The Taste of Summer

Indroducing this new category, I want to share my favorite vegetarian and vegan summer recipes.

Watermelon Salad with Feta Cheese and Mint

  

Feta cheese and watermelon seem to be an odd combination, but trust the chef: The salty and sweet flavors go very well together.

• cubed seedless watermelon
• juice of one lemon
• chopped fresh mint leaves
• salt and pepper
• crumbled Feta cheese 

 Combine all ingredients, enjoy.

Spicy Corn-Coconut-Soup with Lime (vegan)

 

• one can of corn (435 grams/ 15 oz)
• two scallions
• three garlic cloves
• some olive oil
• crushed red pepper (I always use pul biber)
• some salt
• 550 ml vegetable broth 
• 200 ml coconot cream
• one lime
• parsley or cilantro (optional)

Put the thinly sliced scallions and the pressed garlic into a sauce pan with hot olive oil. Add the corn and let it brown a little bit, then season with salt and pul biber. Add the vegertable broth and coconut cream, cook for ten minutes. Purée the soup with an immersion blender. Zest the soup with some lime juice and parsley or cilantro. [This recipe is taken from Tim Mälzer's Greenbox]

Zucchini-Spaghetti Carbonara Style (vegan)

• 100 grams (3.5 oz) white almond butter
• half a bunch of parsley
• 160 grams (2.6 oz) of smoked tofu
• one onion
• one garlic clove
• one tablespoon lemon juice
• lemon zest
• five zucchini
• some olive oil

Blend almond butter with 240 ml of water. Chop the parsley and cut the tofu into tiny cubes. Heat the olive oil in a pan, then stir-fry the tofu, minced onions and garlic for a couple of minutes. Add the lemon zest, almond milk, lemon juice an parsley - let the sauce thiken. Prepare the zucchini-spaghetti by using a spiral slicer (my favorite kitchen tool!). Mix them with a hint of oil and and heat them in a pan, then add the sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste. [I slightly changed Attila Hildmann's favorite recipe which has also become one of my favorites]

Veggie-Quinoa-Chickpea-Salad (vegan)

• two zucchini
• two bell peppers (whichever color you prefer)
• some dried tomatos
• mint
• 60 grams (2.2 oz) quinoa
• one can of chickpeas
• dried italian herbs
• juice of one lemon 
• some olive oil
• pepper and salt

Roast the veggies in a pan. Cook the quinoa for about ten minutes (use about 2 1/2 times as much water than quinoa), then let it simmer for another five minutes until all water is soaked up. Mix quinoa, vegetables, rinsed chickpeas and dried tomatos. Let it cool down a little bit, then add the lemon juice and some olive oil (optional, the salad might be already oily enogh depending on how much oil you used for roasting them). Season with pepper and salt as well as some dried herbs (I love this mixture).

Lentil Bolognese Sauce (vegan)

• 60 grams (2.2 oz) of red lentils
• two cans whole peeled tomatos
• some vegetable broth
• three celery stalks
• three large carrots
• some tomato paste
• one onion
• one garlic clove
• some olive oil
• dried italian herbs
• fresh basil 
• salt and pepper
• parmesan (if you're not a vegan)

First add the minced onion and garlic to the hot oil, add the sliced vegetables, then stir-fry everything with the red lentils for another minute and combine with canned tomatoes, tomato purée and let it cook for about 20 minutes, add vegetable broth when it starts to thiken. Season with salt, pepper and herbs. Tastes best with whole grain pasta. Top with cheese.

Homemade Pomgranate-Lime-Mint-Lemonade

• two limes
• juice of one lemon
• pomegranate syrup
• mint
• soda water
• ice cubes

Cut the limes into quarters, put them into a glass und crush them with a spoon or pestle. Add the syrup, lemon juice, mint, ice cubes and water. Cheers!

