I completed reading The Great Gatsby last week. This book was a classic topic of English courses during my high-school years. I did however take only basic courses in English and never got to read this book. Instead we read "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner". But back to Gatsby. The book started off, with the protagonist moving to the eastern United States and joining the bond selling business. It details the luxurious property of Gatsby. For me this led to a rather slow start. Bond business and…

It's a tranquil Sunday afternoon in Hamburg. The rain is pouring down, i already confirmed that the ice cream parlor has closed for today. So it's radio time for me. And there's a particular gem I would like to recommend to you. It's Radio New Zealand's "Great Ideas" series, that started out with the episode on "Rebellion and Revolution". A show formatted as a talk between multiple scholars and a host. They launch into an exploration that spans history, from antique times to the modern day…

I participated in an enjoyable workshop on letterpress printing and typesetting with metal type in the Museum of Work, on a weekend in june. One of the perks of this is that, I'm "entitled" to visit the open workshop (normal entrance fees apply). So most mondays I find myself visiting the museum, either typesetting or printing something. For one of my meetups/regulars table I did print coasters. The front page contains the title "Donnerstags Stammtisch" and fields to enter your consumption of beer, food and…

Today I did a slight variation of this recipe from BudgetBytes. Slight variation: For the sauce: 2 Tbsp toasted sesame oil 1 Tbsp sugar 3 Tbsp soy sauce 2 Tbsp siracha For the main dish: 1/2 head of green cabbage 4 carrots 400g minced meet, extra lean, half pork, half beef 1/2 Tbsp sunflower oil 3 cloves garlic a knob of ginger salt and pepper sesame seeds How to: Mix the ingredients of the sauce Add oil to the pan, throw in ginger and garlic and let sizzle…

On saturday evening with temperatures around or below 0°C and rain, with streets slippery as hell, 15 people got together at FabLab St. Pauli to experience off-flavours in beer first hand. The bad parts: we should have tasted the beer warmer. The hall at FabLab was rather cold and we had problems to taste the esters in the pack. The bread I bought was some factory bread that tasted too much of butter and sugar. I will have to find a source for english crackers in Germany. The good…