The (not so) Constant Gardener

© Joselito Briones

I've never been able to grow herbs in a pot before, especially in the kitchen. The only exception is rosemary which seem to just grow anywhere as long as there's sun and water.

It's different this time. I have four different herbs on the window sill and they're all thriving. I bought these a couple of weeks back, and now they're all at least twice as big as when I bought them. I've used them several times, but each time it's very difficult deciding which branch to cut and consume as I don't want to offend my herbs. Good thing they look like they'll just keep on growing. Maybe it's the German soil?. German sun? who knows, I'm just glad they're not dying on me.

From left: rosemary, peppermint, basil, and thyme. Next challenge is coriander, which is notorious for being difficult to grow. Maybe some parsley too. It'll have to wait though, until after I've come back from London.


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Where's Freddie?

Playing repeatedly on TV these days is this really cute world cup ad for Adidas. In it, two Spanish-speaking kids in a neighborhood playground get to pick members of their dreamteam. They of course pick all the biggest names and football superstars. Michael Ballack, David Beckham, Zinédine Zidane, Kaká, Frank Lampard, Arjen Robben, Juan Román Riquelme, Raúl, Alessandro Nesta and Oliver Kahn (the very definition of FIERCE bowed out gracefully when replaced recently as number one goalie for the German team by Jens Lehmann). The first version of the ad was funny enough when the two kids just picked whomever came to their mind. It was a surprise that after a few days, a new version of the ad came out where the players they picked actually appeared in their playground. And then one of the boys picked a football hero from the past (Franz Beckenbauer) which earned chuckle from the other boy, whose jaw dropped when the player also appeared in the playground. With the help of one of his teamplayers, he then picked Michel Platini to be on his side.

The official Adidas website for the ad, titled "Impossible Team", also posted high-res screen shots and behind-the-scene photos of the ad. The only complaint I have about the ad is that Freddie's nowhere to be found.

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Something fishy

© Joselito Briones

I've finally found the place to get fresh fish. It was a good thing that it's today that I walked around the area, because it turns out they only have fresh fish on Wednesdays. It's right around the corner from the Thai grocery that sells pea-sized egg plants, baby egg plants, pomelo, and sweet basil, among the numerous other food items they have in a very cramped small space.

When I was packing the food contents of our London kitchen, I made sure to at least buy and stock up on Asian canned and bottled foods because I wasn't sure if there'd by any Asian groceries here in Erlangen. After a week of walking around, I've found four such groceries so far.

Tonight we had steamed seabass in ginger, Chinese key, galangal, and chili sauce.


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