El blog de la maria

I found them!

2011-04-20T09:51:00.000+02:00

Lately I've been feeling like cooking more catalan dishes up here, for myself and to show the culture to family and friends... But there is a problem: where do I find the ingredients!?
I have taken out the dishes that involve local sausages because I know that it would never be the same, even if I found something a bit similar...

But after my last visit to my dad, where he made "arròs negre", I really feel like making a rice dish! Specially because I have never tried making one before, even when I was living in Catalonia.
I called my dad and asked for the recipe. I needed cuttlefish (its ink included), artichoke and good rice for this kind of dish (basmati and jasmin or these things you can find in denmark are not good for this..). Since it is not season for artichoke anymore, I asked him for an alternative, so I got rice with cuttlefish and scampi, which seemed easier to get, since I didn't need artichokes or the ink.
My plan was to prepare this for family on Easter holidays, but I wanted to try it first at home.. that being my first time with rice.

I went to the fish shop of the harbor in Aarhus. To two of them, actually. No sign of cuttlefish :( One of the problems is also that the danes have one single words for octopus, squid and cuttlefish, so I wasn't sure how to ask for it. I saw that they use the italian names for those sometimes, so it turned out not to be so difficult. Still, no cuttlefish :( And I can't make a rice with squid!! I know some do, but it wouldn't be the same...

I gave up and looked for some other dish.. I decided I will prepare a "mar i muntanya", which is also very typical, and it is easier to find the ingredients.

I was at the same fish shop again, this time to buy the scampi for the dish.. and guess what I found? They had one single box of frozen cuttlefish! From the Pacific, which is probably not the same as the mediterranean ones I'm used to, and frozen, which I'm not used to either... but I couldn't help it and I bought it! Now we have one kilo cuttlefish in our freezer :) I will not use it this time, since I decided to stick with the chicken recipe, but I'll experiment with them when we are back from the Easter holidays.

Oh, and I also found salted cod there! I've been looking for it for a while... now I can prepare many of my catalan favorite dishes!!

I feel like cooking now!! :)

Gnome Journal is out :)

2009-11-24T07:36:00.001+01:00

A new number of GNOME Journal is out.. do you see anyone familiar there? http://www.gnomejournal.org/article/87/where-are-they-now-the-participants-of-the-2006-womens-summer-outreach-program

Well, that's an article about a project I participated three years ago..

I hope they keep trying to encourage more women to join this fantastic community! (I'll keep spreading the word too..)

Halloween

2009-11-01T12:16:00.000+01:00

I'm not a big fan of Halloween... I think I would never get a costume on and go bananas celebrating this american tradition.
But any change to do some cooking and to spend some cosy time with friends is welcomed.

We planned to have a cosy evening with friends, meeting for cooking and having some nice food yesterday night, and just a couple of days before we realized it was actually halloween. So we decided to have something haloweenish for dinner.

It ended up being pumpkin soup for a starter (with coco milk and ginger... yummy!), roast-beef with sweet mashed potatoes (a bit orangy) and a fabulous bat-cake!

The cake came already prepared, in a nice box, but the rest we made it together, with a glass of wine in hand and good company!

The bat-cake is a secret... but here you have the other two recipes... Pumpkin soup with coco milk and Roast-beef with sweet potato mash ... get ready to enjoy some good food :)

Roast-beef with sweet potato mash

2009-11-01T12:11:00.000+01:00

Ingredients
(serves 4 people)

800g-1kg prepared roast-beef
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper, or 1 teaspoon smashed black peppercorns
Salt
3-4 sweet potato, peeled and cubed into small pieces
3-4 baking potato, peeled and cubed into small pieces
1 tablespoon butter
3 tablespoons cream fraîche
100ml (or more if necessary) cooking cream (about 12-15% fat)

Instructions

Cover the roast-beef piece with salt and pepper. Preheat the oven to 225 degrees and then brown the meat for 15 min. Put the temperature down to 165 degrees and let the meat cook until it is done (it has to be about 60 degrees inside). It should take about 40 min.

