Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Curry Fried Edamame with Tomatoes

Edamame are young soybeans. In Japanese texts they were mentioned for the first time in AD 1275 when the Bhuddist saint Nichiren Shounin sent a thank you note to a devotee who sent him edamame beans. Should you be interested in the history of edamame, there is a whole book (free download!) available from the SoyInfoCenter.

In Japan edamame (枝豆) refers mainly to the boiled and salted pods

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edamame
but outside East Asia, the unripe beans are sold shelled and cooked in packets or cans.

I adjusted the 'curry fried edamame with tomatoes' recipe after a Japanese recipe (which I can't find anymore, it was probably taken from the cookpad site).


Curry Fried Edamame with Tomatoes


Ingredients:

a piece of ginger (ca. 2-3 cm)
1 bunch of green onions, sliced
4 tomatoes, quartered (if large cut into 6 or even 8 pieces)
1 packet edamame beans
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon garam masala (next time I will use sweet curry)
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil for frying

What to do

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and add cumin seeds and ginger until fragrant. Add the green onions

and fry until they become slightly tender.



Add the tomato pieces and sauté until they start to soften.



Add the strained edamame beans and heat through. Add the spices and season to taste.



Serve on toasted bread.

We had it for a yummy and quick brunch. And because it was really done so fast and yet very tasty I am sending this recipe to Vardhini's  'Dish it Out' - event.


The ingredients for November are soy and tomatoes. There are lots of delicious recipes posted for this event, so please check it out.

I am also sending it to Smita's The Healthy Cooking Challenge which this month is hosted by Kavi with the theme: Healthy Lunch.







Saturday, November 26, 2011

London - Vauxhall Bridge

I went to Vauxhall, not really to admire the architecture of the bridge, which I have to admit is quite interesting,


but rather to have a look at the Mesolithic posts they found last year near Vauxhall Bridge.

In 2010  archaeologists from the Thames Discovery Programme investigated the Thames foreshore and made this exceptional discovery. They found six timber piles of up to 30 cm in diameter. They are part of a Mesolithic structure which is more than 6000 years old.  Radiocarbon dates from the timbers showed a fell date between 4790 and 4490 calBC. At this time the river level was lower and this might have been a circle, supporting structures for a building, or even the timber piles from a small platform reaching into the water of the river Thames. Offerings from later periods indicate that this area was a place of worship:



When the tide is low (0.3m-ish) you can see the timbers looking out of the water. Although I went to Vauxhall Bridge at the lowest possible tide (1.0 m-ish) I couldn't see them, which makes somehow sense;  because they are not preserved up to a substantial height,  70 cm  would submerge them easily. I guess I have to come back in February :) However, this is roughly the area where they should be, just underneath the MI-6 headquarters:


Other prehistoric and historic timbers were visible, as the Bronze Age jetty:


or a more recent structure (18th or 19th century?):


On the opposite side of the river, London's Duck Tours launched its vehicle:





Hm...maybe next time I'll go for a ride on the duck :)

Friday, November 25, 2011

Christmas Illuminations 2011

After having been in London just at the right time for her Christmas illuminations, I thought I would show you some pics to get you into proper Christmas spirit :)

First a photo from Heidelberg's main shopping promenade:


You are right, it is not really overwhelming for the main shopping street :(

And here some photos from London:

Covent Garden Apple Market

Covent Garden Christmas Tree

Covent Garden
It looks also nice in bright day light :)

Covent Garden
Kingly Court, Carnaby

Oxford Street
Harrods is famous for its beautiful window decorations. This year is no exception. Even with Topshop reflecting in the window I think the tree elf is just gorgeous!

Harrods Department Store, Knightsbridge



Wednesday, November 16, 2011

London - Pret a Manger, Hampstead Theatre (Skåne), and London Underground

Yesterday evening I arrived in London. My favourite town/city IN THE WORLD :) I will be attending a conference on Thursday and Friday, but I arrived earlier because I need some time in London where I am at one with the world. I rented a small studio in the Bloomsbury area and slept long. Funny, since I should spent every minute outside. But the studio is really nice, the area quiet, and I didn't want to rush anything. So the first thing to do was having lunch at Pret-a-Manger, a nice eatery with stores all over London. I went there mainly because they always have a vegetarian soup of the day. Today I enjoyed a sweet potato and lentil curry soup. Just lovely; I wish we had these coffee shops and lunchtime eateries in Germany.


Coincidentally, I found some drawings from the time they constructed the London Underground at Baker Street Station.

Coincidentally, because I'm just reading a book with poems and stories about the London Underground. So looking at all the old drawings was very illuminating :)
http://www.reclam.de/detail/3-15-009104-7
A short stop at the London Stone, a fragment of a limestone stone or menhir of unknown age and purpose. Even though we don't know exactly how old it is, we can see its importance by the many references given in literature, e.g. Shakespeare mentioned it in his 'Henry VI', as does William Blake in his poem 'To the Jews':

And the Druid’s golden knife       
Rioted in human gore,
In offerings of Human Life?
They groan’d aloud on London Stone...
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Stone

At least, as long as the London Stone is safe, London will flourish. They are rebuilding the house in which London Stone is inserted, so I really hope they will not harm it, for the sake of London ;)

In the evening I went to the theatre, and it is astonishing that there are still theatres I have never been to. But here we go, it was my first time being at the Hampstead theatre. The play was called 'Skåne' by Pamela Carter and directed by Tim Carter. If you want to watch the play (it is still running till november, 26th) you should stop reading now (spoiler alert!), otherwise read on :)

There is already an excellent review on Ian's blog 'There Ought to be Clowns', so I will try to keep it short and to my personal impressions.

