Cook a little: the 17 day diet, day 4

Day 4 and I've run into a few problems with the diet.

1 I am utterly bored. What can I say? I like my food. After 4 days of fruit, steamed veggies and fish, there's only one thing on my mind. How does Posh Spice do it? She supposedly lives off this stuff.

breakfast: scrambled eggs with veggies and cottage cheese (no toast, then)

2 I have a load of recipes to test for various jobs, and they all contain carbohydrates. Of course they do, it's what normal people eat. What do I do? Do I test them then chuck the food? Do I try one bite (which I should really, I have to TEST it for god's sake)? Do I tell my employers to shove it?

3 I think about food all the time.

4 I talk about food even more than usual.

On the up side:

1 My time spent in supermarkets is greatly reduced. I'm not allowed any bread, pasta, wheat, meat, sugary food/drinks or alcohol, so all I need to look at are the fruit/veggies and the dairy section. I buy eggs in bulk and - with reluctance - some cut poultry. I walk past whole supermarket sections with my head held high. No thanks. Feelings of superiority ensue.

2 I get creative with the loopholes. I decide red wine is ok (something about nutrients in the grape skins) and for some reason, Parmesan is considered a low fat cheese by Dr. Mike. I suspect, however, that the phrase 'fat free' has gotten lost in translation somewhere. I'm not questioning Dr. Mike though. No way. I eat the cheese. Bliss.

3 Am fascinated how easy it is to greatly reduce my sugar and carb intake. I don't get withdrawal symptoms. I don't crave sugary stuff. The only thing I really miss, is something salty and crunchy. Like roasted nuts. Now there's a thought.

More about the book itself (as opposed to my diet miseries) to follow.

Cook a little: the 17 day diet, day 1

My next book review is on a diet book. Following my own rules-of-the-reviewer (with 'don't review a cookbook you haven't cooked from' being the one and only rule), this means I have to go on said diet. That's a first.

Well actually, I did follow a diet once. All I remember is that it was four days of tuna steaks for lunch, spoonfuls of peanut butter as a snack and lots of beets. As random as the famous Beyoncé 'maple syrup and cayenne pepper' diet then. I was supposed to lose four kilos in those four days, just like my assistant-at-the-time Rosie's mother did. I lost nothing. I'm still eating peanut butter straight from the jar though.

The book is The 17 Day Diet by Dr. Mike Moreno, who thankfully is a real doctor - a GP. (He comes with recommendations from Dr. Phil. Who came on a wave of Oprah Winfrey fame. It's all in the networking.) Dr Mike is not as shouty as I had expected: leafing through the book I only see a few exclamation marks. Good.

It's translated into Dutch by a lady who used to write for 'the glossies' and now writes her own books. You can tell she's not a translator. Some sentences are appalling. You can just hear Dr. Mike in the background, saying it in English with his (or so I imagine) American twang and big white smile. Be warned, I will not be able to stop myself from giving examples (in Dutch) of the odd odd sentence. (Yes, it is supposed to say 'odd' twice. Speaking of appalling sentences.)

On the road

Exciting things happened this week, explaining my blogging absence. Thing is, I went on my first ever tour. Twas a rock band music tour on the road kind of affair (which totally brought out my inner groupie girl), only with two singer songwriters so less of the rock and more of the music. However. There were backstage wristbands involved, beardy tattooey roadies carrying around stuff to and fro, plus free beers/avocadoes/crisps in the dressing room. (I even discovered a vegetable crudité platter one night, with houmous for dipping, and nearly wet myself. Unfortunately it was for sharing with another band, the ever expanding-in-notoriety Rats on Rafts,  so I couldn't eat the lot even though I'd had no dinner. But then I suppose having no dinner is very rock 'n' roll too.) There were fellow groupies who mouthed along to all the songs (nil points for me on that one) and vied for a place on the backstage sofa (I won all the points there). All in all it was quite an adventure.

Mitzi Blue chocolate

I love love love product packaging. It is my dream to be the comer upper of unputdownable tins of soup, washing powder cartons and stock cube packets. If I had the energy to make a portfolio, apply for art school and spend three years being told what to do, I would become one. Until then, I will have to make due with drooling over the lovely things I see in the shops.

And drooling I was, when coming across this beautifully designed brand of chocolate: Mitzi Blue. I spent an absolute age trying to pick the one flavour I was allowing myself to buy. (The steep price was the only thing holding me back. Oh, and my ever so slowly increasing weight.) I went for the Schweinstrauben (pigs' grapes), with a funky little drawing of piggies clustered together as a bunch of grapes. It contained milk chocolate, grapes and the unknown ingredient of 'Grammelnougat'. Never in a million years did I think there were actually piggies in there. But there are, in the shape of tiny nuggets of caramelized pork scratchings. And they taste good too (the piggies).

Cook a lot: One more slice by Leila Lindholm

Every time I tell my mum I have baked something sweet, she says the same thing: be careful. It's not really a surprise as this is my mum's response to many of the things I tell her. On holiday? Be careful. Long drive in the car? Be careful. Got a cold? Be careful. After years of the same spiel, I know the code behind the much used phrase. In the case of baking she means: you'd better watch your weight. Baking means eating, and who else but me and my man would be eating up all this cake?

