Monday, May 31, 2010

munich - day 6




Cold and rainy today. kind of the weather i expected for the whole trip...but luckily until now i avoided it.
so, everything is closed today, i went for lunch at the Augustiner Brau ....Munich's oldest brewery.
Sauer braten, with semmelknödel (dumplings!), and a red cabbage slaw. but the food isn't the point here...it's the beer. and the atmosphere. so it was a lot of fun.

afterwards i attempted to go to the pinakothek's but was thwarted as all museums were closed today. it's ok...went for a very nice 1hr walk home via the englischer garten. a pit stop at a nice cafe on the way was all i needed.

now i'm chilling, my hosts forgot about a dinner date, and invited me to join but i decided on staying in and drinking BEER and eating some nice leftovers.

so...that's the day.

munich - day 5






after a quick little breakfast and coffee we were on our way for our day's adventure. 1st stop to
meet at Michael & Veronica's house. M is a comic convention promoter in Munich. Also, C& B's friend Renata showed up to join us. M showed me his very nice apartment and art collection and a little more coffee and then we were off to our special destiniation: the countryside south east of munich about an hrs drive. the drive was very nice, as we got closer the views were incredible- in the distance the beautiful alps were rising up in front of a gray/lavender curtain of rain clouds...very beautiful.

we arrived (all of us hungry) in the pleasant little town of Sonnering where the restaurant Gasthaus Angstl awaited us! and we were treated to a glorious bavarian meal complete with Schweine Haxe, Dumplings, potato salad and several types of kraut. + GREAT BEER.

after lunch we headed back towards munich and made a pitstop in the historic town of Wasserburg (along the Inn river). We spent an hour or so roaming the beautiful quiet streets and finished with some nice coffee in an outdoor cafe.

I drove back with Renata, who practiced her english very well! it was a nice ride home. we arrived around 7pm. then C&B were showing stuff to their friends in the apartment...art, trophies from the flea market the day before...

for dinner i had leftovers from lunch and some left over food from the day before which was just as good reheated (german burgers & potato salad!)....

a great day




Sunday, May 30, 2010

munich day 4




kicked back with a chill morning at home. and then went off to a local outdoor food market. this is a really great treat. so...here are a bunch of pictures.

afterwards i went for a long bike ride back down to the exercise park. it's such a great city for biking in. finished the afternoon off with a beer in the beer garden . it was packed with people and the bavarian horn band was playing a top the chinesischer turm.

later when i got back to C & B's home, we had a lovely meal with some tasty german burgers, and potato salad...of course accompanied by a fine beer!

then Christoph wanted to see what art i was bringing to the show, so we hung out and looked at the first batch.

enjoy the pix

Saturday, May 29, 2010

munich day 3







i barely used the camera today, so pix will be from other days! except for the food pic from the englischer garten!

woke up to lovely weather...went over to the local bakery/food shop (i need to get some pix of this place!) and got some yogurt, fruit, and a wonderful little roll called a Krusti. delicious with butter. not a great nite sleep so it was harder than usual to motivate to go out for exercise...but i biked over to the park and went for a little jog before lunch.

i went back to the Englischer Garten for lunch and kinda went crazy a bit over ordering! Stecker Fisch (Mackrel on a stick), weisswurst, bratwurst, sour kraut and a big pretzle! and NO i didn't finish it all!

after eating i went for a great bike ride to the southern end of Munich via the Isar River park. This is one of my favorite things to do. it was warm out and i decided to spend the day out instead of going to a museum. hit the exercise park and did a nice little work out. and then finished the afternoon with a long bike ride home (roundabout and with heading north to the wilder part of the Englischer Garten. a nice nap set me right for the evenings festivities...and festive they were!

it was off with Bernadette to the opening party for the film she starred in! and Christoph was in it too! yes, she was the star...however it was just for a friends project. nothing big or fancy. it was a zombie movie with a twist! called night of the living! food wise just eating snacks for dinner. Had a really nice time seeing some of the people i've met before and meeting a few new people.

then a great quiet nite time bike ride home!

