Делаем суши!

В воскресенье я с детьми была в гостях у Наташи и ее дочки Эрики. Последний раз мы виделись эм .... лет 5 назад. В программе - меню были мизо-суп, суши и мороженое на основе зеленого чая. Причем, суши мы делали собственноручно!

Оказалось, что это совсем несложно.

Необходимые продукты:

Пластинки из морских водорослей

Лосось

Васаби и ингвер

Режим огурцы и авокадо вдоль

Начинаем.

Лосось полосочками

Кладем слой предварительно отваренного суши-риса на водоросли

Примерно так

Немного отступив от края выкладываем рядочком лосось, авокадо

Огурчик, зеленый лук

Сворачиваем в трубочку

И вот что получается

Разрезаем на кусочки, выкладываем на тарелочку

Можно использовать и тунца, конечно

Красота, сделанная своими руками!

Фотографируемся, но в процессе тоже участвуем

А дети едят супчик

Вобщем, что вам сказать, я сама собой горжусь! Суши! Я! Сама!

На следующий день, воодушевленная, купила все, что нужно, и повторила весь процесс дома. И даже принесла друзьям попробовать.

Спасибо всем! И приятного аппетита!

At Guggenheim Museum

Such a beautiful day! Today I went with my friends Katjas to Guggenheim Museum http://www.guggenheim.org.

Our last trip to the Metropolitan Museum http://tygs.blogspot.com/2012_09_01_archive.html was already months back, so it was absolutely essential to get some new museum's inspiration.

It was my first time here. I heard a lot about the museum, but somehow... And finally I made it!

Just from the beginning: I loved it!

The building itself is very impressive. It's not so big and built in shape of a spiral.

View from up

Currently they carry an exhibition of Gutai. Gutai (1954-1972) was Japan's most influential avant-garde group of artists. 59 artists were participating over the years in this collective, exploring new arts combinations. It's really interesting and not "too much" in compare to other museums. I think, even for kids it would be interesting: different kinds of art and the architecture of the museum (no steps, no elevators) make it to one kind of event.

I liked the Gutai card box.

For one dollar you purchase a token, put inside and become an original Gutai gift card. The trick is, that a person is sitting inside a box and she decides what card you'll get. It's a kind of human vending machine. I found it so cool!

Sure, there are some more things to see.

Lighting bulbs

"Floating" pictures

Even a sink turns out to be an art

By the way, Saturdays from 5:45 to 7:45 you can visit the museum and pay what you wish. Great, right?  Now I'm looking forward for the next free Saturday to make a family visit there.

At museum's shop I purchased a nice book from the illustrator Cristoph Niemann for my kids. New Yorker symbols made with Lego, a playful homage to New York City.

I like the idea of unusual view on usual things. That inspired J. and F. immediately to make the following art.

Joni

23 Ponys from Fiorina

To get an inspiration, to see other's people creativity and simply a joy for a soul and eyes,- that's why I like museums so much.

Pflicht. Verpflichtung. Verantwortung.

Verpflichtungen sind schlimm. Und die geschriebenen Verpflichtungen sind noch schlimmer. Einmal geschrieben, steht es für immer wie ein Mahnmal für dich. Aber sie helfen uns voran zu kommen. Ist das nicht wahr?

In meinem Fall habe irgendwann geschrieben, am 12. jeden Monats werde ich ein Post auf Deutsch schreiben. Und heute ist der 12. Und soll es regnen oder schneien, soll ich noch so viel zu tun haben, geschrieben steht geschrieben. Und mich plagt dann mein Gewissen.

Unser ganzes Leben besteht aus Verpflichtungen. Der Mann und die Kinder,- sind die größten. Sie bringen uns dazu, jeden Tag neu aufzustehen, um ihnen das Frühstück zu machen, das Vesperbrot vorzubereiten, zur Schule zu bringen... Ja, jeden Tag neu zu schreiben. Und dann die Arbeit, der Sport, die Freunde, das Hobby. Man braucht einen langen Atem.