Looking at the pictures of Leila Lindholm in her second baking book, One more slice, I have a suspicion that her mum worries about other things. Leila looks like lately, she's been baking her cake and eating it, too. Dressed in floaty clothes and padding on Birkenstocks, she's a down to earth version of the equally curvy Nigella Lawson. An earth mother of sorts, and one that - according to the foreword - is trying to bridge the gap between cultures and generations by baking goodies. The recipes are international enough and range from Italian semifreddo to American brownies and from French pain au levain to Russian blinis.

Underneath the cherry blossom tree

All I have been hearing about recently is Japanese cherry blossoms. It may be a coincidence or it may be my friend Marc, who has been travelling East, bringing back wonderful snacks like cherry blossom flavoured chocolate and cupcakes with cherry blossom icing (a very faint flavour actually, cherry blossom, but that aside). It may be the lovely Hiroshige book I got with its beautiful cherry blossom woodblock prints, or the Hokusai exhibition I went to. Pale pink seems to be the new black.

Hiroshige's cherry blossoms

Nestle's cherry blossoms

I'm not the only one under the spell of the cherry blossom tree. Not one, but two sets of friends have been travelling to Japan recently, fervently hoping to catch the blossoms in their full blooming action - which only happens one week of the year, apparently. One of my mates sent me daily pictures of her and her man, smiling goofily under a variety of pink flowers. I have to admit, I got a little jealous.

Then the opportunity presented itself. Not to go to Japan, alas. But to see a real live Japanese cherry blossom tree in action. Yes, Berlin has its own cherry blossom trees and the petals were clinging on for an unnatural amount of time due to the cold snap. Lucky me, having an extra week to catch a glimpse!

A Grand Day Out with Slow Travel Berlin

Today I went to A Day of Creativity, Culture and Cuisine organised by Slow Travel Berlin. And for the first time since moving here I truly felt like I belonged... It was like everything I've been doing sort of came together in this event. There were loads of people I knew, Like Pilates teacher Renate, the Berlin Pop choir people, Nick the musician and Katie from Hudson's, as always in her chef's whites and serving up delicious morsels of something or other. The purpose of the day went right over my head (something to do with sustainability, slow life and good food, with some photography and music thrown in for good measure, I think) but the air was buzzing and the organic soup was flowing. Happy days.

I attended a photography workshop by the wonderful Katrina James of I'll get you my pretty. She took a little group of us out into the streets of Kreuzberg to - shock, horror - take pics. We all want to be photographers but who dares to actually go out there and take the shot? Katrina, that's who. Even though I only had my point-and-shoot camera with me, I took some shots that made me happy. Most of all, the workshop reminded me how much I love photographing stuff, and how much there is out there worth capturing on film. Or rather on pixel. 

Drink a lot: Ankerklause, Kreuzberg

When I was in Berlin last year, scoping out the place as a potential place to live, I was mesmerized by Ankerklause. A beacon of warm light, perching on a bridge half over the water of the canal: it's a place you cannot walk past on a cold winter's night without going in for 'just the one'. The bar has a patchwork collection of rooms, all with a nautical theme and fish painted on the walls. 

Heartwarming in winter, it's great for summer too, when the plastic covers of the 'balcony' are rolled up and you'll be sipping your Bionade outside, looking out over the water. Even the tables out front are a strangely relaxing place to sit and watch the world go by, even though you're sitting almost IN Kottbusser Damm, perhaps the least relaxed street in the whole of Berlin.

Drinks range from my favourite white beer du moment (Schneider hefeweizen dunkel) to a cup of Nesquik, from mojitos to organic white wine. It's the kind of place where you start with a coffee after browsing around the Maybachufer market and find yourself still sitting at the end of the afternoon, having moved on to beers and getting slightly hungry. Not to worry, because they serve food too. The selection's predictable (burgers, nachos, chili con carne) but the quality is good - I loved the plateful of potato salad, mustardy and with just the right amount of chopped pickles, for just €2. I have a feeling I'll be coming back again and again and again...

Ankerklause, Kottbusser Damm 104, 10967 Berlin, +49 (0)30 6935649, open Monday from 4pm, Tue-Fri from 10am, ankerklause.de

10th Berliner Bratwurstmeisterschaft

Bratwurst. Germany's most celebrated food. No matter what the event, somewhere there will be someone grilling sausages to serve to the hungry masses. Yesterday, the event revolved around the food itself. It was the 10th Berliner Bratwurstmeisterschaft. Yes. Yes. Yes. It was time to vote for the best sausage in the city, in the county, heck, there was even an outer region category (with only one contender. They won). I was most excited, though, about the 'creative' sausages. Marzipan and chilli sausages. Pumpkin and mango sausages. Orange and cinnamon sausages. Some where blackened and finely ground in their skins (the spinach and cheese ones), some were too big for their rolls and chunky (the apple and coriander ones).

Apple and walnut sausage

Mackerel at the market

I bumped into the cutest little street market today, on Schönleinstraße (corner Boppstraße, right outside the wonderful Hudson's) in Kreuzberg. It consisted of just one greengrocer's, one baker's, one of those little coffee carts, a flower stall and two people from Ostsee selling freshly grilled fish. I sat on the pavement in the sun, eating my mackerel sandwich. What a way to start the weekend.

Makrelenfilet im brötchen, €3.80

Schönleinstraße Saturday street market