Ingredients:

300g old bread (I prefer white bread with lots of crust, but anything goes)
500ml milk or 450ml milk and 50ml cream if you like it creamy
200g sugar (I prefer dark brown raw sugar – in any case, unrefined)
5 eggs
50-75g raisins or sultanas (depending on your taste)
1tsp cinnamon (or more…)
2tsp vanilla sugar (or more…)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 200C. Mix the milk with the sugar. Break up bread into a large bowl and pour the milk over the bread. Mix with your hands until it’s… mixed. Doesn’t have to be homogenous, just squeeze it a few times. Add raisins, cinnamon, vanilla sugar and beaten eggs. It’ll be sludgy – you want it that way. Pour mixture into an oiled loaf pan and pop into the oven for 45 minutes.

When I did this last I put and extra 2tsp of vanilla sugar on the top and it made it nice and crispy. It did mean I had to cover the loaf with tin foil for the last 10 minutes to prevent it from going too dark.

Also, if you can’t get your hands on vanilla sugar, vanilla extract works just fine of course.

Some popular variations include adding apple slices – none at the top or they’ll burn – or covering the entire loaf, after it’s fully cooked, with a mixture of 1 egg white, 150g icing sugar and a bar of milk chocolate. I prefer to stick to the plain vanilla version though.

Nom nom nom…

For the first time since my discovery of the Interwebs, I’ve purchased a cookbook. And I have to say, it’s really lovely. Not only is it filled with amazing seasonal recipes, it’s also really beautiful with great illustrations that remind me of Quentin Blake’s style, and tasty food photography. Check the link for a sample recipe and some pictures. Recommended!

Stéphane Reynaud’s 365 Good Reasons to Sit Down to Eat

P.S.: Photography by Marie-Pierre Morel, illustrations by José Reis de Matos, both brilliant artists.

After grabbing a few different lasagna recipes off Epicurious and Cooks.com and wrangling them into a new recipe, I decided to share the result. Because you should eat well.

“It’s hard not to spend the whole day on making a lasagne” – a friend of a friend who knows where it’s at.

Ingredients
Feeds up to 8 people. Will take about two hours all up to prepare.

Veal sauce

1 small to medium sized onion
2 garlic cloves
a can of chopped Roma tomatoes
1/4 cup drained dried tomatoes packed in oil
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup tomato paste
500g ground veal
1/4 cup of stock

Roast vegetables

2 large red bell peppers
3 medium onions
4 medium carrots OR 2 carrots and some yams, OR hey, whatever you fancy and have lying around (I used a courgette once)
8 large garlic cloves
1-2 cups of cherry tomatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
freshly ground black pepper

Béchamel(ish) sauce

3/4 c butter
7 1/2 tbsp. flour
2.5 c full cream milk
1 cup stock (I used beef)
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp tarragon
splash of wine, I used Vicotto Giovane (thanks Odetti!)
1/2 tsp salt
dash of nutmeg
1 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (Parmigiano Reggiano, another Parmesan or could use Pecorino too)
2 cups grated Mozarella cheese

On top and between

1/2 cup grated Mozzarella (about 2 ounces)
1/3 cup grated Romano or Parmesan (about 1 ounce)
dry lasagna sheets

Preparation

Roast vegetables

The bell peppers are best of you hold them above a naked flame until their skin is nice and charred and easy to peel off. Alternatively, you can grill them in the oven until they’re blackened. Cool and peel. Slice lengthwise into strips.

For the rest of the veg, preheat the oven to 190°C. Cut the onions in 8 pieces each. Cut the carrots into nice bite-size pieces. Peel and crush the garlic cloves a little. In a large shallow baking pan toss vegetables with garlic, oil, and pepper to taste and roast in middle of oven, stirring occasionally, 30 to 35 minutes, or until tender. 10 minutes before it’s ready add the cherry tomatoes. Can be made up to a few hours in advance.

Veal sauce

Separately chop onion and slice the garlic lengthwise. Finely chop dried tomatoes. In a heavy saucepan cook onion and garlic in oil over moderately low heat, stirring, until softened. Add tomato paste, canned tomatoes, stock, and salt and pepper to taste and simmer sauce, covered, stirring occasionally, 30 minutes.

While sauce is simmering, in a non-stick skillet cook veal over moderate heat, stirring, until cooked through. Add veal and dried tomatoes to sauce and simmer 10 minutes. Remove pan from heat. Veal sauce may be made 1 day ahead and chilled, covered. Bring sauce to room temperature before using.

Béchamel(ish) sauce

In large sauce pan melt butter. Blend in flour and cook, stirring constantly over medium heat for 3 minutes. Add milk and stock, stirring constantly until mixture boils and begins to thicken. Add seasonings. Remove from heat and stir in Parmesan. Just before adding to the lasagna at a later stage, stir in the grated Mozarella.

