Tasty Search Engines and Asparagus

I can't remember how I stumbled upon Yummly.com. But what I know is that it was a good thing, because it makes life in the kitchen so much easier. Why, you ask? Because this page is a search engine dedicated to food. You type in one random ingredient and it delights you with the most delicious recipes from other pages around the world. As soon as you've typed in your ingredient, you can limit the results by choosing further ingredients or ingredients that should be avoided, choose which holiday the recipe should suit, which taste it should have (e.g. salty or spicy), which allergies you have or which diet you stick to, which techniques should be used (e.g. stir-fried or baked), which cuisine it derives from and even more.

I tested it a while ago when I had bought a bunch of asparagus. I had never prepared asparagus before, so I was pleased when I found this recipe for oven-roasted asparagus. It is really simple as it mostly consists of washing, cutting and putting the asparagus into the oven, however, the result was a very tasty snack. And, furthermore, I learned some new vocabulary from this recipe:

to lop off (to chop/cut off)
to pat something dry (to hit lightly -- e.g. with a cloth -- until it's dry)
to drizzle, e.g. with oil (to moisten)
Don't skimp! (Don't use too less!)

I am very happy that there is a search engine for recipes, because I usually tend to buy food without thinking of how to prepare them afterwards. So this is definitely a good way to avoid throwing away food because it gets bad before you think of what to do with it and it most certainly helps finding new recipes and techniques.

Movie: Soldaat van Oranje

Yesterday night I chose to watch a DVD that has been hiding unwatched in my shelf for far too long: Soldaat van Oranje (engl.: Soldier of Orange) - a Dutch film from 1977. It portraits the life of six Dutch college students and the paths they follow during the Nazi occupation of Holland during WWII. The film is based on the autobiography of Dutch war hero Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema (portrayed by Rutger Hauer). It is, until today, one of the most successful and known Dutch movies. Although it is set in the dark times of the World War and follows a serious storyline, it is mostly not gloomy or depressing - sometimes, the movie even makes you laugh.



On a more linguistic side, it was also interesting to follow the switches between languages. Obviously, most of the time they spoke Dutch, but also German when talking to Nazis and English when they cooperated with the British government. 

Nonetheless, I enjoyed watching Soldaat van Oranje, especially because they managed to lighten up such a serious topic in a very charming way.

Movie: Pontypool - Radio Zombie

Last week, I was just casually browsing the web and listening to the radio. However, when I switched the channel, I wasn't greeted by friendly radio hosts nor was I pleased with music: people on the radio were panicking about other people repeating single words over and over again, and how infectious this behavior was. Luckily, I was able to tell: this is not live radio, this must be a radio drama!

And I was right. In fact, FM4 broadcasted the radio drama version of the movie Pontypool, which is not your usual zombie flick. I personally think that Pontypool has a very philosophical and theatrical plot. To put it briefly -- beware of reading further if you want to watch or hear it!: it's about a virus that is spread through the English language. Various words are infected, which are repeated endlessly by the victims without having themselves under control. In the end, they feel forced to eat everything that produces English words: other human-beings as well as radios.

In the movie and in the radio play, we get to know of that event in a radio station, which is the main setting of the movie. During their broadcast, they get strange calls from their correspondent outside the studio, describing infected people and how he fears for his life. At one point it seems that the host and a radio technician are the last sane survivors in this town, when they realize how to save oneself from the infection: people just have to stop actually understanding these words.


The fact itself that a language or rather words are infected and that you have to alienate their meaning is just mind-blowing. I think that's such an intelligent thought and nothing you would expect in a horror movie.

The plot of Pontypool is only partly based on the book "Pontypool Changes Everything". As far as I've read in the book reviews, the virus itself is already present in the book and the radio host is only a minor character. Basically, the movie only borrows the idea of the virus itself, while the book deals with the results. I haven't read it yet, but it is definitely on my list. I'm very curious how the virus is described and if I can expect full pages with one repeated word.

If you want to listen to the radio drama yourself, you can do it on the BBC website right here. Strangely, although the drama consists of the audio of the movie itself, they have different endings. However, I still can't decide whether I prefer the movie over the radio drama or not. I'm just fascinated by the idea itself, in case you haven't noticed it yet.

