What's in your bag?

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This post was motivated by several things...the immense love I am feeling towards my backpack and a few of you who keep asking me about two things: a) how much can I fit into said backpack or b) what kind of food I buy on a regular basis.

So I thought I might as well combine the two :)

For my birthday I bought a new backpack. 

After about 8 years of carrying my worldly belongings around in bags, when I moved to Berlin (and subsequently broke my laptop while cycling...don't ask...) I started using backpacks again. I started out with three - a pretty one that I had bought because it worked really well with my laptop (but once you put my ginormous wallet and the laptop charger in was pretty much full, no chance of fitting a water bottle in), a cycling backpack (yes, it was comfortable but you couldn't even fit my laptop in properly, don't even think about going shopping with this one), and a larger one that had enough pockets for everything and even had a strap you could carry your yoga-mat with and a compartment to keep wet swimming stuff separate from all the dry stuff in the main compartment. In a way I really liked the big one because it actually fit a water bottle as well as the laptop. I was even able to go shopping on my way home and fit at least some of the food in there as well. You might wonder why I didn't like this bag in the end. It pretty much came down to one main problem. Once you had the bag on your back and you were cycling somewhere it was really uncomfortable and felt really heavy on the back. By the time you arrived anywhere you had to stretch for half an hour to get the feeling back into your lower back. Oh, and it wasn't really waterproof (I have my laptop and other electronics in there on a regular basis...not something I want to worry about when I'm cycling across town and should be focusing on stuff like traffic).

After looking around for ages, reading every stupid cycling website on the internet, and trying on backpacks in more shops than I care to admit I decided to get a rolltop from San Francisco Freight Baggage. In case you have to even ask - no, they are not paying me for this post. 

Before I say anything else - this was the most expensive bag I have ever bought. I don't own handbags or shoes that expensive. Heck, all my coats were cheaper than this bag. Perhaps I shouldn't say this because my mum reads this stuff as well. 

That said, was it worth it? 

Definitely!

The cool thing about Freight Baggage is that you can either just order a bag at their online shop or you can get one custom-made for the same price. That way you get to choose the colours and whether you want stuff like a laptop divider or reflective strips and whatnot.

I don't think I've ever emailed back and forth with a lovelier person than Brianna at Freight Baggage. She answered all my gazillion questions and helped me choose what I think is the most amazing colour combination ever.

Are you itching to see the bag yet?

Here is a photo I took right after I got back from customs to pick up the parcel. Isn't it pretty?!

According to Verena it is the size of a small house.

I think it's just right!

In cas you are wondering - that is the medium size. The large is huuuge (plus, I am not planning to become a professional bike courier any time soon).

The most important thing which I should have led with is the following: once you put the bag on your back it seems to weigh nothing. Even if it is so full that you can barely close it. Even if you didn't eat all weekend because you were sick and you are exhausted after just walking from the car to the train tracks. Also, it's like Mary Poppin's bag...

...which brings me back to the picture at the beginning of this post. If you click on the version below you can even read some more of my dribble :)

This was everything in my bag when I got home after work today. Everything. Even the mouthguard that I thought I had taken out after lacrosse practice on Wednesday. Even the allergy kit that lives in the bag that you probably couldn't care less about. Even the empty plastic box that was full of cookies for the lab. You get the point...

I'll try and post these pictures every once in a while to keep both you and me entertained. Perhaps I'll even write more about what's actually on the photo...

What do you always have in you bag? Do you have a favourite bag or backpack?

Cabin Fever - Part I

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I just got back from a trip to Montana.
I don't think I have ever been anywhere this remote in my life.
They call Montana 'Big Sky Country' and that is one of the things I noticed first when I stepped of that plane in Billings. The only other time I have been so amazed by how vast and blue the sky can be was in Texas a few years ago but I forgot about all about that when I stepped of a tiny plane.
We had been planning that trip for the better part of three year. At some point it had involved going to watch the 4th of July parades and see some real-life cowboys. Over the years the ideas changed and at some point January was suggested. I think that was the best idea any one could have had.
We got to see Yellowstone National Park in the winter. Rather than being stuck amidst hoards of other tourists we drove through a deserted park.

We saw bison and elk, Annie even saw some wolves taking a nap after having eaten who-knows-what (we met this group of people who were tracking the wolves in the park).

