The Garden of Discordia

Going home soon. I haven't missed home much at all, but as Christmas grows closer, I find that I am getting very excited about seeing my family and friends again. I'm also very much looking forward to some special food things.

For one, Swedish water. It's not that the water here in Berlin tastes exceptionally bad (though it's super-duper-mega hard, my goodness. We've had to de-calcify the electric water boiler twice since I got here; I've never de-calcified a water boiler in my life).
But tapwater at home tastes, well, tasty! It's not just acceptable, it's fresh and good straight from the tap. I much prefer it to most bottled waters on offer, although, for instance, the fresh spring-water from Nacka is markedly more tasty.

I'm gonna drink a bucket as soon as I get off the airplane, I'm telling you. I'm also going to order tap water in every restaurant I have a chance to visit, just to enjoy the privilege of actually getting free tapwater (they're dreadfully reluctant about giving you a glass of tap-water here).

I'm also missing some food my grandmother makes; not that I couldn't make Hungarian beef stew myself, but it's grandma food. It tastes better at her place. Otherwise, since I cook a lot for myself, and the food from the university cantina tastes almost scarily like the stuff served in my highschool (with certain Very German exceptions, like Spätzle and whatnot), I haven't really been hit by any amazing food cravings.

Except perhaps lussebullar, since our oven is Teh Suck, and I'm not going trough the hassle of trying to bake my saffron-buns only to have them turn into pale, dry things in our non-hot oven.

But water. Nnngh, I didn't know I could miss tasty water so much

ALSO! Strawberry butter is like the best thing ever. Super easy to make and each bite tastes like summer

/eats another sandwich. With strawberries. This is joy

I made popcorn tonight. Because I wanted to (current soundtrack of my life: Die Ärzte - Der Infant)

But it really reminded me of dad. He spent a lot of time abroad when I was a kind, and when he was home I still hung mostly on my mom or grandma... but popcorn, that is super connected with dad ^_^;; It's strange, actually, because it's not as if he doesn't cook (and really well too!)
I guess it's because I was so young when I learned it, and he always made it seem like a... like real cooking? Idk. But we never were much for chips or candy in front of the television, it was either tea and cakes (sometimes homemade, sometimes bought) and very occasionally popcorn. And micro-popcorn wasn't around then, nor did we have a popcorn machine. Tangent: A-chan had a popcorn machine and we made popcorn on our own when I was pretty young once. It was like Living in an Sci-Fi World to me - dude! A machine! For making popcorn!!

Anyway... dad showed me how to make popcorn. He taught me to make paella and stir-fry too, but that was much later and it's not so associated with him, so to speak.

And he taught me to shine shoes... Mom totally never shines her shoes, she just walked in them til they fell apart. I do that too, actually, but I polish them a bit in-between XD

Huh. When I think of what I learned from my mother, it's more like "everything else", so there aren't such clear connections...
But I still know that if you want real cocoa, you have to do it grandpa's way. And my grandmother managed to instill both a snobbish disdain for margarine (sniff. fake butter? not in my cookies!) and the idea that artificial sweetener in coffee is the most natural thing ever.

My family has abandoned me for the week yay. This is by no means a disaster.

However, they've abandoned me with a fridge full of perishable food. And I don't know about you, but two pineapples, six lemons and four yoghurts (of which three have been opened) are a bit more than I usually eat in five days. And two mozarella cheese, but one of them had frozen to the fridge wall, so I felt quite justified in throwing it out

I don't even particularly like yoghurt for breakfast :(

Also, why do we have six lemons? I bought four and used five for the lemon-meringue pie, only last week. This does not add up