While the meat is cooking, place the sweet potato and baking potato chunks into a pot of cold water. Bring to a boil, and cook until fork-tender, about 20 minutes from the boil.
Drain off the potatoes, and then return them to the same hot, but now dry, pot. Put the pot on a low heat for just about 1 minute, to allow any excess liquid to burn off. Add in the butter and crème fraîche and season with salt and a bit of pepper. Mash the potatoes with a potato masher. Then add the cream until you have the consistency you desire. Mash a bit more, and you're done.

Pumpkin soup with coco milk

2009-11-01T12:08:00.001+01:00

Ingredients
(serves 6 people)

1 piece of pumpkin (about 1200g)
1 bunch spring onions
2 carrots
3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon grated ginger
1 liter of vegetable broth
Sal
Freshly ground pepper
A bit of ground nutmeg
1 / 2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
150 g of cream
400 ml. coconut milk (canned)
2 tablespoons grated coconut

Instructions

Remove the seeds from the pumpkin, peel and cut into small pieces. Wash and peel the onions and carrots. Cut the carrot into small cubes and onions into big pieces. Separe part of the green stalk and cut in slices for garnish.

Melt butter in a pan and sauté onions until transparent. Then, incorporate pumpkin, diced carrots and ginger and cook everything for 1 minute.

Add the vegetable broth and spices, salt, pepper, nutmeg and cinnamon. Cover the pan and let simmer about 20 minutes.

Reduce to a purée using a blender, and stir in the cream and coconut milk, stirring constantly. Give one boil, season with salt and pepper and garnish the soup with green onion slices and reserved coconut.

Change of look

2009-10-18T19:11:00.000+02:00

I haven't been much around here... But I'm back!

First thing I did was to change the face of this page. Hope you like the new look :)

I have a lot of things to talk about, starting for JAOO conference, two weeks ago. But... first things first: exams!

So see you all in a week, when I'm done with them (until they come again!)

de vacances!

2009-08-05T14:36:00.005+02:00

Per fi les vacances d'estiu altre cop!

Portem tot el juliol amb mal temps i aquesta setmana, de cop i volta, ha sortit el sol. Ni fet expressament! El sol em somriu :)

D'aquí uns dies baixo cap a casa uns dies... i, com cada vegada, em poso a pensar què ha passat en la meva vida des de l'última vegada, o des de les últimes vacances d'estiu... Aquesta vegada en surto molt ben parada, jeje! Per començar, he perdut disset quilos, i surto a córrer els meus 3 o 4 km dos o tres cops per setmana. Sorpresos? Doncs també vaig conèixer un xicot genial just tornar de vacances l'any passat, i ara vivim junts en un piset preciós a Skanderborg, amb vistes al llac :) Ah, i no ens oblidem que encara conservo la feina (cosa important, aquests dies...) i que el meu danès ha millorat força i ja puc mantenir converses d'una manera més o menys normal.

Avui ha començat un festival de música aquí a la nostra ciutat que es diu "El festival més bonic de Dinamarca" (traducció literal de Danmarks Smukkeste Festival, en danès). I ho és, de bonic! Es fa al mig del bosc, amb un escenari a tocar del llac i tot. Ja hem plantat la tenda i hi anem ara després de dinar :) Uns dies de relax, solet i festa!

I després... cap a terres catalanes! I ben acompanyada! Amb ganes de veure els amic, la família, d'ensenyar els llocs que més m'estimo, i potser descobrir-ne de nous tot fent turisme.

Fins ben aviat!!!

Book meme

2008-11-13T22:02:00.002+01:00

I never follow these things, but I found this one interesting, so here it goes.

First the rules:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open it to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

Result:

"Era una mañana fresca y clara del mes de octubre."

(English: It was a fresh and clear morning of October)

From "Hierba mora", Teresa Moure. I normally have it on my bed table but it was on my desk today, after being in my back for reading in the bus :) Nice one!

JAOO... day 3

2008-10-05T10:29:00.002+02:00

Here it is my comment about wednesday.. a bit late.

Wednesday was my free day; I didn't have to do any crew work. So I enjoyed the conference all day. I skipped the keynote. Not because it was not interesting, but because I had to do some reading for my thursday exam, and I couldn't skip that!
During the day I attended four sessions in the Developer Best Practices track, and one in the Scaling Agility track. In this last one I had the pleasure to listen to Jeff Sutherland talking about distributed scrum, together with Guido Schoonheim, who was exemplifying fully distributed scrum witha project in his company that has scrum teams where half team is in Holland and half team is in India. And it has been working for them.. impressive!

