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Extract from Travelling with Maria: Looking for George

Fred’s Blog: ThisAndThat

Date	Topic	Details
Jun 19, 2011	What is a billion?	What is a billion? How many zeros in a billion??? This is too true to be funny... The next time you hear a politician use the word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about whether you want the 'politicians' spending YOUR tax money. A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of it's releases. a) A billion seconds ago it was 1959. b) A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive. c) A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.. d) A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet. e) A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it. NOW THIS IS UNDISPUTABLE!!! NO MATTER WHAT YOUR POLITICAL LEANINGS. Source: Ross Greenwood
June 1, 2011	Wisdom	I like this one. It is an Indian saying and makes sense. When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner that when you die the world cries and you rejoice.
May 27, 2011	Time for a bit of humour	There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer's research. This means that by 2040, there should be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.
2001 and 1960s in Berlin	I can still see you, winning entry	You need to read this. I think it is really funny. It was one of the winning entries of the 2001 Lyndall Hadow/Donald Stuart Short Story Competition by the Fellowship of Australian Writers (WA). Please click here: I can still see you. (You then have to page down a bit.) If you liked it, there are many more events of this kind in The Short and Wonderful Life of Henry Hemingway. But don’t say I didn’t warn you: This book contains sex scenes and phrases that some readers may perceive as politically incorrect.
2011	How to live or not to live your life.	We often read or hear: “Live every day as if it were your last day.” I think this is a lot of Quatsch (baloney). If I knew that today is my last day I would be in a total mess. As far as I am concerned I just try to be grateful for every day and hope that my life goes on for many more years and that one day when it comes to an end – be this tomorrow or in a few decades – that I then move on to something else that’s equally good as this life. And if it is better, well, that would be a bonus.
2010	Dealing with adversity and pain	I have been suffering from chronic back pain, neck pain and headaches for the better part of the past 12 years. When the pain goes on for days and nothing seems to help and lack of sleep and negative emotions enter the mind, there is one approach which has often helped me to get out of the hole. I wrote about this approach in The Solution Within Yourself. However, this does not mean that you now have to buy the book. Here is a link to that part of the book that I am referring to: Sample Pages of The Solution Within Yourself. The Solution Within Yourself is the first book I wrote in English and 98% of the book is still very much the way I would write it today. This book sold well and still sells. If you think it could be beneficial to you or to someone you know and you don’t want to spend the money to buy a paperback version of the book, you can download it for a ridiculously low price. For details please click here: download The Solution Within Yourself.
2010	Swabian Cake Recipe	Folks, this is my favourite cake recipe. It is from my mum and it is absolutely fantastic. Swabian Cherry/Apple/Hazelnut Cake The cake consists of four parts: the base, the filling, the lid and the fluid that goes on top of the lid. First the base: Take 280 g of plain flower, 140 g of butter or margarine (without salt and don’t take low fat margarine), 125 g of sugar, 2 eggs and one fully loaded teaspoon of backing powder. Knead these ingredients into a dough. The dough should not be sticky. If it sticks to your hands, just add a little more flower. When the dough is finished, place it on a plate in the fridge for about half an hour. Now the lid. The lid is exactly the same as the base. In fact, later when you put the cake together, you use approximately two thirds of the above dough for the base and one third for the lid. The filling: Take between 500 g and 1000 g of sweet and ripe cherries or soft and sweet apples (cut into small pieces about the size of cherries) or ground hazelnuts. If you want lots of filling take 1000 g, if you want less filling take only 500 g or anything in between. The first time you make the cake, especially if you use cherries or hazelnuts, I recommend you take only 500g. In addition you need 30 g of ground or finely chopped almonds, 100g of sugar, 60 g of sultanas (if you don’t like sultanas, ignore them), and the grated peel of half a lemon. If you use hazelnuts as filling, you also need a little bit of milk. Simply mix all the ingredients. When you use hazelnuts, use just enough milk until the mixed ingredients form a thick, viscous filling. Don’t make it fluid. Now the fluid that goes on top of the lid: Use 100 g of butter or margarine (without salt, this time low fat margarine is okay), 100 g of sugar, 50 g of ground or finely chopped almonds and the juice of one lemon. Now comes the fun part. Use the two thirds of the dough for the base and roll it into a cake base of about the same thickness as a pizza base. Depending on the tray that you use for baking your cake, the base can be anywhere from a round 8 mm to 15 mm thick. A tray of around 22 cm x 30 cm, give or take a few centimetres, should be okay for the above quantity of dough. Of course you can also take a round tray. Put non-stick baking paper in the tray and place the cake base on top of it. Make sure that around the edge of the tray the dough forms a border approximately 1 to 1.5 cm high. Next spread the filling evenly across the dough in the tray. That was the easy part. Now comes the difficult one: use the above mentioned one third of the dough and roll it into a thin lid. Just a few millimetres thick. If you are very very good, much better than me, you will then have one lid which you place on top of the filling. If you are like me, you will have a patchwork of lid pieces, which you place side by side on top of the filling. (Looks and tastes the same afterwards.) Connect the lid with the border around the base. Finally you mix the stuff that forms the fluid that goes on top of the lid. In order to make it really fluid so that you can brush it on the lid, you have to place it in the microwave oven for a few seconds. Stir it well and pour and brush it on top of the lid. Have your oven pre-heated to around 180 degree Centigrade and bake the cake for approximately 45 minutes to one hour. Just keep checking regularly after half an hour. When finished, let the cake cool and eat it. Guten Appetit und lass drs schmegga. FS