We got to see way more dinosaur skeletons than I had ever seen in one place,

we went ice-skating behind the Mamoth Hot Springs Hotel which reminded everybody else in our group of The Shining (since I am too much of a chicken to even watch that movie I was less creeped out by the hallways at night); I couldn't help but think of the place the original Dirty Dancing was set at.
We got to sit in a hot spring pool at night and stare at more stars than I had ever seen before.
And then there was the hubbard squash.

Don't judge the outfit or the mess...this is what cooking with Ashley and Katharina has always looked like :)
Since the squash 'obviously' had to go because it was going to go off (in like a month or so), we decided to try and cook as many things involving squash as possible. We got quite creative.
Think squash, potato, and chicken stew, squash quick-bread, squash pancakes, and squash studded meatballs. You'll hear more about those when I get around to writing them up (i.e. when I stop listening to country music on youtube)
I don't think I have had that much fun cooking since I moved out of the apartment I was living in back in St Andrews. Fittingly, the lovely girls I got to cook with were both fellow St Andrews alumnae and more importantly, one of them was my room-mate from that apartment back in St Andrews.

First Advent Weekend & Thanksgiving Impressions

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Are you excited about the next 23 days?
I got back from the US last Monday and as always I have surprised myself at how bad I am at adjusting to having to get up 6 hours earlier when I don't have the sun shining in my face at 6 in the morning.
This time I decided to put the spare time at night to good use and for the first time in as long as I can remember I have finished writing my Christmas cards and my Christmas shopping before people even got around to lighting the first candle on their Advent wreath. 
Here is what mine looks like this year (I was just told off by Judith that it's not a proper one because it has no candles, but you'll see where I got the idea for this year's theme from later)

Sorry about the really bad colours...but my camera really doesn't like the light spots in my flat....

I thought it would be fun to give you a peek of what I was up to for my belated summer holiday :). I spent a week in DC and Williamsburg, Va. You have no idea how amazing it was to see so many lovely people I get to seen nowhere near enough. Oh, and then I kinda fell in love with Williamsburg (it's like St Andrews but with less rain, a Williams Sonoma and places selling hot apple cider in the streets...I think I went to the wrong university)

How how cute is this place?!?!?

 I have become somewhat obsessed with Christmas wreaths...

 Colonial roosters at Jamestown Settlement

Yes, your plants can have their own tipi, too

©Kathleen Dowling

 Lovelovelove this hat, as you can see in the top right corner of the picture you can also use it as a basket...

Fakesgiving Impressions

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Since I will be spending Thanksgiving with my amazing friend Kathleen and her family, rather than having a dinner with friends on Thanksgiving or the next day (much easier when you're coordinating people who don't get Thanksgiving off work) I had a few friends over for dinner last weekend.
I think apart from last year's party which was small because my suitcase and I had arrived in Berlin the day before this must have been the smallest Thanksgiving-related get-together I've ever hosted.
And it was lovely.

My neighbours helped me with some most of the cooking which was quite impressive because I hadn't expected that you could cook in my teeny-tiny kitchen as a group. I had assumed that you would just be in each other's way all the time. But I shouldn't have worried.
What else could I tell you?

I still don't like rubbing butter under a chicken's skin. I think I already told you last year but I had hoped that it would be one of those things that get easier after the first time.
Yeah, that didn't happen....perhaps next year's party will be totally vegetarian. Who knows. I'm pretty sure people liked it though, because the two pieces of chicken you can see were the only two pieces leftover.

I put too much stuff on my plate so I couldn't actually fit any chicken on there in the beginning...I really need to work on that. That's what happens if everything looks too good :)

Oh, and the glass with a red drink you can see in this picture? That's homemade cranberry shrub. While it doesn't seem to be the proper translation, for those of you who grew up in Germany - think cranberry flavoured Ahoi Brause. I'll tell you more about this in the next few days.

One more picture? I took this the next day because I didn't manage to take any semi-nice pictures of the pie in the evening. But here's one of the pies :)

I hope you have a lovely rest of your week!

