Happy May!

 Happy May to all my Friends and Readers

New Calendar picture with this

beautiful watercolour painting by Frank Koebsch

"Das Cliff am Südstrand von Sellin im Frühling"

"The Cliff on the South Beach of Sellin in Spring"

Frank says to this picture:

"Es macht immer wieder Spaß, an der Ostsee direkt am Strand zu malen. Einfach mit den Füßen im Stand zu stehen, dem Rauschen der Wellen und den Möwen zuzuhören, die Sonne und den Wind auf der Haut zu spüren."

"It's always a pleasure to paint right on the beach at the Baltic Sea. Simply standing with my feet planted on the sand, listening to the sound of the waves and the seagulls, feeling the sun and the wind on my skin."

I can imagine how beautiful it must be to spend a day on the beach painting - if the weather plays along. I love being at the beach, the air is just wonderful.

Read more on their website here. *

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We just happened to go to an open air museum that has three different kinds of windmills, depending on which part of the construction is moving.

We haven't been to the beach last month, but we were able to see a beautiful windmill in a small open air museum in Bad Zwischenahn.

If you haven't seen enough windmills for today, I did a collage of some last year in May (see here). Seems like this is the month for windmills.

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Since we find more and more people like that nowadays, I will choose this German word of the month:

Schubladendenken

I checked whether there is an English translation for that and found pigeonholing and stereotyping. I think I prefer the latter. We are talking about narrow-mindedness, bigotedness, blindness, ignorance, obstinacy. Haven't we all lost friends we thought were nice people until they let out their political thinking?

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This month was the first time in years that I didn't finish a book. A friend had lent it to me and I told her I didn't like another one I had read by that author but I would try this. It was even worse. No more books by Ian McEwan.

With my local book club we discussed "The List of Suspicious Things" by Jennie Godfrey. We all quite liked it.

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* You can also have a look under my labels Artist: Frank Koebsch and Artist: Hanka Koebsch where you can find all my posts about the two artists. 

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🌷 I wish you all a very Happy May! 🌷

Wordless Wednesday ~ Daily Walk 2

Top Ten Tuesday ~ Food

 

"Top Ten Tuesday" is an original feature/weekly meme created on the blog "The Broke and the Bookish". It was created because they are particularly fond of lists. It is now hosted by Jana from That Artsy Reader Girl.

Since I am just as fond of them as they are, I jump at the chance to share my lists with them! Have a look at their page, there are lots of other bloggers who share their lists here.

This week's topic is a Freebie. I picked Food since I missed that a while ago. This time, in the order that those meals are served/eaten during the day. Breakfast, Tea(time), Dinner. 

Capote, Truman "Breakfast at Tiffany's" - 1958

Scott, Mary "Breakfast at Six" - 1953

Scott, Mary "Board, but no Breakfast" - 1978 

Vonnegut, Kurt "Breakfast of Champions" - 1973

Wilde, Oscar "Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast" - 1946

Bryson, Bill "It’s teatime, my dear! Wieder reif für die Insel" (German edition of The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island) - 2015

Mortenson, Greg "Three Cups of Tea" (with David Oliver Relin) - 2006 *

Scott, Mary "Strangers for Tea" - 1975

Koch, Herman "The Dinner" (NL: Het diner) - 2009

Scott, Mary "Dinner Doesn’t Matter" - 1957

I was very surprised when I found out years ago that for a lot of British people, tea not only describes the drink but the food that we would call dinner in general.

📚Happy Reading 📚

Kingsolver, Barbara "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"

Kingsolver, Barbara, Steven L. Hopp, Camille Kingsolver "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life" - 1990

Live the year with Barbara Kingsolver and her family on their farm.

I grew up like this. My parents didn't own a farm but they rented a house with a large garden, quite normal at the time in the countryside. We would grow everything, really everything the family need during the year. Except for the potatoes, the garden was not large enough, especially since we hardly ever had rice or pasta. But my uncle was a farmer and he would come by once a year and fill half of our little cellar room with potatoes. The other half would be harvested in a nearby apple orchard. We also had chickens, rabbits (which I still refuse to eat to this day) and even a pig from time to time. Fresh milk would be fetched from the next farmer, the one who also owned our house.

