i finally remembered my password! posting again finally...
matt and i have been planning our german/austria/switzerland trip for a little while now. we've come up with our basic itinerary:
frankfurt
cologne
freiburg
basel
berne
zurich
uelm
munich
salzburg
frankfurt
pretty much in that order. what we're in the middle of putting together now is a bit of a beer tour of bayern, though not an extensive one. mostly we'll be trying weisses Bier though we're very excited to be heading to the city of Bamberg for a visit to the Aecht Schlenkerla beer tavern which has been around since 1405. you can view the full contents of our planning process at matt's yahoo travel page. if you've been to germany and have any tips for us on breweries and sights to see in bayern or baden-wuertenburg, switzerland, or austria please chime in.

well,
hi grandma, i'm sorry i haven't been here in a while! hope you're doing well and you received my card a short while ago.

i admit i seem to have vacated this website and left it for better times, but certainly it's not because nothing has been happening.
that last few months have been extraordinary as time would have to admit. many excellent meals have been cooked, written down, redone, revamped. a little scotch drank, a few walls have literally (and figuratively) been scaled. very few items have been found and reclaimed few stories made up about the lives of strangers, a country has been traversed and a new coast explored and i admit i'm a little tired. but i can't say it hasn't been the time of my life :)

oh johnny, where are you is very nearly finished. kelly may be putting it on her website soon, this web page will be notified of that happening. thanks to george and kelly for all your time and efforts and friendships.

we've started working on getting a legit (i.e. not dinky) recipe book made. the san francisco contingent being a bit helper on that end. the kevateria will continue it's examination of vegetarian food mixed with spices and herbs, the flavor experiment perhaps it should be called, let's throw some ideas around here peoples...

heather and i have since you and i last talked completed two WWOOF experiences. we both had a lot of fun and learned a great deal. i've become a fan of WWOOF as i've heard other peoples' stories and true to their words it was a wonderful experience. we had the pleasure of sharing in peoples' lives and lifestyles as they opened their homesteads to us. both were in oregon, which we discovered (or rather found out) runs the gamut of ecosystems and habitats. we stayed for two weeks at a ranch in the high desert of lake county in the south central valley region, 4600' elevation, just east of the cascades and close to so much forest service land we became spoiled with vistas and forests, cloudless nights and old time movie theaters (somehow that's related, i swear). we experienced the little town of Lakeview oregon there in the desert and then made our way to just northwest of corvallis oregon, in a rural town called Kings Valley. much lusher and more farmable than our previous stead. we stayed on a self-sustainable farm, where the crops grown were for the benefit of the farmers (us) and the 'cash crop' was jams and jellies. certainly we learned a vast amount there and though the lifestyle was maybe something a little too inaccessible for us, we value that experience nonetheless. we there had the opportunity to harvest seaweed straight from the pacific at low tide on a blisteringly chill morning while the fog reeled in from the coast and the sun struggled to make headway against that same gray billow. we camped after our stay on the farm, along the coast and on our way to portland, with which i fell in love.

in portland, kelly and i had a chance to quickly reunite the powers and joke like a couple of lost long forgotten friendos..... to which i shall return later this year

we then journeyed to san francisco, taking in the oregon dunes and the silent monstrous guards of the pacific the redwood trees of northern california. we hit san francisco and stayed out two weeks there, seeing my cousin marry and joining the culinary forces of matt and myself to incredible achievement... kati helped me start rock climbing and soon we were joined by the youngest of the family, my sister leah, stopping by on her way to cuenca ecuador, saraguro, then peru and chile before she begins a masters in spanish....

recipes, pictures, thoughts to follow.......

new new new..........
the kevateria gets restless. a couple weeks ago the kevateria made a not quite up to par meal for a friend and feels bad about it and has not attempted anything spectacular (as all shared meals are bound to be) for a while now. as we work that out let's consider what all has happened since the last post.

for starters, the kevateria took a trip. you may all find the blog that deals with that trip at the link in the previous post.....please refer. so i went to germany and learned among many things that i don't know as much german as i thought i did. also had the pleasure to become intermingled in a handful of wonderful lives, people who know at least three or four languages and have travelled far more than this blog's comparatively static hero (but who's comparing) and had the pleasure of making a few meals to share with amazingly generous hosts, some of whom were even patient enough to allow us to practice our own meandering german. i have inclinations that i learned something about another culture, heard interesting thoughts and comments on nationalism and anarchism alike, more frightening with regards to the former.......i would like to believe, too, that i learned about patience and observation, human beings in general and what it is to have to rebuild. reinforced during these travels was the current trend that this world is not so big as i thought it could be, though certainly there is the potential i believe now that that potential does not reside with borders and nations, our gaps traverse thought process, culture and understanding (or viewpoint). shoving the television so far in our brains (read: daily life) we leave little room for the purely rational thought necessary to begin any friendship....the recognition that she/he, too, is human and could easily have thoughts of her/his own.......certainly not everyone could fit the stereotypes we see on the tele no matter how closely they appear to fit it on first glance (i suppose since fewer people read these days it's tough to use the phrase "don't judge a book by its cover")

and to continue.....i am back at work. i think i'm enjoying having a trade, especially one that is so flexible that i can leave for a month come home and immediately get a call for work....i know for a while i was questioning what i was "doing with my life." but reasuringly enough, today as a matter of fact someone i work with who is usually my boss (about 15 years my senior) mentioned that he is attempting to piece together the next phase of his life, saying he is trying to put together a reel and might be trying for more shooting jobs and less rigging gaffer jobs.....interesting...this provokes the thought processi

and this coming weekend i'm very excited to be helping the courtlandt community gardens rebuild their treehouse. a community garden that i volunteer at, to bring you up to speed, courtlandt community garden is run in part by the MORE Gardens Coalition and i haven't been able to volunteer recently and will certainly be looking forward to getting down and dirty building a treehouse in the south bronx to the benefit of the neighborhood kids, that they can have some added activities during the summer time. maybe i'll actually put batteries in my camera and take a picture, what do ya think of that...........

willkommen, schon wieder

okay holy smokes the newest post here just for anyone.
the kevateria is currently still travelling germany during the world championships and yeah i mean footy but if you so desire you can also follow the ramblings of the kevateria and travelling companions at deutscheblogophon. much more to come after this trip.............