Family Parties

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I don't know about you but I have all those somewhat platonic ideals about what a real summer should be like. 
I can already hear you asking: 'So what constitutes the 'summerness' of a particular summer?'. Well let's start with the bit where I complain - it involves stretches of continuously warm temperatures and a lack of rain. We're definitely not doing well on that front this year. If I get caught in torrential rain one more time this week I'll bite the bullet and get my wax jacket re-waxed. 
But now that I have, once again, complained about the weather, let's talk about the bits that make me feel like I'm experiencing an actual summer.
Another part of my summer-universal involves family barbecues. Not the ones where you sit down with your parents and that's it, but I mean the big family gatherings where you see people you haven't seen well...since last year's barbecue.
The funny thing is I  have one memory of my extended family doing that at some point and I can't have been older than 12 or so. I'm sure there were more occasions but the fact that I don't really have any distinct memories of big family gatherings also suggests that we didn't really have that many.
Moving abroad right after finishing high school probably didn't really help either.


So, why am I actually telling you all of this? 
My parents moved back to their hometown. A town in (sorry...) the middle of nowhere and I must admit most of my memories from when I was younger mostly involve either fog and rain in the fall or a distinct drop in temperature while driving there in the summer. 

I also have memories of eating what felt like kilos upon kilos of blackberries on my grandma's back porch, drinking fresh carrot juice at my other grandma's house, my aunts amazing Black Forest Gateau and walking across the heath to go to this super cute restaurant. But in case you haven't noticed all the positive memories involve food and all the negative things involve things I have on my personal list of 'things I like to complain about'. So I obviously kept remembering all the negative things and forgetting about the good things.
Anyhow, I'm finally getting to the end of this story - the house that was a building-site for pretty much the entirety of the last 6 month is finally more or less habitable (though my mum would probably beg to differ) so my parents decided to throw a housewarming party. And the entire family came. And my parents friends from high school, and my mum's friends from Stuttgart.

Look at the lovely watermelons and cucumber salad that is hiding on my dad's plate!!!


And amidst all the buzz about the food (you gotta love a good potluck), the gorgeous hardwood floors, the kitchen that is simply amazing, and the views of the town castle and whatnot I kept thinking that it had been too long and that I really hope my parents throw another big party like this some time really soon.

And do you want to know the best thing? I even managed to go swimming in an outdoor-pool for the first time this year because I was finally near one when it was warm enough (so apparently it's not always rainy and foggy in the middle of nowhere).


I'll be back in the next few days with a recipe for pickled watermelon rinds. Because you can never have enough watermelon recipes and also because my aunt has instructed me to finally post the recipe :)

Plane-Food

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Has it nearly been a month?
What have you been up to?
Because I have been quite busy. I defended my doctoral thesis, passed (you have no idea how good that part felt), went on a road trip from Atlanta, GA to Naples, FL which turned into thesis-revision-frenzy in the mornings, then I went on a conference, saw some amazing old friends, met some very lovely new people, drove back to Atlanta and got back home this morning.
I would love to give you a recipe but I am still debating whether I should admit to making cupcakes from a cake mix earlier today or not (in my defence - I need birthday cupcakes for tomorrow and supermarkets are closed on Sundays around here so I bought a mix in Atlanta).
So today's post is actually more motivated by my own curiosity.
As we were heading out for brunch yesterday Kelsey, Louise and I were discussing plane-food and what we do on long-haul flights.
You see, I don't like the food on planes so I bring my own (I tried to not eat anything on the entire trip between New York and St Andrews once but that turned out to be a really bad idea).
I wish I could say I am as organised as Heidi from 101 Cookbooks who wrote a couple of amazing posts on what food she packs for flights - here and here and I keep telling myself that one day I will make something amazing to take on the plane. But that day hasn't come yet.
So instead I go down the very-little-effort-so-I-can-waste-more-time-packing route.
Here is what I took on the plane yesterday:

Now, let's see what we've got here
-1 half-eaten cinnamon bun (from Highland Bakery in Atlanta) I had already eaten some of it on my first flight before I thought of taking a picture during my layover. This was supposed to be a late lunch but then I wasn't really hungry and it became dinner.
-1 fruit smoothie (this time it came from Jamba Juice but I'm not really picky here as long as they use actual fruit) which was dinner.
-1 sweet potato biscuit  (from Highland Bakery as well) This was breakfast on the plane this morning.
-1 bottle filled with water because I never feel like they give you enough water on a plane.
-1 bottle of water that gets mixed the the Energy Bubbles (they're from David Kirsch) which I have in the morning with whatever I have for breakfast.
-1 protein bar (this one is a think thin peanut butter something bar) which I packed just in case but didn't eat this time. If I have quite far to go from the airport that tends to be what keeps me awake and happy on the way.