Thursday, May 27, 2010

munich day 2- evening



dinner tnite: a snack of a cheese spread with pretzels, and then the wonderful käsespätzle (spätzle is german pasta! & käse is cheese- put them together and what do you have? a very happy mr eder!). earlier while the batter was being prepared...yes it's more like a pancake batter than the drier italian pastas! i really worked up an apetite learning how to make spätzle... in addition there were fried onions served on top! and there was a fine german beer to accompany, and for desert a type of rhubarb preserve!

munich day 2

wie geht es innen? (how's it goin?)
i went to the museum brandhorst today. it's a new museum (next to the modern pinakothek) that was being built the last time i was in munich. they have a great pop art collection, and the museum itself is a modern masterpiece of architecture. i even saw a damien hirst that i liked. i went with bernadette by bike to christoph's work place neighborhood for lunch where we went to a special little place (it was pouring and we ate standing...that's how tiny the place was. we had a dish called Schaschlik (which is a kind of kebab marinated and cooked in broth...stewed as it were. it's of hungarian/german origin. thy drizzled it with curry powder. and i had a lurid old fashioned german soft drink ( neon green) at christoph's behest. all was yummy, and a nice brezel (pretzel) to accompany. it's been pouring on and off all day, very overcast when not pouring. and yet it's all good. again one of the most chill cities ever.
so i'm back at their home now drinking a nice beer Bergbock Hell by Kloster Andechs. bought at a great beer store. basically a miniature version of our fave upper manhattan beer distributor, but with only great german beer of course. .80 cents per bottle! mmmmmmm. it is good here.

the dinner post to follow

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Munich - day 1

well travel day went as easy as pie.
got to munich and my friend christoph was was there to greet me within a few minutes of arrival.
went back to his place....had some coffee and rhubarb pie! very nice. my bagels, coffee, and brownies travelled well, and he and bernadette enjoyed.

after getting set up with the bike, it was time to hit the road and get some lunch...as it was 12 noon i decided the best course of action was to bike down the englischer garten and stop at a beer garden for wurstl (sausage) bread and kraut. jet lag was hitting pretty hard post eating, but i chilled a while and then continued my bike ride along the isar river south. heading back home in order to take a nap around 4 pm.

bernadette made a lovely dinner with fresh asparagus, potatos and schnitzel of pork with a horseradish bread crumb mixture. prior to dinner christoph and i biked to get some beer. we each had a nice Augustiner beer.

after dinner we played around on rhapsody...and then all were ready for bed.
pretty simple but very pleasant day.
havin truble uploading pix...will work on it tomorrow.
gotta crash now!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

birthday conclusion! with pix




it was a great day.
we had dinner at a very special tapas, & paella restaurant Socarrat. something i was VERY skeptical about because paella isn't
something that is normally good in restaurants...it takes longer than risotto to make. so usually restaurants cheat and have it pre-cooked. YUCK..
but this place is different. they warn you that it will be 40 minutes!!
the tapas were wonderful....fried artichoke hearts, mushrooms sauted with pork and drizzled with tartuffo oil, fried whole peppers, and croquettas!
instead of paella we had fideo (short spanish pasta) in squid ink w seafood! it was YUMMY.
and then marcia and lena baked a special birthday cake...lotsa chocolate !!! mmmmm

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

may 19th...happy bday to me!

woke up to 3 lovely presents from the wife and kid.
a coffee mug (i drink lotsa coffee) with my daughter's picture on it!
a T shirt that has "scotteder.com" in a word bubble. what can i say?...the merchant in me has rubbed off on the missus.
and a new FRY PAN...stainless steel. i've been whining about it for a while...i guess she heard me! it's awesome, and has delicious cheese omelette written all over it. than pan won't be a virgin for much longer!
and then a nice cozy breakfast out at Cookshop with marcia after dropping lena off at school. had a pretty darn good version of huevos rancheros! no need for lunch today...it was huge!
i'm at the gallery now and YES, thars coffee in that thar mug now!@!!
anyhoo.
i'm 47 today!

