Apricots and I have never seen eye to eye nor formed a tight and trusting bond. However more recently they have replaced the strawberries in my fruit baskets, which by itself isn't such a big thing - both fruits are in season right now. What does make it special is that I'm one of those people who have serious issues with fruits that come with odd textures, especially fruits that may be mealy. Plums, pears and apricots are on top of my Eew-list and as soon as I stumble upon a seriously mealy sample, this entire species will be disregarded for a long time. In hindsight apricots have fooled me the most. Little suckers. First they finagle themselves into your shopping basket with a radiant and extremely appealing orange-red look, just to disappoint on a first bite: mealy, too sour, or what not.

I had the best intentions, you ought to know that. Life has been hectic as usual (surprise surprise) with the occasional getaway (you may read about in a future post) and yet we managed to head east to Johanniskirchen and pick our own strawberries. Loads of wonderful plump cuties, more than five kilograms to be precise. My berry plans included cakes, ice cream, many glasses of homemade strawberry jam and of course my favorite, strawberries with freshly whipped cream. The cake barely lasted two hours (ok, we had guests, too), the ice cream (strawberry-coconut) no longer then ten minutes and the bowls of strawberries with cream hardly five. To my relief there are still a few jars of strawberry jam to accompany us through the next months!

Some ingredients have a leased line to my heart, if they show up in a recipe's ingredient list or - even better - in the recipe's headline, I'm sold and on my way to the kitchen. Chorizo certainly is one of them, poppyseeds of course are another one and every rather unusual ingredient can be, too. The smallest green glass bottle in my little team of oil bottles belongs to this family - it holds a dark green liquid, that the Austrian region Styria is well-known for: pumpkin seed oil. And no, Lou Ferrigno has not been involved - at all. It's a happy cake.

I just don't know where to start. Sometimes a proper introduction to a recipe is so far out of reach & the spark just won't catch - not so today. Too many options, which one to choose? I could tell you about bad timing. Or about my friend Ulrike, who mastered this recipe and how she inspired this post's headline. Or about my dear friend Hande, who I consider the most knowledgeable person when it come to both food and wine - yet it took me forever to convince her to finally make her own gnocchi. Or about the old myth, that homemade gnocchi have to be labor-intensive and time-consuming. See?! How could I possibly make up my mind and choose just one single introduction? I feel like a little kid wanting to tell you all about a great day in 2.5 seconds.

My first handshake with British cuisine has been anything but noteworthy, quite the opposite. My friend Bettina and I had talked our parents into sending us to Britain for several weeks, officially to ramp up our English language skills for school. But more than anything, we were looking forward to spending time abroad and feeling like grown ups. Provided with a litany of good advice and a few warnings we already sat on the plane to London, where we - after hitting ground - hopped onto a bus to Hastings with a bunch of teenagers. Once arrived we were sent to our families and we immediately liked the open-hearted couple and their two small kids. Our temporary new home was small with lots of corners and cats and we felt delirious with joy... until we got served breakfast the next day. Baked beans from a can - spilled over a pale slice of toast - wasn't exactly what we had pictured as the first meal at our host family. What I didn't know was that things would get worse.

Let me be upfront: these cookies may not become YOUR favorites. They do have a very subtle hint of peanut butter, but that's about it. They definitely lack salt. Oh, and they are on the very crunchy end (read: almost rock hard). Now when I tell you that I've received unconditional love in return, got my toes and fingers licked as a sign of utter appreciation, would you believe me?