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 :)

food

I have experienced so many things this weekend that summarizing them for a blog would take me ages - and it would not be interesting at all; instead of writing you something, I will just place a link.

I started dating And F some months ago, and since April we are a couple. One of the things we have in common is that we both enjoy cooking...and eating. With this link you can see things we hace eaten. We also plepared almost all dishes, with two exeptions: A magnificient kebab we got at Kent in Vienna and Georgian food we had at Karmelitermarkt, also in Vienna. The Photos from the Georgian food can be easily indetified: two pictures in which a glass with a green liquid appear (toothpaste-green). That was an estragon-flavoured soda from Georgia...looked from outer space, tasted weird and smelled like hell.

Here the pics, enjoy!

I want to be like mamá Bertha

On Tuesday, I was on the phone with my good colleague Sarah, with whom I have “the food conspiracy” project, and she suggested me to have dinner at Amacord, an typical Austrian restaurant. The restaurant was not far away, so I decided to give it a try.

The place was traditional Viennese (dark wood furniture, beiges walls, no music) and packed with people. I hesitated a while whether to stay or to have sushi at Kujiro instead. Kujiro is an excellent sushi bar, very small (7 seats) and the cooks and owners are Japanese.

I ordered the lamb osso buco with chanterelles and mashed potatoes. The last time I ate osso buco was about 6-7 years ago, and it was cooked especially for me by my lovely grandmother. She cooked the veal (not lamb) osso bucco in a soup with cabbage, carrots, zucchini, potatoes and cilantro. As she always does specially for me, she separated the bone’s marrow on a separate plate, so I could eat it with lime juice on a corn-tortilla.

I still remember the first time I had osso buco (called chamberete in Chihuahua) cooked by my granny. My sister and me had friends who stayed overnight and she made us osso buco tacos for dinner…it was delicious.

The lamb osso buco I had was heavy (I had to order two glasses of red wine - an excellent Zweigelt - and decided to walk home to support my digestion), but tasty. The portion was maybe too big for me, but the mashed potatoes were simply fantastic! I remembered that by mixing boiled potatoes, salt and butter you can get one of the best culinary inventions ever.

The best about Amacord were the memories that my meal triggered. Mamá Bertha, my grandmother, is a second mom for me, for my sister and for my brother…and also for all my cousins. She is always smiling and telling all of us how much she loves us.

Since I can remember, she takes medicated pills to control her blood pressure and her pain (arthritis), nevertheless she is never complaining. She is simply full of love. When I get old, I don’t want to be like the old people from my last blog, I want to be like mamá Bertha.

two old stubborn and intolerable ruffians

Last week I read an interview with Julia Fischer, a young German top violinist. She played and recorded several times under the direction of Russian/U.S. American conductor Yakov Kreizberg (who died recently this year at the age young age of 51).

In the interview Julia Fischer mentions that Kreizberg was stubborn, perfectionist and challenging person...just as Julia herself. Apparently, when both artists worked together, the sessions were hard, stressful and tense. Reason for this was the similitude in their rigid personalities.

Ms Fischer mentioned that Kreizberg's illness had a positive impact on his personality: Knowing he was going to die soon it made him softer. Kreizberg valued each time he could still conduct. Julia recalls that in his last days as a conductor, he turned more "flexible" and even tolerated mistakes when playing a concert.

Enough superstars, now back to my daily life in Innsbruck:

I cycle daily to work and each time I do something illegal: I ride my bike on the sidewalk for approximately 8 meters (from my house door until the corner). Those are like 5 seconds of illegal activity.

Two days ago, I cycled back home and when I reached the “illegal” corner an old man shouted at me because I was using the sidewalk. As a good Latino, I yelled him back.

Yesterday in the morning before going to work, I went to the postal office to drop a letter, and once more, I committed a traffic felony, but this time I was completely amazed by the angriness of an old lady. I never in my life saw an old woman swearing so loud on the street. She shouted Verdammt noch einmal which can translated as "damn it!", I yelled back saying that I only carefully drove 3 meters from the postal office til the corner, then, I continued cycling, but behind me, I could still hear the old woman barking.

It seemed like those two old people have been waiting days or weeks to explode, and yell and be offensive.

Julia Fischer said in her interview that giving birth to her son made her a more relaxed and tolerable human being, just as happened with Kreizberg by knowing he was going to die soon.

But really, what kind of bastard you have to be all your life, so that even if you have experienced the love of a child and years later, know that you will die, you are still an old stubborn and intolerable ruffian?