When you live in another country, you often miss things from home.

Of course, I miss my family and friends. But I also miss things like the Sunday newspapers, some TV programmes, long summer evenings…and chocolate. Especially chocolate!

My family knows that I miss chocolate, so they send me some every Easter. The other day, the postman came to deliver a big parcel of chocolate from my sister.

Of course, I didn’t wait until Easter to eat it. That would mean waiting two weeks!

What would you miss from your home country if you lived somewhere else?

 

(H)

Hamburgers are heaven. I cook them often. I’ve experimented over the years and think I created a combination that works in this house.  It’s important that the hamburger meat is not too fatty. Otherwise you have a layer pool of fat left in the frying pan. Of course, cooking them on the BBQ is great but where I live that’s a summer option only.

I used to have trouble because the beef I can buy doesn’t have much taste. I have found a way to improve the taste – add chili!

I put Worcester sauce and chili paste in my hamburger mix. About a teaspoonful of chili paste for each 400g (pound) of hamburger meat seems about right. The burgers don’t have a spicy taste, but the chili paste seems to make them taste more like beef. I don’t like chili powder so I use either Indonesian or Chinese chili paste. It’s easy to find in jars at the supermarket.

Of course what you eat with your hamburgers is important too. In my house a hamburger dinner means putting tomato ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, shredded lettuce and fried onions on the table.

What do you like on your hamburgers?

(P)

A few years ago, I read the book called Life of Pi . A friend gave it to me. I don’t think I would have bought it for myself. A book about a boy on a boat with a tiger, would have seemed rather strange. However, when I read it, I enjoyed it very much.

Have you read the book? The story is told by Pi, the hero. When he was still a teenager, his father had a zoo in Pondicherry, India.  His father decided to move to Canada. He sold the animals from the zoo to different countries. When Pi and his family, leave India, they travel on the same ship as some of the animals from the zoo. The boat sinks and Pi escapes on a small lifeboat with a hyena, a zebra and an orangutan. Later Pi discovers that there is also a tiger hiding on the lifeboat.  It’s a very interesting story. I won’t tell you any more because you might want to read it.

Then in 2012, the famous movie director Ang Lee, made a movie from the story. It did very well in the American Academy awards. Ang Lee won the Oscar for best director and the movie also got the top prizes for cinematography, visual effects and music. I think it must be a very beautiful movie, but I don’t know if I want to see it. Sometimes when you like a book very much, the movie version of the story is disappointing.

I think there are two reasons. One reason is because we enjoy some parts of a book, more than others. Then, when they make the movie, they have to cut many parts of the book out. If they leave out our favourite bits – we feel disappointed.

Another reason is because we create an image in our minds of what different characters look like. If the actor or actress doesn’t match our image, the movie doesn’t seem so good. I remember thinking that Cate Blanchett didn’t look like Galadriel in the Lord of the Rings movies.  Of course, she is very beautiful, but my image of the Queen of the Elves was different.

Have you seen a movie based on a book, after you have read the book?

What did you think? Did you think the actors and actresses matched your mental images of their characters?

(P)

I burnt my toast this morning. I opened the windows, but the smell stayed in the kitchen for ages.  That started me thinking about smells.

People have five senses – sense of sight, touch, hearing, taste and smell. Our sense of smell is much more sensitive than our sense of taste. That’s why, when we have a cold and can’t smell anything, the food we eat doesn’t seem very interesting.

Our sense of taste only tells us whether something is sweet, or sour (like lemons), salty, or bitter. Coffee and unsweetened chocolate are bitter.

But smell is so much more. Even if I am tired and don’t feel hungry, the smell of onions frying in butter, or the smell of cheese on toast, will wake up my appetite.

For most people, smells connect strongly with memory.  Can you remember the smell of your classroom in elementary school? I can’t, but I am sure if I smelt that particular smell again – I would recognize it.

Being a words person, I started thinking about the different words we use in English for smell. Another word that has the same meaning as smell is odour.

Then there are positive words like aroma, bouquet, perfume, scent, fragrance; and negative ones like stink, reek and pong.

Words like perfume and scent are used mostly for flowers, while aroma is used for food and coffee. Bouquet is a word used to describe the fragrance of wine.

In another blog post, I’m going to write about a new “taste” word I learned – umami.

In your language do you have many different words for smell?

Are there some food aromas that wake up your appetite?

What smell memories do you have?

(P)

Do you have “a head for heights”?

If you have “a head for heights”, it means that you are not afraid of high places. You can stand on the top floor of high buildings or at the top of towers and you don’t feel any fear.

Some people are afraid of heights. This fear is called “acrophobia”. (Pronunciation:ˌakrəˈfōbēə)  These people don’t have a head for heights.

A while ago, I went to Tokyo Tower. It is 333m tall. Luckily, I have a head for heights, so I wasn’t afraid. However, it was a very stormy day, and the tower was swaying in the wind. That was a little scary!

It was raining and cloudy, so I couldn’t see very far into the distance, but the views were still amazing!

(H)

Well it’s a lovely day today. Sunny, and the weather forecast predicts a maximum temperature of 19 degrees.

 

Of course we will get some cooler days, but spring is almost here. Time to start thinking about spring and summer clothes.

I don’t have much space in my room to store clothes, so I put the clothes I’m not wearing away in boxes.

Then when the seasons change I have to take out the boxes and swap the clothes over. This is a good time to throw away old clothes and think about new ones.

Spring and summer are seasons for bright colours, aren’t they?  The fashion sites on the web predict lemon yellows, orange (a colour I never wear), greens and grey-blues.

Spring and summer are the time to have fun with clothes. T-shirts are quite cheap, and one in the latest colour will brighten up last year’s jeans and sandals.

I started to think about my favourite summer colours. Not many of them appear on the fashion sites for this summer. I don’t care. I put my favourite colours together in the picture below. What would I call them?

Maybe aqua, sky blue, turquoise, cobalt blue, teal, scarlet, bright pink and coral.

What colours do you like to wear in summer?

(P)