer doesn't burn.

When the jam is thick enough to please you, take out the lemon peel and the cinnamon sticks. If you can find them, pluck out the cloves. I leave them in because I have no patience and the cooking makes them soft and non-threatening to teeth anyway. Now transfer your jam into washed and sterilized (I rinse them with boiling water) jars, turn upside down and let them cool. Turn right side up and label with those great jam labels some illustrator came up with a week or so ago. I forgot her name...

This recipe sounds a bit improvised, doesn't it? That's mostly because I usually take some kind of recipe, stick with it for about three minutes (cutting the plums and taking out the pits takes longer than that) and then I go ahead and wing it. But this is the recipe that works best for me.

Plum jam obsession (or: give me all your plum jam and I'll give you free illustrated labels)

Are there sufficient photos to prove that I can become obsessed with plum jam? If not, I have more where those came from.

This batch was made about ten days ago with plums my neighbor gave me. There is almost none left though. These house elves around here really are a rotten bunch. Don't do the laundry but eat all my jam! I just barely had the time to design sweet labels for the jars before I emptied them all.

As I can't share the jam with you (for the obvious reason that I ate it all) I thought I could at least share the pretty labels with you.

Go ahead and download the pdf by clicking Download Freelabels. It's a gift.

You know, that way you can make your own plum jam, put it in jars with lovely labels or tags... and share it with me! No? Well, share it with whoever is close to you then. If you ask me, everybody needs some gifted jam with a cute label.

moments

At the moment I often feel speechless.

There are so many things to do in one day, so many letters, emails, things to be organized, kept clean, made new, taken apart...

Setting up your own business takes time and patience.

I'm completely overwhelmed at times.

Sometimes I find myself in the kitchen, staring into empty space, not able to remember what it was I wanted there.

In the mornings I wake up and by the time I've brewed my tea the list of things I need (absolutely need!) to remember is already so long that I've forgotten the beginning.

Sometimes I feel I'm getting nowhere, as though I never get anything done, as though there are too little nice moments in a day.

Which can't be true. I'm just looking the wrong way.

During the next couple of days I'll be looking for the good moments, the quiet minutes and the things I love about my work. Under rugs, beneath piles of wool, fabric and paper, in pots of paints and in the mess of pens on my desk.

Will you accompany me?

food for thought

Years ago my mother dug out some very very old cookbooks we have apparently inherited from our grandmothers. They are written in old German and it gives me a headache to read them (the 's' look like 'f', which if really funny when you read a text with lotf of fs').

At first I didn't understand her fascination with the old books. For one, they're dusty and don't seem like hygenic paraphenalia to have around the kitchen. Second, there are basically no images in them. No mouthwatering photos to help me decide what to cook. How on earth am I to know whether or not I might like 'Sauce Robert' for example, just by reading a recipe?!

But they grow on you, these old books. For example the 'good butter' some recipes call for is endearing. And the fact that everything was used to make food, even broccoli stems (for soup. With a dollop of the good cream, if you have any available) is a lesson to learn and tells a story about how life was when these books were written. How very rich have we become as societies, that no cookbook today has any recipe for broccoli stems, because there is so much broccoli available all the time?!

But food doesn't only connect us to the past. It's almost magical to be able to discuss the breakfast cereal bars both Tracy and I made (the recipe was from smitten kitchen, if I remember right), or to try out Sarah's recipe for lemon curd. Both Tracy and Sarah live in the USA and I have never met them in person.

The project I announced last week, the one I would ask your help for, is about food. I would like to share via food. Or recipes, in this case.

I would like to ask you to write down your favorite recipe and share it with me, via eamil or the comment section here on the blog. If there is a story connected to the recipe, even better. If there is any reason this one recipe is more important than others, and you are willing to tell why, that would be fabulous. I would collect these recipes and illustrate them, make them into the 'Food for thought cookbook' (giving credit to the writer of each recipe, of course).

It would be lovely if we could make part of this cookbook into a free pdf download so that we can share even with those who can't afford to buy a cookbook right now. But I'd also like to print the book, sell it and donate the money to an organization that helps people in need. Maybe an organization that feeds people, although I'm pretty partial to 'Médecins du Monde' or the Red Cross (always get the feeling they know what they're doing).

That way we could share goodness in more than one way. With each other and also with those who need help right now.

What do you think? Will you help me?

