Pink Banana

What do you do if you have loads of bananas spoiling in your kitchen and all you think of is to make a banana cake. Well, it would not work if your family does not approve banana cakes as a matter of fact.

I am not fond of cakes, I'd rather have some juicy fruit or just a juice. Banana cake is not popular at our household either because my husband loves only traditional cakes with loads of cream or Georgian sweets such as Gozinaki (YES!). So, waking up in the morning and seeing poor, once yellow bananas going black melts your heart and you decide to find a recipe how to make Banana Mousse.

Here.
I did not use liqueur though because we have none. Instead I poured apple juice and lemon acid; added some cherries, which painted the banana in pink. Now my mousse is resting in the fridge waiting for the time to come and be eaten at the dinner.

Oh and the dinner is going to be meaty so banana mousse is just perfect for a dessert, isn't it?
Thus, when life hands you bananas - make a mousse out!

Happy Wednesday!!!

Now go to sleep

Letter club

Today I imagined that I was some old times English lady writing a letter to her friend in another town. I found the pen that I have not used for a long time, got papers from my old note-book, took an envelope from my husband's drawer and got down to writing.
Whenever you do something you need to feel comfortable. Even writing a letter should be cozy and make you feel good; so I sat in my kitchen which has a nice view to the green backyard wearing a green Zara cardigan and green ear-rings I have bought two years ago in Berlin.
And the pen started to slip on the paper like it did not belong to me at all.
That is what usually happens to me - when I start to write ideas, thoughts come so randomly all I have to do is to follow the pen and make it write slower for nobody would have been able to read what I had written.

People don't write letters to friends nowadays. They write e-mails I know. I e-mail everyone all the time too but you can never compare an e-mail to a real letter written by not computer or some typewriting machine but a living human hand.
My husband has beautiful hand writing in fact. Mine is awful. I write fast and never mind the size of the letters. I make notes to him when I leave, or when I want to make his day... then he comes to me asking what have I actually written.
Nonetheless I write and write because that's what I feel quite good at.

I had some weird professor in my freshman year at University who taught Linguistics and she used to repeat the following: "Verba volant, scripta manent" meaning 'Words fly while letters remain'. Even though I used to think she was scary and giving students hard time now I absolutely agree (should I feel little nervous what if I am getting weird too?).
So if the letters remain imagine how eternal our writings could be? You may write some funny story or a witty line which will make someone's day in a ten year's time or next century. Why talk about someone in a century but yourself, you may find your old diary that you kept when you were a teenager, find some lines you had scribbled there and here you go - happy, inspired and feeling loved.

That's my letter club all about, I decided this morning in my very kitchen writing a letter to a friend. I will write letters and mail them around to people I think of. Some people design clothes, some run the companies, some direct movies, some break hearts, some never smile and look gloomy, and I will be the head of my own letter club in my kitchen distributing moment of "scripta" happiness.
Don't let the word "moment" puzzle you, nothing lasts forever anyway and one precious moment is more important than the simple mundane decade.

Yours truly,

Sophie

Oceanic letter

Dear Rebekka Averbach,

I decided to write you a blog letter.
Been listening to this song and somehow it reminded me of you - not that this girl is like you or anything, on the contrary - she's calm and singing so gladly, maturely, surely not a teenager.

Well, Rebekka, more than five years ago there was this girl believing in the dreams of Teddy (you remember him, don't you), diaries of Che Guevara and writing letters to some Czech authors; travelling all around and looking for the place to dwell...

Now this girl has found some Australian or maybe New Zealandian anonymous poet Alabama Otis and she is reading all she has ever written. It is weird to name the Australian girl Alabama, isn't it? Who knows probably there are many Alabama state lovers in New Zealand too. So weird but fact is that there she is, this Alabama Otis writing down all that happens around her, she writes down the dialogues between her and her husband, she writes down the words she hears in the street or while she rides a bike and hears the wind whispering through her hair.

Do you also go and keep the diary about what people say? Do you go and collect emotions that people lose here and there?