Stopptaste gedrückt

Jan Delay ist "pissed". Er sagt es zwar mit dieser typisch hanseatischen Gleichgültigkeit in der Stimme, doch er ist wirklich, wirklich pissed. Das hier sollte richtig "fett" werden: Der Große Auftritt. Der letzte Act auf der großen Bühne sollten sie an diesem Festivaltag auf dem Cannstatter Wasen werden, das große Finale. Doch jetzt sollen sie plötzlich Lückenbüßer sein. Der Wu-Tang Clan steht im Stau - steckengeblieben irgendwo zwischen Biarritz, wo der Klan als Headliner bei einem anderen Festival dabei war, und Stuttgart. "Aber wir haben doch extra die flashigen Lichter mitgebracht", näselt es aus den riesigen Boxen an der Bühne. Und jetzt ist es doch noch hell. Doch die Beginner sind Profis. 

"Profis" sind auch Blumentopf. Seit 1992 machen sie gemeinsam Musik und, dass sie an diesem Tag schon um kurz nach 14 Uhr auf die Bühne sollen, macht ihnen nichts aus. Zumindest erzählen sie das dem Mann von der Stuttgarter Zeitung. Kein Platz für Eitelkeiten. Aber auch kein Platz für "flashige Lichter" oder ein Bühnenbild. Die Profis machen das, was sie können: Intelligenten Hip Hop - "Studentenrap" - ein bisschen Freestyle und weg sind sie wieder. Weiter geht's zum nächsten Festival.

Ihn "Studentenrapper" zu nennen wäre zumindest fachlich falsch, eine Uni hat er nie besucht: "Was macht man ohne Abi? Schauspiel studieren", rappt Materia in "Endboss". Das Publikum rappt jede Zeile mit, auch die folgenden - und nie waren sie passender: "Dreißig Grad, ich kühl mein' Kopf /Am Fensterglas auf dem Zeitlupenknopf/Wir leben immer schneller, feiern zu hart". Doch noch schneller als die lila Wolken steigt plötzlich grüner Rauch auf. Marsimoto kommt: Materias Alter Ego, der Außerirdische mit einer Stimme als hätte er das gesamte Sortiment eines Luftballonverkäufers auf dem Rummelplatz aufgekauft und geatmet.

Parallel zu dem, was auf den beiden Bühnen geht, messen sich Freestyler in einem kleinen Zelt und bekommen mächtig Respect dafür. Sie sind mit ihren Crews gekommen aus Freiburg, Mainz und anderswo und hören auf wohlklingende Namen wie die "Flowristen".

 

Doch  so richtig derbe wird es erst mit Ferris MC. Er hat nur die kleine Bühne und 30 Minuten, aber das Reimemonster weckt bei den von der Hitze erschöpften Fans alle Kräfte. Der Boden des Reitstadions wird aufgewirbel. Ferris braucht keinen grünen Rauch. Ferris hat einen Sandsturm in der schwäbischen Hauptstadt ausgelöst.

Sie alle sind wegen dem hier, was er macht. "Schönen guten Abend meine Damen und Herren

wir machen Rapmusik verdammt wir hören sie auch gern" - das war 1999. Das ist jetzt. Materias Zeitlupenknopf ist vielmehr eine Stopptaste, die sie alle gedrückt halten wollen. Zehn Jahre zurück. Ferris hat nichts Neues im Gepäck. Die Beginner kündigen seit geraumer Zeit ein neues Album an, desses Veröffentlichung immer und immer wieder verschoben wird.

Als die acht Rapper des Wu-Tang Clans schließlich lustlos auf der Bühne stehen und alle gleichzeitig ins Mikro schreien, hat man urplötzlich das Gefühl, tatsächlich in der Steinzeit des Hip Hop angekommen zu sein, und auch das Video zu "Gravel Pit" ergibt plötzlich einen Sinn.