The sessions about developer best practices were really interesting, specially the ones from Frank Buschmann and Kevlin Henney. Considerations for designing and coding, and the Henney's "Programmer's Dozen", with 13 recommendations. These two talks were fresh, they didn't feel long eventhough they were full of code samples, full of humor... amazing! I recommend to any programmer to go through the slides of the dozen and see if they recognize some of the things we do wrong all the time. The other sessions I attended in this track were Real-world Refactoring and TDD 2. The former was interesting, with good slides and a good speaker, but after the first two, it didn't seem that great... And the latter was not that good, it felt too long and too sleepy, but we got a laugh when James Coplien made his comment at the end of the session, leaving the speaker without any chance of answering it!

After the last day of conference, the crew had a retrospective, making a time line of what had happened during the conference; all the things that were great and all the things that could be improved. Lot of feedback for the JAOO team.
And then.. the expected Crew + Speakers dinner :) Great food, great wine (we got white Catalan wine ;-) ), great music and great company. I think it is a very good idea to let the crew mix with the speakers... it's a good chance to talk to them, beer in hand. Unfortunately I left just after the dessert, as I had exam the day after and I was really tired already.

Thank you all for a fantastic JAOO, I had a great time!

JAOO... day 2

2008-10-01T09:20:00.002+02:00

Tuesday at JAOO was full of great talks! I could go to three of them in the morning, but I had to do some crew stuff in the afternoon. Only for those three talks, the conference was worthy to me :)
I listened to Frank Buschmann talking about Architecture Reviews first. The talk was targeted to software architects and architecture reviewers. I'm not none of these, but listening to this man is always a pleasure, and you get something out of it!
Then Linda Rising, talking about The Power of Retrospectives... wow! I could listen to her for hours and hours. Great sense of humor, and she is really passionate about retrospectives, even suggesting to apply the technique to your own life; stop and reflect what can be done differently to make your life better... I'll keep this in mind :)
Last but not least, I went to Cope's talk about Agile Architecture. There was so many people that he is repeating the talk today, because some people couldn't go in! I had to leave before he finished, due to my crew duties, but I really enjoyed the talk. Fresh and provocative as always.

The afternoon was a bit boring... I had to guard one of the conference rooms, and then sit at the registration office for like 2 hours.. and no one came! Well, that's the price for going to the conference!

Today it looks exciting.. I have problems deciding which talks to go to! More about it later.. or tomorrow!

JAOO... day 1

2008-09-29T16:58:00.002+02:00

First day at JAOO is over for me. I met the rest of the crew, I talked with some of them, I even discovered there was a spaniard :). First, and big, problem: the crew had to wear a Microsoft t-shirt today... that was hard! Fortunately, we get a new t-shirt, with new sponsors (pheew!) each day.
I had to work this morning in the wardrobe, so I didn't attend many things. I could sneak away to go to the keynote, as the wardrobe was not very busy. Interesting talk about the future of programming languages :) Well, and of course I had time to go around the exhibition and get some of the free stuff ;-) That's what conferences are all about, right?

I didn't stay at the sessions after lunch, though. There wasn't any that had caught my eye, and I had some work to do at home. So there I went! (10 min biking... not bad :) ) There is a JAOO party tonight, but unfortunately I won't be going. I do have a lot of work to do... and there are also social events tomorrow and wednesday, and I prefer to go to those ones.

I'll get back to my duties now... and tomorrow the day is full of exciting talks :) And I promised to go to Sidebar in the evening for a drink... we even get a free cocktail, because it is the official JAOO bar :) And I love it ;-)

JAOO

2008-09-29T06:43:00.002+02:00

Just a short note...

I'm going to JAOO in 10 min :) You might be thinking why so early... well, I'm a crew this year, helping a bit with some things. In return, I have the entrance for free and I get to know a lot of people, including the speakers and organization. It's never bad to have some extra contacts ;-)

I'm sure it will be really interesting! I'm really looking forward to some of the talks :)

I don't want to be late, so... leaving now! I'll try to blog a bit about the conference. It's nice to share all these experiences :)

Good morning!

