Rose Crème Brûlée

Rose Crème Brûlée, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

After seeing a recipe for rose-flavored crème brûlée on Dessert First's blog, I decided to try the recipe with my French friend.

It ended up turning out wonderful. The vanilla cream was marked by the floral, spicy flavor of roses. Delicious.

Take Me Home Tonight

One thing you can count on in life is that it is full of surprises. And while the idea of the unexpected makes us nervous, it also makes us hopeful - For just as trouble can be waiting around the corner, so can excitement and adventure.

Last night I met Jacqueline... and took her home!

Apologies for the unflattering photo, but it was dark. Jacqueline is a beautiful vintage Waffenrad, which is an Austrian manufacturer no longer in business (more about that once I have some pictures of the bike in daylight). The bicycle is on loan from the collector Wolfgang Höfler, who also runs Vienna Active Tours and is involved in a variety of local bicycle-related projects. He is the one who named her Jacqueline. This bicycle is completely upright and very comfortable, which is why I can ride her despite not having entirely recovered from my injuries yet.

I picked up Jacqueline on Saturday night, and was nervous about riding home across Vienna for the first time. I considered taking the bike on the U-Bahn, but then decided to just go for it and cycle. The foldable basket-panniers even fit my huge laptop bag.

It was a 25 minute ride home, and I had no trouble at all. Figuring out the route was much easier than I anticipated, as was navigating the intersections and other quirks of the bike-path system.

And yes, this was playing in my head as I flew through the night-lit city. It was interesting to notice how much more lighter Vienna is at night than Boston; I never really paid attention to this before. The dynamo headlight and tail light on Jacqueline are dim compared to the set-up I have on my bikes at home, but they are more than sufficient here.

Jacqueline after I dragged her into the hallway of my building. She is tired and delighted.

So am I!

I was worried about cycling after having just recovered from pneumonia, but the Waffenrad requires very little effort to pedal - it just rolls. I wasn't even out of breath when I got home. It is a similar ride to my Raleigh DL-1, but not quite the same. I am not sure yet whether I will use this bicycle for transportation, or just to cycle around a bit in my free time - it depends how I'm feeling. And speaking of that, I suddely feel much, much better.

ANT Headbadge in the Making

Visiting ANTyesterday, I got to see something very cool: The making of a headbadge from start to finish. The ANTheadbadgelooks like a piece of antique jewelry - resembling an oxidised copper brooch. I've been wondering how Mike Flanigan makes them, and now I know:





Turns out the headbadges are brass, not copper. While initially Mike made them by hand, for years now he has been getting them laser-cut in batches. But on this occasion he needed a headbadge for a bike with a short headtube, so he made a smaller one from scratch, starting with a blank plaque.





The headtube was not only small, but had decorative lugwork around the edges, limiting the space for the badge quite a bit.To start with, Mike measured the available space and cut down one of the blanks to size with a saw.





Using one of the laser-cut badges as a model, he then drew the design on the smaller blank freehand in black marker. Because of the difference in scale, the ant on the smaller badge came out slightly differently - chubbier and shorter, with a rounded head. We decided it was a juvenile ant.





Not sure whether this is obvious, but the rendering of the insect actually spells "ANT" - the head being the "A," the torso the "N" and the bottom the "T." It's a clever logo.






Using a variety of files and an awl, Mike carved out the ant and "distressed" the plaque.






The remaining traces of marker were then removed and the surface smoothed down.





Once the headbadge was ready, the patina was applied. This is the stuff that gives the headbadge the look of oxidised copper.





This is a liquid patina goes on blue, but turns rusty-green as it air-dries. The process can be speeded up by putting the patina-covered headbadge in a plastic bag for a few minutes.






As the "oxidation" completed, Mike attached the badge to the headtube and it was done. The process took about 30 minutes total and was pretty exciting to watch. I don't think that many headbadges are carved out freehand anymore, and doing it this way gives them a distinctly hand-made look. A big thank you to Mike for letting me observe and share the process!