Assemble lasagne

Lightly oil a 13 by 9 inch baking dish. Spread about 3/4 cup veal sauce over bottom of dish and cover with 3 lasagne sheets, making sure they do not touch each other. Drop one third Béchamel by spoonfuls over pasta and spread evenly. Top with one third vegetables. Spread about 1 cup sauce over vegetables. Make more layers in same manner, beginning and ending with pasta. Spread remaining sauce evenly over top, completely covering pasta, and sprinkle with grated cheeses.
Bake in middle of oven 40-50 minutes, covered for the first part, uncovered for the last 20 minutes or so. Let lasagne stand 15-20 minutes before serving. Actually, the closer it gets to room temperature, the easier it becomes to cut into squares, the better.

Serve with bread and wine!

Etats de l’Afrique
Various Artists

1. Rail Band – Duga (Bambara Version)
2. Africa Show – Ritmo da Ilha
3. Le Rail Band feat. Mory Kante – Mariba Yassa
4. Orchestre Régional de Kayes – Tèrèna
5. Bokoor Band – Onukpa Shwarpo
6. Alemayehy Eshete & Hirut Beqele – Temeles
7. Bokoor Band – Maya Gari
8. Feqadu Amde-mesqel – Asmarina
9. Orchestre de la Payotte – Kadia Blues
10. Orchestre Régional de Kayes – Nanyuman
11. Rail Band – Fankante Dankele

Download and enjoy.

In short, a lot of hoo-haa over small change, but people got put in jail and their lives and reputations were severely damaged. The New Zealand press also jumped onto the whole affair like vultures. Big scary headlines, and even a New Zealand flag with an AK-47 machine gun on it in the NZ Herald. I could almost feel our mothers trembling, their children hiding under their skirts.

So just to make sure that people think before they fall into the same trap of “fear justifies all” as in other countries, a nice community gathering was set up. People talked, listened to music, and enjoyed their civil liberties just that little bit more than usual. It once more made clear that if we want to survive as a community, we have to act like one.

PS.: I’ve only just noticed – call me thick – that the E tu! logo has two German SS logos behind it. I must say, that’s a pretty low blow. If you ask me, you don’t fight ignorance with ignorance.

Boogie to this, the video clip for Tonto, featuring work by United Visual Artists:

If you would like to see/hear an entire concert, check out this recording (30-3-07, Empty Bottle, Chicago):

You can read a transcript here.
More spoken words by William Burroughs at UbuWeb.

Here’s a random pick from my flickr page:

In short I love the little camera. It’s got great focus and nice vignetting that makes the images produced feel like if they were seen through human eyes. It’s also really covert when taking pictures.

What I’d like to do now is take more portrait photos. Which brings me to the slight problem that I need subjects for that. Hopefully more visual news about this in the near future.

Oli, if you ever read this, I hope you’re still taking pictures every now and then. I love you man.

Mies van der Rohe’s work left me feeling somewhat bitter at the sterility and detachedness he implanted into society. It would have been nice if not everyone had started imitating with varying degrees of success his totally functional and “humble” approach. Too much of this and you get, well, this:

It’s the stuff that makes Monsieur Hulot flip out. God is not only in the details.

The film about Rem Koolhaas’ meanderings through Lagos offered an amazing if somewhat short view on the almost uncontrolled and explosive evolution of the city over the course of 4 years (1998-2002). One notable anecdote was that some market vendors had built their own little prison for detaining local criminals. No need for police and interviewed people seemed quite happy about this. Opportunity moves in mysterious ways.

No real conclusions were illustrated by the filmmaker however, which left some people wondering if Koolhaas and his students had actually reached them or if they had all been lost/negated during the intensity of the trip. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Godspeed, Mr. Koolhaas.

Which leaves me Santiago Calatrava’s work to bombinate about. And oh boy words fail me. All I can say is that if you like the pictures you see on the right and you haven’t yet experienced his work, then go and check it out. I’ve had the fortune of visiting two of his creations, the Gare do Oriente train station in Lisbon and Trinity Bridge in Manchester. Great moments.

Cet homme a plusieurs cordes à son arc!

More info:

• Sculptures by Calatrava

Just a quick post to bring the new EP of The Black Keys to attention. On it the two man band from Ohio travel through the mouth of the Mississippi Delta and sing the blues of Junior Kimbrough. Here’s a track called “Meet Me In The City” to enjoy.

You might also enjoy this nice portrait by Bill Steber titled African-American Music from the Mississippi Hill Country: “They Say Drums was a-Calling”.

You can buy the mp3 album at emusic.com or from your local record farmer.