Oh! Bergines! - #506

 

Recipes appearing to be in great demand these days,  here's mine for Caviar d'aubergine, the delectable dip that you'll find on every market in the Provence and elsewhere

Preheat the oven to 180ºC, cut a couple of aubergines lengthwise, slash the skin and rub them with olive oil.

Pop in the oven for about 45 minutes or until they're soft and cooked.

Scoop out the flesh and zap it in the blender with a clove of garlic, a finely chopped spring onion, lemon juice, a good glug of olive oil, salt and pepper. (I bung in a spoonful or 2 of decent mayonnaise, too)

Warm up some flat bead and rip into it.

Contraband - #505

This is the result of the scavenging expedition the other day.

Dead easy and I hasten to add that NO females of the species were involved in the project, from harvesting through to the finished object.

(Got their nosebags on as soon as it had cooled down, though....)

Cherry clafoutis from Bill Granger's excellent "Simply Bill"

Butter, for greasing
250 g cherries, pitted (Couldn't be bothered and no-one's broken a tooth yet..)
4 tablespoons plain (all-purpose) flour
110 grams caster sugar
125 mls milk
185 mls cream
1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
4 eggs
To serve: cream or creme fraiche

METHOD
Preheat oven to 180 C. Grease a 1.5 litre flan dish with butter and dust with a little caster sugar, then arrange the cherries in the dish. Mix the flour and sugar in a bowl, add vanilla and whisk together. Add the eggs and whisk until smooth. Pour over the cherries and bake for 30-35 minutes or until puffed and golden. Serve warm with cream or creme fraiche. Serves 8-10.

This is the life - #504

At the Landesgartenschau in Bingen (Told you you'd be swamped...)

Loungers and chairs sprinkled all around the park.

Just the nicest idea

(Mr Helen would subscribe to that idea - he reckoned that they should put the whole show on a train and drive it past where he was simming with a cold one...) possie

For free - #503

Talk about streets paved with gold.....

Went on a quick 8km stroll before breakfast the other day - up to the top of the hill, across to the Ebersheim boundary, along the ridge towards Nieder-Olm and then down towards the Selz River (Selz Trickle?) and back up through the village.

You could easily feed a family for a week on what's available for picking.
For free. (As Joni would say)

Big blackberry patches - I got over a kilo (about $15 worth) the other day.

Pear trees, apples trees, cherry trees, plum trees scattered through the hedgerows.


Someone probably planted them commercially decades ago, but now they're abandoned and no-one bothers with them.

Here's a tart (or pie) cherry tree, just loaded with fruit.

Cherry clafoutis tomorrow evening....

The Last Harvest - #502

There's been farmland at the top of our village since we moved here 30 years ago.

Crop rotation means that you get annual variations on the sugar beet/grain theme

Not anymore, though.

The council bought the land for a new subdivision.

They'll start growing houses next year, I guess.

Before and after - #501

Toddled off to the Landesgartenschau in Bingen with Ms jb, Helen and Mr Helen yesterday evening (cut-price tickets as from 5pm...)

It's an absolute treat.

Apart from some stunningly designed plantings, the landscape architecture is mind-blowing.


Especially when you think of what they started with - derelict industrial wasteland stuck between the main railway line on the west bank of the Rhine and the river itself.

They've got a series of virtual picture frames set up at intervals along the length (3 km) of the park - the "Before" image positioned immediately below an aperture for the "After" view.

Expect a glut of horticultural images for the immediate future...

500!!!!!

500th Mainz Daily Photo (thanks in part to Helen and Meg for keeping the show on the road during forced absences.)

And seeing as it's an anniversay (that I'm prohibited from mentioning on the MDP forum...), I'll take all the liberties at my disposal and publish something that has NOTHING AT ALL to do with Mainz.

This is our friend Diane from Atlanta who took her niece Marissa and nephew Dominic on a whirlwind "If it's Thursday, we must be in Rome" European trip that took in

Rome
Capri
Venice
London
Dublin (where her cousin, the author Roddy Doyle, lives)
Heidelberg
Frankfurt

in a bit over a week.

We met up with them at a Biergarten yesterday evening.

Nice kids.

And doesn't Aunty look proud......

Ring, ring - #499

The German Nibelungen and the corresponding Old Norse form Niflung (Niflungr) is the name in Germanic and Norse mythology of the royal family or lineage of the Burgundians who settled at Worms.
Source: Wikipedia


It's also (and more obviously) linked with Wagner's epic and it's only appropriate that there's an annual festival in Worms, smack up against the cathedral and directed by Dieter Wedel, an iconic chappy in the top end of the arts scene in Germany.