 

ps: Dear Mama, you are more than welcome to participate, but you must promise to include the secret ingredient you always leave out, please.

 

 

spring rites

All right. Let's admit it right away: These are not German strawberries, yet. I caved and bought organic strawberries...from Spain. It's entirely against my food-mile-organic-obsessed mind and will, but I couldn't help it. I need to eat as many strawberries as I can during the time they grow in Europe. It's my own personal spring rite. Or spring obsession.

The yogurt is homemade though, and so is the Granola. That has to count for something, right?

I don't know about you, but for me, spring is very much about the thrill of seeing green leaves growing on trees, flowers growing trees and on the ground (making my life miserable with their pollen but still looking awfully pretty and colorful), and food. A Renaissance for all the vegetables and fruit I love most. Asparagus, for example, is a bit like Christmas. You wait all year for it to arrive. And so are strawberries. The real deal. Not the strawberries we can nowadays buy in the supermarket in december that come from who-knows-where and have been grown who-knows-how. Strawberries with flavor.

Oh, and Rhubarb.

Which I did buy at the farmer's market and which was, like a feather on my conscience, locally and organically grown.

 

Now, homemade strawberry-rhubarb jam is, I think, my favorite jam in the world. The strawberries sweet, the rhubarb tart, spring in a jar. Or in a new thrifted glass.
As to how much jam I ate in the 24 hours since I made that jam? I really must claim my spring right to remain silent.

domestic goddess

How did you guess that we're not talking about me here ? We're talking about Natalie, actually, who took over the house and everything domestic from me a year ago. And whom I very much wish I could take with me to Berlin. You see, she's really courageous, too. Facing some pretty big obstacles around here every day. Or let me express it differently: We have a permanent domestic clash in this house.

While I'm a great believer in the 'let it soak' theory (anything, any number of days. Who knows. It might just clean itself eventually), Natalie is for tackling dirt and dust right this second, so the kitchen will look spotless. When she does the laundry, the sheets already look folded on the clothesline. When I do it, somebody (probably Natalie) has to spend much time untangling them - after they're dry. 

I'm not an absolute fan of having every single object in my household aligned with available table tops or the window sill, but if it's what it takes to be able to eat off the floor, I'm all for living geometrically.

And could somebody please enlighten me as to what one has to do in order to make the kitchen look neat all through the process of meal preparation, please ?

We harvested by hand today (and I'm no my way to bed, at nine pm, because I'll just crash with fatigue in about five minutes) and Natalie and I have been plotting the food arrangements since yesterday. When she left at five thirty yesterday evening, the kitchen looked impeccably tidy, two salads were prepared, sausages bought, the knifes, forks, plates and glasses counted and laid out, and...

 

beer, water and alcohol free beer in the fridge. Because we both knew it would be hot out today. But only Natalie thought about what it would take to make the day good in spite of that.

Oh yes. I forgot to mention: She also cleaned the fridge. Because when I put things in the fridge... (you know the drill).

one of my all-time evergreens

Two trade fairs down, one to go. Mister Serious up there and I are very much hoping to have found an importer for Belgium.
The fair at Rotterdam in the Netherlands was pure horror for me because I had the migraine of my life. Poor Vincent had to stand up alone all the time while I tried to move as little as possible with the sugary sweetest smile plastered on my face (I tried. It probably didn't work).
Nevertheless these occasions usually have their funny moments. One of my favorite evergreens is when someone male comes to the stand and starts telling me what kind of wine women like.
I tell you, one never stops learning.
For example Rose Wines. After all I've heard I must believe that Roses are typically women's wines and cannot be consumed by any self-respecting man.
Also, Roses are for those who are indecisive (concerning the what-shall-I-drink-red-or-white question) and don't know a lot about wine. Obviously we're talking about women. Because all men are wine connoisseurs.
This is the moment I cough a little. Because it's either coughing or laughing and I can't very well laugh in the face of a potential client.

The topic of Roses exhausted, the client will then usually move on to Reds, growing a little in height, because THAT'S what men drink. Because red wine is the real thing.

Ah well. I just wonder where the notion that drinking red wine is something to boast with came from.
And I do wonder why they think they need to tell wine makers or wine sellers all this, especially when they're women. Taste is something so very personal and everyone has the right to like or not like something. Personally I wouldn't mind a cup of tea right now. It's freezing cold in Rotterdam.