.SOMETIMES RAW.

Hello! 

My first thought when my sister told me about this raw mozzarella was, Whaaaat!? My husband is French so you know what our favorite food is: Cheese, cheese, more cheese, red wine and baguette. Plain and simple. I am open-minded and like to try new food for sure, hence my blog’s name Sometimes Raw. Initially, I thought this website will be mainly food and recipes. See, how things can change? A couple of weeks ago my sister visited my parents and brought this awesome cheese! It tastes really good and I bought all the ingredients to make it myself. You can even use it instead of real cheese on pizza. It is something different but I will forever love my real mozzarella, brie and whatnot. Here is my sister’s recipe to give it a try. Enjoy! 

Thank you for reading my blog. 

Hello! 

I had an awesome day today. It started with a haircut/head massage at my favorite hairdresser of all times, Nicole Reiter. I recommend this place highly. Do check it out if you get a chance. At least once. It is so not your typical hairdresser – but so much more special and in my opinion, better than the regular ones. I wrote an article about the place here. After, I had an appointment for an interview with the German Newspaper Neue Presse Coburg.  They do want to write about my life, my story, my work at the United Nations, the blog and future projects. Pretty neat, right? The interview went really well an the article should be in the newspaper on Tuesday next week. Am I excited? Yep! Here is what I have been up to otherwise. 

Reading: A lot these days. I just finished this amazing book by Tania Kambouri “Deutschland im Blaulicht”. Police Officer Kambouri gives insight of her job, the troubles she faces on a daily basis while patrolling Bochum/Germany, the problem of male immigrants and more. I also started Annemarie Schimmel’s book “Friedrich Rückert. I love Rückert’s poems. Check out my article on Rückert here. This is an amazing book too: Poetry by Bianca Sparacino. I really enjoyed it. I just started Henning Mankell’s Treibsand and so far it is sad but well written. Typical for Henning Mankell. This article is really sad but eye-opening. A crime novel I would like to recommend is Tess Gerritsen’s, Roter Engel (Life Support) . A page-turner to the end. I literally could not put this book down. Book reviews on all mentioned books will be soon on my blog. 

Challenging: Stop drinking alcohol for one week. Not even my glass of wine at night when I work and research. Well, I have to say that I do miss it a bit indeed. Anyway, I will be going through with this now. So far, my sleep improved already. I slept like a baby last night. This is already a big plus. 

Watching: I watched a couple of interviews for research purposes of my book review on Deutschland im Blaublich. It is in German and gives great on German police work. If you have any questions about it, you can ask me anytime as well. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ahQtP0tMnE

Have you heard: About the Leselust-Festival in Bayreuth? It starts on 28.1.2016 until 21.2.2016 with an amazing program. Here is the link to the website.  Many great authors will take part with tons of readings, lectures etc. A must for all book-lovers! Have you heard about BookCrossing? It is like a huge library world-wide or more a social network site about books. You connect to the website, and get a number. Then you print out the labels with your number and stick it in a book. Then leave the books somewhere. Awesome idea, right? I will explain more about it soon on my blog. 

Thinking about: All the upcoming changes in 2016 for my family. Canada, studying, writing, traveling and all this on my mind while my husband is sick and not feeling well at all. We still might travel to Congo soon which is on my mind a lot as well. Otherwise I am looking forward to a Reiki-weekend at SEHES Haus end of January. I cannot wait to learn something new about myself, energy-healing, meditation and such. I am so glad that I found this great place. Uwe Meissner and his wife are friends and a great help! My mediation practice improves daily! 

What have you been up to this week? I would love to hear from you. 

Thank you for reading my blog. 

Hello!

Do you know Friedrich Rückert? Have you read any of his poems? No? Well, let me give you some details about him. Friedrich Rückert (16 May 1788 – 31 January 1866) was a German poet, born in Schweinfurt, a translator and a professional in Oriental languages. He worked as a professor for Oriental languages at the University of Erlangen and later Berlin. He resigned in 1849 and lived in his estate in Neuses near Coburg. You can visit the Friedrich Rückert Museum there which is amazing. I was impressed by his writing/study room. 

This is most likely one of Friedrich Rückert’s most famous poems, accompanied by an orchestra which made people sit quietly in their seats at a concert hall and simply listen to the words and music. Rückert describes this vision of a “big silence” – just this big silence and the longing of it in a world full of noise and craziness.

Friedrich Rückert died 150 yeas ago in Coburg and this is why there are many festivals, reading and lectures in his honor throughout the city. Not many people know why he wrote all this poetry and songs about the death of children. Two of his favorite children – Luise and Ernst, died of Scarlet Fever early in their lives, and Rückert suffered from their death and wrote more than 400 songs for them.

Not many remember Friedrich Rückert these days. Actually, I am one of them. I heard of him but have not read many on his works and was surprised about the plethora of poems he wrote. He knew and spoke approximately 45 languages! Along with colleagues, he is a founder of the “German Orientalists”. He translated the Koran and many arabic folk songs. Other famous sentimental songs are “Aus der Jugendzeit” , “Du bist die Ruh, der Friede mild”.  Also his poem/song “Dein König kommt in niedern Hüllen” (1834) can be still found in protestant song books. My dad says “Mein Freund und Kupferstecher” once in a while which is a saying by Rückert when he was traveling in Italy. He met the german  painter Carl Barth in Rom and used to greet him with these words.

Initially, Rückert studied law in Würzburg but changed soon to language studies. He then went to Hildburghausen and became a member of the “Freimauererloge: “Karl zum Rautenkranz”. He was an intern in Jena and College professor before he came back to Würzburg. He wrote unter the pseudonym “Freimund Reimar” and published “Geharnischte Sonette” against the Napoleon Troops. Rückert claimed that everything greek has an oriental origin and his colleagues did not like that. He made many others claims regarding philosophy that people did not approve of. Also his appearance – especially his hair and clothing that was different from everybody else.

Rückert acted as a private teacher  in Ebern and Coburg from 1819-1826. This was also the time when he translated the Koran. He married Luise Wiethaus-Fischer from Coburg and they had ten kids. Rückert became professor for oriental languages and literature in 1826 in Erlangen. King Friedrich Wilhelm IV named him “Geheimer Regierungsrat” and gave him the congregation or medal “Pour le Mérite”. Seven years later, Rückert came back to Coburg/Neuses and moved to the “Nattermanshof”. He did not teach and lecture anymore but enjoyed the silence and solitude of his office to write poems. After his wife Luise passed away in 1857 he became more an more lonely and desolate. All he wanted in his final years was to be reunited with Luise. 

Coburg distributed the Rückert-Award for the fourth time. In 2016, the Coburger Rückert-Preis goes to the German translation of Turkish Literature. This award will be distributed at the Town Hall on 31 January 2016, the day of Rückert’s death – 150 years ago. There is a shortlist of authors for the Coburger Rückert-Award: writer Yesim Agoaglu, writer Oya Baydar, Physician Asli Erdogan, writer: Sema Kaygusuz and Ali Hasan Toptas. The Turkish Literature is not too well knows in Germany. I do read a lot and I have never read a book by a Turkish author. Rückert does play a huge role in the World and Art of Literature and opens the horizon for something new. The Turkish Literature has a plethora of novels and poetry written by female writers. The Coburger Rückert Award goes mainly  to authors of the Arabic, Iranian/Afghan, Turkish, Indian and other oriental languages. 

Friedrich Rückert’s died on 31 January 1886 – 150 years ago. Annemarie Schimmel wrote this amazing biography about Rückert which I am currently reading. 

Thank you for reading my blog.