Category Archives: food

Turning a siri mistake into lovely mashed sweet potatoes

So recently I had some friends over for dinner and I was having a vegetarian week, since I’ve been to Alsace with my dad and there we had enough meat for a month. But that’s a story for another time.
My plan for the dinner was this:

  • My Coriander-Tomato salsa along with some nachos
  • Pimentos de Patron – those lovely mini peppers that you get in Spanish or Portuguese tapas bars
  • Filled bell peppers à la Chakall – grilled and filled with dried onion, usually some bacon pieces (which I left out this time obviously), an egg and some cheese on top
  • Sweet potatoes, half cooked in a pressure cooker, then sliced up, seasoned, put on the grill and then set them on fire with some whiskey etc
  • A nice salad with some vegetables of the current season

So all went good, my friends were enjoying the salsa when I asked my friend ‘Hey man can you set a timer for 10 minute please?’ ’Sure, I’ll let Siri know.’ Then he had a quick chat with Siri but I didn’t really pay attention any more since I was preparing the salad.
Fast-forward 10-15 (or 20?) minutes, I ask my friend ‘Hey what’s left on the timer’ ‘Ehhmm.. Siri how much time is left on the timer?’ ‘You don’t have a timer running at the moment.’
Darn.
Okay so I take the pressure cooker off the heat, put it on the floor to cool down but think already that they might be well too much cooked through, so no chance of slicing or grilling or setting them on fire.
Once the pressure was gone and I opened the pot, my fears were confirmed: you basically could use your hands to mash the sweet potatoes.
What now?!
Ok I can easily make mashed potatoes.
Spices? Oof, maybe some maple sirup? Salt, pepper? Ah I still have those ‘long pepper’ thingies… why not. And hell, I’m even gonna set this freaking mash on fire! Got some cheap old (not aged, just an old bottle) of scotch. And I set it on fire.
And the result? My friends loved it. The girl said something along the lines of ‘Wow!!!! I need the recipe! And the whisky really added some nice touch to it!!’
Here we go – first sweet potatoes mash of my life.
Cheers!

Indulge in Munich

When you miss Dubai or just want to have a great day and don’t mind spending some €, check out this plan:
Book yourself a room in the Hilton Munich City, close to Rosenheimer Platz which offers good value for money and has good access to public transport.
You can start off your day with a nice breakfast, e.g. at The Victorian House at Viktualienmarkt or go for a proper brunch at one of the 5 star hotels in Munich (e.g. Jazz Brunch at the Bayrischer Hof which is “only” 49€ but not including alcoholic beverages except for 1 aperitif).
After strolling around the city center and the Isar river you might want to relax a little. Again there are different options: a spa of one of the 5 star hotels (day pass is 60€ – Mon-Fri, 75€ on weekends/public holidays, at the spa of Kempinski Vier Jahreszeiten) or you can opt for a public swimming pool – and not those boring swim-only ugly ones. Take the Müllersches Volksbad which has a spectacular Jugendstil architecture and offers not only swimming but also sauna and a massage facility (appointments must be scheduled upfront). One hour classical massage is 55€, 4 hours sauna 18,90€).
In case you want to skip the spa, you can go for the perfect apéro for pre-dinner drinks: the rooftop bar of the Mandarin Oriental. There’s a pool, you can sip a nice glass of white wine and just relax.
All relaxed and ready for the evening, you can chose from various high class restaurants:
  • Rue des Halles – a French brasserie which has a great seafood selection
  • Tantris. Most famous restaurant of Munich – booking required
  • Neni München – exceptional interior. middle eastern restaurant and bar close to central station
What follows after dinner depends on your personal preference… Some options:
  • enjoy a classical concert at Gasteig, e.g. the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra
  • go clubbing at Harry Klein – the best techno night club in Munich. Was earlier close to Ostbahnhof but they moved to the city center some years back
  • listen to some jazz tunes at Unterfahrt
The most important thing which you cannot omit: the Feierabendbier. Suggested locations: Flaschenöffner bar at Fraunhoferstrasse or the Kiosk at the Reichenbachbrücke.

By accident or rather evolution and genetic diversification, self awareness happened to be tried out. What perfected it was a layer of several interconnected neural networks linked with a couple of sensors and interesting algorithms.

