Starting the Christmas party a little early. The N95 will go straight to the top of the tree this year.
Been awhile since I’ve been able to put these ski goggles to good use, but safety first when you’re chopping a billion onions for Zwiebelkuchen / savory German onion pie! This is the perfect meal for a rainy, cold Fall evening, served of course with fresh, still-fermenting Federweißer “wine.”
Berlin is kinda burning right now, so I’m going to start this Monday under a protective blanket of green.
Bikepacked 106km today from Bamberg to Rothenburg, 28/82 degree hot weather, mostly felt like a long and gradual uphill through gorgeous green countryside and quaint villages with crooked, colorful half-timber homes - until the ride became ALL ass-kicking uphill at the end just as my legs started dying. 2200 calories burned in 5 hrs, but who’s counting? 😂 That Radler afterwards was the best-tasting adult beverage I’ve had at least since yesterday!
It feels like the world is on fire right now and 2020 needs to just go away already, but for perspective, the Devil’s Cave is a kuhjillion years old and these magnificent dripstones and bones are 250,000 years old and 30,000 years old respectively.
Translation, basically: Hey kids, here’s this tasty Jurassic ice cream cone, but only for looking. Do not eat!
Giving the term ‘bikepacking’ a whole new meaning today by loading everything directly into a rented SUV. Franken, here we come!
Here’s a throwback to the first bikepacking trip of the summer, which included my first public transport ride since Coronatimes to get out of the city, a beautiful and sunny ride north to Ellbogensee (~100km from Berlin), of course setting up our tent during a storm, drying off to rainbow views of the lake at sunset, 2-person kayaking that somehow magically didn’t end up in “divorce”, excellent work on my sunburn lines, and 2 nights in a row of wild boar schnitzels and canal views on the nearby hotel’s terrace. Can’t wait to get back out there!
We are not allowed to meet with people outside our household these days, and we’ve been stuck at home for 2+ weeks at this point, but for sanity’s sake, my neighbor-bestie and I shared a cocktail in the cold at a safe distance. We’ll take what we can get!
For this Sunday lunch, I attempted to recreate this incredible meal enjoyed over the Christmas holiday in Trapani: Handmade busiata pasta with eggplant cream, toasted pine nuts, garlic, ricotta salata, mint, sautéed cherry tomatoes and sea scallops (alternative to the swordfish we had in Trapani) = Amazingness. Sicilian home cooking! Don’t you wish you came over for Sunday lunch?
Copenhagen: Where pastries are so tasty, even bakeries are sweating calories! Watch out.
For sure, the Greeks chose some prime real estate in Sicily for their temple-building 2500 years ago. Greetings from Parco Archeologico di Selinunte in Sicily!
Wow, what an experience! I visited the Grotta Mangiapane in Custonaci in Sicily, which are caves inhabited since pre-historic times. People lived in this hamlet until the 1950s. At Christmas every year, the nativity scene is performed here, and local people demonstrate trades and crafts in the small houses. If you’re curious about an authentic Sicilian experience, this is not to be missed.
We’ll just go ahead and title this one, “Other tourists getting in the way of my perfect ‘atmosphere’ shots, which have already been done a million times by said other tourists.”
Confirmed: Santa is real – and apparently Scottish – and is on his way to Berlin for some holiday Glühwein and Lebkuchen. Dancer and Prancer must be on strike.
I’m sitting in a dark old bar, named after a dirty old drunk writer/poet, loving his words but hating the man, enjoying an unexpectedly good meal of butternut squash goat cheese risotto and pork belly - and, not surprisingly, the drinks are creative and go down way too easy. Indeed I could hardly escape from The Great Escape: Banana spiced rum, briotette banana, chili, lime, whites! Thanks to Chinaski’s in Glasgow, inspired by Bukowski.
Free entry on Tuesdays, this botanical garden at the Glyptoteket is one of the most magical – and affordable – places in Copenhagen to spend the afternoon.