Die Stopptaste steht auf 2003. Damals hatten die Beginner schon "Gustav Gans" ("Wozu der ganze Schwermut?/ Hör' lieber zu / Blick nach vor'n und fühl dich sehr gut!") dem Weck-mich-bitte-auf-aus-diesem-Alptraum von Samy Deluxe entgegengesetzt. Mit knuffigen Tieren im Video und auf der Tour. Die sind auch auf dem Hip Hop Open 2013 der Höhepunkt. Eigentlich doch gar nicht so anders als das "Easy" und "Whatever" vom Pandarapper Cro, den die Kids in ihr Herz geschlossen haben... "Die heutigen Künstler sind verwirrt, kopflos. Hip-Hop ist eine Musikrichtung, die kann nicht altern", sinnierte Rolling Stone-Redakteur Ralf Niemczyk in einem Gespräch mit Stephan Szillus,  Chefredakteur der Juice, in der Augsburger Allgemeinen, in dem die beiden der Frage nachgingen: "Was kann Hip Hop heute?"

...
Kopflos, verwirrt und doch alles easy - weiter lesen auf Augsburger-Allgemeine: http://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/panorama/Kopflos-verwirrt-und-doch-alles-easy-id21862611.html

Kopflos, verwirrt und doch alles easy - weiter lesen auf Augsburger-Allgemeine: http://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/panorama/Kopflos-verwirrt-und-doch-alles-easy-id21862611.html

Ferris MC wird dieses Jahr 40, auch die Mitglieder von Blumentopf bewegen sich in diesem Alter, und dann kommen die Beginner. Doch auf der Bühne steht die Zeit still. Dieser Beginner-Auftritt ist absolut kein Neubeginn. Der stilisierte Fuchs, das Logo der Band, wacht noch immer über dem allen. Schließlich schleicht an diesem heißen Sommertag die Sonne doch noch in Richtung Horizont, die Wolken werden rosa und die Lichter auf der Bühne leuchten bunt. Jan Delay grinst. Richtig "flashig" die Lichter und die ganzen Leute und so. Als die Sonne untergegangen ist, müssen sie Platz für den Wu-Tang Clan machen. Doch zumindest hier hat Jan Delay das letzte Wort: "Das war fett!"

Rhine Romanticism

I have never been to the Oktoberfest. And I have no intention whatsoever to go there. Every time I say those two sentences to people from abroad who had just told me that they "Totally want to visit Germany... to go to the Oktoberfest", the reaction is sheer disbelief. And then they go: "So, where else should I go ??" And this is always the moment when I have to think hard and where I realize that I've traveled many beautiful places but that most of them weren't in my home country.

This last weekend, I made a real excursion which felt all touristy even though the place we went is just a couple of kilometers away from Mainz where I live. And although I've been there before (as a kid) and although I used to work - and will work again soon - in Bingen, which is just on the other side of the Rhine river, it felt all new and exciting. Maybe it was because of the fact that our tour started with the most touristic means of transportation I can think of: An aerial tramway.

Starting in Rüdesheim, we where floating over a landscape of vineyards up to the top.

Destination: Niederwalddenkmal. A  monument commemorating the end of the Franco-Prussian war.

On top of the Niederwald Hill it somehow feels like you are thrown back in time - sowhere at the beginning of the 19th century. When poets and thinkers traveled there and got some inspiration for their romantic poetry, their ballads, and gothic tales.

 

We drank a glass of wine on the foot of this enormous monument and started our hike to Assmannshausen.

 

We came across a hunting lodge and the Zauberhöhle ("magic cave") - including a short walk through a tunnel in complete darkness. People used to have such a stunning view down the Rhine river valley  at the end of this tunnel that they actually felt like being enchanted. Today, big trees obstruct the vista. But there are still plenty of picture opportunities along the way, spotting the castles which are seaming the river.

We had lunch at the riverside. "What goes up must come down"... but also the other way round...which is even more exhausting when it's a hot summer day and you just filled your belly to the top.