Jurassic Way 2 - Chipping Warden - Charwelton

With Marta. A bright sunny day - begun by scraping ice from windscreen. Ideal walking conditions, especially with base layer to keep me warm. Underfoot generally fine - some mud, wet grass. Between 8 and 9 miles.

Photo taken when we arrived here on Oct 2 (yup - rain on lens :-( )

We set off from Chipping Warden, where we finished JW1 on 7th October . We took the road towards Culworth, ignored the first footpath sign, but took the second path, about quarter of a mile along the road, left on a metalled track. Not marked as Jurassic Way - do they mean to test our map-reading?





We followed this track round to the right, through a small wood, crossed a couple of fields and a minor road, and climbed up to around 500 feet, stopping to admire the view behind us.

Looking south going up hill towards Warden House Farm. There's still a trace of the fog I drove through near W. Haddon!

We'd built in a bit of exploration time, so turned to investigate the Cool Contours arts centre, part of the farm. Although nothing was happening today, we rather liked the wooden pigs.

After this we returned to our route, which took us through some trees and past a large pond in a dip below the farm.





Then, gradually downhill, making sure we took the left-hand path over a small hill, where the Macmillan Way goes right.





Then we walked across a small stream and on until we met another road, where we turned right, and ignored footpath signs until we saw a Jurassic Way sign at a right turn into the hamlet of West Farndon. The path starts by a row of stone cottages, turning left across a couple of fields, before crossing another minor road.





With a little imagination, I could have been in Provence? Replace poplar with cypress, let the sky deepen its blue. . .

Lookin down from the old railway bridge

We had no problems following the path as it took us over a disused railway line and towards a farm track, where we made use of a roller for a snack stop.

A short walk from here and we were at Woodford Halse, which has a variety of shops - we called in at the Fleur-de-Lys pub, but they don't do food. They recommended the Tea Station, a small friendly cafe, so we had lunch there, rather soon after our snack stop!





We left Woodford Halse by the path at the bottom of the hill, crossed the road and walked past the industrial estate, turning right just before a radio mast, along a track which eventually turns up to Charwelton Lodge, up on a hill. At that point we continued ahead, alongside a hedge, then over another dismantled railway.









The path took us past spoil from railway construction, the deserted mediaeval village of Charwelton, and its fishponds to Holy Trinity Church and the nearby farm.







Across a field or two, we joined a lane then took a small footpath through a field of calves/small cows, then one with goats and horses, and emerged next to Charwelton's packhorse bridge over the infant Cherwell - probably 15th century. It's very small, and the road hides part of it.









A wise observer approves our achievement.

Meeting of the Roadsters

Last Saturday night, we had an informal get-together to discuss forming the vintage bicycle society I mentioned last week. There were four of us in total: somervillain, Cycler, Astroluc, and myself. I will take this opportunity to showcase my remarkably photogenic acquaintances and some of their bikes:

This is Cycler from Biking in Heels, with her recently acquired Raleigh DL-1. Cycler is an architect living in Cambridge and commuting to work downtown. The Co-Habitant is an avid reader of Biking in Heels - He especially likes it that her posts about bikes are supplemented with descriptions of her cooking.

Cycler's DL-1 is an earlier model than mine, but in better cosmetic condition. I wish I had this earlier model - or at least the decals from it - because the lettering is more attractive than on mine. I also covet her cream-coloured handlebar grips. Cycler is pretty handy at DIY and even made the basket support for this bike herself. The wicker basket is attached with zip ties and seems stable; the headlight is mounted directly onto the basket and reminds me of a camera. Cycler is having an issue with her chaincase, whereby the one she ordered does not seem to fit her bike. Sadly, she discovered this only after stripping the chaincase of paint in order to have it re-powder coated. Not sure what she will do now, and this was a big topic of discussion.

I have already introduced you to somervillain, who has a beautiful collection of vintage bicycles that I am slowly working through photographing. He had things to say about Cycler's chaincase issue and many other DL-1 related things. The resident DL-1 Guru, he knows pretty much everything there is to know about these bicycles; I continue to be amazed.

