"Just Add A Pound Of Butter"

No, not really, dinner relied rather more on olive oil, garlic and cheese.

This is what happens when I forget my partner is not, in fact, coming home for dinner. The spaghetti sauce is a type of bastardised bolognese, which I use for disposing of mushrooms and root vegetables forgotten in the vegetable drawer.

Today's version contained these:

- butter for frying
- a few onions
- several large garlic cloves
- celery root
- parsley root
- oyster mushrooms
- a pound of ground beef
- simple tomato sauce (99% tomatoes plus sugar, salt and basil)
- herbs (garlic, more basil, thyme, oregano)
- black pepper
- salt
- half a glass of a nice chianti waiting for consumption on the kitchen counter
- olive oil
- lemon

I sautéed the vegetables first, then browned the ground beef, then added tomato sauce onto all this. Wine into the chef. More wine onto the pan. More wine into the chef. Etc. I served the sauce with parmigiano reggiano, spaghetti and some zucchini that I cut into tagliatelle-like stripes and shoved into a hot oven for a few minutes.

The salad was a faux cesar salad, made while the sauce was simmering on the stove (this one did for a few hours, which did it a world of good); I had no bread cubes but I did have an avocado and some radishes that needed to go, so some substitutions were made. For dressing, I went with an egg free version and threw a garlic clove, dijon mustard, tabasco sauce, worcester sauce, a few anchovy filets, olive oil, parmigiano reggiano and a small dash of sour cream into the blender. Then I poured more wine into the chef.

Wordless Wednesday: Wiener Markt

A look into my navel, which produces some fluff

Let's talk meta.

Where do I begin? Starting a blog, I thought, would be a wonderfully edifying experience another way to waste time online without feeling like I'm actually wasting it.

I then thought "a blog about what?" I already have a more private journal, and I tend to think of that as a confessional. A confessional with bad poop jokes. Perhaps I want a different theme here? Undoubtedly.

I then thought "what do I do that could be blogged about?" and came up with at least a few family friendly options. 

Here's one: I greatly enjoy cooking, and I'm a feeder. Not in a scary way. You were warned, don't google that! But what about a food blog? An excellent idea, only I notice somebody already uses Just Add Butter. Possibly I could've changed that to Just Add A Pound Of Butter, a more realistic depiction of much of my cooking... hmm, maybe not.

Another thought I had: what about clothes? Fashion is not an interest to me, but design is, and clothing provides a chance to combine colourful, fun things and -- this is the best part -- walk around perplexing conservative Germans, who do not understand why anyone would desire to stand out and not wear dull earth tones. Children's clothing in particular is, or can be, a world of whimsical fun. Why not write about that? I could, but it's not a topic that works by its lonesome, perhaps.

From there I came to think about life as an expatriate Finn in conservative, Catholic Bavaria. I'm over the initial misery of culture shock and mostly in a place from which I find it equally easy to laugh at the quirks of Finns, Germans and Bavarians, this last one being a distinct breed of homo officious. I could talk about how I'm adjusting to life here and how an important part of that for me has been getting out and looking for things to climb, scale, conquer, visit, gape at, eat and/or photograph.

Finally, I have a three-year-old daughter not yet in kindergarten; she's a sturdy little trooper and my constant companion on these trips.

All powers combined... why, this is a blog about our adventures in Munich -- in all weathers and seasons! -- with complementary "look at where we dined today!" bits.

This established, I leave you with a photo of my six month old daughter eating sushi. Baby led weaning worked very well for us.

Munich winters

This is what our winter looked like for a brief while.

I knew it couldn't last. This is the more typical Munich winter:

Children don't seem to care much; my views are not fit for printing. In retrospect, my decision to leave buying ice skates for next winter wasn't the worst one...

Still, there's a lot to do in town. We obviously go out, even if it involves some degree of whining on my part. (Merino wool underwear? Best thing I bought this winter.) For indoors fun, we have Deutsches Museum, the public libraries, a variety of indoors play parks around town, The Botanical Gardens, and of course our favourite haunt Hofbräukeller, complete with play room and childcare for the daytime hours. I'll get back to you on that last part tomorrow.