2008-08-20T10:04:00.002+02:00

I've had this stuck in my head the whole morning :)

Have a good morning everyone!

Don't look like a tourist in your hometown...

2008-08-12T15:34:00.001+02:00

... or you'll get your wallet stolen!

scary language experience

2008-08-01T08:23:00.003+02:00

What would you feel if there was a woman, scissors in hand, about to cut your hair, and she didn't speak a word of English and just a bit of Danish, which you are not fluent either...? Scared is the word!

Yesterday it was my first time in the hairdresser in Denmark. I was a bit nervous, as I was not sure how to express how I wanted my hair in English. Well, I arrived there and everything started fine. A nice danish girl washed my hair, and she spoke really good English, so my fears went away a bit. And then I waited for the other woman to cut my hair.. the woman with the scissors. When she came to me I noticed that her Danish was not so good, and then I asked if she spoke English... she didn't! In our poor Danish we managed to talk a bit and she told me she was from Poland. Funny, to go to Denmark to have the hair cut by a polish woman :P Everything turned out ok, with a bit ok hands language and some Danish words... And I guess she had a good intuition about my hair also, so I got what I wanted at the end. pheeww...

santa pruna

2008-03-20T10:43:00.004+01:00

Felicitats a la meva pruna preferida! Un petonàs enorme, germaneta!

peps i pepes

2008-03-19T14:05:00.002+01:00

Felicitats a tots els Peps i a totes les Pepes!!!

Especialment a l'àvia Fina! Un petonàs!!!

somriures

2008-03-09T21:00:00.004+01:00

quan estàs lluny d'alguns dels teus millors amics, hi ha coses com aquesta que et provoquen un somriure immens als llavis, encara que plogui i faci un temps desastrós!

gràcies guapa!

La colla del tupper

2008-01-29T06:54:00.000+01:00

Ja vaig comentar que he tornat a la vida d'estudiar i treballar, tot alhora. Això implica... anar de cul! I a més, menjar fora de casa i en llocs inesperats, com el bus, de vegades.

Avui toca dinar a la universitat... o sigui que toca tupper! Hi ha un bar que no està malament, però prefereixo menjar alguna cosa sana feta a casa, que no em fio d'aquest danesos jejeje Primer dia de tupper: amanida de pasta (boníssima feta amb raviolis, endívies, xampis...) i truita de patata, que va sobrar del dissabte, que vaig tenir convidats. La truita de patates sempre triomfa! Els encanta!

Avui, després d'uns mesos sense tocar el tupper, m'uneixo oficialment a la Plataforma per la dignitat del tupper! (tenen un blog molt recomanable, per cert!)

i'm back :)

2008-01-28T21:38:00.000+01:00

no... I'm not back to Barcelona... or I haven't been away from Aarhus to have to come back here... I'm back into studying!
First day of class at Aarhus Universitet done! I'll be studying a Master in Distributed Real-Time Systems some years from now. It would take 2 years, but I will keep working so it will take longer! I made a good deal with my manager to reduce my working hours to 30h/week, and I'll take half of the subjects each semester. Stressed life again! :)
For the ones interested in knowing what's this master about (only danish speakers or readers), you can read about it here. The master is a collaboration between Aarhus Universitetet and the Engineering College of Aarhus. That makes it quite interesting, as it combines university style and more engineering/practical style... I'll learn a lot, I guess!

I'm happy to see some of my colleagues again... and I'm looking forward to meet new ones also!

the small things

2008-01-27T14:37:00.000+01:00

I just came back from my first running session... and it feels awesome! (like dead, but really good feeling!)
Arrive home all sweaty, take off all your clothes, turn on the radio and hear one of your favourite songs, take a look at the tulips you bought yesterday in the market and smile, take a relaxing shower... and feel like a new person! Small pleasures that make life worthy!
Oh... and that today it is a sunny day, not windy and quite warm may help in my good mood! :)

going in the right direction

2008-01-14T14:17:00.001+01:00

When I saw the sun rising when I was arriving to work I realised the day is getting longer... weee!!! We are going in the good direction.. spring, the season of light! And the sun was shinning! Perfect start of the week!
But... as it was expected... amazing danish weather is back! Grey, grey and grey! I'll have to get used to it again...

after seeing this...

