Posted by: anmara | Friday, 3 September, 2010

Simply good food!

Sometimes preparing a nice dinner is so easy. During lunch time one buys some nice chanterelles and some salad. Note: By no means take iceberg salad. Any other salad with more taste will be perfect. Just the tasteless, watery iceberg salad seems like an insult to all other fine ingredients.

Back home in the evening one takes a few fresh spices from the own balcony selection. In this case marjoram, thyme, basil and some parsley.

One starts with putting some olive oil into a pan and heats it. Once hot enough that it almost starts sizzling, one adds the chanterelles. Let them fry a bit, sometimes gently stir them till you see they are shrinking. Then towards the end add all spices and some ground black pepper.

When all is looking well enough to be served, take the pan off the fire. Only now add some salt, but not much.

The reason for not adding salt immediately is as you might know that all mushrooms suffer during the frying process. Salt destroys their cells and makes them loose all the water inside. And your pan with all that water becomes a flat pot with boiling mushrooms rather than frying ones.

The salad one already prepared in a bowl or on a large plate. Now one can simply place the chanterelles on top.

There are loads of variations of this one can try. The same recipe works with other types of mushrooms. One can also add some fresh tomatoes, fresh basil leaves and some greek feta. Do not take the one made from cow milk, I am talking proper feta made from sheep milk. Using cow milk feta is like using iceberg salad… .

Be creative and enjoy!

Ah yes. If you think this is not enough for a meal, then add some nice oven fresh garlic baguette.

Posted by: anmara | Thursday, 2 September, 2010

Replacement Kisses

That’s how it titles right now at central station Linköping.

As you might have figured out, it used to be “Ersättningsbussar” – replacement busses – until a creative person came along and dared to change this ;) .

Posted by: anmara | Monday, 23 August, 2010

I need a new computer.

But which one???

My much loved Sony Vaio from 2004 with 500 MB RAM and 40 GB hard drive reaches nowadays its performance limit with blogging, emails, picture editing etc. And it is far too heavy to be carried around, plus it has no W-LAN either. However, it has a great screen which makes watching videos on it a real experience. That will be his future, I guess. Unless I find a way to upgrade it, but I am not sure if that works with that model.

So my criteria for buying a successor are:
- getting as much hard drive and RAM space as possible
- a bit smaller format, like 13,3 inch so that I can take it easier with me when traveling
- if possible a good screen (even the brand new Macbook Pro of the boyfriend does not give such a sharp picture)
- Budget? Well, depends – it is the value for money that counts, and if needed I can save up for it for a few months.

These two candidates I really, really like, but I cannot decide between them.

Number 1 - Macbook Pro 13-inch: 2.66GHz

Why?
- because it is a Mac and I like the Macbook Pro of the boyfriend a lot. I could live with one mainly for two reasons: It boots up and closes down fast, no antivirus malaki – and then I love the back-lit keyboard, so you still see letters when typing let’s say in a slightly dark conference room, or you simply don’t fancy switching on the light already on a late summer evening on the sofa at home. You could practically write in the dark.
- I chose this one above the slightly smaller one cos the price difference is not that much, and when I see how much more hard drive space and RAM is required since 2004, then I thought I rather go for the big version, hoping not to have to buy another one again for that reason in a few years. (Or is this reasoning wrong??)

Number 2Acer Aspire TimelineX 3820T

Why?
- Hardware capacity and performance comparable with the Macbook Pro above, if not better.
- supposedly a great screen
- Windows 7 allows still access to Office documents with no problem, and writing these
- Half price of the Mac (in that case the price does make me think…)

And being German, I just love this gorgeous video…. Listen to the voice and enjoy the probably best “Denglish” (German/English) product description I ever listened to. It is definitely the fastest (cut) one:

Please – if you do have any experiences, advice on these two or if you know about a third possibility I should consider, then let me know. I would be ever so grateful.

Posted by: anmara | Friday, 20 August, 2010

Slow wheelchair? Not anymore.

Would be really cool if this new vehicle would be available to everyone bound to a wheelchair – if one wants to be able to and physically could manage to go everywhere. Would be another step to more freedom and independence, thinks innocent me who has no experience with this whatsoever.

What do you think?

Posted by: anmara | Thursday, 19 August, 2010

Who’s talking?

This one was taken during a coffee break at Vadstena Castle.

For us it was simply fun because this type of bird (Eurasian Jackdaw) would just sit there, by the side of your coffee board and patiently wait for anything that might drop to the floor, or, more convenient for them, be thrown their way. If you would leave your table for just a few seconds, you can be sure they’ll thoroughly take care of the rests of your cake.

The other special skill of this bird is that it can learn to imitate noises like mobile ringtones or even the human voice.

So – who’s talking then??

Posted by: anmara | Friday, 13 August, 2010

A new blog baby is born!

One that will talk about two-wheeled adventures – only. It is called Elisatravels.com – Why that name? You may check that out yourself over there, please. On this note I’d like to give a special thanks to @Maex for his idea with name finding (“Take the name of your motorcycle!”).

An “About”-page and also the first two posts are online, lots more are being prepared by myself and by my beloved @Swedephotog. He is another motorcycle nerd who is sometimes worse than me in that respect.

Anyway – you have more of a choice now: Wha’ever or Elisatravels!

Hope you enjoy the read either way!

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