Walking the Highline

The Highline is one of my favorite outdoor spaces in New York City. Sadly, the two times I walked the elevated railway park, it was freezing and rather winter-y. I’m dying to experience it in summer. I imagine getting a cold drink from one of the cafés on there and chilling on a wooden bench with a light book.

The pictures I took on the Highline back in October tell a different story – no refreshments and hanging around, but keeping a pace to stay warm and inhaling hot apple cider to fight the gloomy air.

When I revisited this series, it reminded me of my current surroundings: the weather back here in Switzerland is similarly dim and rough right now. But I won’t complain (after all, I spent the never-ending winter in sunnier climes up until three weeks ago).

Banana coconut pancakes

Some days, I just wake up with a pancake craving. Most days, unfortunately, I can’t give in to that urge, since my speedy getting-out-of-bed process doesn’t allow for preparing pancake batter and leisurely lounging around in pajamas, reading the papers or catching up on the Walking Dead. On other days (e.g. Sundays) this is considerably easier. Especially when the dough comes together in five minutes and the final result is so delicious that you  want to go back for seconds. And thirds.

Banana coconut panakes

Adapted from Plum Pie. Makes 6 huge pancakes (the number of people served by this depends entirely on their greed. Anything from 2 to 4, I guess). T=tablespoon, t=teaspoon

• 1 T butter
• 2 ripe bananas, cut into bite size pieces
• honey or maple syrup

• 1,5 cup white unbleached flour (I imagine this would work just as fine with whole wheat flour)
• 1 t salt
• 1 T sugar
• 2 T unsweetened coconut flakes
• 3 T baking powder

• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup plain yogurt
• 2 eggs

Heat 1 T butter over medium/high heat. Add the bananas and cook until golden, then add a drizzle of honey and cook for a few more minutes – until the bananas start to caramelise. Mix flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and coconut flakes in a small bowl. Whisk together yogurt, eggs and milk ingredients in a bigger bowl. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the milk/egg/yogurt bowl until you have a smooth dough. Carefully blend in the soft, cooked bananas.

Heat a small knob of butter in a pan and scoop a few tablespoons of batter in there. Cook for a few minutes and turn the pancake when you start seeing bubbles. Serve warm with honey, or jam, or butter, or whatever crazy topping you can dream up.

Emptying my Pocket, Vol. 2

It seems that in the past few weeks, I’ve almost exclusively pocket-ed food stuff. I hope that’s cool with my hypothetical blog readership of three people.

• This broccoli soup, topped with this salad.
• White chocolate macaroon bites. ‘Nuff said.
• A recipe that contains sweet potatoes, feta and olives – you have found yourself a winner!
• Ever since I got a popover pan, I’m a tiny bit obsessed, and always on the hunt for new combos. This one seems worth trying out.
• If my baking savvy friend wasn’t on a 6-month trip to Asia, I’d cunningly talk her into making this.
• To cancel the above out, I’d make this juice.
• Crispy mushroom, spinach and avocado quesadillas.
• As if I didn’t have enough: 15 great healthy cookbooks.
• “A little kale” can never be wrong.
• Skillet scones? Color me intrigued.
• Sprouted Kitchen is consistently awesome, and golden beets are pretty.
• If something says “Limited Edition”, I’ll need it. “Mini” things trigger a similar reaction, no matter how un-essential the item in question is. It’s a problem. Fortunately, I really do need those mini ceviche tacos.

And, because you’re all in food coma just thinking about all of that deliciousness, here’s a few minutes worth of reading and listening material that’s only marginally related to food, if at all:

• Okkervil River’s Will Sheff has a new solo project. This is bound to be good, right?
• Amy Poehler’s hair ftw. Who’s your favorite?
• This guy inspires major house envy in me.

1111 Lincoln Road

In 2010, a Herzog & de Meuron-designed car park opened at the western end of Lincoln Road in Miami Beach. Unlike the purely functional, sterile design of most garages, it features crooked, concrete pillars and a lot of open air. The Swiss architects didn’t just design a flexible and unusual parking lot, though: it also contains what I suspect to be a massive loft with an incredible garden on top, and several exclusive shops and restaurants. What you’ll usually see in photographs of this 300-car parking lot is its outside. It is striking, I’ll grant you that – parking lots are not usually interesting architecturally – but I find the view from the (almost) top to be more captivating. You don’t have to park your car; just hop in the elevator and get off at the 6th floor.

No level at 1111 Lincoln Road seems to be the same height. This is evident in the elevator already, where you hear the beeping sound for each floor at irregular intervals. You’ll also notice this fact when exiting the elevator and looking down to the next floor. See how much more air the cars on our floor get?

First, look up – you’ll see signs of the lush garden that belongs to the lucky people in the aforementioned penthouse.

