Singleness made in Berlin - #14. The nice and yet poisonous gesture that you should avoid, and what to do instead

How often do we think that we know what other people need and want, just because we assume that they need and want what is a good fit for us?

More often than not, to be honest.
More often than it would be of advantage for our relationships, I may add. 

Unsurprisingly enough, in most cases, it is not a good thing. Even if our intentions are good.

In order to explain this during a coaching session, I usually suggest that baking a cake for me, just because baking a cake is usually a nice thing to do, would not be that nice, after all, until we would be talking about a vegan, gluten-free and low-carb one. 

[Baking a cake for me is usually not a good idea,

if you are not opting for something gluten-free...

Image credit: PureWow]

You see? I have specific needs. I have clear standards. I have some wishes. Just like everybody else.

Korean restaurants to try out in Berlin, if you are curious to experience something new

Can you name at least one popular Korean dish?

In Berlin, Korean food has been the next big thing for the last six to seven years and Korean restaurant of any kind keep popping up on a regular basis in every Bezirk, while happily taking care of Berliners' love for Korean food and new shiny trendy cooking trends.

Korean restaurants are strong on burgers, table-grill & barbecue dishes and, of course, everything prepared while using kimchi and similar salted and fermented vegetables.

[Korean Barbecue Tofu Bowls

a tasty vegetarian re-invention of a traditional Korean dish

Pic & recipe by ohmyveggies]

Most side dishes are vegan or can be adjusted to be consumed as a vegan option and in the best restaurants, it is also possible to find very competent staff, able to offer gluten-free options.

Here you can find a list of Korean restaurants to try out in Berlin.

If your favorite one is still missing in this list, be sure to let me know, and enjoy!

Halo Top Creamery brought seven dairy free and vegan ice cream flavors to all lucky foodies in the US - Waiting for the European edition!

Are you the kind of person that enjoys ice cream only when it is more or less sunny and hot outside or are a couple of pints of this frozen delicacy a very welcome habitué in your fridge?

Even while embracing minimalism and frugality, I really love ice cream and, once in a while, I am willing to splurge on an excellent vegan ice cream that is worth my money.

If you, like me, can appreciate good quality ice cream, I have some good and some bad news for you.

The good news:

Halo Top Creamery, founded in 2012 by Justin Woolverton in California, is a company that produces ice cream flavors that are low-calorie, high-protein, low-carb, low-fat, and low-sugar. Which is pretty cool per se.

Lately, they did even better, though, because two weeks ago they brought to the market their "delicious flavors without the dairy": seven new flavors that are vegan, dairy free, soy free, GMOs free, trans fat free and made with coconut milk.

The flavors are:

Why decluttering one's life, one day at the time, could be the most important thing you will ever do - Part 2. Minimalist living - How this shapes my life every day (#5.-6.)

In the previous post of this Minimalism series, I explained how long-term shopping, meaningful spending, decluttering and downsizing add value to my life, one day at the time.
Here you can find two further elements that define what minimalist living is for me:

#5. Eating nurturing food of good quality on a daily basis. 
Whole foods, paleo diet, low carb, high carb, ketogenic diet, traditional cuisine, halal, kosher, your grandmother's recipes book...

The mileage may vary depending on someone's age, physical and health conditions, geographical area, blood type, religious or spiritual belief system.
In my opinion, every person should go for food that helps them to feel happy, fit and able to deal with their activities and with their lives in the best way possible. What works for someone could not work for someone else.

[Saisonal, fresh and tasty ingredients, 

perfect for a yummy salad bowl

Image credit: ISO Republic]

To me, this means:

From clean eating recipes to green smoothies, from ketogenic diet to stuffed panini, gluten-free friendly places to try out in Berlin

Are you feeling like having a piece of cake and yet you want to try out gluten-free desserts?

In Berlin for a weekend and curious about special places normal tourists usually didn't visit?

How about something healthy and delicious and a little bit bigger than life?

[When millennial pink is not only a stunning color, 

but also something super-tasty to try out:

Healthy Raw Red Velvet Fudge

(no bake, sugar free, low carb, gluten-free)

©Desserts with Benefits]

As promised here, a short and sweet list of gluten-free friendly places to try out (and to fall in love with) in Berlin:

Bowls and clean eating

The Bowl

Warschauer Str. 33, 10243 Berlin

Located in Friedrichshain near the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn stations, in the same building where you can find vegan supermarket Veganz and vegan shoes store Avesu, offers a fresh and seasonal menu dedicated to clean eating, with lots of vegan and gluten-free options.

