Baba Ghanoush. Dip for eggplant lovers.

Basically, I hate eggplants. Especially if they are soggy, mushy, bland and/or bitter. Or even soaked with oil floating in a boring tomato sauce. Horrible.
A year ago I discovered that eggplants - also called aubergines - actually CAN taste good, as long as you cut them in 1 cm thick slices, lace them with garlic and put them on the BBQ until they are dark brown and soft.

Tzatziki. Greek for dip.

Summer is the best season in my opinion. I don't mind the heat - on the contrary, I love it - and I enjoy sitting on the balcony in the evenings, feeling a light breeze and waiting for the thunderstorm to break loose. Yesterday we had one of those evenings, and we decided on a light dinner with some pita bread, olives, hummus (recipe coming soon), feta and some taramasalata for my husband (I don't eat anything that comes from the sea, except tuna).

BBQ chicken. Somewhat Indian.

Summer finally arrived here in Munich - at least for the next two days, then it will be raining again. So I enjoy it while I can... And additionally, it's the last week before my summer vacation! Just 5 more days to go, then I'll be staying for 3 weeks in a small house in south-western France, just a 10 minute's drive from the beach. And I'll be spending the days at the beach and firing up a real barbecue every night. I really miss barbecues. Because there's a law and/or regulation for everything in Germany, we're not allowed to have a BBQ or just a gas grill on the balcony. So I have an electric griddle, but it's really not the same.

I'm back!

Sorry for not posting for 2 months, but I'm back again after such a long time. There were 2 things my doctor diagnosed that somehow killed my appetite and my desire to cook: gastritis and fructose malabsorption.

The first thing meant taking antacids and not eating all that is worth living: hot food, acidic food, fried food, lots of proteins, alcohol. So, no chili, no tomato sauce on pasta, no fries, no steak, no red wine. The stomach pain is getting better now, but I still have to take the antacids for the rest of the year.

The fructose malabsorption is more of a long-term thing. The diagnosis alone took 6 days of hydrogen breath testing and it seems I will have it for the rest of my life. It's not such a big deal, but it's kind of unsettling if you believed for years you were lactose intolerant. It's a more of a double edged thing: I'm terribly happy that I can eat dairy products again, but on the other hand I have to skip apples, cherries, honey and some other tasty things. So many foods I believed were good and healthy are now "bad" for me . Quite confusing. Plus, I'm back to reading every single ingredient list when grocery shopping.
Oh, and additionally: If you have fructose malabsorption, you automatically have an intolerance against sorbit (sorbitol) and other sugar alcohols (mannitol, xylitol), as they block the the few fructose transporters still left - and it's impossible to eat 100% fructose-free.

Anyway, things are getting back to normal, I started cooking and reading recipes again and you will soon see some new stuff here. Oh, and summer vacation is not far, I'll be traveling to France for 3 weeks.