The play was about how two families, both with teenage children, cope with the adultery one of the parents each commited. It starts with a communal family conference in which Malin and Kurt agree to not see each other anymore because they don't want to give up on their families. From then on the story winds backwards. We are presented with different episodes, marked by the moving around of the furniture between two sliding doors at each end of the 'stage'. You can't really call it a 'stage', because it was such a small room that you were actually feeling as an intruder, someone hiding in their living room and unwillingly becoming the witness of their argument. On the photo you can see how close the audience were to the stage.



I'm not quite sure whether the episodes were really in a linear chronological order or not. Especially the last scene in which Christian and Malin could be seen in a hotel (the one they met for the first time?) where they confessed their eternal love to each other. Now, I consider this a bit odd for a couple in their late 30s on a sort of one-night-stand. So there is an actual chance that this scene is the most recent one and the lovers broke their promise to never see each other. The scene was graphic, which I didn't like at all, since it was simply not necessary. I already believed them they had sex with each other. Scenes of graphic nudity, just because it is on vogue is not really something I appreciate, sometimes it might be appropriate and important, but not here.

Much more interesting were the scenes that showed how differently each family member reacted. The oldest son, although behaving really angry on the outside probably understood his mother best. Not being loved enough and bored in rural Scania, he thought she went away in search for the love she couldn't find at home or else she would have commited suicide (he actually stages this for a school project). His younger brother Olle, only eight years old, desperately tried to keep up normality, forgiving his mother everything, as long as she loves him. He can't see any betrayal, as long as you are honest to yourself, promises can be 'un-promised' if you don't feel like it anymore.
The wife of Christian, Siri, probably took it worst. At first desperately spying on her husband, she unloads any feelings of guilt on her teenage daughter: 'If he left me, he left you, too .... he doesn't love us anymore'. She eventually turns to revenge and sleeps with Malin's husband Kurt. In a 5-star hotel, mind you, to outplay the adulterers which only stayed at a 3-star hotel.
Malin's husband Kurt was the one thinking hardly anything about the cause for Malin's behaviour or how he could save his marriage. He just wanted everything back to normal. After the family conference he said to Malin: 'You don't have to do the dishes, you know, ...not immediately' and 'dinner would be fine'. Actually this strenghtens my idea that the last scene with Malin and Christian in the hotel room must be the most recent one, because I would have taken Olle and immediately go back to Christian.

Did I like it? The play: yes, the actors were superb, including the kids; however, the setting: no. As I already mentioned I felt like an intruder and especially during the nudity scenes I felt like a stalker, you could have stretched out your hand and touched the actors. Maybe it was done in this small room on purpose, but I rather have some distance. I have my own problems, I don't have to be involved this intimitely in other peoples'.

Friday, November 04, 2011

Beijing - Marco Polo Bridge, Zhoukoudian, Dabaotai Western Han Tomb

While C was doing what astrophysicist do I hired a driver (yes, one can get used to it *LOL*) and went off to see some more sites.

Our first stop was Luguo Bridge (卢沟桥), also called Marco Polo Bridge. Beijings's oldest surviving bridge was mentioned in Marco Polo's book The Travels of Marco Polo, Vol. 2, chapter 35 which he had written during the late 13th century. The bridge however, is much older. The even earlier wooden bridge was replaced by a stone construction in AD 1189 by She Tsung from the Jin Dynasty. The most remarkable thing about the bridge is the countless lions which adorn the sides of the bridge. No wonder Marco Polo described it as the finest bridge he had ever seen.


The lion figures you can see here are from different periods. Few are from the Jin Dynasty (AD 1115-1234) or Yuan Dynasty (AD 1271-1368); the majority are from the Ming Dynasty (AD 1368-1644) or even later from the Qing Dynasty (AD 1644-1911). Here are some photos of different lions, no two of them alike:




One of the rarer male lions:




The original stone plaster:


more exhibits in front of the bridge:




After I got tired of counting lions we went on and headed for Zhoukoudian (周口店), the site of Peking Man. The limestone caves and fissures of the site yielded remains of at least 45 individuals belonging to Homo erectus species and from a later occupation during the Upper Palaeolithic further Homo sapiens remains. The site is famous because it shows evidence for early use of fire by Homo erectus.

A view of the museum:


Frontal bone from the excavation in 1966:


Bone needle from Upper Cave, Archaic Homo sapiens, about 20,000 BP:


Homo erectus liked his hackberries (a stone fruit from a tree belonging to the hemp family):


The exterior presents models of contemporary animals like the wholly rhino:


The ash layer:


Loved the hyaenas:


Outside the museum Wuyuta, my driver was already waiting for me:


So after some refreshing cold water we went off to see the Western Han tomb Dabaotai (大葆台). You may as well forget the famous Ming Dynasty tombs, because this tomb is the most awesome tomb I have ever seen in China. Besides the entry is free, all you have to do is show them your passport and explain in which field is your name and in which your country because they can't read our alphabet :)

Much older than the Ming tombs it was built during the Jin Dynasty, for prince Liu Jian (73-45 BC) to be more specific. Here is an overview over Liu Jian's tomb (tomb 1):
Adapted after http://www.apolloinvestment.com/DabaotaiHan/DabaotaiHan.htm
The entrance to the tomb is made a bit according to the later Ming tombs, just red poles instead of the stone animals that usually line the path:


A nice phoenix statue

I loved the 'Simulated Archaeology Hall' :)


Here, children can play Indiana Jones, or rather not, I have never seen Indy crawling in the dirt with a trowel in his hand. But they can play archaeologist; I just wonder what they hide in the sand for the kids?


When I came back a praying mantis was waiting on top of the car. This must certainly be a symbol of luck :)