Central to the whole thing, of course, is the search for the Rheingold - the sunken treasure supposedly on the bed of the  Rhine.

There, is of course, Billy Crash's version of the story. (Met Martin - his real name - last week at the Willy Deville concert, actually. Nicest guy)

And Fred Dagg could tell you a thing or two about opera as well.

What's the story......#498

 

...Morning Glory?

If it's true what they say that weeds are only really VERY successful plants, Convolvulaceae is definitely a weed

And just look what it says here:

The seeds of many species of morning glory contain ergot alkaloids such as the hallucinogenic ergonovine and ergine (LSA). Seeds of I. tricolor and I. corymbosa (syn. R. corymbosa) are used as hallucinogens. The seeds can produce similar effect to LSD when taken in the hundreds.
So that's what took Oasis's fancy, then.....

Really? -#497

OK, as a cyclist I'm meant to stick to the bike tracks.

That much, I get.

Fair enough, too

But am I REALLY meant to walk on the ROAD?

I mean, it's as dangerous as HELL out there...!

Gautor in Mainz.

Going for the ethnic market - #496

I'm sure there's a law against this, but - being lawyers - I suppose they've checked the legality of it all.

I can see their point, though.

Client fronts up, sees the name "Dominiak" and thinks "Hmmm, foreigner. Not quite sure"

Especially if your first name's "Sergei" or "Balyak" or similar.

Simple solution.

Change your name to "German"

Just like Aussie Bruce or Pom Keith.

"Oh, GERMAN Dominiak. A LOCAL. That's OK then"

The chappy at the bottom of the list has his own problems, of course.

Folks turn up in his office, bowing and curtseying, thinking he has regal connections or similar....

Cleanliness is next to....#495

... the Turkish butcher.

Can't find a darn thing about the history of the Neubrunnen Bad in the - yes - Neubrunnenstrasse.

It was probably one of the institutions set up in the 19th century to serve the Great Unwashed, bathrooms and privvies being a rarity at the time.

Houses a sauna these days, but the place has seen better days. Quite tatty insid, in fact.

Suffice to say that it looks a lot flasher from this perspective than it really is.

Be Siena you - #494

The horizontal decorative bands on the Frankfurter Hof in the Altstadt never fail to remind me of the Duomo di Siena.

Thinks: Not plagiarism, by any chance..?

Getting Schott of Wagner - #492

The Gaustrasse's gradually becoming a cluster of Good Places - interesting galleries, good restaurants and still a few hardcore Mainz bars.

If you keep your eyes peeled, you pick up a few gems, too.

The house on the corner of Am Schottenhof and the Gaustrasse was endowed in 1857 to a foundation "For the advancement and cultivation of music" by Franz Philip Schott and his wife Betty, nee von Braunrasch (all of which is embossed as a continuation of the text in the picture)

Franz Philip Schott was an heir to the founder of Schott Music, a leading (one of the largest in Europe and the second oldest worldwide) publisher of classical and contemporary music and still in family hands.

Schott almost got the rights to Wagner's "Meistersänger", too

Wagner granted Schott exclusive rights to a "new work" against an advance which he proceeded to spend without delivering the goods.

Turned up later for a top up (surprise, surprise, but politely declined) which doesn't appear to have harmed the close relationship between the 2 men, because Schott later bought the rights for "Parsifal" (Wagner's last work) for 100,000 Reichsmark, the highest sum ever paid for publishing rights.

There you go, then

A Day at the Races - #493

"It was GREAT" I said to Ms jb. "You would have hated it, though..."

Just got back from the 10th annual International Hako Races in Dexheim.

A HaKo is a 50 year old design for a 2 stroke single axle agricultural tractor - pretty much a equine substitute that can go all day and not get tired.

Just hitch up a trailer (which is also your seat...) or farming implement and away you go.

Lads being lads, Dad's HaKo mysteriously starting getting faster and faster over the years ("I have absolutely NO idea, Dad. Must be full moon or something..."),  unofficial competitions were held until things threatened to get out of hand and Higher Authorities stepped in to Get Things Organised.

The inaugural event in Dexheim was a pretty makeshift affair - someone's horse paddock (the owner neglected to switch off the electric fence, which introduced a high degree of directional discipline after the first off-track excursion...), figure 8 track and a BIG mud patch.