No, I don't. I think nobody really does except Alabama Otis. She's been living in this little town near the ocean. It is Summer beginning in Australia and New Zealand now. And she loves Summer, because it is the time when people keep spreading their emotions, take off the clothes they don't need anymore and become lighthearted like birds.
And mostly it is not even about clothes or emotions, it is all about our attitudes. Anyways, we all know it is all in our heads.
Don't we, Rebekka?

Whatever you might be doing in your little German city and no matter how far you might be from Alabama Otis and her warm oceanic home, remember to be free and sweet, ok? Not that sugar-honey-oversweetened but the sweet like natural fruits can be, having sparkles in your eyes and ride your bike with your hair loose on your shoulders and letting the wind to curl it up even more.
Summer will be back from Australia soon.

...

Dreams

He: what is that you really want to be doing?
She: right now all I want to do is to cry my heart out for all the things I could never do.

Alabama Otis "Dreams" -

My latest discovery.

Oranges and tangerines

If you asked me about five years ago I would tell you that there are nothing more lousy and boring than the weddings. But if you ask me now after three months of myself married under the very traditional chuppah I will tell you that there is nothing more beautiful and moving than the Jewish wedding.

My former orange room-mate (the room and the mate both orange, note that) Liora got married yesterday to a nice guy from the Berlin Yeshiva. I believe it was one of the most emotional weddings I have ever attended.

First, when I came to see Liora who was getting her make up done at the midrasha and saw her we both got so emotional, I almost ruined her make up. Then at the kabalat panim she looked so beautiful and pure you could not help but admire her. Second, the bedecken was something unusual - her old sweet grandmother was crying so hard you should've had an iron heart not to feel her - imagine, old lady who had gone through all the difficulties of Jewish life in Ukraine now seeing her lovely granddaughter getting traditionally married.

I have seen quite enough brides before but nobody looked so pure really. And in this world we miss this purity and innocence a lot.

...

After we got back in Leipzig, had supper, got some rest and thought that day over, I started to cry like a baby. I could not help it. I still cannot explain my outburst. Or maybe I can.
Liora and I had been room-mates for a year, and she's been most quiet and humble person I've ever seen. Sometimes there were some misunderstandings between us but we would never leave it for a night and always explained right away; there were difficult times for both of us when we would go for a walk around the Prenzlauer Berg, talk about our problems and support each other. Soon we both started to date our future husbands and we had loads to share and advise.

I think when you live in a place like the Berlin midrasha and not only go to the classes together, but truly share rooms, cheer up each other every morning by smiling and wishing a good day, you should be some kind of an ice queen not to get emotional when a friend gets married and looks as lovely as Liora did.

You can tell I've always been emotional and could never hide my feelings. Once a friend told me, Sophie, you are so easily read - if you smile you really mean it and if you don't smile that is scary. I was smiling all day long yesterday and stopped by the evening, and I also meant it.
I guess I realized we are growing up, times change, we all move on (and this is wonderful, thank G-d), still it is always sad because we all go apart, make out our lives, get older and will never be so young as we once used to be.

Mazal tov, Liora and to all, who enjoyed and shared this simcha with its heart and mind!!!

Put your skates on!

Drew Barrymore directed a very interesting music video for MTV. Watched it yesterday and am really impressed. Not that I was not sure in Drew's talent, but the script is so cute and lively; emotional and dark sometimes - little mix of early 80's that meets Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story and angry James Dean.

Drew has been producing movies since she's 25 (now she's 36) and been managing a movie company "The Flower Films" with beautiful Nancy Juvonen (Jimmy Fallon's spouse). You might not know that Drew has also produced very hardcore "Donnie Darko" with Gyllenhaal sister and brother; there are also "Charlie's Angels" kicking some butt, romantic comedies like "Never been kissed" and "50 First Dates" under her company's belt. But her directorial debut took it all and became my personal number one movie "Whip it" with Ellen Page and Kristen Wiig in it with the motto: "Put your skates on be your own hero".

I wouldn't accept anything less. The video is so Drewish - idealistic, stylish and sweet. Haven't seen anything like this lately. Good job, Drew! Bring on some more. You know how to rock we all know that.

Watch the music video here.