Ich glaube, das ist auch einer der Gründe, warum die Männer so zögerlich sind, ihre Freundin zu heiraten oder Kinder zu kriegen. Für meinen Mann ist es unheimlich schwierig, zum Beispiel, einen Urlaub oder eine Reise zu planen. Urlaub zu planen heißt sich festlegen. Aber es sind doch so viele Optionen offen, und außerdem, "weiß ich nicht, wo ich dann in drei Monaten bin und was ich will." Uns, Frauen, fällt das sicherlich leichter. Für uns, einen Urlaub zu planen heißt, Sicherheit zu bekommen. Und das ist wichtig für uns.

In den letzten Wochen habe ich mir eine neue Gewohnheit (oder doch eine Verpflichtung? Wo ist die Grenze? Im Auge des Betrachters?) aufgelegt. In einem Blogbeitrag http://zenhabits.net/early/ habe ich über früh aufstehen gelesen und fand es sehr inspirierend. (Ja, es lohnt sich, Blogs zu lesen!:). Jetzt stehe ich so kurz nach 6 auf. Ich nutze die Zeit, um noch was zu lesen. Man empfiehlt die gewonnene Zeit für die Sachen, die sie gewöhnlich nicht machen, zu nutzen, z.B. fürs Meditieren oder Schreiben oder eine Tasse Kaffee in Ruhe zu trinken. Ganz einfach. Und trotzdem ganz schön.

So schwierig es für uns ist, sich für irgendwas zu verpflichten und Verantwortung dafür zu tragen, bin ich der Meinung, es macht uns zu besseren Menschen. Wir kümmern uns, wir lernen, wir tragen Verantwortung, wir sind besser organisiert und schaffen so viel mehr.

Just be positive!

It turned out, that the Friday storm was called Nemo. I found it out later, after it swept over. Nemo brought us tons of snow, the half day at school on Friday, cancelled activities on Saturday, but that's pretty much all. We didn't lose power, we stayed warm and safe and we even had some fun.

It started to snow Friday noon. And it snowed. And snowed. Nobody ventured out of their homes. But we took our sled and went out to the street.

What a fun!

Next day we couldn't go out, so much snow just in front of the door! So we put our shovels and with three hours work we plowed our driveway so far, that we could drive out. The "snow guys", who were supposed to plow the driveway, didn't show up. And in the middle of our shovel work, two Mexican guys were driving by and asking, if they should do it for us, just for 50$. I was weak at the moment and wanted already to hire them, but my Jessi to me: "What? We did already the half job! No, thank you!" So they drove away. And we did further. Until we found the connection point with the street:).

Our hands hurt and we did good exercise, but we treated us with a roasted chicken and baked apples and hot chocolate. It was not so bad:).

So, my friends, my conclusion from this story: Just be positive and look for good sides in any situation. It remembers me also on Bradley Cooper in "Silver lining Playbook", be positive, be positive, like a mantra. But it works ultimately.

In face of coming storm. And I'm talking about shoes.

My hope was that we are really done for this fall-winter season with all the storms and hurricanes. But I was wrong. They predict a very bad blizzard for Friday-Saturday. When I went to the local Stop&Shop to get some supplies (a routine here before coming storms), I could barely find a parking spot, which is always an indicator for what's going on inside the store. Crowds of people, no water left, and some other stuff is out. I really hope that this time we will go through, we will not lose power and it will just be lots of snow and we can go sledding with the kids. We will see.

And now some good things.

On Wednesday with two of my friends we did a small shopping ride to Ridgewood. The girls introduced me to a store with the motto "why pay more, when you can pay less?". Its called Fox's and you can really save your money.

My first thought, as usual, was: "I don't need anything." It turned out in a purchase of three pairs of shoes.

The black one from Naya costs 29$ (I saw many New Yorker girls in a similar model). BCBG wedges cost 59$ (I find, they are so special) and the patriotic ones cost again 29$.

Take a closer look at this.

The model is called "Republican", on the side you can see an appeal "vote" and on the sole stays "Too much is not enough". They are so cute and funny, that I just couldn't resist.

I asked my son Jonathan about the shoes. About these wedges

he said: "It's such a nice pattern and I like also spirit and peace signs on them, which native Americans used." I didn't even know about this! One point more for Tenafly public schools:).

And about these ones

he mentioned, the pattern lines mean good and bad for him. I would prefer to interpret this like "in good as well in bad times".

