OLD FRIENDS NEW WAYS

I have been back in Berlin for almost 5 weeks now. I LOVE it! It’s funny coming back, I really feel like Berlin is my (adopted) hometown. It just fits. I feel really comfortable here. But then, I’m not working already, once you work in a place it’s a whole nother story. At the moment it’s kind of like a holiday. An adventure.

I thought I would be blogging basically straight away, but it took me quite a while to settle. Not in a way to feel at home, as I said that was no problem, more in a way to get back into a routine.

Routines are funny, the exciting part of moving somewhere different and starting something new is that you don’t have a routine or that you change it, but I like routines in some way. It’s a funny one.

For example, before we left I was eating really healthy, mostly raw vegan food. When we got here I was like “OH MY FUCKING GOD!! Organic shops here are awesome!!! I wanna try EVERYTHING!!!” So we ate a lot of organic, vegan, but nevertheless much more processed food. And the vegan restaurants!!

I had a couple of slip ups, were I ate some vegetarian, non vegan sweets. I made this whole list in my head ages ago of all the things I wanted to eat coming back and it’s difficult to get things out of my head once they found a way in there, so yeah, I’m trying to be more undogmatic, but still straight edge, if that makes any sense?!

But now I’m basically back to my old ways.

Breakfast! I try to have something like this every day.

Also, no internet.

Some minimalists seem to go for the ‘no internet at home option’. In our shared flat we can only pick up the signal of a free internet every couple of days and then it’s really shit. So mostly we go to the library now, they give you codes for 2 hours of free internet. I’m sure you could use the internet there the whole day, but I kind of like the 2 hour limit, it keeps my internet addiction contained. It’s amazing how quickly 2 hours pass on the net. Frightening!!!

I met some of my old friends again. It’s funny how you can  basically pick up were you left with some people, even if you might not have seen them for 5 or more years. One of my friends, I’m pretty sure she’s a witch, she’s got a black cat, is a feminist and collects herbs, 3 reasons she basically would have been burned at the stake for a couple of 100 years ago, is gonna go on a herb forage with me next week and I’m super excited!

We gonna look for elderberries, linden flowers and some ramson maybe, which is like a wild garlic.

I’m also going to another forage walk tomorrow.

Here is a cool music clip, by Sticky Antlers. A band I found while watching a documentary about Punk in Africa.

Here is the crazy long trailer.

I nearly passed out watching this movie, the cinema was so overcrowded and the show was really delayed. As with the trailer, the movie would have benefited from some better editing, but nevertheless it was very interesting.

Also cinemas are so much better in Berlin!!! Oh my god! I’ve got so much catching up to do! I love art house, independent, foreign movies. I hate that regular cinemas nowadays just show this regurgitated boring hollywood crap that just insults my fucking intelligence with it’s cliches and stories that have been done 1000 times before.

I’m trying to get into blogging again more regularly, see how it goes!

Have you tried something new lately?

Starting To Eat Vegetarian

Starting to eat vegetarian can be quite confusing and maybe a bit daunting. First, if you don’t do it already, read your labels. You should do that anyways, it’s surprising to see what is in some foods. If a tomato sauce for example has more then ten ingredients, I won’t eat it. Lots of foods contain all sorts of weird numbers and sugars and all sorts of crap. I wanna impose a new rule for myself “If I don’t know what it is, I won’t eat it!” It’s really difficult! I couldn’t do it right now, it’s stressful enough sourcing vegan, organic whole foods!

So anyways, if you want to ease into the vegetarian diet and/0r generally eat more healthy maybe try the following.

•Check out the health foods stores and have a good look around, that can be not only the healthier option, but also more interesting then just getting the regular products from the normal supermarket.

•Go to the farmer’s market. This is so great I can’t believe I just started doing this a couple of weeks ago. You get food that is locally produced, is fresh and organic and unprocessed and get to support small businesses! What’s not to love!!?

•Experiment, try something new, maybe it won’t be great, maybe it will be. If you are worried about wasting money, write down some foods and research them at home.

•Try out some milk alternative, I quite like coconut milk and I have rice milk for my dandelion coffee. Nice!

•Try some of the meat and sausage alternatives, most supermarkets carry at least some and you will find them in whole food stores also. I recommend smoked tofu, I know some people say soy isn’t great for you, but I still gotta look into that. Soy, vegetable burgers and tempeh can be great. Some brands are better then others, you gotta try them to see what you like.

•Follow facebook pages on vegetarian eating and recipes, find websites and talk to your friends that are vegetarian.

•I’d recommend making vegetarian spreads, like pates, yourself. I haven’t tried making them yet, you can also get them in the whole foods stores, they are delicious and great for sandwiches.

•Also great on sandwiches are nut butters, I love macademia nut butter or vegan pestos, which you also can make yourself. Because this shit can be expensive.

•Most likely you want to eat more healthy too, so I’d recommend to not over cook vegetables or just have them raw. Stir them into your hot food for example after taking it off the heat. Or start the day with a fruit salad. I do that and it’s awesome!

•We don’t use butter in our house and we also stopped eating margarine a while ago. I actually don’t miss is at all! I never thought it would be so easy! I normally just eat spreads straight on my toast, if it’s too dry I just use just use more. I have also tried using nut butters, tahini or jam on top of coconut oil. And I gotta say it’s delicious!

•Eating out can be a problem, depending on where you live. Give a vegan or vegetarian restaurant a try next time. There are some cheap indian and Hare Krishna places in Melbourne I like go go to. And it gives you some inspiration and you don’t need to cook!

•Get yourself some vegetarian books from the library or book shop

•Check out some websites to get some inspirations.

You can also check out these websites for some more meal ideas.

taste.com.au

vegetarian.about.com

instructables.com/vegan

veganeasy.org

To name just a few. And here is one I found that has some cool kids recipes, like zucchini potato fritters, stuffed mushrooms and pasties.

kidspot.com.au

I normally don’t cook with recipes, but I gotta check out some of these websites for inspirations for the future. Some of the stuff they got on there looks quite delicious.

Those are some tips I come up with right now. There must be heaps of others. Remember, when you are just starting to change your diet, don’t be too hard on yourself, don’t be afraid to try something wild and new and most importantly Have Fun!!