One of the willow family

Furry young catkins on some willow growing next to a stream in Villigen. Just this past weekend I noticed branches of these for sale at the farmers' markets.

20090314 Nikon Coolpix 950

Snowdrop or close enough

Snowdrop. Galanthus Plicatus. Schneeglöckchen. Maybe. This entry in Wikipedia (link) informed me of enough varieties and similar flowers to make my head spin.

20090304 Nikon Coolpix 950

Wild grape

Every so often I get a hankering for the "macro" mode on my ancient Coolpix 950. I think it's the shallow depth of focus that I can't get (or haven't figured out how to get) with the Lumix FZ7 that I normally use.

Pictured here is a remnant of a wild grape vine that was growing on a fence in front of our building and was then ripped out. Some of you might have seen my older picture of it: 20081030 First snow of 2008.

20090303 Nikon Coolpix 950

Another photo of frosted plants

The last one for at least a while, I promise! Last seen in November last year (20081107 Colors of the fall II).

20090124 Nikon Coolpix 950

The secret life of moss

A clump of moss appeared at the entrance to our building. The frost provided an embellishment.

20090126 Nikon Coolpix 950

Frost on red berry plants

There was the old post with snow on these plants (20081031 Snow, berries and grating), now here's one with frost. Last time we came to the conclusion that these are Cotoneaster.

20090126 Nikon Coolpix 950

Colors of the fall VIII

I forgot about this one, yesterday's post wasn't the last in the series, though we are in a different category now and this color probably remains the same year round. The lichen covered branch seen here reveals lots of detail on a closer look. If I'm not mistaken, this is a type of foliose lichen, possibly the Xanthoria parietina.

20081107 Nikon Coolpix 950

Colors of the fall VI

Another seemingly common garden plant, but I haven't figured out its identity yet.

20081107 Nikon Coolpix 950

Colors of the fall IV

These bear a striking resemblance to the blueberries I know from the US, but what are they? The serrated leaves belong to the plant.

20081107 Nikon Coolpix 950

Colors of the fall V

Possibly Callicarpa bodinieri (native to China) or japonica (native to Japan). The leaves drop off after turning brown, leaving the bright purple berries on bare stems.

Here's a photo on my overflow blog of what I think is the same plant, but from about a month ago:
Purple berries

20081108 Nikon Coolpix 950

Colors of the fall III

Pyracantha (Wiki), as far as I can determine.

20081107 Nikon Coolpix 950

Colors of the fall II

These berries are no more than 6 mm (less than a quarter of an inch) in diameter. I hadn't noticed until just recently that they're this pinkish color.

20081107 Nikon Coolpix 950

Colors of the fall I

20081020 Nikon Coolpix 950

Snow, berries and grating

My favorite part of this photo is the focussing effect of the droplet.

20081030 Nikon Coolpix 950

First snow of 2008

More like ice in this photo.

20081030 Nikon Coolpix 950

Munder saffron

So, here's the treasure at the end of all that toiling. This is from the harvest of 2006. I should have used it up sooner as it loses its potency with time.

Saffron risotto, saffron spaghetti, saffron spatzle, saffron cheese, saffron fondue and saffron parfait are some of the items served at Restaurant Salwald in Mund. We sampled everything except for the cheese and the fondue. Paella (Spain), bouillabaisse (Provence), saffron bread (Cornwall) and other baked goods (Sweden), rice pilaf and biryani (ranging from Iran to South Asia) and milk-based desserts such as kheer (South Asia) use saffron.

Some of my readers have posted their recipes in the comments to yesterday's post, and I'm expecting a few more to turn up today. I'll collate them and put them on my overflow blog sometime in the next couple of days. In the meantime, here's one of mine:

Semolina 'vermicelli' dessert (South Asia)
makes 4 half-cup servings

I'm calling it vermicelli for lack of a better name, it's actually made from semolina rather than durum wheat that is used to make the Italian vermicelli. See this Wikipedia article for more information. It's very thin and is available in Indian shops. Yesterday I did an experiment to see how the pasta labelled vermicelli in my local supermarket would work. The answer is: it doesn't work well AT ALL!! The dish had the correct delicate flavor, but the mouth feel of the pasta was wrong. And while some versions of this dish will firm up when chilled, mine didn't so I would serve it in stemmed glasses and provide small spoons.

60 g vermicelli, in 3 cm long pieces
12 g almond slivers
12 g cashews, broken into small pieces
12 g raisins
half-liter whole milk
4-6 tablespoons sugar
1 pinch saffron (roughly 10 whole threads)
Optional: 1 tablespoon rose water

- Toast the vermicelli until it turns light brown. I did this in a little butter, but that's not really necessary.
- Bring the milk to a boil. Lower heat, add the sugar and stir until dissolved.
- Put in the rest of the ingredients and simmer until the vermicelli is cooked through and the milk is slightly thickened. Be sure to stir regularly to prevent the milk from scorching.
- Remove from heat and stir in the rose water, if using.
- Chill overnight in refrigerator.


20081024 Nikon Coolpix 950
20081025 Nikon Coolpix 950

City daily photo theme day: Sister cities

The first of the month again and it's theme day for the daily city photo blogging community. Sister cities is on the menu today.

The closest town to Villigen is Brugg and Rottweil (Wiki) in Germany is its Partnerstadt. I didn't make it over there, nor did I succeed in photographing a Rottweiler dog (Wiki.) So we must make do with this seal of Rottweil pounded into the wall of the Schwarzer Turm (see photo in this old post here) in Brugg in 1988 to commemorate 75 years of partnership.

Click here to view thumbnails for all theme day participants.

Update: See more of the seal here.

20080805 Nikon Coolpix 950

Rappen - centime - centesimo - rap

One-twentieth of the Swiss franc. The 4 different Swiss language groups have four different terms for the subunit of the franc. Rappen (Swiss German) - centimes (French) - centesimo (Italian) - rap (Romansch).

Click on the languages label below to see other posts related to languages in Switzerland.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Rappen is derived from Rappe (raven). First documented appearance in an English text: 1838 Murray's Hand-bk. Travellers Switzerland.

20080802 Nikon Coolpix 950

City daily photo theme day: Metal

The first of the month is theme day for the daily city photo blogging community and this August the topic is metal. As August 1st happens to be the Swiss national day, I wanted to combine the two.

Helvetia is the Roman name for the region of Europe between the Alps and the Jura. She personifies Switzerland, as seen on these coins. The Swiss confederation, Confœderatio Helvetica, was formed on August 1, 1291. For those of you who might have puzzled over it, that's the reason CH is the country abbreviation for Switzerland (source: Wikipedia). Incidentally, the typeface Helvetica? Developed at a Swiss type foundry in 1957 by designer Max Miedinger.

Click here to view thumbnails for all theme day participants

20080801 Nikon Coolpix 950

Wildflower 07: Purple deadnettle

Purple deadnettle. Lamium purpureum. Purpurrote Taubnessel.

Very useful to bees.

20080504 Nikon Coolpix 950