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Consultants can _do_ everything with powerpoint *slides*. Most of those​ douchebag monkeyass newbies in life and the universe could also prepare another set of freaking powerpoint slides for me on the topic: how can human kind achieve the much needed same respect for every form of life, i.e. women, men, transgenders, animals, artificial intelligence, aliens, the environment (not only the planet Earth but yeah right the whole effing universe and all the parallel universes). (1)

#writing #thoughts #businesspunkmag-germany-mighthavelikeditbutiguesstheyrenotonello(yet?)

(1) btw this respect includes equal pay for all genders but explicitly excludes gender neutral writing in German (Schüler*innen)

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Epic battle
In the end it all boils down to the same two fucking questions​: who got bigger balls and whose dick is longer.
In other, more consultant-and-gender-neutral words: we need to understand our market position and compare our lever with the one of our negotiation partner.

Good or bad. Your choice.
In serendipity we trust.

Steak pie and not-really-mushy peas

Did some cooking after a looooong time… Perfect winter dish for me and reminds me of Scotland: steak pie

Inspirational video from Jamie Oliver, some internet research and some given spices and cheese leftovers got me to this variant.

  1. 2 onions
  2. 300 g rump steak
  3. 4 carrots
  4. 200 g mushrooms
  5. 330ml guiness
  6. 1 tblsp Tomato paste
  7. 2 tblsp Flour
  8. Ready made puff pastry
  9. Spices: long pepper, black pepper, salt, Worcester sauce, chili
  10. Peas: lemon cest, lemon juice, salt&pepper, fine cut mint, butter

Coriander Garlic Habanero Dip / Salsa

I absolutely love this! It’s one of the things that I do at least once a week for a loong time 🙂

  • Coriander
  • Garlic
  • Lemon (ideally organic so you can use the zest)
  • Habanero (or any other chili for that matter)
  • Best olive oil

Perfect for nachos and since I forgot to buy them, I used it as a salsa / topping on a toast with butter and tomatos… mmmh

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My take on Iran

Because of my job I had the opportunity to go to Tehran. The first time from Saturday to Tuesday and the second time from Monday til Wednesday.

Of course I had the usual impression that you get when you grew up or lived in a western country for a longer time:

  • Iran is not called Islamic republic of Iran for no reason: there is a religious leader who influences politics and regulations for daily live and law
  • Due to the relation to the US and the aggressive foreign policy especially under Ahmadinejad you get a very dark and frightful picture of the country: they want to erase Israel from the map and all American citizens are evil enemies.

Similar like on my trip to Pakistan, I had the chance to get a first hand impression.

First of all: there is a huge – extraordinary huge – discrepancy between the government + the religious leaders and the daily life of the people. Two examples:

  1. Alcohol is forbidden in Iran and recently students have been sentenced to 79 whips because they had some booze when celebrating their graduation. And of course there is a delivery service for alcohol. They come to your home, open the trunk and then you chose. Whaaaat?!
  1. Facebook is blocked (funnily only on wired internet connections, – some? – mobile internet connections don’t block it.). Same applies for the heavily censored tv channels – ever watched or only listened to a football game on an Iranian tv channel? There is barely any sound from the crowd in the stadium. So everyone gets western tv from satellites. Smells a little like the former GDR, right?

Now what I experienced during my visits: all (!) people that I have met are extremely friendly, open and have a very liberal mindset. Strangers on the street approach you and ask where you are from what you are doing in Tehran etc (and no, they are not from the Stasi).

I even participated at a “party”. The conversation went like this:

Hey you wanna join a party tomorrow? Drinks and shisha.

Drinks?

Yep.

Next day.

Well it’s not a real party, only a gathering of friends.

Ok

Well and the location is a little strange. It’s at a nursery.

???????!!

Yeah, a friend of us is the owner and she invited some friends, we totally understand if you don’t want to join.

Sounds strange but I’d still love to join 🙂

… And yes, the nursery was full of children 😀

Some more quick facts:

  • Tehran has around 20 million people
  • It spans from 900m above sea level up to around 1,700m – and the mountains next to it go even up to 3,500m – skiing hooray!
  • It is a very green city, i.e. there are many trees, some parks etc. Still the smog can be quite bad, I guess mainly due to the extremely old cars.
  • Motorbike taxis are cool, cheap, roller coaster-like adrenalin levels are complementary.
  • Food is very good, fresh, mostly local and cheap!

Last but not least: don’t go to Iran. Honestly. Watch this video to see what you are not missing.

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