Category: misc

misc

Vampire food

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I am getting prepared for winter soul food; one of my favourites is borscht. The vibrant red colour of the beets would make every vampire proud – and when I hold a peeled human heart beet in my hand I totally feel like a vampire straight out of True Blood ;)
I found this nice recipe and my RPG guests have to eat it at least once per winter. This season I plan to stay in character and make a suitable cake afterwards.

 

Sometimes when making borscht a single beet can be squirreled away and used for pink pasta. The recipe describes a salad, but I am sure it will also taste very nice when eaten warm.

CarVie 2014 workshops II and party

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I blacked my shins during Floorwork Reloaded with Doro, but I learned quite a few things too. Mostly that my triceps should be trained more, and that it’s never as easy as professional dancers make it look like :)
But I was pretty content the next day to see that I had not hurt any bones or muscles which means I did the movements correctly.

In the evening we were at the party and enjoyed great performances. It amazes me every time how much creativity and versatility is brought to the table by the members of the tribal family.
After seeing the others dance so gracefully, it felt weird to do impro on the same stage but hey – one has to start somewhere.

The last workshop of this year’s CarVie was Dynamic Duels with Nakari. We learned a short slow duo choreo which morphs into impro. I realised again that I am slow when it comes to take in new choreos; but I assume one can only stubbornly continue to dance until body memory improves.
On the plus side: I learned two new slow moves, wrap around turn, and turkish point for two :)

 

Holiday bento

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Since I have some days off, I tried some new recipes that fit into bento boxes. The Japanese omelette was very yummy, but we didn’t get to eat it cold because the thing miraculously vanished immediately.

For today’s workshops I made something light:  simple zucchini-ricotta wraps to celebrate my zucchini harvest.

And tonight’s dinner: to use my oven efficiently, I put in two things together: a tiny olive-cheese cake (savoury, not sweet) and a nice big piece of quiche lorraine (minus the egg, and with smoked tofu instead of ham, and I used a square dish instead of a round, because I am a Яebel!). The cake is to be eaten with some salad, and the quiche is frozen in small portions for busy times when there’s no time for cooking. Both pieces rapidly diminished just now *ahem*

 

The mantis garden S2014

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Nachdem ich nun einen Balkon habe, gibt es natürlich seit heuer auch Gartenbestrebungen. Weil ich faul bin und gerne gut esse, gibt es hauptsächlich Gemüse: Zucchini, Tomaten und anderes pflegeleichtes Zeug, sowie natürlich Kräuter.
Angeblich versorgt eine einzige Zucchinipflanze zwei Leute einen Sommer lang mit Gemüse, und ich war schon sehr gespannt, ob das wirklich so gut funktioniert.

Nachdem ich die heurige Saison erst im Juli, also sehr spät anfangen konnte, habe ich es mir leicht gemacht und zwei fertige “Naschtomaten”-Pflanzen gekauft, dazu hat BlackAngel mich mit einer Zucchini und einer mysteriösen Jungtomate versorgt. Hat auch alles funktioniert, und irgendwann hat die Geheimtomate ihre Früchte gezeigt – sie sind am Ende gelb, und haben teilweise die kuriosesten Formen.

schelm
Abbildung 1: 1 Tomate (wirklich)

Auch bei den Kräutern habe ich etwas nachgeholfen und Topfpflanzen gekauft: Nanaminze und Basilikum, weil ich die am häufigsten verwende. Das Basilikum stand im Supermarkt und sah schon sehr trauig aus, aber nach dem Umtopfen gab es hier sehr viel Caprese und andere Leckereien. Für Schnittlauch und Petersilie habe ich Samen gekauft, die Petersilie ist auch wirklich nach langer Zeit gewachsen.

Leider hat der kalte Sommer die Ernte recht überschaubar ausfallen lassen: 2 Zucchini und etliche Cocktailtomaten, die Kräuterernte war aber ausreichend.

Und jede Menge Mehltau (?) gab es gratis dazu…

 

Dazugelernt habe ich auch einiges. Man muß nicht immer Samen kaufen

  • Tomatensamen kann man direkt nach dem Verzehr der Tomate einpflanzen, bei mir haben diese sehr rasch gekeimt. Man muß dabei offenbar nur aufpassen, keine Samen von Kreuzungen zu nehmen (F1), weil das Resultat dieser Pflanzen mendelt, also sehr unterschiedlich ausfallen kann.
  • gekaufte Koriandersamen, die zum Kochen gedacht sind, treiben auch oft aus; ich hatte zwei Sorten im Test, und eine davon hat auch wild gekeimt.