Monday, May 17, 2010

you be the judge....

fun at an nra (national rifle association) gathering, pictures are worth THOUSANDS of words...

see this movie !!! + grillin

take the soprano's and mix it with iron chef and what do you get?

DINNER RUSH

this is a fun movie with a great ensemble cast...it's not 4 foodies only.
it has a stylish vibe, moves quickly and i loved it!

--------------------------------------------------

had our first cook out of the season last nite, in out community garden. just me and the girls.
had to start with the classics (almost) buffalo burgers (with cheese, tomato & onion)
hotdogs (who isn't a sucker for good dogs off the grill), potato (trust me, cut an 1/8 to a 1/4 inch thick and slathered in olive oil, salt & pepper...it's awesome), and a veggie skewer!~
beers and good weather...what a pleasant evening it was.

Friday, May 14, 2010

quiet about brazilian jiu jitsu....until NOW

after getting my first promotion about 3 months ago...i had to stop training as my hamstring tendon was giving me fits. very confusing thing tho as i could jog without pain and do lunges, stair climbing, etc. but in certain positions, sometimes doing nothing at all, i would just have an aweful spasm of pain suddenly. only a certain type of stretch could relieve it. went to the doctor, got some knee strengthening exercizes and therapy to do. after 2 months, a little better, but i decided that it was time to go back to class! i had my apprehensions as you could imagine. so i decided that if i had to i'd favor one side, avoid movements stressful to that area. prior to going to the class i did my workouts to test the tendon and found that i was mostly ok. if you recall, earlier when i posted about braz jiu jitsu, i mentioned what a great physical challenge it is. so, i was a tiny bit nervous returning to class...but it turned out that i kept up a good routine on my own and i mostly breezed thru all the workout, with only a minor moment where i needed to stop and stretch.

i'm now proudly nursing my sprained wrist!! war wound i'm proud of! i missed this class. and it's good to be back. still, i'm off to Germany to attend the Erlangen Comic Salon in around 12 days...so it's on and off again with bjj. i'm just happy all's well.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

JUNE 18th -- MARK THIS DATE DOWN

because we are having a JIM WOODRING show. yay!!!! JUNE 18th....just over a month away...

Jim's incredible book WEATHERCRAFT just came out, and we're the lucky lucky folks who get to exhibit and sell the art from this masterpiece of graphic novel fiction!

sooooooo, come by and say hi june 18th.

Monday, May 10, 2010

italian trip...the final days

before it all fades away...one last attempt to remember the last days of a short but epic trip. on the last free day...i spent the morning with my host Marina, chatting about life...as it got later, i realized i had to get out of there. so we dashed off by car to drop me off at the metro station. i jumped out of the car, dashed off waving to marina. and, yes, the train station was closed! STRIKE UNTIL 3pm!! i frantically grabbed my cel phone called her and she was still nearby :-). so she drove me off towards a bus stop closer to town. and being the native of rome that she is, she thought of a special forno (bakery) near the bus stop which would have my beloved pizza bianca! u know they had way more than that of course...i couldn't resist and had a piece of pizza with fresh funghi porcini! mmmmm, it was great.

it was raining or drizzling all morning. i waited for the bus, which was sooo crowded i could barely get on and stood at the top of the well. the bus was so packed i couldn't even stamp my ticket. thanks to the strike!! and when i got to the piazza where the church of san Giovanni was, i jumped off...i had enuf of the bus. fine with me, another visit to the church was well worth it. afterwards i headed in the direction of the colosseum knowing full well that i would stop in the church of San Clemente and see the excavations below the church (which i hadn't had time for previously in this trip). WOW...this is a really cool thing to do. there's a complete complex of the ancient church below it. it was really special.

near the church is a gorgeous park over looking the colosseum. chilled there for a while and tried to find a church i had stumbled across the last time in roma. i found it and the crazy cool Michelangelo sculpture within. there was a cool sign forbidding tour leaders from stopping in front of the statue and giving lectures about it. nice.