"What would have Marie Antoinette notoriously not said, instead of "Let them eat cake", in a gluten-free world?", or the one about how it feels to live with celiac disease

How would your life look like without pizza, without pasta, without bread?
Can you imagine that?

And can you imagine a life without cookies, cakes, muffins, cupcakes, brownies and amaretti, donuts, biscuits, waffles, croissants, baklava, strudel?

Without grissini, tacos, burritos, food in breadcrumbs, bruschetta, piadine, churros, crackers, baguettes, and pies?

Without licorice, chocolate bars, ice cream and ice cream cones, French fries and potato chips, biscuits and crisps, savory snacks and crunchy cereals?

Without rolls, wraps, sandwiches, toasts, panini, sweet buns?

Without bulgur, soba noodles, couscous, chapati bread, focaccia, calzoni, and soja sauce?

Pastry of any kind, anyone?

Can you? Would you? Should you?

[Kirsten Dunst as the Queen Marie Antoinette

in Sofia Coppola's underrated biopic 
released in 2006.

It is very unlikely that the French Queen 
ever said "Let them eat cake". 

Still, what would have people misattributed 
to her in a gluten-free world? 

"Let them eat Cañihua and caramel scented popped Amaranth"!? ]

It would look like the life that, just until one generation ago, most people affected by the celiac disease were forced to live.

Not because going gluten-free was the ultimate hipster hype, not because some celebrity said that gluten is evil, not because they wanted to lose weight, but just because they had no choice.

Why decluttering one's life, one day at the time, could be the most important thing you will ever do - Part 2. Minimalist living - How this shapes my life every day (#1.-4.)

Coco Chanel, featured in 1999 in TIME magazine's "Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century", is still one of the most well known and most quoted fashion designers to have ever lived, and doesn't need any kind of introduction.

Madame was all about quality over quantity, and she was used to saying: "Once you've dressed, and before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take at least one thing off". She knew that, way more often than we'd like to think, less is more.

["Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance",

or said in another way: quality over quantity matters]

Just like the timeless style created by the woman that invented the little black dress and chose the future Chanel No.5 among different perfume samples presented to her, minimalist living is not a fortuitous occurrence.

Embracing a minimalist living means being bold enough to take the path less traveled and smart enough to make the right decisions and to adjust your trajectory on the way, every time that you need to.

Vegetarian and vegan-friendly Vietnamese restaurants to try out in Berlin, a good option for eating out even while suffering from celiac disease

Vietnamese cuisine is a feast for the eyes and thanks to the freshness of its ingredients, the big variety of flavors, and the great abundance of places to try out in the city, it is very popular and well represented in Berlin.

A good yin-yang balance of the meals is pivotal in the Vietnamese tradition and, thanks to the influence of the Buddhist cuisine, it offers a huge selection of vegetables, herbs, and spices and therefore it is usually a very good option for eating out also while following a vegetarian or vegan diet.

[Vegan Vietnamese summer rolls with spicy peanut sauce

Image source: Home Sweet Jones]

Things are changing fast in Berlin, and nowadays it is not only easy to find a vegetarian and/or vegan version of most recipes in every Vietnamese restaurant, but it is also becoming more and more mainstream for some Vietnamese restaurants to offer a menu that is completely vegetarian or vegan, it doesn't matter if we are talking about soups, wraps, rolls, main dishes or desserts. While living here, I had many chances to try new places.

What a slice of cake has to do with bad questions and purple boxes and how you can keep your emotional freedom, no matter what

I am sure that you are like me and that you like to think that people are good, that they have good intentions, that most of the time misunderstandings get in the way and if someone offended you, they didn't mean it badly.
Like Jeph Jacques says:

You ought to expect better of people. It encourages you to be a better person yourself. 

And yet there are those people.

[Simply adorable and yummy Purple picnic treats 
for a birthday party. And yet... 
a lot of gluten in it, unfortunately

Image credit: Juniper Fancy]

The ones that keep asking me year after year when I will spend my holidays in Italy even if I keep saying year after year that I am up for discovering new places I have never been to before...

Exotic and interesting restaurants to try out in Berlin - Asia (Indian, Japanese, Israeli, Korean, Vietnamese food... and more)

Sushi is the new black.

It is enough to think about any dating scene from movies where the soon-to-become-couple or never-to-become-couple is enjoying some quality time together at a very trendy and if possible exclusive Japanese restaurant and you get the picture.

Funny enough, according to new stats published in the US, eating sushi on a first date can actually boost the chance of going on a second date with someone.