Then look around – the view is stunning. You’ll see art deco hotels on the beach, parts of the downtown skyline, a ton of palm trees and the chaotic Miami traffic. Another thing you’ll realise while standing up there and taking the city in is that 1111 Lincoln Road complements Miami well: they’re both subtly playful, surprising, in-your-face showy and kind of naked – or, as Jacques Herzog said himself: all muscle and no clothes.

Naples, Sunset Edition

I’ve seen two sunsets in Naples. The first time around, back in July last year, I brought my camera and took quite a few photos, only to discover later that there had been no film in my Canon. Duh times a million. So when I was road-tripping Florida’s west coast again, I couldn’t make the same mistake, obviously. How many pictures of a sunset can you take, though? It seems that I overdid it a tiny bit to make up for the earlier faux-pas. Oh well, one can never have enough desktop backgrounds, I guess, so there.

Emptying my Pocket, Vol. 1

Do you know Pocket? It’s a great tool if you need one single place to collect everything you want to read later, but don’t have time at the point of stumbling upon it. Or, purely hypothetically speaking, if you are perhaps easily distracted and feel better when just “pocket-ing” something as opposed to giving in to the distraction. Either way, I’ll empty my Pocket from time to time on here – maybe you’ll find something to put in your own.

• I don’t think I’d want to restrict myself to only using copious amounts of coconut during the holiday season. That’s why I’ll make those coconut balls anyway.

• I heart Lena Dunham and Girls, and reading. All rolled into one in Lena’s ideal bookshelf.

• Even January here in Florida calls for comfort food. I want all those risottos!

• Camouflage artist Liu Bolin is pretty amazing at, well, hiding.

• Joy doesn’t only come up with yummy cakes and cookies, she knows her smoothies, too.

• I love those ferm wire baskets, especially the yellow one.

• As a stereotypical Swiss person, I need this.

• I love Luisa’s writing, and have just bought a bag of black lentils. Cue Black lentil soup.

• Can’t hurt to add a couple Mountain Goats shows to your library: the Mountain Goats live at Castro Theatre and at the Vic Theatre (I was at the latter and it was bonkers amazing).

• And, last but not least, as always, I can feel my travel bug. What’s your must-go trip recommendation for 2013?

Cauliflower and Chickpea Salad with Tahini Yogurt

I have an ambivalent view on cauliflower. On the one hand, it just looks sort of bland to begin with, right? And the part of my brain that is responsible for childhood food memories logged cauliflower as “boring, tasteless”. Then again, there are delicious ways to use that cauliflower in your crisper, and they don’t have to be complex. I’m thinking of you, whole roasted cauliflower with mint chutney, and curried cauliflower soup. Today’s cauliflower recipe doesn’t involve roasting or simmering, though: we’re talking about a very simple salad, starring steamed cauliflower, chickpeas, a few green things and tahini yogurt.

Cauliflower & Chickpea Salad with Tahini Yogurt

Note:  I usually don’t stick to recipes very strictly and cook quite intuitively, so my loose quantity recommendations will be convenient for some, maybe less for others. This will be the case for all the recipes I post here, so you have been warned :) T means tablespoon, C is for cup.

Adapted from 99 federleichte vegetarische Genussrezepte, serves 2-3

• 1 head cauliflower, cut in bite-sized pieces
• 1 T fresh lemon juice
• 1 15oz can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 2-3 scallions, finely chopped, white & green parts
• a handful of parsley, or cilantro, finely chopped
• 1/2 C of plain yogurt
• 1 T tahini
• spices according to your preference – in this case, I used a few dashes of paprika, cumin & chili powder
• salt&pepper
• 1 T toasted sesame

Steam the cauliflower for about 5-10 minutes, until soft, but not mushy. Refresh with cold water, then put in a bowl and pour the lemon juice on it. Add the chickpeas, scallions and herbs to the bowl. Make the tahini yogurt: combine the yogurt with tahini, spices of your preference and s&p until smooth. Arrange cauliflower, scallions and herbs on plates, sprinkle with toasted sesame, and drizzle the yogurt on top. Enjoy while the cauliflower is still warm. If you have leftover tahini yogurt, worry not, it also tastes very good as a dip for raw veggies.

Miami Lunch Love: Soya e Pomodoro

It would take a lot of delusion and good will to label Downtown Miami as “charming” or “welcoming”. But a girl has to work and eat, so I get to spend a lot of time in the area. My favourite spot is Soya e Pomodoro, an oasis of relaxation and treats. You’ll feel as if you’re in Rome or Verona, having a casual Italian lunch. Several factors contribute to Soya’s excellence. For starters, the interior is incredible: the exposed walls in an ex-market hall or foyer, the charming, thrifty furniture, the semi-dried flowers on the tables, plants, books, bric-a-brac all over, laundry hanging on a line from the ceiling…

But of course, it’s not just the enticing setting and the unpretentious atmosphere that draws me there for lunch again and again: the quality of the food that Soya serves is simply outstanding. In Italian cuisine, the seemingly simplest dishes are often the most complicated ones: ask any connaisseur and he’ll tell you that it is a veritable science to make the perfect Gnocchi or the ideal tomato sauce, for example. Tellingly enough, almost everybody work at S&P is Italian. Yay authenticity!