Obviously, a single driver would be completely out of his depth, so 2 ballast/pushers were perched Ben Hur/Boadicea-like on the back to share tthe fun.

Now, mud's very important.

Essential, in fact.

If it hasn't rained significantly in recent days, the fire brigade's only too willing to help out. They'll help out anyway.

Yep, got to have lots of mud.

These days, the events attracts of upwards of 50 competitors and 2000 spectators (who are entirely prepared to be liberally decorated with the abovementioned mud and suffer severe hearing damage from unmuffled 2-stroke engines.)

And it's not as if it's pedal-to-the-metal, twice around the figure of eight.

Far from it.

There's a pretty wide power spread between "bog standard" and "tuned-to-within-an-inch-of-their-lives/paper-thin-cylinder-walls" stuff that just screams for handicapping.

Handicapping involves frequent stops around the figure 16 for the ballast/pushers to

• Balance along a beam
• Throw a ball at (and knock over) a bucket of water
• Empty a 1 litre container via 2 straws
• Negotiate 30 metres on tandem skis

And a mud hole.

Head-to-head elimination races all afternoon until you're down to 2 finalists.

Not sure if they're recognisable under the mud, though.....

Summer's here... - #491

..when sunflowers turn up on the market.

Trivia Alert:

The Italian name is Girasole from their habit of rubbernecking to follow the sun. ("girare" - to turn + "sole" - the sun.

One species of the genus is cultivated for its edible tubers - Jerusalem artichokes.

Nothing to do with the Holy Land - just a phonetic adoption from the Latin

Wag the dog - #490

Perfectly good pair of shoes hanging off a sign at the back of the Frankfurter Hof the other.

Wouldn't have minded then, actually.

Shame I'm such a short-arse.....

"Wag the dog", by the way, is a classic 1997 film starring De Niro and Hoffmann at the top of their respective games, successfully submerging a sex scandal in the White House (yes, the Lewinski thing was an inspiration...) by having America go to war against Albania. 

In the media.

Involves endless parodies of hysterical patriotic fervour with Willie Nelson writing anthems, "We are the world" type stuf and people slinging shoes over power lines in a post-modern yellow ribbon thing.

See it.

Sad story - #489

"Senfkorn" - Mustard Seed - in the Gaustrasse is a non-alcoholic pub.

Correction: "WAS" a non-alcoholic pub.

For 20-odd years it's been a meeting point for folks with alcohol or psychological problems, where they could feel secure among their peer and support groups and get a 3 course meal on Sundays for €6. About $10.

Closed its doors at the end of June after Caritas, the Catholic church's relief and social service organisation, withdrew its financial support ("outdated concept", without being more specific) at about the same time as the church - the landlord - raised the rent.

I don't get it.

The local press is currently hosting a mud-slinging match between Caritas and the equivalent of AA.

Not that that's going to do much for the folks who used to use (depend on?) the facility.

Bummer

On reflection...#488

Sunset in the container port

...as a pancake - #487

Not the sort of thing you want to see if you're a farmer.

Sudden storm, microbursts galore and whole swathes of your cereal crops are flattened.

Rarely the entire field, mind you. Just patches here and there, as if a crop circler with ADS had been at work.

Pigeons - feathered rodents, in my book - just love it, of course.

Brings the tucker right down to ther level.

Making tracks - #486

The delightfully leafy suburb of Gonsenheim at stupid o'clock in the morning.

(If I'd tried this stunt yesterday, Helen would have had to jump into the fray as your longterm diarist. Bloody tram turned up 2 minutes too early...)

Cleanliness is next to.... #485

I'd like to say that there's a church next door, but there isn't.

You can see one - the Christuskirche - just down the road, though.

"Cleanliness is about 150 meters away from Godliness"...?

Cool as a .....#484

...cucumber


Seen at the market in Mainz

What part of "No".....#483

...don't you understand?

POST NO BILLS

Offenders will be prosecuted

The Owner

Black on white

Can't get much clearer than that, eh?

Seen in the Gaustrasse

Cruising on Sunset - #482

Er, no.

It's not Hollywood.

Sunset at the container port on the Rhine in Mainz.


Mainz, Container Port, Rhine, Zollhafen, Rhein

Toys for boys - #481

Yet another antique car rally in Mainz yesterday.

On occasions like this, I truly do have problems with that "Thou shalt not covet" commandment, especially when there are MkII Jaguars (I actually owned one of those for 48 hours, but that's another story) and Mercedes 190s on display.

