i've been a bit obsessed with japanese food lately which actually started quite randomly with a dinner invitation for okonomiyaki. the day after i only had potatoes, carrots and onions at home, so i wanted to make a dish out of those. i just started cooking, without deciding if it should be a chinese style dish or an indian curry. when the pan got hot it suddenly came to my mind "why not kare raisu (japanese curry rice)?", so i just started with the spices i would put in a regular curry (ginger, cumin, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, curry leaves, bay leaf, chilli) and while the whole thing was simmering i tried to look up the ingredients of instant kare raisu. however, wherever i looked it just said "curry powder", duh?! ok, so i just tried to figure it by myself. started with a little bit of cinnamon, a dash of nutmeg and some soy sauce. then i mashed the potatoes a bit for a thicker texture and seasoned in the end with a teaspoon of honey.
i was really surprised, it tasted indeed just like the instant versions! mmhh... : )
on the next day, i actually wanted to make an okra/tomato stew, but ended up making kombu dashi for miso soup... and now i can't stop eating nori and instead of using up the okras, all i can think of is making onigiri and tsukemono!
while looking for tsukemono recipes i stumbled across this great japanese food blog. it has tons of recipes and all the basics you need to know about japanese food.
unfortunately i was more in a hungry mood the last couple of days, so no pics of all the yumminess. only this totally unrelated, but incredibly cute pic of tavi that i just saw on her blog.

the sushis meet the tempuras
scott campbell via cookie cutter

♥ herb & dorothy ♥

art is mute when money talks.

i'd love to be a food stylist and photographer...

roasted sesame seeds, cinnamon from the maledives and pumpkin seeds.

so instead of travelling to distant lands, we visited the exhibition "approaches to distant lands. geographic gems from the austrian national library":

mexico city when it still was an island
a chinese, an ottoman and a maya having hot chocolate together. how cute is that? it could also be the beginning of a joke... (oops, i just figured that they are not all having hot chocolate, but should be representing the three new beverages in the occident: coffee, tea and chocolate...)
"ein man des landt IWALPANOMA ohne kopf", a blemmyae.
cute little penguins.
a pangolin!
mmhhh... books.. : )

i want to go travelling again!

pics from our last korea trip in july.

just something to cheer me up: coffee and macarons at konditorei oberlaa with p. and s. last week.