Resolution for the Not So New Year

I have committed a crime.

Since I have been back at school I have officially been the worst blogger ever. School work, plus not cooking all the time because of other time commitments has made me a blogging-slacker. But the good news is, I miss blogging and I want to blog and I miss the blogging community! So it’s my new resolution!

I have come up with lots of recipes that I want to share, but first and foremost:

I went home a week ago and we had Raclette. If you don’t know what Raclette is, you need to travel to Switzerland and try it. It’s not particularly healthy, so be prepared for a mini heart attack when you look at these pictures. It comes from Switzerland and you only eat it once or twice a year when it is really cold outside. I love it because you cook all of your food yourself and you sit at the table for a long time and no one rushes up to leave or go somewhere.

You put the cheese on the bottom in the little shovel until it bubbles and then you grill whatever you want on the top! My parents had filet and I had some shrimp. My favorite is also pineapple. Once the cheese is done you put it on a potato and eat! I like to make towers with pineapple or peppers or mushrooms. The combinations may sound weird, but they are oh so delicious!

And we had that with a wonderful German white wine:

But I’m getting ahead of myself. When I arrived home on Friday afternoon my mom greeted me with lunch from one of my favorite restaurants in Charlotte: Upstream. If you live in Charlotte and haven’t been, I highly recommend it (especially for lunch). I always either get the Salmon Bento Box or Vegetable “Toban Yaki.” I usually ask for it minus the pasta and with extra vegetables. It also comes with rice, so I only need one side of carbs!

It usually doesn’t have tofu, so it surprised me a little, but every time it’s a little different. Usually it has mushrooms, water chestnuts, fennel, some type of bean, tomatoes…you name it and it’s probably in there!

When I got back to school, I stocked up on grapefruit and other citrus-y goodness. I cannot go a breakfast in the winter without grapefruit. Oatmeal for some, grapefruit for others!

What are everyone’s superbowl plans? My roommate is a Packers fan, so she is rooting for them, and so far so good…but let’s be honest, it’s only the first quarter. I for one, not the biggest football fan myself, enjoyed Lea Michele singing at the beginning! (But I’m not sure how I felt about Christina Aguilera’s hair… thoughts?)

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie…

Does anyone else ever have the urge to pick up a book you LOVED as a child and just read it again? Two books that I will always love: 1) If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and 2) Guess How Much I Love You. Then when I was a little bit older I read Every. Single. One. of the Baby-Sitters Little Sister books. Aka the “Karen Books” as I liked to call them. I wanted to be Karen. I already had the blond/red hair, so I asked for some red-rimmed glasses (I don’t even wear glasses or contacts) for my birthday and wore my ponytail to the side for a long, long time. As you can imagine, it was a pretty influential phase in my life.

Do you have any favorite childhood books?

My breakfast yesterday was absolutely the best.

Overnight oats topped with half of a banana, some raspberries, and trios of bluebs, plus a kiwi, and a peach. I cannot get through the day if I don’t have fruit for breakfast. This was cutting it. At home I’m spoiled because my mom always makes me a whole bowl of fruit, all cut up and ready for me to devour! But at least this way I still have room for overnight oats! I like to mix my oats with just a sprinkle of sunflower seeds, flax seeds, and then of course milk, greek yogurt, cinnamon and some almond butter.

Warning: This is NO NORMAL ALMOND BUTTER. It is the best stuff I have EVER eaten. If you ever see it, don’t buy it. Not only is it technically not affordable, but it is so delicious that it will last you, oh, I don’t know, two days a week? It is organic White Almond Butter. It is a little bit less bitter because it doesn’t include the brown skin of the almond, and is perfect to drizzle on my over night oats. But definitely lethal…

Just looking at that pic makes me crave some. I seriously can never have normal almond butter again!

I had a very successful morning drawing in my notes during class, but at least I culturally expanded my horizons by biking to the Pergamonmuseum (8.4 miles approx) and looking at art and sculptures from ancient Greece and Roam and the Ancient Near East. Lot’s of things I learned about in art history! That always makes it more exciting! For those who are planning a visit to the Pergamonmuseum, don’t miss specifically the Ishtar Gate and the Pergamonaltar, but of course there are also many other other great artifacts and statues! And even the small Islamic Art museum is worth a visit. I was very impressed! (My camera battery died, so I had to take cellphone pics… sorry for the bad quality!)

Pergamonaltar

Ishtar Gate! This blue glaze color looks so beautiful when it’s not taken by a cellie camera!

From the Islamic museum: they often use this beautiful blue color in their art that I really like!

This guy had my favorite caption: Bearded Man. I guess I can let it pass since he is from 440 BC…

I was very excited because on my way home from class earlier that morning I spotted a market with freshly picked strawberries!

And a good sign of perfectly ripe strawberries is when the little stem comes out of the middle!

Perfection!

So, with my newly acquired loot, I spent my late afternoon catching up with a friend and drinking a refreshing Fruehlings Bowle (not so accurate translation: Spring Punch)—White wine with strawberries! Very tasty! I use my favorite white wine: a dry wine from Portugal called Vinho Verde. Love it. It has a little bit of a sparkle to it, which adds to its refreshing taste.

Do you have a fav summertime drink?

Before dinner I had a wonderful video chatting date with one of my best friends from home! It’s always lovely to see a friendly face! We have known each other since pre-kindergarten days and have lived on the same street since first grade! For dinner I had a repeat of last nights curry chicken with a few spoons of my fave almond butter for desert. I need to stop buying it! Tonight USA plays Algeria and Germany plays Ghana. Crucial game for Germany! If we win, there will be a grand celebration!