Lottery win tonight might help.....

mainz, antique car rally, Jaguar Mk II, Mercedes 190, 10 Commandments

Provisionally speaking - #480

The Proviantmagazin (Commissary) is a classic White Elephant story. It was originally planned in 1860 as a grain storage facility and wartime bakery for the troops stationed in Mainz. In those days, it was an odds-on bet that some bunch of ratbags would front up and lay siege to the city - Romans, Huns, Swedes, French, Austrians, it'd been going on for centuries, if not millennia - and it's always a good idea to have something in the cupboard in case someone drops by. Mum told me that. The usual military cost overruns, so instead of making it smaller, they reduced the height of the levels to 8 feet, which didn't have a significant impact on the costs. Four years later, it's finished. Never used, though. At least, not by the military and by no-one else seriously for the next century. The city fathers renovated it in 1966 (yes, it survived the war...) in the hope that someone would find a use for it and a mere 40 years later, it was converted to loft apartments (with an 8' stud...?) and commercial offices with a restaurant tacked on the side. Oh, and a biergarten. Now, THAT's what I call a useful addition...

Bumbling along - #479

A blackberry at the instant of conception....

If you look...#478

...you'll find them everywhere.

This used to be Schorch Lautner's legendary gallery in the Augustinerstrasse.

Long gone, both of them.

This is the life.. - #477

I had a bit of time to kill one morning last week before my physiotherapy session.

If it had been Tuesday, Friday or Saturday I would have been round to the TSOW in a flash for a jolt of java, but the cafe in the Augustinerstrasse in the Altstadt does the job, too.

A bit quiet at that time of the day and the boss decided to kick back and watch the dolly birds heading off to work.

Not that I did......

July 2008 - Theme Day - "No . . ." signs #466

A slightly PSed "Maison de France", the home of the Institut Francais on the Schillerplatz in Mayence.

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

The rest of the teams's over here:

