the hippiest thing I have ever written

Around ten years ago, my sister, my brother and I started the tradition of cooking the same dishes for christmas. Some of the things we prepared were based on typical northern Mexican kitchen and others were only things we love to eat, but never had the time to cook, so we prepared them on this special day, the day were I spend 8 hours cooking.

In North Mexico, we cook turkey on the 24th in a traditional American way: Put it in the oven for 4-6 hours with white wine, salt (we sometimes add carrots and onions) and later use the juice to make gravy. We serve the turkey slices with mashed potatoes, fresh bread ans salad.

On special occasions, my mom prepares arróz poblano (Puebla-style rice), which is the easiest way to prepare amazing rice: Cook rice with nothing but salt, when ready, put a layer of rice on a pyrex, add sweet corn, crème fraiche, grilled bell pepper slices and shredded Chihuahua cheese, continue with another layer until you reach the top of the pyrex. Finish with cheese, then make a gratin out of it.

The menu we designed for christmas is the following:

Vegetarian spring rolls (self made)
Arróz poblano
Green salad with a marmalade vinaigrette
White wine goose stuffed with oranges, ginger and garlic
Chocolate chip cookies (...of course, self made!)

I like the way people develops, the way traditions are modified. I like how traditions change and keep on going as a “new traditions”. I really love that my family and me celebrate these days in different places, that we cook different dishes...and that each time we are all happy, also if good times are gone – we enjoy the moments together and make the best of the things we have.

I wish you all a happy time with your friends and family and hope that you celebrate your family traditions and that you create new ones, try it, it's fun!

And now, the hippiest thing I have ever written: I love you all!

My reality tonight: I have PMS

Yesterday, a friend of mine wrote on her Facebook-wall that she had the feeling she had PMS. I added a comment „me too“ - no one on her wall thought my comment was funny and no one bothered to ask me why I had PMS...if I am a man.

Certainly, I have to admit that I was kidding when I wrote the PMS comment, but I knew it would come soon because in autumn I get depressed.

Today I don't feel good, I have the feeling I have PMS.

Don't think I am trying to be funny, I am not assuming, I am talking based on reliable information!

Tonight for dinner, I cooked the recipe I posted in my blog on September (blog: my emo-side is on vacations), I had a glass of white wine and I called good friends today.

Well, these are only dry facts, without feeling and are not giving you an idea of how I feel tonight. This is what really happened:

FACT: The dish I cooked for dinner is supposed to be shared with friends
MY REALITY TONIGHT: half a portion of my food is now resting on a Tupperware in the fridge

FACT: The glass of wine I had is an excellent (and expensive) Austrian Riesling,vintage 2009
MY REALITY TONIGHT: The wine it tasted like shit

FACT: I called friends and some friends called me
MY REALITY TONIGHT: The friends I called did not want to talk to me and I was not interested in talking to the friends who called me

FACT and REALITY: I knew tonight I needed to stay home, write a blog and hear sad songs (and drink no wine). Right now “Anyone else but you” by Moldy Peaches is playing, before it I heard “Always on my mind” by The King.

...if I were a woman I would be about to bleed to death

P.S. I would like to apologize if a woman thought my last sentence was sexist
P.S.2. if you are a man, have you also had the feeling you have PMS?

Man, I really hope the food in the plane is good…

Two working colleagues, who are also periodical readers of my blog, told me on Monday that my entries are each day less and less…interesting, less “the way they used to be”. I think they meant self-ironic, sad and funny.

Apparently, if I spend the rest of my days as a sad single writing blog entries drinking wine makes my stires funnier.

Well, that may be difficult at the moment, because of my current relationship status...however, things can also be shitty, even if you are in love:

I am sitting in Frankfurt’s airport on gate B 22 waiting for the boarding time. I am traveling to Montevideo via Buenos Aires. If you are used to use nice airports like Munich’s you may know how easy it is to get all kinds of food at all kinds of prices. At Munich you can get an excellent Falafel , Sushi or a Beer and Sausages for less than 5 euros. In Mexico you can have American food, tacos or sushi for 3-6 USD, and in Dallas there is a good place for Hamburgers and two nice Mexican places. Even at Europe’s smallest international airport (Innsbruck) I got a sandwich, a blueberry muffin and a bottle of water for 5 Euros.

Frankfurt sucks! I am hungry and there is nothing affordable here. Yes, there is a bar where you can have a glass of red wine for 7,50 EUR or a stand where you can have a bottle of beer for 4,50 EUR. Even the duty-free shops are bloody expensive! Why buy a bottle of Absolut vodka for 16 Euros, when you can pay 10 at the supermarket and pay taxes?!

I hold a credit card which allows me to wait in a V.I.P. lounge where I probably could get a snack and a drink for free, but my gate is way too far and I had to take a decision: food and booze or catch my plane to Buenos Aires, I went for the second.

Man, I really hope the food in the plane is good…

I think terrorists and stoke-brokers should have real friends, eat more chocolate and think less of sex

Tonight I cooked a nice dinner, Basmati rice I got from an Indian colleague, topped with green curry paste I got from Verena's last trip to Thailand, broccoli and cauliflower and sweet sesame paste from my French ex-flatmate Marina.

I ate this delicious dinner while reading the newspaper and hearing a song compilation I made for Andrea. The newspaper, as usual in these times, was disappointing.

