BonVivant

New catch herring season started the other day and I finally ate them at the market today. I go to the same fishmonger for herrings every week. I've tried them all but this fishmonger has the best herrings year round and the quality remains consistent. I only eat herrings where they are cleaned on the spot A full tray of cleaned herrings. She's fast and cleans a lot of herrings a day, especially in the first few weeks of the season. Butter from the sea. New herrings should look like this. Pale with pink flesh. And they glisten. A short clip of the cleaning process I made a couple of years ago. Same stall, same cleaner. Has info texts so do watch in full screen mode.

Yesterday's leftover crab meat and prawns are today's dindin. Steamed asparagus on the side but you've seen more than enough of it. (Pic of full plate is her. It was getting dark so fast I didn't like the photos.) Sichuan chilli oil next to the rice.

My lunches this dark and rainy weekend. With asparagus, of course. Hard to see but it's actually crab meat I removed from the claws. Potato salad (white stuff is quark, meat is "beer sausage"). ------------------------------------ Tapas-style lunch. A common dish in Thessaloniki, Greece. Costs about eur.10 there. I got 4 raw tentacles for eur.4 Braised whelks. Since I can't find snails for the same dish I had in Spain I just used whelks. Worked fine. Plenty of fennel seeds in the sauce. No tapas without pan con tomate Cold prawns http://i.imgur.com/8dtjUjD.jpg

Finger food. Cracked crab claws with tamarind and chilli pastes. The pastes (beer glass to stop the jar from rolling away)

Fascinating. Korean-style "Schmalz". I'm willing to swim 2 extra kilometres for this on toast.

Faroe Islands salmon (I avoid the ubiquitous farmed salmon from Norway), simply seared. Boiled nice potatoes drizzled with metled butter and sprinkled liberally with chopped parsley. I love my asparagus, there's no need for (strong) spices to "enhance" it. The samphire and Riesling do all the enhancing here.

With scrambled eggs, onions and/or Sauerkraut/leftover veg etc in Germany it could be any of these: Bauernfrühstück/Farmer's breakfast, Bratkartoffeln/Fried potatoes, Hoppelpoppel/Berlin-style etc (variantions depending on where in the country). Austrian Tiroler Gröstl is similar and equally delicious. I like them all!

A perfect day for a BBQ. It's my first in weeks due to bad weather all over Europe. Lamb leg steak, with potatoes and asparagus. Plus lemon balm and rosemary from my garden to go with the lamb.

Every single meal is nice on this page alone. Mine is 2 different things as I don't eat leeks/spring onions/Chinese chives. My partner stir fried the pork belly with the Chinese chives whilst I put the ceviche together. Both dishes took very little time. Mine

Thank you, Rotuts and Blue_Dolphine! Everytime I visit Germany I learn something new about the foods and drinks. All kinds of things, really. The country is vastly underated. Such a shame. Got lucky with the photos... the sun is here again which means good for the photos. Btw, maybe interesting to those who have never had "white sausage": the skin is not eaten and the mustard is sweet.

From yesterday, what I made with a package of "white sausages". Wanted to make "Hoppelpoppel"* originally but then realised I ran out of potatoes so it became this: scrambled eggs with asparagus and white sausages. (*A dish known in Berlin. Basically how Berliners use up leftovers from the day before.) Chives in everything. I have lots and must use them up asap.

From yesterday: steamed crabs and octopus salad. Took us a very long time to finish dinner, and even then we couldn't eat all the salad. I also made some flat bread for the meal. Made a green sauce for both things (flat leaf parsley, minced capers, minced garlic, olive oil). I like this photo. Crabs look like sumo wrestlers, one of which is defeated. Today: leftover a bit of everything chucked in the wok. I used a Malaysian crispy shrimp paste/condiment and fish sauce to flavour the stir-fry.

Fast dinner. Wanted to use up all the herbs and last of vegs, and with some sliced seared steak it became a meaty salad. Made some simple flat bread quickly with lots of snipped chives in the dough (folded several times and rolled out, and repeated). Turkish chilli oil for the bread, Vietnamese fish sauce for the steak salad.

Birkshire pork loin steaks from my organic butcher's shop. They don't get Birkshire cuts on a regular schedule so whenever they do I buy a bit of everything. Pan was deglazed to make the pomegranate sauce. Cherry toms were also roasted in the same pan with the steaks. I drizzled 2 kinds of Turkish pepper in oil on the tomatoes once they were on the plate. I use them in many things. Also nice in olive oil as a condiment.

Had this meal in Ha Noi on Jan. 6, 2004 now making it at home, with Bershire pork. The smell of lemongrass still lingers in my house since dinner. Pork belly slices were marinated and cooked the same way as the above When visa is on arrival and tourists no longer need to surrender passports then I will return (again and again).

From this weekend: Store-bought ready-to-bake pretzels. And sausage salad (not store-bought). The pretzels are fine, but I still want to make my own someday. Fish without the chips. Bought the battered cod from the market fish monger. (note that where I am you only get the fish or the chips, not both.)

Took my sweet time today. Sauce is chopped parsley and capers in olive oil. Eaten with a tomato salad (and some garlic bread for my partner). Exactly 1kg of claws on this plate (eur. 6,00/kg)

Thank you so much, everyone. I used to keep trip photos on a site in chronological date order. Not much time for that in recent years, unfortunately. I will try to get more photos sorted out whenever possible. As for the unknown salted seafood, I immediately thought it was ray wings but who knows what it could be. They speak Valencian, apparently, which is not exactly Catalan. For most people it's France, for me it's Spain.

Thanks, everyone. Another thing I like about wine producing and drinking countries is their wine section in the supermarket. 30 metre long aisles, no make it 50 metres. The selection is staggering, which is mostly domestic wines. Chile and Argentina are the same. Ate 2.2kg of perceves in Porto. It's a lot cheaper than in Spain. Local fishermen collect them only 10km down the coast. I bring something for the photos on every trip (but half of the time I don't remember to use it). I also like to use postcards.

Portugal is one of my 3 favourite countries and I plan to see every corner of it. This is from my 10 day visit to Porto (and a couple of other places in the area on day trips). 04:20min long, has sound (can be muted via your speaker icon) Full screen quality is possible, I think.

Yes, I meant Porto, Portugal. Sound can be muted via your speaker icon. Thanks! I shall post Porto (looking for the link to it...)

A few things I ate during my visit to the Costa Blanca. Video clip is 4min long and has sound. Watch it in full screen mode if you can. (I also have Porto and Cologne. Can post them if there's an interest.)

North Atlantic sole (S. Solea), simply fried in butter and chives. This is the kind of simple food I enjoy tremendously. Ingredients are so refined and delicate they only need some good butter (or olive oil), and in my case, chives. Both had roe intact. Wonderful minerally dry Riesling was another enjoyment. These 2 cost eur. 10,00. (eur. 20,00/kg, today's price)

Lamb here, too, but there's no real theme. I made a marinade with pulverised kombu kelp and dried shiitake (as a seasoning for different things), fresh turmeric, sherry and Vietnamese fish sauce. Marinated the meat in this overnight. The meat sizzled madly in the pan so good thing I had an apron on. The other plate is stir-fried asparagus with fermented black beans and Sichuan chillies in oil (from a jar).

Leftover snow crab meat and asparagus mousse became dinner. Added some more fresh asparagus and fried onions, too.