Hello again,
I'm writing this at five am in a basement bedroom in a tiny town in South Dakota. Huh? Right, well the five am thing wasn't exactly planned. We had planned to get up at six am and go upstairs to eat breakfast etc. What we forgot was that they are one hour behind Texas time in South Dakota, so when we got upstairs everything was still dark. I have to admit, I'm kinda mad that I could've had another whole hour of sleep, but whatever. But let me start at the beginnning.
I graduated school last year and as I already mentioned planned on starting to study right away. But then I didn't get accepted until the very last minute and by then I had already looked at my options on how to spend one year before starting to study next (well this) year. A friend of mine from school and I found this website called workaway.info, which is a great platform where you can look for hosts in practically any country you want. It's so easy to use and informative, I'd definitely recommend it. It's actually so fun that sometimes I just browse through the hosts and go like "woah, a beach hotel in the Bahamas! Nice!". The gist of the programm is like woofing. You work four to five honest work hours a day and in exchange you get food and accomodations for free. Pretty good deal in my books.
Which brings us to South Dakota. There is a Mustang Conservancy here and I've personally always had a soft spot for Mustangs so it was ideal. And this is were we'll be spending the next three months. Afterwards we will go to a boarding ranch in British Columbia for another one and a half months and in June we'll be back home in Germany.
I've thought about how best to keep you updated and I'm going to try (!!!) to post a weekly summary of everything we've gotten up to.
Sorry this post has been so text- heavy, I don't have any pictures on my laptop yet and as I said its 5 am and I'm just too plain lazy right now to upload them. I'm sorry.
Talk to you soon,
xoxo
Laura
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Happy Holidays
Hello there,
It seems to me that, ever since I turned thirteen time has just flown by. This month however has been extreme. To be honest, I think I blinked and it was Christmas. There was so much to do, sending out Christmas cards, baking cookies, cleaning, doing some major food shopping, buying presents....you get the gist :).
Anywho, this year my cousins and my grandparents came to our house for Christmas, and my boyfriend and I cooked dinner. We did a four course menu which I'd been planning since this summer to be honest, I was that excited (is that weird?). I think the best way to show you is to insert pictures and explain what each course is. So here goes:
So this was the "menu board", a small slate I had in my advent calendar this year (how awesome is that?! It came with a chalk and everything...I guess you can tell that I got way too excited over it.) I decided to keep it simple so that everyone knew what to expect but I could still be creative and surprise them (and of course, it's in german - for anyone wondering).
This was the Hors 'doeuvre, a small tomato filled with a feta and couscous mixture, topped off with a droplet of balsamico extract and a small leaf of arugula and sitting on top of a lemony yoghurt dip.
As for the starter course, we served carrot ginger soup with asian meatballs. I have to say, I was quite pleased with how both turned out, however I do believe that a little more ginger couldn't have hurt.
The first main course were homemade tortellini filled with a ricotta and dried tomatoe mixture, served on basil pesto and with a parmesan chip in the middle. Those were a real hit, I had some leftover and everyone practically jumped at the chance to have more than
one.
For the real main dish, we had a piece of beef filet grilled medium, some spinach and mushroom for our greens (gotta love your vegetables) and a sweet potato - celery root mash. I have to be honest, this was the course I was most worried about. I had practiced the meat once before and it had turned out fantastic, but still, if it had gone wrong, the entire course would have been ruined, would't it?
Now onto dessert: We served a warm chocolate cake with a molten center, homemade yogurt ice cream and assorted fruit (pomegranate seeds, blueberries, pineapple, mango). It was delicious if I do say so myself.
And that was it. It was received very well by everyone, what I forgot to fotograph in all the haste were the homemade bread rolls and the two different butters I had made to go along with the Hors 'doeuvre. We had a tomato butter as well as a "green butter", which was essentially some of the pesto whipped together with the butter.
I know that this post should have gone up at Christmas, but to be honest, after all of that, I was so done with the world, the only thing I could do was open my presents :)
Happy (remaining) holidays everyone and if I don't post anything before New Years (which I'm hoping I will, but since we're hosting a major New Years party at my house there is a ton of stuff to do beforehand (again)), I'm wishing you all a wonderful New Year and a fantastic start into January.
see you soon,
xoxo
Laura
It seems to me that, ever since I turned thirteen time has just flown by. This month however has been extreme. To be honest, I think I blinked and it was Christmas. There was so much to do, sending out Christmas cards, baking cookies, cleaning, doing some major food shopping, buying presents....you get the gist :).
Anywho, this year my cousins and my grandparents came to our house for Christmas, and my boyfriend and I cooked dinner. We did a four course menu which I'd been planning since this summer to be honest, I was that excited (is that weird?). I think the best way to show you is to insert pictures and explain what each course is. So here goes:
So this was the "menu board", a small slate I had in my advent calendar this year (how awesome is that?! It came with a chalk and everything...I guess you can tell that I got way too excited over it.) I decided to keep it simple so that everyone knew what to expect but I could still be creative and surprise them (and of course, it's in german - for anyone wondering).
This was the Hors 'doeuvre, a small tomato filled with a feta and couscous mixture, topped off with a droplet of balsamico extract and a small leaf of arugula and sitting on top of a lemony yoghurt dip.
As for the starter course, we served carrot ginger soup with asian meatballs. I have to say, I was quite pleased with how both turned out, however I do believe that a little more ginger couldn't have hurt.
The first main course were homemade tortellini filled with a ricotta and dried tomatoe mixture, served on basil pesto and with a parmesan chip in the middle. Those were a real hit, I had some leftover and everyone practically jumped at the chance to have more than
one.
For the real main dish, we had a piece of beef filet grilled medium, some spinach and mushroom for our greens (gotta love your vegetables) and a sweet potato - celery root mash. I have to be honest, this was the course I was most worried about. I had practiced the meat once before and it had turned out fantastic, but still, if it had gone wrong, the entire course would have been ruined, would't it?
Now onto dessert: We served a warm chocolate cake with a molten center, homemade yogurt ice cream and assorted fruit (pomegranate seeds, blueberries, pineapple, mango). It was delicious if I do say so myself.
And that was it. It was received very well by everyone, what I forgot to fotograph in all the haste were the homemade bread rolls and the two different butters I had made to go along with the Hors 'doeuvre. We had a tomato butter as well as a "green butter", which was essentially some of the pesto whipped together with the butter.
I know that this post should have gone up at Christmas, but to be honest, after all of that, I was so done with the world, the only thing I could do was open my presents :)
Happy (remaining) holidays everyone and if I don't post anything before New Years (which I'm hoping I will, but since we're hosting a major New Years party at my house there is a ton of stuff to do beforehand (again)), I'm wishing you all a wonderful New Year and a fantastic start into January.
see you soon,
xoxo
Laura
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