Project 2014 #1: Upcycling leftovers

I'm not a big fan of new year's resolutions. On the other hand I just love projects. So year 2014 will be - among all other things to come -

The year of innovative upcycling of food leftovers. We've started already.

Yesterday's basmati rice + basic tomato curry = tomorrow's deep-fried balls breaded with crumbled rye crackers and Christmas gingerbread! Yes, really. Try if you dare.

Yesterday's nordic beetroot-sweet potato-root veggie casserole = tomorrow's hamburger patties. Wouldn't post a photo becuse the patties looked like cookies made of elphant dung. But good with hummus, Gloucester cheese and arugola on toasted bagels.

Saturday macarons

This photo presents the many wonderful - if a tad decadent - weekends I've been fortunate enough to spend in Prague. This was 2nd of the 4 (four) cafés we went during one lazy Saturday.

Daytripping in Karlstejn

We made a Saturday train trip to castle Karlstejn. The gothicky vampire associations are inevitable, as the castle is hovering massively above the village and woods around the village look gloomy and dark.

Apart from the vampires and their dens, coolest things were a medieval toilet, statue of a saint-to-be lady stamping her foot on a pagan king's head (who looks happy to be stamped) and a road sign showing John Travolta doing road construction work in Karlstejn.

Christmas decoration

My Christmas tree decreased to some branches in a vase, but it is still green and spruce-ish. The decoration is 1/2 of origami diamond, folded from metallic candy wrappings. Looks like small trees, doesn't it? 

Educational day

I learned frog pose (mandukasana) and fish pose (matsyasana), 12 new words in english (hullo my dear Merriam-Webster) inclunding pernickety, nitid and hyaline. Also learned the rudimentary operating principle of gyroscope. I wish still to learn how to knit a buttonhole, but that's too much for one day.

No more handicraft handicap

This is the first handicraft post EVER. Last Thursday I, owner of no handy skills whatsoever, sewed a shoulderbag. With kind help of my friend K who draw the pattern and instructed me. But it was me who did the actual sewing.

After that everything seems possible. I may pick up knitting needles, start carpentering, have a dog or run a marathon.

How to spend your Sunday properly

I'd like to share and present the guidelines for a perfect Sunday. Not sure if I can repeat it myself following the instructions, but being a one-off maybe makes it even better.

Start with going to Dzban beach (the muddy pond I referred already in earlier posts) and take a nap under the birch. Do not mind the bugs biting your pale skin. Notice that slight hangover, aquired the day before, makes the heat and every sensation even more intense. Eat some liquorice to get your blood pressure up.

When revived enough, have luncheon at Grazing Daysi veg(an/ggie?) restaurant across the pond. The place is just too good to be true, like a spanish hacienda. The interior was ultracool from handwritten menus to lampshades made from aluminium and pallet tables, views and everything. I had salad with kohlrabi, strawberry-orange lemonade and spelt pancake. Lunch companion had beans (sorry, can't remember more precisely), watermelon-mint lemonade, pancake and tulsi tea. Google tulsi.

Only negative things I can come up with was that I didn't see a dog meandering around at the establisment. There should be a dog!

After lunch relocate your towel to the other side of the pond, the one you need to pay. Take another nap. Swim, eat liquorice, nap, count the clouds... Repeat this until it starts to rain sometime in the afternoon. Retreat just before the thunderstorm. Lie doggo in the metro tunnels until the rain ceases. Go home, be happy.

The magic circle of tapping the keyboard

I may never become an author or publish more than I've published already. I may never write the masterpiece I'd like to. But today I saved myself from a tsunami of negative feelings solely with writing. And that's something huge. As soon as I stopped tapping the keyboard, I could hear the rush of sadness, disappointment, jealousy, frustration avalanching toward me, ready to drown me and freeze me. So I just kept on writing, without pausing, thinking, analyzing.

After one hour I felt the negativeness starting to shrink, as there was no fuel left for it. I had been diminishing it with writing. Felt better, stronger and ready to face the challenges ahead.