Here is somervillain's DL-1 next to Cycler's. You have already seen this beautiful bicycle here, in full colour. Somervillain is a research scientist by career who in the past few years has discovered the richly rewarding satisfaction of rebuilding vintage bicycles. He commutes from Somerville to Cambridge year round, in the winter riding his "Cannondale beater".
And finally, I introduce Astroluc: "Hack Artist Extraordinaire ...who also likes bikes". I admit that I was taken aback by how gallant and polite Astroluc is. Not that he is not gallant or polite online - but, well, in person he is even more so. Astroluc does not own a vintage Roadster ...yet, but is considering acquiring one. For now, he commutes around Boston year-round on his sporty Cannondale and reports all sorts of fascinating local sightings on his blog.

We are still fleshing out our ideas about the club and it's moving along nicely. Next time we look forward to meeting several others who could not make it to this meeting, and hopefully the Co-Habitant will be able to join us as well. Just as soon as we settle on a name for the club, we will cobble together a website where our goings-on will be documented for the benefit of members and far-off readers. Stay tuned, and get in touch if you'd like to take part.

A quick visit to Freetown Christiania: a place for hippies, not for me

In Copenhagen, Denmark, there exists a free town where you can do whatever you want and be whoever you want yourself to be. The residents to date in this Copenhagen enclave are less than a thousand and the whole area covers about 34 hectares located in the suburb of Christianshavn.

There are no hard rules here except for the following:

When visiting, make sure to pay attention to these otherwise you will be pulled out from the crowd. The residents of Christiania are known to have smashed cameras so I made sure to keep my camera out of sight. No pictures and no running in the Green Zone. The Green Zone is the heart/centre of Christiania.

So Christiania was high up in my list of places in Copenhagen to visit. Just out of curiosity really. What is a town like without any legal form of entity? Where everything is free going and people can be whoever they wanted themselves to be? People here can do whatever they want? Yup, I was really, really curious!

Like San Marino in Italy, Lichtenstein in Switzerland and Monaco in France, Christiania is officially an autonomous state within Denmark. For more information, go google it =)

Ludvigsen, the co-author of Christiania's mission statement (circa 1971) wrote this:

“The objective of Christiania is to create a self-governing society whereby each and every individual holds themselves responsible over the wellbeing of the entire community. Our society is to be economically self-sustaining and, as such, our aspiration is to be steadfast in our conviction that psychological and physical destitution can be averted.”

But I must say though that Christiania is not for me. Alas, we didn’t click. There were no butterflies in my stomach at first sight. I am not the hippie ‘flower power-love-peace’ type of gal who wears harem pants, have nose piercings and spends her days doing yoga and meditations. I don’t smoke hash and I don’t use cocaine as well. Although I do not believe in marriage I see sex conservatively. I also don’t like living in huts and derelict houses with graffiti, hygiene challenged and poverty-stricken environment around me.

Moreover, freedom for me is a very important form of expression, but I believe that with freedom comes responsibility, and that means adhering to certain guidelines.

On the positive side, it was good to have visited Christiania, albeit rather quick. I was able to see it and experience just a little bit what this world is all about. Further than that, I didn’t really have any reason to stay longer. I felt so out of place there. Do not get me wrong though because it’s actually a fun place with lots of shops, cafes and restaurants but it’s just not my cup of tea.

A few months ago, a Danish colleague from our EMEA headquarters was my visitor in the Netherlands. While we were in the car driving to a client, I confessed that I was in Copenhagen last April. Our conversation led to the subject of Christiania.

He said, ‘Christiania is the answer to tolerance in Denmark, just as the coffee shops and red light districts are to the Netherlands.‘

Hmm... you know, he could be right.

Here are the pictures, outside of the Green Zone of course:

And now I am entering the Green Zone. This is the moment where I stopped taking pictures.

When in Copenhagen, do try to visit this enclave and experience for yourself a different kind of world. Maybe you and Christiania will click? Who knows.