and that was the end to a perfect day in Roma. we were supposed to meet our friend Giovanni for dinner but the baby was sick and we ended up relieved a little bit ourselves because we could now chill at home...Marina cooked us a lovely alla matraciana, with frittata. we had antipasti of home made cured artichoke hearts, some pecorrino romano and some nice hams. and yes...the vino from their food collective they belong to. it was lovely.

and if that wasn't enuf...massimo and i stayed up late into the nite trading art, and his other friend massimo came over and when it was all said and done, i did some great biz with both guys and ended up with Magnus, Manara art! i was very happy...so were they. treasures were swapped and all were happy.

but i must go in reverse for one last blur of a crazy meal we had the nite before. no need to go on about the churches and sites of Roma...oh yeah there was a Leonardo show about his drawings of mechanical contraptions from the various codex' . accompanying the drawings were full size constructions based on the drawings!!!! it was incredible. genius is an understatement for this man.

so...this meal. right now i can't remember the restaurant name! uggggg. but it was a place in the middle of nowhere (more or less a suburb of Rome)...u'd never find it in a million years and you'd have to drive there.
check out what we had:

entrees: stuffed peppers with baccala with pesto of pistachio and rucola
scallops with salad of artichoke and radicchio
ravioli of lardo (speical pork fat) di " cinto senese"stuffed w potatos, porcinis & curry
nuts i know!!!! totally nutz!!!

primi: ravioli filled with mussles with ratatouille sause
risotto w julienned peppers, sweet tomatos, and sausage
spaghetti with sardines, mezzancolle and pecorino

secondi: sandwich of sword fish filled with tomatos & bananas with lemon couscous
chicken with truffles, asparagus and avocado cream

on that note....
buono note!!!

s

primi

Friday, May 7, 2010

napoli: days 7-10 redux

wow...before i forget all this, i'll digest it for all. the last free day before the con is but a blur now. i came to the great realization that the perfect pizza is the margherita (simplest, also cheapest on the menu)...it's ok with light supplement (funghi, maybe salcicce, etc) but not too many items. The day now fuses into a mix of churches (san gregorio in armeno again!...) and the fantastic National Archeological museum. where i was treated to the fabulous Farnese collection. a collection of roman sculpture dating back to ancient roma. the entire collection is on display permanently now. it's totally incredible. when i headed back to the hotel for a beer and rest around 5pm i bumped into giselle who reminded me about the opening of the museum show at Villa Pignatelli (with dinner!) and so after a nice time resting the feet, it was off to see the show. i lent about 30 pieces by the following artists: Gilbert Hernandez (who was a guest at the show), Ashley Wood, Jack Kirby, Chester Gould, Winsor McKay, Milton Caniff, and it was a great show. during the dinner i met a couple of really nice german artists.

so, the next morning the show would begin. cost 25 eu to take a cab to castel s elmo where the show was being held. luckily i got a great view of the city on the way up...25eu~!!!

the quick review of the Napoli Comicon as follows: i did very well sales wise day 1, and thankfully Bernard the french dealer who was to share the space didn't show up...so i spread out into his space. my day 1 sales equaled the sales of all the sales of the previous show i did in napoli. my buddy (and host from Roma) Massimo came in around 10:30 bearing food~! i was thusly even happier to see his smiling face. our neighbor to the left was Sergio who runs the the little Nemo auctions, and on the right the art dealer Stefano (whom i met on Massimo's last trip to NYC back in march). surrounded by cool dealers the day proceeded smoothly. we ate dinner at Gorizia which is an incredible pizzaria but also nice restaurant...we would end up eating here every nite. i have vongole veraci (surprise) but also shared some nice apps, and good wine. The publishers of the now defunct Glamour art magazine joined us. a very nice evening.

day 2- another good day, with some *notable trades added to sales (that exceeded day 1 !) not by a lot, but i was happy with the result.

and finally a slow day 3, Marina (massimo's wife) showed up and they spent a lot of nice time in Napoli...then we had dinner (at Gorizia) again....on other nites i had the Ripieno (a specific type of calzone) but when massimo went for the fruiti di mare, i knew it was MY destiny too. a YUMMY pannacotta followed for desert....and drove back to Roma (about 2 hrs).