American Fork (UT), USA by Annie, Anderson (SC), USA by Lessie, Ararat, Australia by freefalling, Arradon, France by Alice, Ashton under Lyne, UK by Pennine, Aspen (CO), USA by IamMBB, Athens, Greece by Debbie, Auckland, New Zealand by Lachezar, Austin (TX), USA by LB, Avignon, France by Nathalie, Bandung, Indonesia by Harry Makertia, Barrow-in-Furness, UK by Enitharmon, Barton (VT), USA by Andree, Belgrade, Serbia by Bibi, Bellefonte (PA), USA by Barb-n-PA, Bicheno, Australia by Greg, Birmingham (AL), USA by VJ, Bogor, Indonesia by Gagah, Boston (MA), USA by Cluelessinboston, Brantford (ON), Canada by Nancy, Brighton, UK by Harvey, Brookville (OH), USA by Abraham, Bucaramanga, Colombia by Fernando, Bucharest, Romania by Malpraxis, Budapest, Hungary by agrajag, Budapest, Hungary by Zannnie and Zsolt, Canterbury, UK by Rose, Cavite, Philippines by Steven Que, Chandler (AZ), USA by Melindaduff, Château-Gontier, France by Laurent, Cheltenham, UK by Marley, Chennai, India by Ram N, Chennai, India by Shantaram, Chesapeake (VA), USA by ptowngirl, Christchurch, New Zealand by Michelle, Cincinnati, USA by Erik Laursen, Cleveland (OH), USA by iBlowfish, Coral Gables (FL), USA by Jnstropic, Corsicana (TX), USA by Lake Lady, Delta (CO), USA by Bill, Duluth (MN), USA by Sun Dog Press, Durban, South Africa by CrazyCow, East Gwillimbury, Canada by Your EG Tour Guide, Edinburgh, UK by Dido, Folkestone, UK by Piskie, Forks (WA), USA by Corinne, Fort Lauderdale (FL), USA by Gigi, Gaia, Portugal by m+p, Geneva (IL), USA by Kelly, Grenoble, France by Bleeding Orange, Gun Barrel City (TX), USA by Lake Lady, Hampton (VA), USA by ptowngirl, Haninge, Sweden by Steffe, Hanoi, Vietnam by Jérôme, Helsinki, Finland by Kaa, Hobart, Australia by Greg, Hyde, UK by Gerald, Jackson (MS), USA by Halcyon, Jefferson City (MO), USA by Chinamom2005, Jerusalem, Israel by Esther, Katonah (NY), USA by Inkster1, Knoxville (TN), USA by Knoxville Girl, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia by Edwin, Kyoto, Japan by Tadamine, Lakewood (OH), USA by mouse, Larchmont (NY), USA by Marie-Noyale, Las Vegas (NV), USA by Mo, Lisbon, Portugal by Maria João, London, UK by Ham, London, UK by Mo, Lynchburg (VA), USA by Timothy, Mainz, Germany by JB, Melbourne, Australia by John, Menton, France by Jilly, Mexico City, Mexico by Carraol, Mexico City, Mexico by Poly, Minneapolis (MN), USA by Mitch, Minneapolis (MN), USA by Greg, Misawa, Japan by misawa mama, Monroe (GA), USA by Tanya, Monrovia (CA), USA by Keith, Monte Carlo, Monaco by Jilly, Monterrey, Mexico by rafa, Mumbai, India by MumbaiiteAnu, Munich, Germany by Troy, Nashville (TN), USA by Chris, Nelson, New Zealand by Meg and Ben, New Delhi, India by Delhi Photo Diary, New Orleans (LA), USA by steve buser, New York City (NY), USA by • Eliane •, Newcastle, Australia by Julia, Newport News (VA), USA by ptowngirl, Norfolk (VA), USA by ptowngirl, Norwich, UK by Goddess888, Ocean Township (NJ), USA by Josy, Oklahoma City (OK), USA by ananda.tashie, Orlando (FL), USA by OrlFla, Palos Verdes (CA), USA by tash, Paris, France by Eric, Pasadena (CA), USA by Petrea, Pasadena (CA), USA by Can8ianben, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia by Murphy_jay, Petoskey (MI), USA by Christie, Phoenix (AZ), USA by Cheryl, Poplar Bluff (MO), USA by Tricia, Port Angeles (WA), USA by Jelvistar, Portland (ME), USA by Corey, Portsmouth (VA), USA by ptowngirl, Posadas, Argentina by Lega, Pretoria, South Africa by Sam Ruth, Quincy (MA), USA by Cluelessinboston, Ramsey, Isle of Man by babooshka, Reykjavik, Iceland by Vírgíll, Riga, Latvia by Riga Photos, Rotterdam, Netherlands by Ineke, Rouen, France by Bbsato, Saarbrücken, Germany by LadyDemeter, Saigon, Vietnam by Simon, Saint Louis (MO), USA by Strangetastes, Salem (OR), USA by jill, Salt Lake City (UT), USA by Eric, Salt Lake City (UT), USA by atc, San Antonio (TX), USA by Kramer, San Diego (CA), USA by Felicia, San Francisco (CA), USA by PFranson, Santa Fe (NM), USA by Randem, Seattle (WA), USA by Kim, Seattle (WA), USA by Chuck, Selma (AL), USA by RamblingRound, Sequim (WA), USA by Norma, Sesimbra, Portugal by Aldeia, Setúbal, Portugal by Maria Elisa, Sharon (CT), USA by Jenny, Silver Spring (MD), USA by John, Singapore, Singapore by Keropok, Sofia, Bulgaria by Antonia, Springfield (IL), USA by Aubrey, Stanwood (WA), USA by MaryBeth, Stavanger, Norway by Tanty, Stayton (OR), USA by Celine, Stockholm, Sweden by Stromsjo, Stouffville, Canada by Ken, Stratford, Canada by Barb, Subang Jaya, Malaysia by JC, Suffolk (VA), USA by ptowngirl, Sunshine Coast, Australia by bitingmidge, Sydney, Australia by Julie, Sydney, Australia by Ann, Székesfehérvár, Hungary by Teomo, Tamarindo, Costa Rica by David, Tel-Aviv, Israel by Olga, Tempe (AZ), USA by angie, Terrell (TX), USA by Jim K, Terrell (TX), USA by Bstexas, The Hague, Netherlands by Lezard, Tokyo, Japan by Tadamine, Torun, Poland by Glenn, Toulouse, France by Julia, Trujillo, Peru by Giulianna, Turin, Italy by Livio, Twin Cities (MN), USA by Slinger, Victoria, Canada by Benjamin Madison, Vienna, Austria by G_mirage2, Virginia Beach (VA), USA by ptowngirl, Wailea (HI), USA by Kuanyin, Washington (DC), USA by D.C. Confidential, Wellington, New Zealand by Jeremyb, West Paris (ME), USA by crittoria, West Sacramento (CA), USA by Barbara, Weston (FL), USA by WestonDailyPhoto, Williamsburg (VA), USA by ptowngirl, Willits (CA), USA by Elaine,