2007-12-05T22:10:00.000+01:00

I have to start do something in python again :) Long time no code!

I started taking a look at GUIs, which I never did in python. Let's see what I can do!

and x-mas starts... in two days!

2007-10-31T22:15:00.000+01:00

Last year, when I discovered this crazy day called J-dag I got a shock... how can christmas start the first friday of november? But this second year... I've been waiting for it! The crazy day is a biiiig party!

Are you doing something special? I'll be in Harrys Kælder... hope to see you there!

Oh... and merry christmas to all!!

ja és nadal a dinamarca!

2007-10-31T22:11:00.001+01:00

Increïble... aquest divendres comença el nadal amb l'arribada de la cervesa de nadal! Tota la propaganda que m'arriba a casa està plena de tonteries nadalenques, i les botigues ja comencen a adornar els aparadors... són bojos aquests danesos!!!

Prometo fotos de la super festa de nadal d'aquest divendres! Hi haurà gorros de nadal, adornaments per tot arreu.. i cervesa de nadal en abundància.. i gratis!

danish language...

2007-10-26T12:40:00.000+02:00

Watch and laugh ;)

these days at work...

2007-10-25T12:58:00.000+02:00

... I have to do a lot of testing... booooring!!!

speaking danish

2007-10-21T17:11:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends,

I really need to start speaking Danish now... I am going to class in the official language school, but I need a bit more.

I am looking for some private lessons, where I can talk more than in the school... does anyone know a place where I can do that near the centre of Aarhus, and in the evenings? Please leave a comment if you have any advice, or send me an email :)

sweet

2007-09-29T13:27:00.000+02:00

Last week one of my friends said it was very nice I was staying in Denmark because my voice sounds so sweet when I speak danish.. :)

These kind of things make the effort of learning danish worthy!

busy... and enjoying it!

2007-09-26T21:44:00.000+02:00

It has been one month since last post... quite a busy month! :)

I've had some visits. First my mum and then Ve.
My mum came to spend a weekend with me, see my new nice tiny apartment and do a bit of tourism around Denmark. We rented a car and drove to the northern point of Jylland, Skagen, where the two seas fight against each other! We had fun, good meals, nice talks and... incredibly good weather!!! Check out the pics to get jealous immediately!

Ve came just two days after my mum left... not in the exact same plan... we partied quite a lot! ;) We also had fun, good talks, good drinks and we can't complaint much about the weather... we went to Copenhagen for the weekend and we didn't get wet!

Well, this month hasn't been only about visits... I have great news: I got a permanent contract in Kamstrup, where I have been working the last months! That means I can stay in Denmark as long as I want, not worrying about contracts... I have a good job, a nice flat... now I only need to speak danish ;) And that is coming soon... next tuesday I have my first exam in the language school. That doesn't mean I'll be speaking danish from next week, but it does mean that I'm trying hard, and that I'm improving!

Oh, and I can't forget about these news... I will go all Christmas holidays home!!! I already have the tickets! From the 23rd of December to the 8th of January! I'm looking forward to these family and friends days!

I hope I can come with good news about my exam next week... vi ses snart!

Raviolis a la gracienca

2007-08-26T14:24:00.000+02:00

[For the english speakers: I promise next recipe will be in english! But don't hesitate and ask for translations :) ]

Suposo que la primera pregunta serà: perquè "a la gracienca"? Doncs bé, aquesta recepta ens la vam inventar amb l'alba aquests dies que va està a casa meva, a Århus. Suposo que no et sap greu que publiqui la recepta aquí, oi? :) I l'alba i jo ens vam conèixer a gràcia, el nostre barri...

Va ser una recepta improvisada.. però ens va agradar tant que l'he repetit més d'una vegada i he decidit escriure-la perquè altra gent en pugui treure profit!