I can't wait until I'll put them on, my patriotic, my peace and spirit and my in good as well in bad times shoes.

Take care!

Заходите к нам на ланч!

Что делают мамочки между уборкой, готовкой, занятиями спортом и маникюром? Да, вы угадали. Иногда они обедают. (В русском значении этого слова. Здесь, в Америке мы ланчуем, а обедаем мы вечером, т.е. ужинаем по-русски. Ну вобщем, вы меня понимаете.)

Вот и я на прошлой неделе обедала со своей французской подружкой Каролин. Она молодец, красиво накрыла стол на двоих.

Приготовила бобы и ... свинину. Боже, как она извинялась. "Я совершенно не подумала, должна была спросить. Мы, французы, едим все." Быстро достала бифштекс из холодильника, раз-два поколдовала и приготовила специально для меня мясное.

Мы так славно посидели, поели, попили, поговорили душевно и решили, что как-то редко мы собираемся. Я девушка решительная и сегодня мы продолжили обедать вместе. На сей раз у меня дома в компании еще двух замечательных подружек.

Вот, Юля, например, научила нас готовить замечательный азиатский салат. Делюсь рецептом дальше.

Берете вот такую вот упаковочку сердцевины брокколи,

добавляете  туда нарезанный и слегка поджаренный миндаль.

А затем вот такую вот вермишель.

Кромсаете ее прямо в упаковке, не открывая. Затем все же открываете ее и вскрываете находящийся там маленький пакетик с приправой. Добавляете в эту приправу 1 ст.л. соевого соуса, 2-3 ст.л. белого уксуса, 3-4 ст.л. оливкового масла и этой смесью заливаете вермишель. Оставляете это все на 2 часа пропитываться. А затем смешиваете вашу вермишель с брокколи и миндалем, солите и нахваливаете сами себя. Вкусно!

Так с и нами.
Оглашаю полное меню: Салат, куриные кошерные отбивные и яблочный французский пирог.

Все очень вкусно. Бутылочка белого вина, веселая интернациональная компания и всем хорошо.

Чему я и очень рада.

Bon appétit!

What do you read?

Do you also ever tell yourself, I wanna read more? And do you know this excuse, I don't have enough time?

I'm not a fast reader. So it takes time. Once I made a list (I love lists!) of books I read. I had this idea, you can measure even your life in books. When you read one book in a month, then ... You can count it. So we should be picky in what we choose to read.

Tell me what you read and I can tell you who you are. Does it work? I don't know.

At the moment I'm reading a book by Ken Follett http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Follett "Winter of the World", although in German translation.

Friends of ours gave it to Daniel and who is reading it first? Ya, ya. That's the thickest book so far I have ever read, more than 1000 pages (!). I like it a lot, it's very exciting. He writes about the time when Nazis took over Germany, but from different perspectives: families in Germany, America and England.

Usually I'm reading two books at the same time. One of them I have on my night table and read it before sleeping time (often 10 pages each time. Oh my God, I'm so particular. Who's not?). Another one I have in my everyday bag. I read it wherever I have time or when I have to wait for something. Actually it's from the popular Ukrainian author Oles Busina who writes about Ukrainian history. He has a  non-orthodox view on it.

I prefer real printed books. My daughter J. reads on her Kindle. We gave it to her as a New Years gift once. For a couple of months she didn't use it, but then she started to use it and reads now only on her Kindle. And she reads a lot. My son D. doesn't read at all. I mean, he reads a lot of stuff on the Internet, but not literature. Jo. loves to read and F., as you know, is going to be a writer.

Everyone is different. And it's ok.
One of my friends is a member of a book club, she is very literate. Another of my friends is reading something about impotent men (What? I was asking her. What would that be good for? A waste of time in my opinion). A third friend of mine starts to read in the middle of a book and, if it's interesting, goes back to the begging.

The main thing is to read in general. Read, think and feel.

Visiting Philadelphia

Thanks to Martin Luther King we had a day off at school yesterday. He had a dream. Us too. So we used this long weekend to visit the birthplace of the American Constitution. Yes, we went to Philadelphia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia.