Back in Rüdesheim, walking through the famous Drosselgasse (according to wikipedia, about three million people vistit this small alley every year), I really felt like being on vacation:

How come that there are such fun getaway opportunities just in front of our doors, but most often we don't cherish the beauty of what is around us? No Australian would take millions of pictures of kangaroos, no one who is living in the Caribbean actually understands how it feels to see pristine beaches for the first time. Do we get blindfolded by our brains which only detect what is new and different as outstanding?

I'm still convinced that there is no need to visit the Oktoberfest. Convince me of the contrary.

Upside down Down Under

"What's that up there in the tree?", we asked each other when we looked up because one of us had heard a strange sound from above.

It looked like many small, black trash bags somebody had hung in the branches.
But they moved. They unfolded. And tiny furry heads popped up - or rather down. It took a moment until we realized that we had just disturbed a pack of flying foxes during their daytime sleep.

 

They looked at us with their big black eyes. They started being really noisy as if they were complaining and telling their mates how rude it was of us to just stand there and stare at them. But we stared in awe. 

 

 They were yawning, taking a stretch, opening their wings, closing them again. 

 

I realized that I might have been preoccupying myself too much with the vampire genre (except those books where the pale and blood-loving fellows turn all glittery in sunlight!) when I caught myself  being surprised that they don't turn into dust, although some of them decided to spread their wings in broad daylight and fly away with the eerie sounds of leathery wings hectically moving, their see-through-skin showing every vein and every bone.

  

Even though they look like tiny vampires or at least like winged carnivores, like their name flying fox already suggests, they are vegetarians. This is why they are also called "fruit bats"(or "megabat" - which sounds much more intimidating...). They just love fruit, nectar, pollen, blossoms and are essential for the vegetation of the tropics: They pollinate blossoms and tranport seeds. They also do not possess echolocation which helps their smaller relatives, so-called microbats, to locate they prey.

 

And then - like petite vampire capes - after spreading their membrane skinned "arms" widely, they closed their wings tightly, wrapping themselves up like Count Dracula would do before disappearing. I even had the impression that they were cunningly smiling before they disappeared inside their own bodily shield, inside their very own sleeping bags.

Brisbane Cityscapes

 

It's the contrast that intrigues me. It's an architectural clash. Just a couple of steps away from Brisbane's impressive city hall with its dome-shaped roof, Albert Street Uniting Church seems to crane its neck to reach the sky above with its spire - but in vain. The neighboring buildings are already scraping the sky. The time where churches where the tallest buildings of a town are over: Huge office buildings have outgrown this once so sublime edifice with its red walls and shiningly white peak.  Like landscapes, cityscapes are constantly changing. There are ongoing tectonic processes. In a city like Brisbane which is a mere 200 years old and where wars hadn't destroyed the town's face you don't have to dig deep. All architectural layers are next to each other. 

Remembrance and future are standing side by side. Like this WW II memorial on Anzac Square next to a tourist accommodation.

Glass facades are mirroring the past. Statues seem like shadows.

 

While the sun is silently setting, the colors of the sky let the buildings bath in pink light.

 

When the sun is almost gone, before it is completely swallowed by the night, "Brissie" starts to look futuristic and romantic at the same time. It definitely is a city of contrasts.

21.0975 kilometers

It all started on my birthday. I was just working on an article about New Year’s resolutions when I got an email from my co-worker-friend Olaf. Subject: “Are you up for a half-marathon?” 

“Happy Birthday again! There are still free spots in our team!  What are you saying??? Quick!!!”

My immediate response: “Nope. I’m way too unfit. Never ran more than 12 kilometers.”

“Oh man. Just try it!!!”

Olaf aka "waving guy", next to him Carina, the only one in our group who did the whole marathon in an amazing time! (3:40:00!!)

 
It followed a very persuasive phone call which included key words like “fun”, “team spirit”, “good for you” etc. and the promise that he will cook a delicious birthday meal for me including many, many carbs which will make me run and run and run…

  

So I said yes and regretted my decision in the exact same second.