Ingredients:

Raviolis frescos (nosaltres vam usar-ne uns d'espinacs i parmesà.. boníssims!)
Ceba
Pastanaga
Xampinyons
Sal, pebre
Espècies variades una mica picantones (algunes que he usat són: harissa, chili, comí)
Oli d'oliva

Com es fa:

Tallar la ceba en mitges llunes, la pastanaga a tires primes i els xampinyons a làmines.
A foc lent, sofregir la ceba amb oli d'oliva fins que estigui tova i daurada. Afegir la pastanaga i deixar-la una mica abans d'afegir els xampinyons. Un cop tots els ingredients són a la paella, tirar la sal, el pebre i les espècies al gust.
Mentre es fa el sofregit, bullir la pasta fresca.
Un cop està tot apunt, afegir la pasta cuita a la paella amb el sofregit i fer-li un parell de remenades i servir al moment.

Si es té formatge ratllat bonet segur que hi queda boníssim!

Bon profit!!!

(Em sap greu, però d'aquest plat no en tinc cap foto.. de moment ;) )

Gazpacho de síndria

2007-08-21T12:17:00.000+02:00

El gazpacho de síndria és una variant del gazpacho típic. Té un toc dolcet, i va perfecte per fer quan et fan comprar una síndria sencera (a Århus no les venen tallades...) i vius sola ;)

Ingredients:

síndria madura (mínim 1/2 quilo)
tomàquests madurs (la mateixa quantitat de tomàquests que de síndria)
pebrot verd (o vermell... queda diferent però bo)
una mica d'all (jo no en poso.. que em destrossa l'estómac.. però segur que hi queda bo)
molla de pa
vinagre (millor del bo, tipus mòdena)
oli d'oliva
una mica d'aigua freda (no sempre cal)
sal i pebre

Com es fa:

Deixar un got d'aigua a la nevera, per si ens fa falta.
Escaldar els tomàquets i pelar-los. Tallar els tomàquest, la síndria i el pebrot (i l'all) a trossos i posar-ho en un bol tapat amb papaer film a la nevera duarnt una hora, perquè els sabors es barregin.
Deixar el pa remullant-se amb una mica de vinagre durant uns minuts.
Passar tots els ingredients pel minipimer i salpebrar al gust. Afegir una mica d'aigua si està massa espès.

Deixar-lo a la nevera fins al moment de servir. Es pot guarnir amb trossets de síndria o tomàquet o pebrot.

Bon profit!

I love cooking...

2007-08-21T09:35:00.000+02:00

Yes, I do! And I like cooking specially when I have friends to enjoy the meal with. And even more if we cook all together.
So I decided that from now on, I will post here all or some recipes of the dishes I cook. They will be under the label "cooking", and some of them will be in catalan, or spanish or english... maybe even in danish at some point ;) So, if you are interested in any of them and can't understand it just ask me for translation!

Bon profit!

I can do it!

2007-08-16T15:35:00.000+02:00

With this new blog my new life is starting. It's true that I have been here in Denmark for a while, that I moved to my new place more than one month ago, that I already had some danish lessons... But now that I started my own blog, my own pictures gallery it feels more like I am living my own life.
I want to thank all the friends that helped me in the process, some of them helped even without knowing they were doing so.
So.. what now?
I am installed in my place in the centrum of Århus.. I love this apartment! I am still working in Kamstrup, and I'm really happy with that :) And I'm learning danish to be able to understand people around me. In my free time... I go to the marked on saturdays, I cook and enjoy my kitchen, I read, I meet my friends... just a normal and not stressed life! I was looking forward to that! hehe

Now there is a friend from Barcelona here with me. She leaves tomorrow :( I haven't been that happy and enjoying life for a long time! Laughing together, drinking together, talking about everything, and also being together in some bad moments we've been through... Merci per ser-hi!!!
She leaves tomorrow... but my cousin and aunt are coming on sunday for 5 days, and then I'll have my mum visiting on september and also two friends from manresa (spain)... so I won't be bored! It's so nice to have people visiting you!

hello world :)

2007-08-13T01:45:00.000+02:00

Hello to everyone!
Hola a tothom!

Aquest és el meu nou blog! A partir d'ara rebreu notícies meves des d'aquí, escrivint des de la meva caseta de dinamarca!

This is my new blog! From now on you'll hear from me here, writing from my new tiny place in denmark!