an easy, tasty and healthy summer dish

Its been a long time since I wrote a recipe, here is one I invented last Thursday:

You fry for 2-3 minutes one and a half cup of red lentils (they are actually orange) with 3 or 4 spring onions and one courgette/zuchinni chopped in cubes. Add water and salt and cook it for 15 minutes at low heat without covering (let the lentils become a dried paste).

While the lentils cook, prepare a tzatziki-like sauce with half a cup of yoghurt, half a cucumber (shredded or finely chopped), juice of half a lemon, olive oil and chopped fresh mint.

Taste the lentils, if they are cooked, you may turn off the fire.

On a separate small saucepan, toast chopped walnuts (or pecan nuts if you are a lucky bastard) at medium fire, for 1-3 minutes, add fresh rosemary and when this mixture starts to smell lovely, add two spoons of butter, two spoons of olive oil and some salt. Take the saucepan away from fire as soon as the mix begins to turn dark brow.

Now, you take a plate, place some lettuce leaves, pour a big scoop of the lentils, then add the yoghurt sauce and top with the brown butter-nut-rosemary sauce.

I really enjoyed this meal, I cooked in Höchst, a quite little town at the constance lake. It borders to Switzerland and it is the birth place of Andi F.

This lentil dish has everything a good summer meal should have: It is served not very hot, it has lots of proteins, it refreshes through the use of yoghurt, cucumber, lemon and mint and the rosemary and nut sauce provides a herb, strong body.

I cooked this dish for Andi F and her mom...by the way, Andi F is my girlfriend.

P.S. I took no photo of the dish since it would have been weird to do that in front of Andi F's mom

Alpine, urban and tacky

Some weeks ago, I wrote about the „oh-shit-we-live-in-a-small-town“ complex from which many politicians in Innsbruck suffer. On that same entry, I also wrote about the „cosmopolitan city“ marketing-campaign, and now, new shit has come to light!

Months ago, the marketing and tourism department of Innsbruck launched a design competition (which not many people heard of) to design a city logo and corporate identity for Innsbruck. The costs for this entire process were around EUR 250,000, but for the logo, only EUR 35,000 we paid, this means that the marketing and tourism department spent EUR 215,000 in something...

The problem with this logo is that it represents the identity of the entire city, and has a direct influence on all cultural and touristic venues...and these cultural and touristic venues were not involved in this process at all, even though they pay taxes to the marketing and tourism department.

After being strongly criticised in the media and by many cultural associations, the marketing and tourism department decided to invite all cultural associations to a presentation of this new logo/corporate identity. Somehow, I was among the invited, but it was impossible for me to assist. However, Evelin, a friend of mine, did attend. Evelin told me yesterday that Innsbruck's new corporate identity is based under the slogan „alpin urban“ and this is was my inspiraton for today's blog.

In order to show you how „alpin“ and „urban“the city I live in is, I will describe you one of my favourite places in Innsbruck, the Landestheaterplatz, a wonderful square:

This square is located in front of the Hofburg (an imperial castle of the Habsburgs) on the Europaalle (Alley of Europe). This street got its name in the late 1990s, after the European Commission had a meeting in the city Congress, which is located in front of the theatre.

If you sit in the theatre steps (something I love to do on afternoons with a bottle of prosecco), you will instantly feel like ina big city: You can see the imperial castle, the congress, the Hofgarten (royal garden), the Pavillon (a Michelin-star awarded restaurant), a cable-car station designed by the world's most known architect woman, Zaha Hadid, and the cherry on top of this marvellous urban landscape are the Alps.

When you sit there, you have the feeling you have everything a real cosmopolitan city can offer: History, culture, award-winning gastronomy, modern architecture, beautiful huge trees, antique gardens and a contemporary water-fountain with an amazing acoustic effect. If you sit here anytime during the week you will see tourists, business people, punks, students, dancers from the theatre company and musicians with their instruments heading to the congress or to the theatre.

Last Saturday, Andi F and I passed by the Landestheatherplatz and saw something amazing, something I simply had to capture on video. If you hit the link at the end, you will see Innsbruck’s most cosmopolite square, where the two words „alpin“ and „urban“ melt into a perfect symbiosis of nature and mankind.

Politicians and board members of the tourism and marketing department, thank you for offering us, citizens of Innsbruck, this wonderful event!!!

Chick here to see the video - the building on the back is Pavillon, which holds one of the two Michelin-stars in Innsbruck. Great food, by the way!

and now...the link.