the short story – adieu paris – that led me to helsinki

and the books of neal stephenson, particularly anathem (in which a character named jules verne floats through space)

and beyond food it must be autumn. I didn’t arrive in Berlin until mid-November last year so I was shocked by how punctual and quick the change was from late summer to autumn.

sure, it might just be autumn, but for a girl originally from Adelaide it feels COLD.

even though i’m layering my clothes and wearing socks and uggboots while working at the computer i had to turn the heating on to low or else my fingers were freezing up.

over the next week i start a new job doing some teaching and geeking a couple of days a week. actual jobs aren’t that easy to come by in Berlin so i’m incredibly grateful and enthused about the opportunity. also i turn 30 which feels just right.

i still need to decide what cakes to bake. i wish that friends from the rest of the world could come celebrate with me. oh well, a small berlin posse (with a ring-in from upper austria) will have to suffice.

I guess it must have happened while I was walking home last night with Jocelyn.

There’s still blue sky over Berlin, and hopefully it remains (long sleeve) tshirt weather for a while longer.

I have to admit though, I’ve been looking forward to Autumn as that means a different kind of food. The other day I made up a leek, ham, corn and potato chowder and then there was roast pumpkin with blue cheese another day. And yesterday I finally made munggo guisado – a Fillipino dish that I’ve had my eye on for a while.

There must be something kind of hippie earth mother about me that lies below my more public nerd identity. Maybe it’s the knitting, the jam making or the gardening, but something made my neighbours give me a bag of mung beans saying “We don’t know what to do with these, maybe you’d like to sprout them or something?”

Damn straight I’d like to sprout them.

So I sprouted some mung beans which was kinda satisfying. But then I started thinking of the “something”.

If Berlin wasn’t satisfying me already with interesting icecream flavours such as licorice, or quark with sesame and honey, I’d have considered making mung bean icecream. So I googled mung bean recipes and found out about munggo guisado.

Munggo Guisado is Filipino comfort food, a blend of mung beans, seafood, pork meat and assorted greens like morning glory or spinach that’s usually served with rice. I had some quinoa I wanted to play with so I served it with that. Though I’m pretty sure munggo guisado could be good served over toast.

Let’s just say, I think I’ve found a new meal, one of those recipes like spaghetti sauce or ratatouille that you return to again and again because it’s so easy to modify.

But for now, here’s a writeup of my initial foray into Munggo Guisado. I didn’t have spinach, but I substituted in a couple of handfuls of parsley as I always have a bunch in a jar on my windowsill.

Munggo Guisado

• 250g Mung Beans
• 1 onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 cup broth / water
• 150g speck, ham or bacon bits (you could also substitute chorizo)
• 2 tomatoes
• dash of fish sauce
• olive oil
• salt pepper
• a big bunch of flat leaf parsley, stems removed and chopped.

Pre soak the mung beans for a couple of hours and then simmer (in more water) until they’re soft.  I ended up cooking mine until they’d absorbed all the water in the pot and split – but they’ll continue to cook in the guisado regardless.

Saute the onion and garlic  in olive oil until soft and then add in the chopped meat and let it cook for a couple of minutes.

Add in the drained mung beans and a cup or so so of water or a broth.

Stir in the chopped tomatoes.

After a few minutes when the tomatoes have cooked down a little, season the guisado with a dash of fish sauce and salt and pepper.

Fold through the parsley and let it wilt in among the other ingredients.

Serve over rice or quinoa.

I don’t have a picture of munggo guisado yet, so instead here’s The Lucksmiths singing about T-shirt Weather:

Amazing Kunstdinge, originally uploaded by Fighting Tiger.

Back at the start of April I bought this for €1 from some kids running a stall outside the front of their building.

They had a box on a piece of string acting as a cargo elevator from the floors above, and a range of things made out of bits of old wood, computers and hot-glue-gun glue.

I think my favourite thing about this is that the “Bild” (picture) key points at a tiny painting on a stamp. That’s so clever.

Maybe it’s just because there was a bunch of smoke, but I actually enjoyed tonight’s interpretation of John Cage’s Variations VII.  Apart from the smell of some really hideous perfume on a woman standing nearby, the room smelt like melting plastic and burnt out motors.  It was a bit like guitar strings breaking, but still not quite rock and roll.

I’m probably still suffering the negative associations of a past relationship, but my back gets incredibly tense at the thought of much noise related art practice.  Then again, don’t even get me started on the terrible things that can be done with visualisations.

It would be easier to say that I just don’t get some types of media art , but something must fascinate me about it, because I keep on thinking about it and what I want to do as a practice within the greater new media field.   Nothing elaborate, but damn it, if I am to do anything I at least want to do it well.

Maybe one day I’ll actually work on one of my ideas.

Homework from battlecat on Vimeo.

In a shout-out to both Stubby and Pete I do some video blog homework.

“On the ground” in Austria from battlecat on Vimeo.

Our favourite venue was the Richmond Hotel on Rundle St. There was a hot bartender with amazing hands, but I think the main reason we kept going back was for The Cheese.

The Cheese is tasty morsels of haloumi, cherry tomatoes and mint, all wrapped up in a filo pastry parcel and then shallow fried.

I was speaking to Jess today on Skype and she somehow dropped the word Cheese into conversation where it normally wouldn’t have been.

And then I realised… I had almost the right ingredients for Cheese Production in my kitchen. I had some cherry tomatoes, just on the edge of being too ripe. No haloumi or mint, but feta and basil would work just as well. I’d been saving some filo pastry for another baking opportunity after a spanakopita (Greek Spinach Pie) became more pie than spinach.

So in honour of Jess (and occasional Tuesday night associates Ellie, Simon and Simon) I made some replica Cheese.

While we may be separated by distance, Skype and Replica Cheese can help bring us together in spirit and stomach at least.