Financial crisis in the west and terrorist attacks in the east; both are terrible ways of treating innocent human beings. The victims of the crisis are loosing their savings and their health and social services. The victims of terrorism loose also a lot: their arms, their legs, their dads, their husbands and wives, their brothers and daughters...

The crisis and terrorism are both caused by men taking advantage of others. Business men and stoke-brokers are happy to steal money. Terrorists are happy to send young boys to trigger bombs attached to their bodies...the reason? I know they think that virgin teenagers will wait for them in heaven and after dying in the attack, they think they will fuck them...and that's it.

Bankers in New York and London and Frankfurt also do what they do (steal money) to get laid. They buy cocaine and have sex with prostitutes...not in heaven, but in penthouses.

Since the news in the paper were too sad, I decided to finish my piñata. Yes! I am working once more in a piñata. So, this is what I did:

I sat on the floor with my glass of red wine, chocolate cookies (digestives, for the British among you), scissors, glue, coloured paper (crepe paper, for the handicraft-junkies among you) and nice music on the background. I started to work, ate and drank and then I got it!!!

In the song playing I heard the line “love is the answer”, then I thought of the Beatles and “all you need is love” and all that hippie crap...really, I have a possible answer to make this world a better place!

I don't think that a person sitting in his kitchen, hearing to the music he likes, having glass of his favourite drink, eating food prepared with ingredients from the people he loves, having chocolate cookies and then, he builds a piñata for a small lovely girl would ever, ever think of robbing or killing innocents.

I think terrorists and stoke-brokers should have real friends, eat more chocolate cookies...and think less of shagging prostitutes in expensive hotels (or raping virgins in heaven). They should get a girlfriend, get in love, with her, maybe have children and make piñatas for them.


P.S. maybe it also helps to hear some songs by Nina Simone, Elvis Presley, Sigur Ros, Radiohead...and the supremes!

music and lyrics

This time I won’t be telling a story, but I will show a video I made on Tuesday. A working colleague (she would kill me if I write her name in this blog) gave me the link to website which produces word clouds automatically. I used text of old blog entries and a song I composed for Andrea this summer to produce the video.

Enjoy the video and I hope you can recognise one or more words from my entries!

Click here to stream the video

The baby, the midwife, the piano and the sunshine

After my last blog entry, Marina, my French ex flatmate asked me to explain the reasons why I stopped being an emo. I think it is time for me to write about that...

It all started when my beloved sister and Victor, her husband, had a romantic night last December, then, some months later, little Victoria was already one of the 6,8 billion inhabitants of this planet.

Victoria is a small warrior with only one goal in her mind (and in her name): to win! She is strong, sometimes stubborn and above all: beautiful! She looks a lot like my sister, and I am still not sure who has the biggest cheeks, the daughter or the mother.

Until now, I only know Victoria digitally, in the form of JPEGs and MP4s, but this December I will meet her in Chihuahua...I cannot wait to watch her, hug her and talk to her.

Another reason for my happiness is that my lovely girlfriend (she is indeed lovely) is living her dream. She got a job last June to work for Médecins sans Frontiers as a midwife. Andrea left last week and will be on the field for the next six months. It is incredible to be the boyfriend of a happy girl.

Recently, I started being even more happy because I am planning a piano project. I love the idea and with some luck, we will get the money and then hundreds, or even thousands, of people will be happy...because the project is about making people happy.

...and I am also happy because it stopped raining in Innsbruck! On Friday and Monday it was rainy as hell, and even though I rode my bike to work wearing my rain-trousers, waterproof gloves, raincoat and leather shoes, when I got to the office, I was totally soaked...but today, everythign was different, I even had to wear my sunglasses...nice :-)

my emo-side is on vacations

A working colleague was the first to note that my blog is now lacking of sad themes.
No more melancholic, depressive or sarcastic events. If you like these stories, I am
sorry, but the happenings of the last six months have provided me with a more
positive way to see daily life and not to focus on nostalgic thougts...yes, my
emo-side is on vacations, and I'm not sure if emo-scar is coming back!

Today I will simply share with you a nice recipe which you can cook in 15
minutes, and it is a dish to place it in the middle of a table and enjoy it your best friends.

This recipe is perfect to prepare for in autumn: it has less fat, it gives you energy and is full of proteins.

Here is what you will need:

6-8 dates without stone - I know many people don't like dates and raisins, but trust
me, you will like the dish

1 medium red onion cut in slices

2 garlic cloves finely chopped - please don't use a garlic press and after that,
wash your hands carefully rubbing your finger tips with the knife blade, this will
take off the garlic and onion smell!

100 grams of feta cheese - ground it with your bare hands...you will love doing this!

700 grams of fresh spinach OR a package of frozen spinach (usually, they weight 400-500 gramms)

Olive oil and some salt

Cook in a large pan the onions and garlic at low flame for some 5 minutes in plenty of olive oil, then add the dates, then the washed and rinsed spinach and on top the feta. Cover the pan and cook it for 8 minutes at medium flame - stir every now and then. Finally, uncover the pan and cook it for 2 more minutes at high flame so the spinach loss humidity. Taste it and add salt if needed.

Serve on a nice big plate. Give your guests crepes, toasted baguette slices or
warm tortillas to eat it straight from the plate.

This serving is for 4-5 pax as a starter or for two as a main dish

Have a nice day :)