So, I read this book with a laughing and a crying eye. Too many memories of a hard childhood. But also so much that sounded familiar. Not just the planting and harvesting of the veggies, the washing of the preserving jars and then the processing and the cooking. A lot of work. In the end, I was happy I don't have to do that anymore.

What I liked about the book was the togetherness of the family, the will to stick together and live off the land for a whole year. Of course, not everyone would be able to do that. We all have to go out and earn a living, there is not that much time left to grow everything we want to eat. Also, most people don't have the money to have land so large that they can live from the proceeds any longer.

Mind you, a lot of her findings about food you can buy and probably shouldn't, are about the US American market but we all have to find what is good food and what isn't

So, I understand people who didn't like the book because of that. But we can all learn from the author and buy more local food, buy more stuff that is in season and didn't have to be shipped all over the world until we get it.

I also loved her remark to lactose intolerance. I belong to the (large) group of people inflicted with it and often have to hear snide remarks. I should take an excerpt from her book along with me in future:

"This is not an allergy or even, technically, a disorder. Physical anthropologists tell us that age four, when lactose intolerance typically starts, is about when nature intended for our kind to be wholly weaned onto solid food; in other words, a gradual cessation of milk digestions is norma. In all other mammals, the milk-digesting enzyme shuts down soon after weaning. So, when people refer to this as an illness, I'm inclined to point out we L.I's can very well digest the sugar in grown-up human foods like fruits and vegetables, thank, we just can't nurse. From a cow. Okay?"

As a big fan of gatherings by family and friends, I also loved her accounts of those. She obviously has more space than we do but even in our smaller apartments, we often had several dozens of visitors to our parties.

There are also contributions by her husband and her daughter Camille who includes a lot of recipes that you can download here: AnimalVegetableMiracle.

Does Barbara Kingsolver still belong to my favourite authors? But, of course. All her books are great!

Book Description:

"Author Barbara Kingsolver and her family abandoned the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life—vowing that, for one year, they'd only buy food raised in their own neighbourhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an enthralling narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat."

Book Quotes

 

"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet". Aristotle

Education can be fun, but in the end, it really has to be sweet, no matter how it was during the time. I always loved learning and going to school. Yes, I had some teachers who shouldn't have become teachers but in the end, most of them really love their job and do their best.

"Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history." Oscar Handlin

Oh, if only some people (especially one) would try to understand that.

"Books are such an underrated essential. Every book is a key that unlocks another world, leads us down the path of a different life and offers the chance to explore an unexpected adventure. Every one is a gift of either knowledge, entertainment or pure escapism." Bella Osborne, The Library

Where would we be without books? Still sitting in the trees and eating bananas.

Find more book quotes here.

Wordless Wednesday ~ Daily Walk

Top 5 Tuesday ~ Politics

 

Top Five Tuesday was originally created by Shanah @ Bionic Book Worm, but is now hosted by Meeghan @ Meeghan Reads. To participate, link your post back to Meeghan’s blog or leave a comment on her weekly post. I found this on Davida's Page @ The Chocolate Lady.

And here is a list of all the topics for the rest of the year.

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This week’s topic is Politics.

Politics is always an interesting topic and we should read a smuch about it as we can. I have chosen the last books I read about politics. I can recommend them all.

Clinton, Hillary Rodham "What Happened" - 2017

Harris, Kamala "107 Days" - 2025

Keefe, Patrick Radden "Say Nothing. A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland" - 2018

Lanschot, Reinier van "We are Europe" (NL: Wij zijn Europa: een nieuw Europees verhaal) - 2024

Mak, Geert "The Dream of Europe. Travels in a Troubled Continent" (NL: Grote verwachtingen. In Europa 1999-2019) - 2019

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📖 Happy Reading! 📖

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