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In the mornings my sister will only eat half a banana whilst reusing her mug from yesterday as a bowl for Bran Flakes or Special K with low fat milk. In between spoonfuls of cereal she takes bites of the banana. What I would probably see as a bit of a disgusting habit in people who I am not related to with her it is just normal. Maybe I am like Pavlov's dogs, conditioned into accepting the remaining half of the banana when I hear my sister leave her mug next to the sink.

I have never had the same affinity for bananas. Much rather give me a mango, or figs or berries. However, it is only the beginning of berry season here and let's just say it is never mango season in Germany. So my weekly grocery shopping often includes bananas (also because I am poor and they are cheapest).

Today one of the bananas was extremely blackened and instead of making a bread out of it I searched for a cookie recipe. I found these Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies over at the Cooking Channel and decided on them because they included oats (yay illusions of healthy cookies). They are easy to make, taste great and offer a good alternative to banana bread :)

Banana choc chip cookies and a view that I can't get enough of. 

Float

Today the surface invites the quiet observer to

paint it by numbers,

to assign a 6 to the metallic-sheen-parts

and an eleven to those that get glimpses of sunlight. 

Most of it would be covered by a 44, 

hovering somewhere in between navy and Midnight Blue. 

Outer Space streaks (officially colour 414A4C) occur

where the water grates against itself. 

Monet might have added swishes of dirty white 

(my colour seven) 

or swatches ranging from bone to apricot
to the tops of hundreds of restless little waves. 

Some days you can see the bottom of the harbour, 

with water so clear that it doesn't even have a number,

only a change in the 'opacity' of the layer. 

Not today though. 

Today hues fit like puzzle pieces for milliseconds

before the entire wheel has to be reinvented.

Cough Cough

Is there ever a reason not to bake cookies? With foodgawker and millions of food blogs available I relish in trying a different recipe every time, even though sometimes they are not as great as the photos make them look. For my language group I baked Mini Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies  because I thought they looked quite cute and seemed fairly easy to make. And I had nothing else to do. So there's that.

Basically you mix the dough, roll little balls and with your finger make a little hole in the middle which you can later fill with something. The recipe uses a cocoa-icing sugar mix, I melted chocolate instead. But when my lovingly rolled cookies came out of the oven, they had spread and there was no sign of an indentation to fill up with the chocolate. I am not sure if this is our oven or the recipe, but needless to say this was a bit of a fail. They are also not that great tasting. So onwards goes the quest for the perfect cookie.

Hello ingredients.

Everything still running smoothly in the cookie assembly line. 

Then this happened, and I had to press little holes into the cookies with a spoon. Joy.

Still pretty though. 

.

Elastic Heart

Last light in Hamburg

A few weeks ago my friend and I met up in Hamburg for a day because she had just returned from an epic 3 month trip partially around the world and I wanted to hear every little thing about it. Every time we see each other I find it very reassuring to fall back into using Afrikaans words in between the German and to be able to talk to someone who has grown up with me. We've known one another through braces, Matric balls and getting our driver's licences. We have talked about the smallest and biggest decisions in our lives (are we drinking wine or cocktails? is the move to Germany a good idea? where to after university? should we share that chocolate cake?) and I value her for her ability to remain calm even in the roughest of seas. She somehow knows how to add a bit of rationality when I overextend myself emotionally, but also knows when it is time for a bad joke or a shooter. And among numerous other wonderful facets that constitute her, her love of testing new recipes and experimenting with food is a delight.

I think sometimes we forget to be thankful for the people in our lives. But without these meet-ups with G., without encouraging WhatsApp messages from R., without long Skype sessions with K. and without calls at all hours from L. I would not have been able to find my place here so easily. Besides my mom and my sister, these were the people who made me smile through random messages, packages and support, and I hope to do the same for them.