The Chef Not-So-Special: Kitchen Hacks

Come on. Admit it. You’ve never used those things on the grater either. There are more cooking sites on the internet than there are feckless youths like me to actually try out all the recipes. I am completely addicted to all of them. But it’s not the recipes that hook me, or the photos (food porn is exploitative and presents an unrealistic ideal of food to impressionable people), nor is it the bloggers’ jocular little anecdotes (incidentally, is it the law to get pregnant if you write a cooking blog?). No, it’s the weird little things you pick up, the...

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I wonder if revision is detrimental to the kidneys…

Cup of tea no. 134. Of this day. Writing a blog entry after an exam? Wow, now that’s a professional. That’s a real writer. That’s a blogger we want to employ for our television and soup making business, they’ll say. Or maybe not. Either which way, if you deciphered the slightly cryptic previous post, the reason for my absence was the down to my exams FINALLY starting. Thanks to the preposterous system this university insists on keeping going from the early middle ages, my (and most other people’s) final year exams make up the entirety of their degree grade for...

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Craft? I nearly died…

Striped pajama squid earrings and a blue-ringed octopus pendant. Made for a marine biologist, natch. Crafting is my favourite thing. I’ll try anything, from Fimo to glassmaking, basket weaving to soap-making – I love it all, except scrapbooking which is a waste of money and time and shouldn’t be allowed. The wonderful thing is that although the craft scene here is relatively limited (our best craft supplier is Hobbycraft, a place utterly devoid of creative energy or even a single wisp of human cheer) the Americans are ON IT and write thousands of blogs, tutorials and articles every single day...

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Doing the Deutsch

“Hi, can I get a Quorn Bratwurst in a quinoa tortilla please?” “Bugger off.” This is Bratman. (Dunnanunnanunnanunnanunnanunnanunnanunna…) He is the new Bratwurst seller on Cornmarket Street. The only Bratwurst seller on Cornmarket Street. I think probably the only one in the country. This is jarring to those of us who are used to seeing five or ten of these guys on every street corner even at 7am, filling the morning air with the warm, damp, porky mists of the morning Brat. I first encountered Bratman when I was meeting with my German tandem partner who immediately made a beeline...

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Welcome to number 10

I promise, very few blog pictures will be as dull as this one. Every story needs a setting. You, the reader (and I’m going to assume there’s only one of you out there), need to be able to imagine the place where the plot plays out, where your tortured writer sits hunched over her great work with a glass of absinthe and definitely not a Tunnocks marshmallow teacake but something much more bohemian. I thought I would use this first reunion post to set the scene and give you the ‘Monica’s apartment’ locale for the next few months’ worth of...

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I’m back, baby!!!

Neutral image as nothing visual is happening now. Internet, I’m sorry. I tried to keep this thing going for a while, but everything got a bit wild for a while and I just lost sight of what was really important in life. Namely, writing inane and verbose blog entries three times a week. I have missed it, and Guten Morgen Berlin I have missed you too. Yes, I’m not in Berlin anymore, but you were my first blog and my One True Blog. So I’m coming back to you. I’m going to be in a committed writelationship with you from...

Tschüssi!

‘Japanese sector’ is of course a metaphor for a new blog. The mountain is a metaphor for other mountains. This blog has had a rather tragic dénouement. Like all other blogs, it suddenly and disappointingly faded into silence the minute I left Berlin and realised that from the year of chaos I had waded through I was completely, utterly, head-over-heels knackered. I spent the last three months in duvets. Yes, it’s no longer Guten Morgen Berlin but Auf Wiedersehen Berlin. Wiedersehen is a given at any rate, as every day the thought of wandering down Simon-Dach-Strasse or crunching on a...

Coda

“Parker, I need some kinda sentimental-type picture for the front cover by noon, you know, kittens or kites or that kinda crap. Get on it kid!” *repositions giant cigar between teeth* It’s been a week since I came back to my family home after ten months in Germany. I can honestly say that a week is all it has taken to wish I was back there. Of course I miss the people I have found there and the place tremendously; odds are, there are some of you reading this and if you are one of those I was lucky enough...

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Look before you Leip

“I am Goethe! Look upon me and tremble, future German students!” On Wednesday morning of my last week in Germany I rose early, packed my bag, bought myself a breakfast pretzel and within an hour was on the train to Leipzig. I had the chance to visit the city because a few weeks earlier I had been at a concert and got to know a girl who just so  happened to be the girlfriend of a guy in the band (yeah, like I just am too cool fo’ skule). She was visiting from Leipzig where she lives in an opulent...

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