Food Blog: have cake, will travel

source: keenhaven.com

Vegan recipes that don't require expensive (artificial) alternatives for animal products are often hard to find. And also vegan cookbooks that aren't trying too hard by thinking of the most exotic recipes are rare as well. Fortunately, I found the perfect vegan cookbook a few years ago: The Complete Guideline to Vegan Food Substitutions by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman. It's a cookbook that not only offers simple recipes, such as like vegan pancakes or vegan feta cheese, but also guides on how to "veganize" traditional recipes. They provide a huge list of alternatives for certain animal products, such as milk, cheese or eggs, at the beginning of each chapter.

Although this book really simplifies vegan cooking, I still like to read food blogs to find new ideas. I usually stick to German-speaking food blogs (mostly because of the measurements), but when we were asked to write about an English-speaking food blog, I thought of looking up what the authors of my favorite cookbook are doing. And it wasn't surprising at all that they had their own food blogs as well.

I instantly fell in love with Celine Steel's blog "have cake, will travel". I have to admit that this is mostly to her breath-taking photographs, as everything in her photos looks so natural and like it's straight out of grandmother's kitchen. But as soon as I took my eyes off her photos (which is very hard, because they take all the attention away from the text), I recognized her witty writing style from the book. In her posts, she usually starts with a personal story about the ingredients or how she craved for something special. This is followed my mouth-watering pictures of the recipe's target and the recipe itself. Unfortunately, her blog (in difference to their book) offers more food for people with a sweet tooth like muffins, tarts, cookies, syrup, and so on, which actually isn't quite my cup of tea.

Soylent, or: The Man Who Stopped Eating Food

picture source: John Suder

I know the header picture is misleading: I won't post about the movie Soylent Green (maybe another time), but rather about something that has a very similar name: Soylent. It's a "thick, odorless, beige liquid" which has the potential of stopping world hunger, saving the environment and turning humanity into healthy living-beings.

But let's start from the beginning: Rob Rhinehart (his blog: robrhinehart.com), an engineer from the U.S., counted up how much time, money and nerves buying and preparing food costs. The shocking result led him to the following question: is it really food we need to function and survive or the elements and chemicals in them? Is it, for example, the bread as a whole or the carbs in it? So he started an experiment: he would mix only the elements and chemicals itself and create a nutritious liquid, called "Soylent", which contains the perfect diet to gain all the energy, vitamins and everything else we need. And: he would not eat any other food for a minimum of 30 days.

He states on his blog:

I feel like the six million dollar man. My physique has noticeably improved, my skin is clearer, my teeth whiter, my hair thicker and my dandruff gone. My resting heart rate is lower, I haven't felt the least bit sickly, rare for me this time of year. I've had a common skin condition called Keratosis Pilaris since birth. That was gone by day 9. I used to run less than a mile at the gym, now I can run 7. I have more energy than I know what to do with. On day 4 I caught myself balancing on the curb and jumping on and off the sidewalk when crossing the street like I used to do when I was a kid. People gave me strange looks but I just smiled back. Even my scars look better.

He also explains how his mental performance improved, and how much money he saved while his diet consisted solely of Soylent (according to his blog, the average American spends $604/month for food while Soylent costs $154.82/month). If more people switched to the Soylent diet, we would not have to produce that huge amount of food on fields and in factories anymore. Also, people in the Third World Countries would benefit by having a perfectly nutritious meal without big effort (although clear water is essential for the preparation of Soylent).

It surely sounds like science-fiction: an odorless and low-cost liquid you drink a few times a day and you are perfectly healthy and energetic. I'm just wondering if humanity would really give up the joy  and culture of eating when Soylent was established around the world (although Rhinehart stated that it can be combined with traditional food as well, but he doesn't crave it anymore). I personally like almost everything that helps deprived people and the environment. If it was available in stores I would most likely try it out.

However, I think preparing and eating food is deeply rooted in our culture(s) since hundred and thousands of years, so even if it is beneficial in many ways -- I don't think that it can replace food as a whole.

Sources:
http://robrhinehart.com/?p=298
http://www.vice.com/read/rob-rhinehart-no-longer-requires-food