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Aand all of a sudden, autumn.

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August is barely over, yet we have 15° Celsius and persistent rain. So I got confused and made some autumnal food, pumpkin soup: 1 Hokkaido, 1/2 onion and 2 garlic cloves in huge cubes, roasted in a pot and then cooked for an hour, smushed to creamy soup and seasoned with salt and pepper. Served with pumpkin seed oil and some dried pumpkin seads – so easy and yet so tasty.

Skin food

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Reducing carbohydrates might improve one’s skin, so I tried some low-carb recipes.

First, some alternatives for bread: walnut bread where flour is replaced with wheat bran and linseed, and linseed-almond bread. Both recipes include curd, and the resulting bakery is rather juicy. It has to be noted that the linseed-almond dough is rather runny, so I used muffin moulds to make conveniently portioned pieces. A third of the recipe’s amount is enough for 6 muffin moulds.

bakey

And Kupferfeuer pointed me to the curious case of the spaghetti squash. I have a 1kg specimen on my table and prepared it like the Italians do with pasta – cook it, noodle up the fruit and serve it with tomato sauce. Just enough for two hungry people, nom!

Mantis TV

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Maybe I watch too many series..

 

Angel

Avatar The Last Airbender

Babylon 5

Battlestar Galactica Blood and Chrome

Battlestar Galactica (2004)

Black Books

Blackadder

Bomb Girls
Good actors.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Carrie Diaries

Claymore

Dexter

Doctor Who

Dollhouse

Don’t trust the bitch in appartment 23
Really, don’t :)

Father Ted

Firefly
The concept had me confused at first. After one episode I was hooked.

Futurama

Game of Thrones

Golden Girls
Awesome, just awesome.

Grimm

How I met your mother
Could have done with a few less seasons, but it had some hilarious episodes.

House

Hustle

IT Crowd

Kindred the Embraced

Marvel’s Agent Carter

Marvel’s Agents of Shield

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries
Entertaining period suspense.

Nikita
Dollhouse meets S.H.I.E.L.D.

Noir

Penny Dreadful

Rome

Samantha Who

Sex and the City
Yes, I have watched it more than once, mostly because of Miranda. And now I am done and watch the Golden Girls instead.

Scrubs

Sherlock

Star Trek The Next Generation

Star Trek Deep Space Nine

Stark Trek Voyager

Star Trek Enterprise

The Big Bang Theory

The Borgias
Enjoyable Renaissance costume porn. Also this.

The Tudors
Enjoyable Tudor costume porn

The Vision of Escaflowne

True Blood

CarVie party

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Yay, I have been invited to join an impro group performance at the CarVie party :) I know most of the other dancers, but still – we’ll have only one rehearsal next week. This will be fuuuun!

More summer food

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We love falafel, and I found a recipe which doesn’t drown them in hot oil.

I used 200g chickpeas, which is about 3/4 of the original recipe, with the original amount of spices (except the garlic, less is better) and got 10 falafel. Really really good falafel.

I’ll use cooked chickpeas next time to see if the dish is more digestible then.

Summer salad

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Preparing yummy meals for work is complicated when temperatures rise, so I looked into reproducing a yummy vegan salad, called Moroccan salad, we often buy at a local bakery.

Their website says it consists of

  • vegetables stewed in a tajine
  •  tabouleh (couscous and lentils with parsley)
  • hummus

 

I don’t have a tajine, but I simply put some oil, one tablespoon smushed onions, one eggplant, one courgette and some red peppers (equal amounts in any case) into my big wok, seasoned it with Ras el hanout and chili and simmered it until disintegration was imminent (about an hour).

For the tabouleh, I simmered 150g of red lentils for about 7 minutes (I usually overcook them, so yes: shorter cooking time == less mush). I poured boiling water over 150g bulgur and let it rest for 10 minutes. Mixing lentils and bulgur with lots of parsley and mint leaves finishes this part of the dish.

 

The combination is incredibly tasty :)

Tribal bellydance attire

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For inspiration: I like this outfit a lot.

From pieces of a metal belt I ordered online (and donations from Melwen) I made a black-and-silver metal belt

beltt

I love how the disks sit at the hip bones.