[Sushi is the new black... 

and it is also the new unicorn thing:

Rainbow unicorn sushi by The Indigo Kitchen]

And yet, even if sushi is so popular these days, there is so much more to discover about Asian food than just that and in a big city like Berlin it is very easy to try out new recipes, so here you can find a list of interesting restaurant to check out and to try out during a date, it doesn't matter if it is the first or the tenth one with someone you really like.

Choosing my own purple dawn, or how to start anew once again, even if the new year has already started

How are you living your life? Which habits do you have? 

Are you doing what you are doing because you want to, or just because you think that you don't have other chances? That you don't have a choice?

Just because you are scared or afraid? Of what? (if this is not too personal, of course)

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.

Mark Twain 

[pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910]

Tough questions, right?

Something that most people are afraid to ask themselves, if not strictly necessary. If they are not forced to. It is often easier to avoid such questions, at least in the short run.

And yet, they are indeed very important ones, for finding purpose in life and achieving what each of us is striving for. 

What you can eat while going vegan and gluten-free - Chapter One - Chocolate

As you may (or may not) know, I went Vegan five years ago, I have celiac disease and since 2010 I am in an on-off relationship with raw food, while being on a 70-80% raw food diet most of the time these days. 

Because of it, and because of another couple of things, one of the questions people ask me the most - together with "Where are you from?", but this is another story, stay tuned for it - is "What do you eat?".

Since yesterday I told you that I consider a good strategy eating chocolate while feeling down, I decided to write a little about this topic in the next weeks.

Chocolate is a sweet beginning, don't you think?

In the coming posts, I will let you know which options you have regarding chocolate while living vegan and gluten-free, but we can already say that a good percentage of bitter chocolate kinds are vegan and gluten-free anyway, even if not every kind of bitter chocolate is vegan, though.

How to wait for a brand new day, or the art of taking a deep breath, choosing the right chocolate and relax

I don't know about you, but some days I am just tired.

I just feel broken, somehow helpless.

On those days, like today, I have the impression that the day is... naja, not a good one.

On those days, I can't help but be thinking that things, even easy ones, are not that easy after all. That I am slower than usual. And that people, for some unknown reason, are looking at me more often than usual. Like if the usual ratio would not be more than enough.

And yet, like every real Scarlett O'Hara, I know that tomorrow is going to be another day.

[The gorgeous Vivien Leigh as a worried Scarlett...

Tomorrow is going to be another day for her as well, after all]

That tomorrow I am going to be fine. Tomorrow I am going to wake up and to start from scratch, no matter what.

That no matter how disastrous today can be, tomorrow is going to be different. Maybe not enchanting, maybe not spectacular, maybe not even very pleasant, but for sure different.

If the world would be divided into good and bad people... on which side would you like to be?

After reading my post about the art installation "Before I Die", one visitor of the blog asked me yesterday what I would love to leave behind me when I will be gone. What I would love to achieve. What I would love to be remembered for.

It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better... while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.

Woody Allen

[Woody Allen and Mia Farrow 

during the shooting of "The Purple Rose of Cairo"]

What do I want to achieve? I had to think about that, but after a while, the answer was somehow easy and natural to me.

Waiting for home-made Vegan Frushi...

I really enjoy eating sushi, or vegetarian maki, to be more precise, like Kappa Maki, Avocado Maki, Hoso Maki, and so on.

They are healthy, delicious, nutritious, vegan, and easy to prepare.

Ingredients are just rice, Nori seaweed, a little bit of sesame and slices of cucumber, avocado, carrots, pumpkin, or other vegetables. As much wasabi and ginger as you want, but no soy sauce for me, since it's often not gluten-free and I suffer from celiac disease.

In Berlin, it's very easy and convenient to go out for having sushi in some Thai or Chinese or Japanese restaurants, but what about Frushi?
Frushi is another kind of maki, prepared by using slices of fruits instead of slices of vegetables.

I haven't seen Frushi in any Berlin restaurants so far, beside of Avocado Maki, so I should learn how to prepare it by myself.

But meanwhile... I'm looking for this elegant Purple Weking rice cooker. If you should see it somewhere, please let me know!

Do you like Sushi too?
Do you prefer Sushi or Sashimi?

Tags: Rice cooker, Weking, Frushi, Sushi, Vegan, Purple shopping, Maki

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Exotic and interesting restaurants to try out in Berlin - Asia (Indian, Japanese, Israeli, Korean, Vietnamese food... and more)

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