Literal video

We found that on the Spiegel Online website.

Silly Sunday

These are the official, premliminary results of our latest election last Sunday. You can find more here.

Falls uns am Wahlsonntag das Lachen vergeht...

... hier eine kleine Vorsorge, die aber auch sonst wirkt:

Horst Evers und die Arbeitsplatte
(Den Text findet man in seinem Buch: Gefühltes Wissen, was an sich auch schon ein Knallertitel ist.)

Cake business in Kigali or a lovely time in another world

Since we love books so passionately we decided to write a bit more about books we liked reading. The first book I (little D.) want to write about is

Gaile Parkin's Baking Cakes in Kigali.

This is Gaile Parkin's first novel (let's hope for more). She was born and raised in Zambia and has lived and worked in many African countries. She also worked in Rwanda, counselling women and girls who had survived the genocide.

In the book Angel Tungaraza, a professional cake-baker, has recently moved from Tanzania to Rwanda with her husband and her five orphaned grand-children. While taking orders for her colourful, tasty, artful cakes she listens to stories and confessions and problems of her customers and friends. She often helps them to solve their problems and eventually finds the answer to her own personal struggle. The book is written in a light and vivid tongue. The underlying theme is a basically positive view on the development in a country after the genocide. But the author does not shy away from the very serious aspects of life in Rwanda. One character in the book, a friend of Angel and a restaurant owner, tells about the sad despair of having survived by chance only after she saw her family being killed. Aids is an underlying theme in the book. And even female genital mutilation is raised (which is not a Rwandan tradition).

But it is a funny book as well. One guy in the story sent his maid to ask a neighbour for condoms in the middle of the afternoon. This raised some embarrassment and suspicion about the guy's sex life. In the end it turns out that the maid's English wasn't that good and that she was sent to ask for cardamom instead. Really a laugh.

Another quite lovely story in the book is the story about a baby-girl named Good-Enough. The baby's uncle orders a cake for the Christening and when Angel asks about the odd name he explains it. The baby's mother wanted a boy and got a girl instead. Good-Enough. After some soft persuasion Angel is able to put a new name of the baby on top the cake: Perfect.

'Baking cakes in Kigali' is a moving book. Again, it made me think of our own luck and wealth. And it shows at least a little bit of life in another country. I dearly hope for a sequel novel.

And to make it clear: This is not a book like the Mma Ramotswe ones (The No.1 ladies' detective agency-series by Alexander McCall Smith). I love the Mma Ramotswe books as well, since it made me curious about Botswana, a country which wasn't on my radar before. Now I dearly want to visit Botswana. Better sooner than later! But McCall Smith shows only the bright side of life and avoids all serious matters. Which is not a critisism at all. I just don't like the reviews of Gaile Parkin's book that say 'Mma Ramotswe fans will love this book'. They might, they might not.

A nice way to spend an evening or the secret of Ramen

Just by chance we bought The Ramen girl at Sainsbury's last weekend. What a lovely surprise!

The film stars Brittany Murphy (Just Married, Sin City) as the American Abby who gets somehow lost in Tokyo when dumped by her boyfriend. She finds herself again while training to become a Ramen chef in a local Ramen shop. Her sensei is a cranky old man who doesn't speak English. Abby doesn't speak Japanese. Eventually, despite the cultural clash she learns how to put passion and spirit into her cooking and her life.

But see for youself:

Last year, when we stayed in Malaysia we used to eat at Ajisen Ramen regularly. We loved it. Went there twice a week sometimes. A shame that there isn't Ajisen in Frankfurt or London. But we have Mosch Mosch in Frankfurt, another Japanese noodle restaurant. Delicious! And they cook Ramen as well.

Ideas for Christmas presents - part 1

One cannot start early enough thinking about what to buy for Christmas. And since one can buy Lebkuchen and Christmas biscuits and Marzipan Kartoffeln already, we figured we could start with publishing our ideas (and whishes... ;-) ).

Last weekend, while browsing books at Foyles we found this treasure:

Arctic: Jan Vermeer
by Frieda van Essen

Amazing pictures! You can get an impression here. This is one of his photos of Spitzbergen in the book (I stole it from his homepage.):

Jan Vermeer is an exceptionally gifted photographer. And - luckily - he published another awesome book: Antarctica: Jan Vermeer by Frieda van Essen.

The books do not only display pictures, you also learn something about the history of the polar regions. And since the Arctic and the Antarctica are facing rapid changes due to our lack of responsible climate politics this books might make a nice Christmas present. Even an investment for the future. In 50 years time you could show the pictures to your grand-(grand-)children and tell them about a beautiful but then vanished (or at least rapidly shrinking) world.

Cool fruits

Fancying square tomatoes or peaches? How about this?

It took Chinese farmer Gao Xianzhang from Hebei province six years to create this pears. The pear grows in a plastic mould to get its shape. Cool idea.