A meal at Soya e Pomodoro starts with really good bread, both baguette and ciabatta. I find that you can judge a good restaurant by its bread, and Soya passes this test with flying colors. It’s hard to not stuff yourself on it before the main event! As entrees, I’ve had both pasta dishes (favourite: spinach ravioli in a creamy walnut sauce) and panini (favourite: soya burger), but no salad yet (I make acceptable salads myself, but handmade pasta? I’ll leave that to the pros.)

There’s one tiny downside to Soya: the service sometimes doesn’t match the quality of the food. However, I find myself forgiving the Soya guys their slightly rough attitude – after all, I go there for the food, and they always get it to me, with or without the smile.

Those photos were shot with a Topcon film camera. View them and a couple more on flickr, if you’d like.

10 (and some) golden rules for Miami driving

Driving in a new-to-you country is not always easy, and certainly doesn’t come natural. You have to carefully explore the ways and means of domestic drivers, and then adapt accordingly. The worst you can do is sticking out like a sore thumb. If you just go with the flow and accept that other driving scenes roll differently, it’ll be much easier to come out on the other side in one piece. For example, if you hold on to those 10 very basic and, in retrospect, obvious rules below, you’ll fit right into Miami traffic! Good luck. (You’ll probably need it).

1) A stop sign is merely a suggestion. Under no circumstances should you view stop signs as a command to actually bring your vehicle to a full stop. If you feel that you just have to go past it, do it. A red light shouldn’t inhibit you from reaching your goals either.

2) Don’t care about pedestrians. Who are they to think that they have any kind of rights on the street? To move from point A to B, people should rely on their cars, not their feet. If their light is green (white), go even faster. Knock them over and run! Burn in hell, pedestrians.

3) Don’t pardon your French. Swear as much as humanly possible at other drivers and forget everything you’ve learned in that anger management class. If possible, roll down your window and make eye contact with other drivers so you can personally insult them. If you have to, get out the car and physically fight them (preferably at 8am).

4) Cut other people off as much as possible. Short and simple - cut! Bonus points if you manage to take other drivers by surprise.

5) Don’t put your signals. Rumours are the authorities will charge you for it. Plus, signals take the fun part out of driving. People would suddenly know where you intend to go and could react to that! Gasp!

6) Use your honk. Use it liberally and without any apparent reason. This will get everyone in a good mood, and traffic will obviously start moving faster right away. This applies especially if you can see that you’ll be stuck for a minute or two (for instance when a drawbridge goes up). Honking will magically speed up the process! Also honk like it’s going out of style if someone doesn’t speed away immediately after a light has switched from red go green. Those milliseconds count!

7) Repeat rule 2, but replace pedestrians with bicyclists. Additionally, if you happen to be around when Critical Mass is on, give those bastards a piece of your mind, or, better yet, attack them violently.

8) Invent lanes! This is a fun one. If there are three lanes, but in order for you to fit in, there should be a fourth one, go for it and start creating it. Other drivers behind you will appreciate the initiative.

9) Speaking of lanes – cross as many lanes as possible in as little time as you can. A lot of people take this challenge up on a daily basis, so competition is stiff. Try harder! Four lanes in two seconds on a crowded highway? Just do it! It’s for everyone’s benefit.

10) Make your car your meeting room (or nail salon, or lunch spot). Try to schedule all your meetings and phone calls for your drive. This will save you time later! Texting or calling people is completely acceptable, nay awesome (and it’s actually even legal, so this might be the only permissible thing you’re doing in the process of driving). Driving is boring, so you should absolutely multi-task while doing it!

11) Bonus rule for highways: if you miss your exit, just drive there backwards on the emergency lane. Seems legit and not cray cray at all, right? What are those lanes for anyway. It’s not like there’d be an accident, ever.

12) Bonus rule for aesthetically challenged people: install a vanity plate that says “YOLO” or something similarly archetypically Miami. It will make you immediately identifiable as a nice, un-douchey person who just goes about enjoying their life.

13) Bonus, all-encompassing golden rule above all else: think of yourself as the ambulance or the fire brigade. In the grand scheme of things, I’m sure where you’re going is at least as important as the hospital or a burning house, right? You deserve to get there first. This means that you shouldn’t worry about what’s behind or in front of you, just go. Conveniently enough, this ties in nicely with rule 1-12.