Temperatures hovering around 0°C (32°F) and dropping as the first dusting of snow of the season has transformed the fir trees at our balcony.
If I had a pumpkin and if I had some real sweet potatoes, I would do this today. Perhaps I will see what my local supermarket has to offer, as it is not at all easy here to make anything close to the traditional American Thanksgiving treats, but I'd love to bake a pumpkin pie for this evening after work, since we sure will not be having turkey anywhere during the day that my American friends and relatives observe with family and friends and full bellies at home on holiday today. PUMPKIN PIE RECIPE
Ingredients
• 1 (2 1/2-pound / good 1 kilo) pumpkin (or half of a 5 pound / 2.5 kilo pumpkin)
• 1 pound (ca. 500 grams) sweet potatoes
• 1/2 cup (120 ml) heavy cream
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) whole milk
• 3 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 cup (480 ml) light brown sugar, packed and leveled
• 3/4 cup (180 ml) Steen's cane syrup
• 1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon (approximately 1/4 of a pod) freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
• 9-inch flaky pie crusts
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) cinnamon sugar, to top
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) raw sugar, to top
• Sweetened whipped cream (optional), for garnish
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Directions
1. Quarter pumpkin and scoop out seeds. Roast pumpkin and sweet potatoes in a 350-degree F oven for 45 minutes to an hour, or until sweet potatoes are soft in the center. After cooling, peel off and discard the pumpkin skin and puree meat in a blender or food processor. Peel the sweet potatoes and puree as well. Combine pumpkin and sweet potato purees with the heavy cream and milk.
2. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, egg yolks, brown sugar, cane syrup, cinnamon, ginger, salt, nutmeg, and white pepper.
3. Blend pumpkin and spice mixtures and divide between two 9-inch pie crusts. Sprinkle tops of pies liberally with cinnamon sugar and raw sugar.
4. Bake at 325° F (ca. 165° C) for 45 to 55 minutes, or until pumpkin filling is set. Allow to cool for 1 to 2 hours and serve at room temperature or slightly chilled, with sweetened whipped cream if desired.
[Source: http://www.delish.com/recipefinder/fresh-pumpkin-pie-top1110 "delish"]
Enjoy your holiday or working day everybody!
Well, we're supposed to be afraid, shivering in our boots, trembling every time we see a backpack, suitcase, briefcase on the bus, subway, tram, train. There are machine-gun toting policemen roaming the central train station, the Christmas markets that just opened today, the major squares in town. They have closed access to the dome of the Reichstag for visitors. And they keep telling everyone not to panic.
Today, they say, is the day when the danger of a terrorist strike in Berlin (and Germany on the whole) becomes REAL. So they hike up the threat level and the police presence, and the police union has already said they are over the limit, can't manage any more, need help. And the Innenminister call for just-in-case storage of online and phone and mobile data, again, even though there last effort to enact such was struck down by the Constitutional Court.
A train has been evacuated, a couple of railway stations, and who knows what else by now, because the citizens, not in a panic, are reporting everything they see standing around anywhere.
And this is the day on which JFK was assassinated in 1963; I'm still waiting for the conspiracy theory that links today with that.
Anyhow, I've ridden bus, tram, subway already today, and now I'll just stay in, not for fear of terror, but because it's a nastily rainy day outside.
Have they checked the contents of those Xmas trees on the markets? and the ginger bread? and the stockings and wool hats? What about those Xmas caroussels? all that Glühwein (spiced wine)? And those candied nuts, apples, hearts? There may be a Scrooge at work here somewhere.
"Oder ist die Versagung das verborgenste Wort? [...]
Und doch sind wir die Brücke selbst zwischen dem Seienden und dem Seyn."
[MH:GA Bd.74, I, Die Sage, §9, S.11]
Never forget how good, how great, how beautiful, how unique, how spectacular YOU are!
The real crime these days is that anyone is made to feel unworthy because of his/her sexuality. It is shameful for the US and every other country where gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders face discrimination that their societies have remained so bigotted, biased, backwards, and brutal.
WAKE UP and THINK. We are all in this together!
Now that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been freed from "house arrest" in Myanmar/Burma and has appropriately enough, as a Nobel Peace Prize winner, called for unity in her country and democracy and respect for human rights, it is time for that other trampler of human rights and democracy, China, to free another, more recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Liu Xiaobo!
May the Burmese acknowledge the need, the urgent need, for basic human rights and no longer threaten this political activist, but instead move forward in allowing information, access to information, freedom of expression, and respect for the people.
I would like to see a seminar, live-streamed on the web, of all living winners of the Nobel Peace Prize on the importance of the rights to life, liberty, and freedom of expression. No moderation should be necessary.
As a result of testing some ebook readers for a journalist friend who is to do a feature on them and needed some guinea pigs to interview about their experience with these slick devices, I have begun to wonder how they will yellow, why they don't have pleasant smells dependent on the country of their publication, why Mark Twain looks exactly like William Shakespeare, and why the pads don't respond to fingers that have been outside in the real autumn world.
I suppose I am simply glad to be paper bound, still write with ink myself in a paper notebook when it truly matters, enjoy the different weights sizes feels scents typefaces of that fabulous innovation called BOOK.
And can truly recommend this video assessment of that invention, in Spanish with English subtitles, but intuitively comprehensible, genial and ingenious. Take the time to watch, enjoy ...
... and now go read a book!
Do not forget why this date became "Veterans' Day" and remember what it means to defend freedom against tyranny!
Celebration of November 11 in Paris in 1944, video at this link.
Remember Armistice Day, the day the Germans finally surrender in the "War to end all wars"!