I continued to sew stuff onto my first tribal bra until it looked like this:

Melwen gifted me with a lace bolero!

And I fixed a bunch of flowers to adorn the hair by sewing them on hair clips

flowers

Finally, I added the missing few centimeters to my black tribal skirt. I think that skirt’s the very first item I bought when I started to dance, and washing shrunk it a bit. So now here’s my third tribal skirt:

 

 

Tribal summer semester end

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I pursued all three summer semester courses and learned new moves, including skirt moves, and some easy zill patterns. No shimmy so far, though :/

We had a wonderful garden hafla last Saturday with perfect weather and perfect hosts.

During summer I’ll attend summer classes on Mondays, and meet with Melwen for dynamic duells on Tuesdays :)

Modern Mucha by Alwa Petroni

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I had a beautiful couture gown made by one of my favourite designers, Alwa Petroni, to wear at this year’s WGT.

The basic form is inspired by Alphonse Mucha’s statuesque paintings, the decoration on the other hand is not as classical. It is beautifully made with three shades of red and completed with pearl embroidery. The overall look reminds me of streams of blood, or lava.

Alwa made the gown fit me like a glove, and since it is so easy to wear I had fun wearing it on two WGT days (best Victorian picnic ever!).

Some people told me that the outfit is rather unexpected at the festival, and I think that is a good thing.

 

And as seen in Sonic Seducer 07-2014

IMG_20140627_195211751

Rococo-ish: a summary

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Rococo – home of some really weird dress shapes, and weird outfits in general.

A weak moment and the decision to be part of a group of people with a Rococo-inspired dress code were the reasons for my first contact with this period. The result was the Star Wars Francaise which I was moderately satisfied with. However I never thought I’d make more outfits referencing this period, but somehow it grew on me to the point where I think it is downright fabulous: The bodies are awesome for getting some actual eating done, and they obviously had fun going over the top with their outfits a lot (until finally losing their heads *ahem*).

I conceived a codename/persona for this period, la Comtesse, whom I envision to be sufficiently wealthy to wear the moderately fancy clothes I plan to make.

Historical accuracy: completely optional, as always :)

 

So, what happened? what will happen?

  1. Star Wars – version 2
  2. Hiding in black
  3. Goth Anglaise
  4. Pirate Anglaise – Navigator
  5. Pirate Pierrot – Captain
  6. Striped gown
  7. Dragonfly gown
  8. Cyberkoko
  9. BSG redingote
  10. Caramel airship pirate
  11. Rock the rococo

Reworking a Francaise

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I was never quite satisfied with a Robe à la Francaise I made – at the time I did not put as much attention to details because I assumed it would be a one-time excursion into this time period. Since this sentiment now has changed, I decided to take apart the Francaise and turn it into an Anglaise (here’s the pattern).

Additionally I retouched the jupe: it has suffered from being put into the washing machine, and it would profit from more decoration as well. From a misguided online order I had some tulle-based flower trimming that went on the jupe.

ugly

Deadline: WGT  2015  (in 2014 I went to Leipzig alone, and I had no stays with front closure at the time :D )

 

A white beret, decorated with roses. And a pretty choker.

EAV – Wir marschieren

Perseverance

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Today my sister would have turned 55.

I lit a candle in remembrance of her and thought about what I know of her life: She was the oldest child in a family that was not always the happiest of families (although most of that happened before I was born and came to them as a foster child, so I have to go with what little my other siblings told me, and I stopped asking some time ago).

We were several years apart in age, and she moved out when I was still a child.

She was bad with money, but she loved to be generous and give people gifts. She also loved to dream about being wealthy, and we would watch cheesy soap operas together when she still lived at home. She was good with make-up and other beauty stuff, which makes me think of her whenever I glam up or have my nails done.

She collected teddy bears and anything with guardian angels on it, but she managed not to go overboard with hoarding the stuff (as other family members do).

She also was very sick for a very long time, but she never gave up, even when the boyfriend she lived with dumped her (again, I do not know the details, so no judgement from my side). She managed to move into a pretty little flat with a small patio. She loved children, and for some time she worked with a toddler group, a pursuit she liked to talk about when she phoned.

I don’t know how to write down the other things I feel, and I am not sure that if I could, I should.

So I’ll end this post with stating the fact that she will be remembered.