Other things I like to take on planes:
-trail mix
-fruit (but I wasn't organised enough to buy apples and I'm not quite sure bringing peaches would have been a good idea).

Now, here comes the nosey bit - what do you like to eat on planes? Do you just eat what they give you on the plane? Do you pre-order a special meal? Do you bring your own?
I'd love to know!

Home

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I spent the week in Scotland and I am quite scared to describe the feelings I had when I sat on the bus to St Andrews.
Because what it felt like was coming home.
You know the calm and somewhat warm and fuzzy feeling you get when you come home to wherever you call home? Well it was just like that.
I was really surprised by that because I pretty much spent the last 7 years complaining about the cold and the food and the rain and the lack of decent public transport and the weird pick-up-lines guys use :)
Yet, here I was sitting on a smelly bus with a lady who probably should have washed her hair about 5 days ago and all I could think about was how I had missed the place.
Since I am now feeling super nostalgic I have decided to share a few photos with you (old and new...some are from when I first visited St Andrews 8 years ago while trying to work out where and what to study).
I hope you have a fabulous weekend!

©Gerhard Zeiner

Where do you feel at home?

New Apartment

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I know, I have pretty much dropped off the face of the earth. My new apartment that I was supposed to move into the first week of February turned out to not be quite as finished as the builders and my landlords had promised me it would be.
Four weeks of spending more of my time waiting for painters, carpenters, electricians, and chimney sweepers than I have ever before and scrubbing more buckets of dirty water out of my floors than you could imagine possible I thought I could give you a first peek...

You're not going to see any more because Judith and Mimi who helped me with more than I could have ever asked for haven't seen the more or less final product and they need to see the apartment first.

I've still got a long way to go, especially in the kitchen where a refrigerator would turn me into a very happy person, but I can finally see some light at the end of the tunnel :)

I haven't tried out my oven yet, but it's going to happen sooner rather than later.

Right now I'm just excited that I finally have all my crockery and cutlery in one place again.
And that I have more than 5 t-shirts to choose from, and all my shoes, and sweatpants :) all those things you never find enough space in a suitcase for.

What would you not be able to live without if you had to move and knew a lot of your stuff would be stored away in boxes for a few months before you got it back?

Christmas Puke

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I don't like Christmas.

Here, I said it, you're more than welcome to start judging me right now. Don't get me wrong, I like coming home for the holidays

© Kathleen Dowling

spending time with my parents, seeing friends from high-school, quiet advent sundays, making cookies

© Kathleen Dowling

and all that kinda stuff. Ok, and I really like presents :) it doesn't even matter whether I get them or whether I'm thinking about presents for other people - it's presents that's all I care about.

But I hate that it's cold all the time, that it's dark all the time, that I seem to have a cold for 3 months, that people get really stressed out and the thing that gets me the most is all the decoration (don't get me started on the climbing Santas that seem to pop up everywhere) and Christmas markets.

The problem is that my friend Kathleen loves everything Christmas - even the stupid Santas.
So when I moved to Berlin last weekend (yes, I have finally moved) the first thing I did after dropping off my stuff at the flat was go to a Christmas market with Kathleen. Below, you can find some fine specimens of what Kathleen and I call 'Christmas Puke' i.e. everything she loves taking pictures of and I refuse to acknowledge when we go to a Christmas market :) (oh, and if you're wondering they're not all from the same market - no, we do the Kathleen-loving-all-things-Christmas-and-me-complaining-about-the-decoration thing every year...sometimes even multiple times)

© Kathleen Dowling

© Kathleen Dowling

© Kathleen Dowling

© Kathleen Dowling

Ok...even I kinda like the last one.

The reason I am telling you all of this is because I have another confession to make - after spending my life not really liking Christmas, I went to KaDeWe today to look at the Christmas decoration (in my defence, the only other thing I could think of was doing some work).

Kathleen, what have you done to me?!?!?

