Cranberries for christmas...and Troll-cream

Pics by Johanna

It`s cranberry time and its soon Christmas! Well kind of...because I have attended the first Christmas fair meeting, where we prepare for the big event in end of November,and today I found myself  singing
a Christmas carol .
These berries are for our special Christmas dinner, but  cranberry also makes very good jams and contain these bitters that we tend to get too little of in our diet . And they are fast and fun to pick.

I remember in my childhood ,sunday afternoons ,sitting  cleaning buckets full of cranberries that our family had picked on our sunday-berry-trip in the woods. And then after dinner, my favorite dessert:
Troll-cream. Of course this is only eaten in the land of trolls and it probably would not work to make elsewhere...But it is very simple and delicious; cranberries whipped up with a little sugar and an egg-white. And it needs to be whipped until its grown big and fluffy and stiff. Eaten with some cream mixed with milk and maybe the egg-yolk whipped up with some sugar, it makes wonderful color combinations and taste divine!

Høst

Pics by Johanna

Yoga dressed in olive oil and sundried tomatoes...

Pics by Johanna.


We stayed in a olive grove in Sardinia. A olive grove with all kind of fruit trees, grape vines ,and fig trees...a little earthly paradise. And not only a earthly paradise, it`s also used as a yoga retreat where one can spend a week doing yoga ,eat tha fresh local food and home grown foods, and of course dressed in the olive oil from the very ground you live on. It`s got to be good for you !
Ateeka is a woman of great creativity,vision and energy ,and is as the italian Vouge wrote of her..".the famous yoga teacher from United States ".
She has put up big and comfortable tents on wooden platforms so that she can house groups of 12 to 15 people at the time. The yoga ,eating ,showering,cooking is all done outside in nature so that in practice one is out the whole day and living very close to nature.
And as you can see from the photo, she makes the most wonderful sundried tomatoes ....mmmmm

Sardinia, sardinia...

Pics by Johanna.


Normally we spend the summers here in the north of Europe, because this is where we like it the best this time of the year. But because we have very good friends that very kindly invited us to join them at
Sardinia this summer, we made an exception and holed the whole family along for two weeks on this magical island in the middle of the Mediterranean ocean.
And we had a very hot and sun-filled vacation. We arrived at the time the weather Gods decided to balance up for all the rainy and cool days in the north by blasting some real southern temperatures.
So coming from the cool 12 degrees celsius, we landed in close to 40 degrees in the shade.
A shook to the system it was ,but after a week of this ,we slowly started to get used to it.
Lots of hours on the beach with big umbrellas and big water melons, and a swim in the ocean every five minutes got us through. And as the rain filled up the nordic water reservoirs , Sardinia filled up our
batteries so that we no feel ready for  some cooler times. Thank you very much Sardinia, Ateeka and Ola

Pics by Johanna.

One ,two ,three, pick me a blueberry...

Pics by johanna


The woods are full of blueberries! And it´s a great way to spend time in nature, fill the freezer and contemplate life...berry picking is definitely worth wile doing.
Blueberries is also one of the most health-promoting berries, full of anti-oxidants and of course vitamins and minerals.
It´s also the one berry in our woods that stays for pretty much the whole summer and it´s not that you need to pick it within a couple of weeks, like it is with most other berries . But my experience is that the  berries taste the best when they are young.
We are so lucky that our garden is full of blue berries and whenever we need a cake , smoothie or something really yammy ...we go out and pick some of these blue wonders. Johanna with her favorite "berry picker" in hand , is the racer in our family...also the most motivated to make something sweet and tasty! Here is one of her creations ,specially made for me without gluten. Thank you,  my sweet Johanna!

Pics by johanna

Berlin continues to excite and inspire me. The fusion of resource-fullness, originality, design, green and alternative living mixed with a building mass of old and crumbling facade and interiors is what does it for me. And of course it´s people, our friends, good food, and great shopping...Not to mention the prinzessinnengarten that now has published a book with the same name. I bought it in Berlin, but I´m sure you can order it on Amazon. This is a truly inspiring urban garden project that has reached world fame  in its very short life time.