I’ve just returned from Germany.
The highlight was the wedding of my friends Nick and Fynn.
They got married in a lighthouse on the North Sea coast of Lower Saxony.
The landscape feels very familiar yet different.
Flat green swathes of agricultural plain surrounded by an arc of blue sky are pierced by distant church spires and lines of trees.
Prehistoric standing stones mark an ancient barrow or burial ground.
This part of the world attracts birds like the heron, stork and crane as well as smaller birds such as wagtails, robins and wrens.
I saw a marsh harrier from the train.
On the Baltic coast wide expanses of mud flats and channels are revealed at low tide.
They fish here for brown shrimps.
After the wedding – a group of us was lucky enough to be invited to an old thatched farmhouse in Grossenhain, forty minutes drive away
Nick and Fynn’s friends live there – Axel bought it 50 years ago!
Angelika was kind enough to show me around the vegetable garden there.
She gave me some bean seeds to grow next year – Saxa, Red Kidney and Turkish Pea.
We had homemade rye bread and courgette buckwheat soup for lunch in the old backhaus.
They mill the grain for flour here and bake in a huge bread oven.
Axel made apple juice with a hydropress.
I’d love one of these and may trial one next week at a local homebrew shop for £25 an hour if I can get some helpers to make it happen!
It doesn’t need any electricity – just water at high pressure piped into an internal rubber bladder which then forces the juice out.
I also stayed with a couple of Sacred Harp singers in the medieval city of Bremen – about an hour to the south of Wremen.
My host at the start of the trip was Rojana who writes and draws inspired by her dreams.
On my return to Bremen I stayed with Inga who is an excellent cook.
We went for supper at a Taiwanese restaurant in the “bohemian” quarter of the city.
We also cooked together.
This is one of the cakes we made!
She also gave me the recipe for this vegan pate which is meant to resemble leberwurst or liver pate – but which is, in fact, infinitely superior!
We also had a sing at Inga’s – where I had the chance to renew old acquaintances and make some new ones.
I was exhausted when I got home!
- 1 small onion
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 200 g smoked tofu
- 1 tin kidney beans, 240g net weight
- 1 tbsp fresh chopped parsley
- 2 tsp dried marjoram
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Gently fry the finely chopped onion in olive oil until transparent
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In the meantime, crumble the smoked tofu with your hands and place in the bowl of a food processor
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Open the tin of kidney beans and drain and rinse before adding to the tofu
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Add the fried onion and the spices and puree everything
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Add salt and pepper to taste
lovely update cath blessings
Thanks, Linda