On the way

Philadelphia is an about 2 hours drive from us or as I lately saw in a brochure, 1h20 minutes with a train from NYC. It's the fifth-most-populous city in the United States with the population of about 1.500.000. In addition to what I mentioned above, Philadelphia is known for many things: it was once a temporary capital of the US during the time when Washington D.C. was under construction; concerning gross domestic product it ranks 9th place in the world and 4th in the country, and is also famous for its art and culture as well as their cheesesteak and soft pretzels.

We left in the morning, arrived at noon, checked in at the hotel, ate a little and went to our goal destination, Barnes Foundation http://www.barnesfoundation.org.

Barnes Foundation is an awesome art gallery, with an overwhelming collection of impressionist and modernist artists. Our friends visited this museum twice and highly recommended it to us. It's really very impressive and we enjoyed the tour very much. But keep in mind: you have to book tickets in advance, because these are tickets by time. You get your time entry. Ours was 4 pm and it's a little tight, cause the museum closes at 6 pm. But I'm thinking to go over there once more with my husband by train, just for one day.

Everybody is looking different after seeing so much art...

After the museum we got a dinner; nice and delicious. And later in the evening Igor and I went for drinks.

The next day started with a breakfast at a hotel, which was a disaster. Not enough plates and cutleries, disgusting food etc. But what can we do? Take it easy! We took a taxi and drove to the historical city. I wanted to visit the Antique Row to do some shopping for our home, but due to the holiday everything was closed. Nevertheless we enjoyed the nice things we saw.

A smart way to storage and display

I have a weakness to yellow homes...

See a sign on the steps? A slip of the foot you may soon recover,
but a slip on the tongue you may never get over. That's true.

It was a cold day, so visiting the Independence Hall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Hall with a guide was a good occasion to have a small break, get some warmth and learn a little bit of history.

A room where a Declaration of Independence and Constituton
were drafted and signed

After all of the walking and seeing we were ready for a lunch. And we got a very good one at Amada. http://www.amadarestaurant.com (thanks to yelp!). Believe it or not, but we got a full menu with one of choice appetizer, two main courses and dessert for 20$ per person. Is it not great? And they counted J. and F. as one person. It took us 106$ for a dinner for 5 persons, wine included. Yahoo! And it was extremely delicious!

I have some more pics for you, to get a spirit.

One funny place. Mamas and kids are doing some yoga together

Another funny name

Library

A skyscraper. They have some more.

The city is full of different street signs and monuments.
And this one always lets our hearts bit higher.

We enjoyed the trip. And you? Got a wanderlust?    

Thoughts about blogging

Well, evidently I have this predisposition to self-digging. So last days I was thinking hard (what a novum!, my husband will say). But I mean, really hard. Some of you who read my previous post, would probably notice it too. I read tons of advices and posts from all the big bloggers. This engenders much more doubts and thoughts, that pull me down. On the other hand there are really some (many!) good things I learn.

What did I learn?

As a blogger you have to find out your focus. It's a really hard stuff.

As I started to write here (back in October 2010), it was just for fun, to keep our friends in Germany on with our life in US, our adjustments and all the differences between the two countries. So obviously I started to write in German.

After a while I was thinking, how about all the friends in Ukraine and my mom, who don't speak German? (The matter, that my mom doesn't have either internet or computer at home, didn't really play a role in my considerations:). At the beginning I wanted to translate my posts, but you know...

And then, when you live in a country, you start to use their language too (really:)!) So one day (One day, baby, we'll be old, oh baby...) I just started to mix my posts: English, Russian and German.

I was not really thinking or calculating, if it's right or not. It is just how I'm feeling.

But all the good people on the web are saying, you have to have the rules. Otherwise it can inhibit your growth. And who wants this? Nobody.

So, I think, language is an important question. Even if my English is far away from ... jah, from let's say, Mark Twain's English, I still love the language and I definitely (yesterday we saw Rain Man with Dustin Hoffman. You remember? Definitely!:)) can improve myself. So I will stick with English.

But I can't and won't give up my German and Russian posts. Because it's also about me.

As I wrote my previous post, I noticed that two of my last posts in German were on 12th each month. And you know, I love the numbers. So, I will keep going. And 12th of each month can be a German day. Yeah!

And I will find two Russian days. Yeah!
How do you like this?
I think, it's great and beneficial for all of us. It gives me a structure and you know what you can expect from me. That's fair.