This changed as soon as training began in February. Exactly twelve weeks before the Gutenberg Marathon, our company team met for the very first time at the sports field after work. We already had a kick-off-event a couple of days before where our personal trainer Karsten and his team gave us some basic information about what they planned to do with us those upcoming weeks. We had already learned that the Jack Daniel’s training program had nothing to do with consuming alcoholic beverages (boo!), but that it was rather a system of finding our ideal pace by determining our  so-called “VDOT values” – it still surprises me how accurate this technique actually is.

This was serious. Our running group  - which consisted of readers of our paper who won their spots as well as co-workers on all levels -  met once a week for two hours. The other three to four training sessions per week we had to do on our own. And this winter was cold and it was long. Very long. There was a lot of snow. But we did it.

The big day came closer and closer. Just two weeks before the race I felt pain in my hip and couldn’t walk properly anymore. Our trainer suspected that my sacroiliac joint was blocked. He promised that he will do everything he can so that everybody will be able to participate and – of course – to reach his or her best results possible. So he sent me to a physical therapist and showed me some workout routines to lessen the pain.

The big day came. When I opened the blinds Sunday morning, I felt like crying: It wasn’t raining, it was pouring – and it was cold. All Saturday I was excited and nervous. Afraid of the masses of people (about 9,500, although only a bit more than 7,000 actually participated because of the weather), and anxious that the pain would return.

When I heard the starter’s gun I stopped thinking, I just ran – continuously and steadily. The rain had stopped. And I actually started to enjoy it right away: The cheering people, the brass and drum groups playing at the side of the road. When the route got less exciting I just concentrated on the music from my headphones and looked forward to the voice feedback of “runtastic”. I got and got more and more relaxed when the artificial female voice told me my pace at every kilometer mark.

I passed the Mainzer Dom, our big cathedral, ran through the narrow streets of old town. When I passed the “magic mark” with the intimidating number “18” I took a deep breath: During training this was the farthest I had run. The woman in my ear said something like “one hour, 40 minutes” and I knew that I can do it. I kept running. When I saw the finishing arch appear at the horizon I started smiling. “This air bubble right here, it’s gonna make me fly” said Macklemore’s younger self in my ear and although I did not even wear shoes with a swoosh on it, it almost felt like it. At kilometer 17 Papa Roach shouted at me and Brandon Flowers kept telling me: “Run baby, run, run”.  Maybe it was the music, maybe it was the beetroot juice or how serious I took the “carboloading” part…First of all it was the professional training and the team spirit which let me finish my first half-marathon.

I always hated competitions. But this time I challenged myself. 

The medal which they hung around my neck behind the finish line is in fact the first one I ever got.  

Is it still the adrenaline that I do not feel very sore? Maybe it’s just the beetroot juice… Not so delicious - oh, by the way: Olaf hasn't delivered on his promise yet!

The Definition of "Truth"

"Why are facts so hard to fit into a lyric sentence?" – Wayne Koestenbaum

Speaking of oppositions… these two men could not be more apart when it comes to defining the boundaries of “literary nonfiction” and the concept of essay writing: John D’Agata and Jim Fingal.  An essayist and teacher of creative writing at the University of Iowa versus a professional fact checker. 

However, a seven-year dispute between the two of them actually led to a collaboration: The Lifespan of a Fact. In the blub the book is called an “eye-opening meditation on the relationship between ‘truth’ and ‘accuracy’”. But it is more of a full-blown discussion: An outspoken one, in which D’Agata and Fingal quickly turn into adversaries, pleading for their cause. D’Agata wants to tell a story, his story – and Fingal wants him to tell it right, because it is a story which actually happened in real life. It is the story of Levi Presley.