But here's the best part of the whole process: the text I tapped in distress was of course mostly utterly bullshit, but covered in bullshit I could find few sentences worth re-thinking. So in addition to acute therapy, my frantic writing session served also creative purposes.

Jamming session

Got a basket of totally ripe peaches, so they had to be preserved quickly. For a total novice of jam making and even more totally novice handling peaches, I'm pretty satisfied with the results. 4 jars or organic and ecological jam with my own mint, lime and ginger. 2 jars of chutney with sweet'n'sour spices.

Pretty day at the beach

Weekend heat really prepared me to be heat resistant: we spent a lazy day at THE BEACH. Me! On a beach! Dear readers who know me IRL may be astonished, but you know people can change. My skin is tingling&glowing from the warmth and I think I got sand in my shoes.

Zlute lazne is probably the closest it gets to a mediterrean beach in Prague area with beach volley, beach bar (genuine white sand) and angry birds as in swan family with an overprotective dad. Swimming takes place in Vltava which was a bit suspicious but refreshing, I was told. On a Monday afternoon it was relatively empty and nice, started to fill up as the afternoon turned to evening. They got DJ's, summer movies showings and lots of niceties. Could go again, maybe next weekend.

Theme week: farewell supermarkets

Because I have all the time in the world, I've decided not to use any supermarkets this week. 

On Wednesday it took me whole day to have my errands done, but hey, I can use all day for it. First had white tea and apricot cake while waiting my laundry to finish. Then went to cheese shop to buy cheese. Tasted cheeses of course before choosing and chatted jovially with the clerk in czech :)
Went to drogerie to get some toiletries. Went to veggie market to get some veggies. Went to bio potraviny to get tofu. Finally went to vegetarian indian restaurant to have a well earned lunch.

Wednesday evening met a friend at my garden (notice the use of possessive pronoun) and got lettuce, parsley and basil for salad. Specialty store of one kind too.

Test-BBQ successfully accomplished

I am a proud owner of a cute turquoise portable grill. On Saturday we planned to test drive the thingy at Holesovice garden but the garden was closed. So spatially the bbcueing took place elsewhere. A cosy little spot, if I may add. Can't give you more coordinates as the spot was basically not a very legal spot to have open fire.

The menu waz:
zucchini, grilled with mint and crumbled balkan cheese
rosemary potatos
green mojo sauce
cucumber, olives etc. salady ingredients but the lettuce itself was locked away in the garden

As for the dessert, some not too ripe nectarines were caramellized in coke (innovative!)  and sprinkled with leftover mint and vanilkova zmrzlina. The carnivore eaters consumed several sausages, but that's not the issue here.

It was simultaneously a short intensive course to how to grill things. Next time less coals, more patience and appropriate tools. Next time skewers with  marinade, pineapple perhaps flambéed (on purpose, I mean).

Sunday confession

Ok, let's face it. I may not be as urban as I tend to think. Even though I really enjoy all the metropolis has to offer, I seem to need trees, forest, water and some nature around me every once in a while. Not like jungles or huge forests or hiking for days but anyway.

Went hiking to Kunraticky les on Sunday. Situated at Prague 4. Nice forest, a stream and some hills. Place a bit like at Divoka Sarka but not as dramatic sceneries. Even high pines and enormous trees as the stump in the pic shows. Walked about 3 hours, ended up

on the other side of the area and 30 min. bus ride away from nearest metro station. So it felt like a genuine day trip to countryside.

Then again, I'm urban enough that after a day in the woods, I feel a bit relieved reaching paved streets, public transport and city center. Had nealko Mojito at Cajovna U Kostela, nice labyrinthine tea house nearby. Definitely going to visit it again, trying some teas.

Different kind of gardens

The most recent pub and bar craze at my hoods: trampoline in the garden! I can just imagine the construction workers, winos and hip art students holding on to their dvanactku when jumping.

Other nice garden related hobby I've discovered in Prague is beer gardening. Holesovice communal garden bar is buzzed every evening, people wondering pleasantly in the midst of the plots, having beer and maybe but not necessarily watering and weeding. This Saturday there was a ping pong tournament.

