Easy Vegan Tomato Risotto

Tags

autism, cooking, disability, health, italy, life, photography, plant-based, vegan, vegetarian

I spent the past two weeks at a camp for children with disabilities. I’ve rarely learnt that much in two weeks and I am grateful beyond description for this experience.

Before the camp, not only did I have back pain so painful I actually considered backing out, but also was I worried I wouldn’t be able to handle the situation. Because the setting was so new to me. I had no experience whatsoever with physical and mental disability and although I knew this would change the coming two weeks, my feelings alternated between fear, excitement, helplessness and worries.

The day soon approached where all the children arrived and the first two days, I actually thought wow, maybe I really can’t handle this. I was absolutely desperate. I was hurt by children several times, I was sleep deprived and I had no time to enjoy a meal without being interrupted 20 times by either having to feed a kid, getting some more food or something to drink for a kid, or having to go to the toilet with them. It might work for a day or two, I thought, but I cannot possibly do this for two weeks.

Turned out I could, and five days after the camp, I miss the kids and feel bored most of the time. What I learnt in these two weeks was to put the needs of others before my own ones. This, I think, is something everyone should learn at some point in their life, and I am grateful for having had this opportunity and having been forced to do so, because who knows when I would have had the chance to learn this so intensively. I learnt to be grateful for what I am able to do by myself – and I am not saying that these children are not grateful and happy, because I think that most of them are much more than us adults because they learnt to see the good in everything.

Some kids I could handle better than others, and I realised that I find it very hard to work with children who can’t communicate with me or cannot answer my questions. If I don’t know if they understand what I’m saying, how can I make sure they’re alright? After the camp I read a book I wished I had read before, because it would definitely have changed my behaviour and language towards one kid. It’s written by a 13-year old autistic boy and explains the behaviour I have seen from this one particular kid so well. Naoki Higashida, thanks for letting me look into your world and understanding autism a little better…

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Italy has definitely done something to my taste buds, and this risotto has become one of my favourite things to eat.

A Road Trip through Sweden and a Very Good Curry

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cooking, eating, food, organic, photography, plant-based, recipes, travel, vegan, vegetarian

This summer has been pretty crazy (=busy) for me and the road trip through Denmark and Sweden was one hell of a good trip. We were seven people, two cars, a car boot packed with food we had bought in Austria, believing that Sweden is so expensive you cannot realistically afford a thing (which turned out not to be the case. Quite on the contrary in fact, when it comes to supermarkets).

Not having planned a lot and being seven people, I thought this trip was going to be a bit stressful – but lo and behold, we managed not to have significant disagreements a single time. That is, if you ask me, a master stroke, bearing in mind that we were on the road for two and a half weeks and generally decided spontaneously where we were going to camp next, how long we were going to stay there and what we were going to do that day.

When it comes to food, we weren’t typical campers because spices were pretty much the base of every dish and compared to the deep-fried, animal-fat- and flavour-enhancer-packed food people around us cooked and ate, we stood out. A lot.

Apart from eating good food, we drove quite a bit – almost 4000 km.

We started our journey in Graz and drove to Rostock, Germany the first day. For the way, we had prepared wraps and couscous salad and because no journey is a real journey without some adventure, the warning lamp in one of the cars lit up, indicating that we didn’t have enough engine oil. This wouldn’t have been such a big issue if our car mechanic hadn’t told us two days before that he had refilled everything.

Not so sure if calling my dad was a good idea (as it was our car), the three of us started panicking a little in the car, and eventually decided that calling was in fact a good idea.

Luckily, it turned out not to be an issue, and apart from the lady at the petrol station seeming a bit troubled about three girls filling the engine with oil, we arrived safely at our hostel in Rostock, where the rest of the group waited for us.

We spent the night with strangers in our room (who arrived late and insisted they wanted to have the bed I was lying on).

The next day, we took the ferry to Gedser and drove to København (what a beautiful city!!). We agreeed that chances Smørrebrød will be our favourite dish are pretty low and rhubarb lemonade is pretty awesome (I feel guilty using this word because I watched this two days ago).

After spending a couple of days there we drove to Göteborg, crossing the Öresund Bridge (except the other car taking another route and landing on a ferry).

We managed to meet in Tylösand and feasted on our Pesto Pasta (which we had prepared in the morning) at the shore. Beautiful. And cold.

We then drove to Göteborg, built up out tents on the camping and had dinner a second time. Göteborg is a hipster (or hippie?) city.

The next couple of days, we travelled around and chose quite unique and adventurous places to camp. Swedens nature is breath-taking and generally speaking, in Sweden everything has style.

If you happen to visit Stockholm, please make sure to eat Falafel at the best falafel place you’ve ever been to.

Other than that, I’m too excited to share this post that I have no patience to keep on writing about our trip. Some pictures will do (maybe?).

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Because we cooked curry twice and this recipe has been on my to-share list for way too long, I thought that now was the time. (side note: this is inspired, though heavily adapted, by a Jamie Oliver curry)