Anyhow, I hope you have a lovely second advent weekend with lots of cookies or perhaps some nice tea cake. I decided to give the whole cooking/baking thing another go this afternoon and made the Monastery of Angels Pumpkin Bread Louisa wrote about last week and if you had slight addiction problems with the peanut butter & coconut quick bread this summer the way I did, give this one a try, it's going to be a good wintery alternative I think (especially if you use about twice as much cinnamon as the recipe suggests). 

Things I love these days

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So since I'm not really cooking these days and since I have been mainly walking through poster sessions for the last week, how about we talk about some of the things I have been obsessing about lately :) perhaps you'll like some of them as much as I do.

1. I have had this song on repeat lately. There was a slightly embarrassing 24 hours when I rediscovered Nick Lachey in my iTunes library but we're gonna keep that our little secret, right? :)

2. I had a prosciutto sandwich the other day and it had strawberry jam on - and it was amazing! If you try one new flavour combination this year, make it this one!

3. Alex and Patton at East Coast Kitchens have started doing Thanksgiving posts. I can't wait to see what they'll do over the next two weeks.

4. I read Heidi Swanson's recipe for lemony olive oil banana bread earlier this month and mentally earmarked it. That has kinda turned into an obsession - I want to know how it tastes so badly I'm starting to feel like a kid at Christmas. Has anyone tried the cake yet? I think this is going to be the first thing I make once I have settled in in Berlin. And now I'm gonna spend the day thinking about banana bread....

Ok, that turned into a rather short list. I hope you have a fab rest of your week. I might have some exciting photos soon  - I'm going to a wedding in West Virginia this weekend and I have heard great things about the countryside there.

It's been a while

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Hello there, it's been a while, hasn't it?
I know...I could have written about comfort food etc, but if you want the slightly embarrassing truth - I haven't cooked a single meal since my last post.
First I was hiding away from the world writing like a crazy person, then I moved the last 7 years of my life back home, just to hide away from the world a bit more do continue writing - I was at home for 4 weeks and I pretty much only left my room to eat and the house to go running (don't tell anyone, I'm slightly horrified by that part) and now I have been travelling for the last two weeks.
So, you see - no time to cook.
But I thought I could share some photos of the last two weeks with you.
We went on a road-trip through coastal Georgia and Florida because I didn't really see the sun this summer (in case you haven't heard me complain about my summer - I didn't have one - wherever I went it was raining and cold). So where do you go in November to find some sun?

The last time I drove past this sign it was raining like crazy and hadn't really stopped in 3 days. So this was obviously a good sign.
We stopped at The Lady & Sons (I really couldn't not go since I am slightly obsessed by that video of Paula Deen making deep-fried cheesecake)

We went over a gazillion bridges (have I ever mentioned that I love driving over bridges?) and every time I saw one coming up my mum had to get out her camera to take a picture...

We saw 4 lighthouses (and didn't go up a single one)

We went to an orange grove (I love going to orange groves and picking out my own oranges)

My mum had her very first breakfast burrito (that one took some convincing)

We went shelling

And then my mum took embarrassing photos of me in my bikini which you're not gonna see because before anyone ever sees me again in a bikini I'm gonna go on a diet or something...anyhow...lots of fun, lots of writing, and when I get back home in two weeks my suitcase and I are moving to Berlin, but that's a different story...

Dessert-Amazingness

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I made something incredibly amazing for a party my mum had this weekend

It's called Zuccotto and I've decided that this is the dessert you want to make when you're trying to impress your guests. It will take you the better part of a day to make (most of it is waiting for things to cool down or to set though) but all you have to do in the evening is take it out of the fridge, flip it onto a pretty plate and then cover it with cocoa powder - that part sounds like the perfect end to a hectic dinner-party, right?

Oh, and sorry about the not so fabulous photos...I had spent the evening discovering my love for Lillet on ice while doing the dishes and listening to trashy dance music on the radio (cos I'm that cool, you know...).

The only problem right now is that the recipe I made said it was for 12 people. I think whoever wrote the recipe doesn't know how much 12 people will eat. Yes, it will feed 12 if they are your local scout unit or a high-school football team. Otherwise it will not only feed 12 but probably another 12 as well :)
So I've got this great idea - I'll make another one that will be enough for 6 'normal' people. You should probably start stepping up your workout this week anyway, just to be sure...I'll join you on your next run :)