The status of my chili is now green (phew), being black was only an initial phase. There's a bonus mint growing in my plot, too. The seed has flown from neighbors or has been in the soil already. I also have 2 such nice succulent-looking weeds on the plot that I don't have the heart to dispose them. Let them grow.

Smooth Midsummer

Referring to my post on Friday: one can do quite a lot during one weekend if one sets one's mind to do things. Friday evening drink was Frisco, please pay special attention to bubble prophesy on the bottom of the glass. Initials of my future beau or what? A modern midsummer night spell.

Saturday drinks were smoothies, first strawberry-lingonberry and then peach-melissa. So good! So... I'd love to say smooth but that would be waste of words. So appropriate after outdoor yoga on the Karlovo namesti lawn.

This city is spoiling me

This weekend is totally overflowed with happenings, decision making is difficult.

Free United Islands festival with Floex. ReSite conference but more importantly, festival with open-air yoga, street music, films, open-air breakfast, workshops... Knihex book market. Dyzajn design market (oh how cute is the way czechs write the word),  another open-air breakfast on the street at Brevnov. New circus at La Fabrika. Opening of a new veggie restaurant at Divoka Sarka.
Just to mention some.

Nordic midsummer may be 1760 km away, but what a great compensation I got here.

Dealing with heat

The temperature is and will be around +30. I'm only thinking about fresh, green and chilly things: mint, lime, cucumber, coriander. Today's cold soup was a mixture of bulgarian and mexican cuisine, consisting of ingredients mentioned plus garlic, yoghurt, salt and ice. Yummy. Somehow it didn't feel like eating thin raita or tzatziki but a dish of it's own. Maybe because cucumber was sliced in cubes, not grated.

Made some (mediocre) iced tea too, tomorrow I'm trying de-caf ice coffee. Also planning to make spiced salts, found a nice sounding recipe for mint-chili-lime -salt. Tomorrow's lunch will be either gazpacho or melon soup. It's possible to add some sparkling wine into melon soup, that would be grand.

Spending the lazy days either at Divoka Sarka lake swimming and sunbathing/staying in shadow of a birch tree, or on the balcony. Another good option is well air-cond't supermarket, spending time carefully comparing and choosing frozen products.

Origami bracelet

After finishing a super easy bracelet of modular origami, I realized the technique was the same that was used decades and centuries ago in agricultural Finland making dishes, decoration or even shoes from birchbark. So nothing new under the sun, obviously.

The shock wave of creativity

I've started something. Following loosely Julia Cameron's Artist's way creativity recovering and opening exercises. Don't know if it's Julia or me, but recently (done it for 4 weeks now, started right after a how-would-i-call-it, woeful incident) I've been able to concentrate on something else than myself.

There have been interesting people in the trams, metro or on the streets of course earlier, but only now I'm writing about them. In addition to morning pages, I'm actually doing some writing! Not just personal kinda writing but actual writing. And it feels so good! Today I've written so far 3 morning pages, 1,5 pages of short prose in finnish and 1 page of character descriptions in english. Plus Julia's weekly tasks, like completing sentences 10 items I'd like to own... If I had either faith or money, I'd try...

Last time I tried Cameron's book about 10 years ago, it didn't work for me because the timing was not right. Now the timing is just perfect and I'm just in the right responsive mood. I am ignoring the spiritual parts that don't feel comfortable, though.

Early summer flourishings

Oh I'm so proud of my garden. I got chili, kale, spinach, lettuce, chives, lemon leaf, coriander, parsley, lovage, oregano, basil, mint, melissa (or heart's delight as it is sweetly named in swedish), portulak, lavender, rucola, cress, nasturtium, rosemary. Phew, what a plantage!

Would like to plant more and more but I'm running out of space in my balcony. I need to squeeze my chair there also for sitting in the morning sun, sipping coffee and writing or reading. Or just listening to buzzing bees eyes closed.