Yeah, everything fine and good, but back to focus. What could be the dumb focus? I thought and thought and thought. And I came to the conclusion, that people are my focus. Yeah, you hear right! People! Because it's what I like mostly, really and from the bottom of my heart. One day I want to start to write about interesting people (Well, Penelopa says, everybody is interesting, when you ask the right questions).

You know, America is a country of volunteers. So I hope to find some of them here. But of course also otherwise. The first one is a bravest one.

And probably I will put some categories for my posts.

So blogging turned out to be a good thing for me. Once I wanted to give up, I even did a break for some months, but I came back and still stick to it. It started for fun, it is still fun, but now I like it. Do you feel the difference? There are some topics I am really itchy to blog about, like sex or relationship, but my husband will kill me after that and my children will look at me like I'm an alien. I have to find out how to deal with this censore.

Anyway, I'm in a good mood and going to renew some things here. And you know, what? Did I tell you that? I love you! And so thankful, you read me. It means so much for me! And when you want to leave a comment here, you know, it's not a shame:).

Love you!

Sticker-inscription in my guest room

Die Qual der Wahl

Die Qual der Wahl kann so was von lähmend sein. Alles scheint möglich zu sein. Wie soll man da eine Entscheidung treffen können?

Mit meinen 40 (na ja, mit einem kleinem plus) fühle ich mich so unsicher, wie mit 17 zuletzt. Man hat die Schule fertig, die Uni, eine Karriere, einen Mann, ein Haus (oder noch zwei), vier Kinder. Macht das einen glücklich? Eigentlich schon. Aber trotzdem fühlt man sich irgendwie unwohl, nicht alle Träume sind ausgeträumt, man hat noch so wenig gemacht und gelebt. Sind das alles Anzeichen einer Midlife-Crisis? Kann sein, macht aber alles nicht einfacher.

Ich denke, mich plagen die gleichen Zweifel, die viele Mütter nach einer Babypause erleben. Es ist verdampft schwer, zurück zu kommen. Wo? Und wie?

Man (nein, nicht Mann! Man ist die Frau) zweifelt an eigener Kompetenz und Qualifikation. Sie ist unsicher, was sie jetzt leisten kann, wie belastungsfähig sie ist, wie sie den Spagat zwischen dem Job und der Familie schaffen wird.

Ich will arbeiten, wo es mir Spaß macht. Aber was macht mir Spaß? Das ist so schwierig herauszufinden. Und für eine, wie mich, mit einem breiten Interessenspektrum, noch schwieriger.

Was mit Sprachen? (Was genau?)
Schreiben? (Klingt gut, aber bin ich gut genug dafür?)
Basteln? (Macht Spaß!)
Haus dekorieren? (Die Leute meinen, ich könnte das)
Vereinte Nationen? (Mein Kindheitstraum)
Bank? (Traum mit meinen 20-er)
Gemeinnützige Tätigkeiten? (Ja, aber wie?)
Kinder? (Habe eigentlich viel mit den eigenen zu tun...)
Schach? (Ich könnte, aber irgendwie ... )
Wieder zur Uni? MBA Programm machen? (Hat zuletzt mein Mann vorgeschlagen)

Und solange man ist sich nicht sicher, was man machen soll, kann man auch nicht so viel machen, richtig? Irgendwie dreht man sich im Kreis.

Zuletzt habe ich gedacht: Ich brauche einen Mentor! Jemanden, der mir helfen kann, mich wieder selbst zu finden. Kennt jemand jemanden? Grade gestern, bei Penelope Trunk http://blog.penelopetrunk.com, einem vor Kurzem entdeckten Blog, gelesen: in jeder Lebensphase braucht man mindestens drei Mentoren. Und ich habe keinen! Eine Katastrophe!

Und solange ich keinen habe, muss ich wohl selbst zu (m)einem werden. Oh! Vielleicht ist das? Mentor für andere? Mit Ratschlägen für andere bin ich doch wirklich gut!

Der erste Schritt - jeden Tag was tun! Deinem Traum entgegen. Und wenn du viele Träume hast, dann tue auch mehr.

In diesem Sinne

Wie die Zebras in dem Schnee, so verwirrt: Was machen? Wo gehen?
High line park in NYC