It is the story of a sixteen-year-old boy who jumped off the observation deck of the 1,149-foot high tower of Stratosphere Hotel in Las Vegas. The language D’Agata uses to tell his readers about this suicide is a very lyrical one: allusions, rhythm, metaphors – all this is very important to him whose essay therefore quickly develops a certain tone. But Fingal’s job is to check if those beautiful words are also true. 

The Lifespan of a Fact started in 2003 when Harper’s Magazine which first commissioned the essay rejected it because of “factual inaccuracies”. In 2005, a magazine called The Believer decided to publish the article after having it fact-checked by Jim Fingal. The book which is based on the emails exchanged between author and fact checker was not published earlier than in 2012. 

The book's layout reveals how animated this discussion via email must have been: In the middle of every page, there is the “core”, the discussion’s basis, snippets from the essay – and all around it there are Fingal’s comments: Printed in alarming scarlet letters when D’Agata has again “violated the rules of journalistic integrity”. Example?

“We therefore know that when Levi Presley jumped from the tower of the Stratosphere Hotel at 6:01:43 p.m. – eventually hitting the ground at 6:01:52 p.m. – there were over a hundred tourists in five dozen cars that were honking […]”

Fingal: “Factual Dispute: […] According to the Coroner’s Report, Levi Presley’s fall supposedly only took eight seconds”

D’Agata: “I needed him fall for nine seconds rather than eight in order to make some later themes in the essay work […] I began thinking about ways that the number nine could play a thematic role in the essay”

Fingal: “It would ‘ruin’ it to make it more accurate?”

D’Agata: “Yup.”

In their conversation, D’Agata states very clearly right from the beginning that “I have no interest in pretending to be a reporter or in producing journalism”. However, Fingal’s job is to check how accurate his descriptions really are.

D’Agata: “This is an essay, so journalistic rules don’t belong here.”

Fingal: “I’m not sure if it’s going to be quite that easy.”

It is not. It takes 123 pages for them to discuss the matter, Fingal finding “Factual Disputes” and D’Agata justifying them. Fingal wants D’Agata to prove simply everything he writes which can be very annoying. The Lifespan of a Fact  really makes you think – and it ceases with a very surprising end. 

So we learn that essayism is not journalism.  That nonfiction can be also a work of art. But what about reportage? Is it allowed to write, for example, that somebody smiled while saying something, although the writer cannot prove this as a fact or cannot even really remember, although it would make the story much more vivid, enjoyable, touching? What do we really know and what is it that we assume while telling a story? 

The idea of a binary opposition of journalism and literature has been fascinating me for quite a while now. I dug deep into this subject when I worked on my master’s thesis in German Studies where I went back in time and worked with texts of so-called “poet-journalists” at the beginning of the 20^th century – a time where this clear-cut distinction between literature and journalism did not exist yet.

I have to admit that I had no idea that the occupation of a full-time fact checker exists in Germany as well.  I was even more surprised when I learned that according to the Columbia Journalism Review, Der Spiegel “is home to what is most likely the world’s largest fact checking operation employing the equivalent of eighty full-time fact checkers as of 2010.”

Isn’t it even more surprising considering that in 2010, René Pfister’s “Am Stellpult”, an article about Bavaria’s governor Horst Seehofer, was published in this exact same magazine? Pfister had been awarded one of the most renowned journalistic distinctions in Germany, the Egon-Erwin-Kisch-Preis, for this story. But the jury withdrew the prize after Pfister was asked if he had really been to Seehofer’s house and seen his model railroad with his own eyes. He had to deny, he just told the story how he thought it could have been.  (Btw: The prize for the best reportage is named after the infamous “Rasende Reporter”, the roving reporter, Egon Erwin Kisch, a man who also took some liberties with “truth” from time to time…)

I want to close with John D’Agata’s definition of “essay”: “Even etymologically ‘essay’ means ‘an attempt.’ And so, as a writer of essays, my interpretation if that charge is that I try – that I try – to take control of something before it is lost entirely to chaos.”

It is the opposite of loss … again.