NYDiscovery

Staying healthy in 2009 with superfoods from A to Z

This is the time of the year when magazines and newspapers look deep in their drawers, respectively hard drive directories to shell out some "foods that are good for you". Nothing wrong with that! I want to know what's good for my body and my soul and if it helps me loosing weight, even better!

What these articles usually lack though are recipes or easy to follow ways how to incorporate these good-for-my-body-foods into my every day diet. To make matters worse, a simple list of 20 great foods is as appealing as a slice of 9 days old bread regardless the toppings!

That's why it occurred to me, in order to get something out of these lists and knowledge hat I've collected over the years, I have to take matters in my own hands. That's what blogs are for. And so I announce the start of SUPER HEALTHY FOODS FROM A to Z. The year's still young, resolutions haven't been broken yet and so my goal is to keep this going throughout the year. One letter at a time - even if I have to borrow it from another language. [In my case from German because "zuchini", the usual English "z" is not exactly a "superfood" but "Zitrone" (lemon) and "Zwiebel" (onion) are!]

What to expect?

• A fun overview about natural food in alphabetical order that distinguishes itself from the rest by being especially effective for staying healthy and loosing weight.*
• Tips on storage and preparation.
• Intelligent and meaningful serving sizes, calories, nutrition facts and health benefits.
• Easy recipes for breakfast, snacks and dinner.
• In a 2nd run-through, more sophisticated recipes and combinations of these extra healthy foods.
• Lots of food pictures where I'll try some things out.

Coming next: Superfood that starts with "A"!

* DISCLAIMER: I am not associated with any weight lost plan or particular research. This all is based on life long experience and gained knowledge!

Good-bye 2008, you were a good one!

With less than 8 hours to go, 2008 is clearly winding down, making room for 2009. Looking back, I'd say I particularly liked that one despite my  accident.

We were off to a rough start, 2008 and I, as it is usually the case, because I dislike January and February that much. For 2009, January is filled with already 5 concerts to hopefully ease the pain a bit, but January 2008 was the usual crappy, cold winter month with the exception that I could finally hire Ninash which still makes me happy.

In February, Oliver and I took on a gigantic project: remodeling our master bedroom! We got rid of our old sleeping sofa, painted the room ourselves - bright yellow! Bought a very nice new bed, a mattress, a new desk, chair, etc. and completely remodeled the room. It was so worth it and still is! So, February with all the yellow was already brighter than usual.

However, I didn't like my job situation too much. Jobwise okay but not the office politics and the general outlook. So I was pursuing a couple of opportunities...

In April, you can tell that Spring is in the air and by then, my mood changes and everything's getting better again.

May comes and we're going to a lot of concerts, traveling to Germany and preparing for Oliver's birthday. We had a big party on June 1st and all friends - with the exception of a few - were in New York, including his Dad, to celebrate with him.

We're digging summer. June, July, August - lots of concerts, open air dinners, some brief vacation at the beach in Montauk. Oh, not to forget our old friend Volkmar's visit who was on a business trip in New Jersey for 3 weeks, which gave us plenty of opportunities to hang out together. It felt so good to do things with an old friend!

September comes and with that not only the US Open (I've seen a Roger Federer game!!!) but some guests from Germany: Chrissi und Janina from Hamburg and Mandy and Jacko from Berlin. What fun it is to show friends our city! It's also fun to hang out with friends in Montauk, even though it's rainy. We've had a great time with Sue & Pete and Bill & Mike.

While it usually is my favorite month of the year, October turned out to be a bit too adventurous! The days up to my birthday were fantastic, then some big news, then my birthday and the day after my accident! While my head - thank the Lord! - is healed again, my right shoulder isn't yet. The comforting news however is that it's getting better. Slowly. But steadily. Yes, a lot of things happened in October and most of the events were positive like a having been promoted to Head of Community for fotolog.com, the company I am with and the community I am caring for more than 4.5 years.

November held probably the biggest highlight of 2008: our wedding anniversary cruise! 8 days on board the QM2, starting from New York City, cruising the Caribbean with final destination Fort Lauderdale. We loved it so much that we're determined to not only do this cruise every milestone anniversary but in 2009 - if in any way possible! There was another highlight of course: the election of Barrack Obama as the next US president. Let's get back the good things that America and its people stood and hopefully soon again stand for!!!

Always a fantastic month is December and this time especially with my Dad's 70th birthday surprise party! Not only did we have a great time with my family in the South of Germany but with our friends in Munich too. It felt so good to see everybody again: my sister Biggi, her boyfriend, Andrea, Elena, Fiona, Martina, Liza, Nicole, Volker, Oliver's Mom and as said my Mom and Dad.

The last couple of days in New York City could not have been any better. Oliver and I enjoyed a quiet Christmas Eve where we dressed up nicely and had a fun picture session. The next day, we were partying at Yvette's place with Melissa, Itzik and other friends. The day after that, Lani and Richard had dinner with us. Yesterday, we might with Jennifer and Bryan from Hong Kong who were on a short visit in New York and tonight we'll celebrate with Bill and Mike at Rosa Mexicano.

So, when I say that 2008 was particularly nice, then because of all of the above and so much more that I currently cannot think of.

Thanks and good-bye 2008. Welcome 2009!

Happy New Year everybody!

Change We Need

I am amazed of how much of a pop star he is! Not surprised, because it doesn't come as a surprise, but it's astonishing and sooo cool!

Somebody from MY generation! As I've just learned (again) today, somebody who's a "baby boomer" like me. Granted, I am only a "baby boomer" by 2 months and he's full 3 years into it but that's besides the point!

He's young! Hell yes! 47 IS young! It's especially young for a president. And his face is everywhere: on stickers, on t-shirts, on buttons, on books, on magazines, name it, he's on it! Since I am living in this country, the United States hasn't seen such a phenomenon. He's unique and ground braking and he's not being left alone. Each of his steps get tracked and analyzed. Must be tough to live with all the attention.

And so he makes me believe in a better tomorrow. And he makes me read his second book - Audacity of Hope. I like it, I like it a lot. Cheers to our president elect! Now we all must work together and help to turn this ship around.

Photo Update: New York City Waterfalls

We took more than 300 pictures of the four waterfalls that Olafur Eliasson installed along the East River. This is, actually, not much, but it took still a while to sort through them and select the best ones. Please have a look at the final selection on Photrade.

Bye Bye, NYC Waterfalls

Although less spectacular than, for example, The Gates, the New York City Waterfalls were nonetheless an impressive installation. For me, they spiced up my daily way to and from work and provided many opportunities for pictures.

I hope that New York City continues to provide a space for art installation, even if they are almost always controversial, as good art has to be. As long as funding is private as is was for the waterfalls, there's nothing to say against investing in art.

In any case we took a lot of pictures on different times of the day, in different sorts of light and different perspectives. As always, with digital photography, we have much more material than it's worth to show, but we'll sort it out soon and present it online. For starters, here are some pictures on the new photo sharing site Photrade.

Fifteen Millions For What?

We love the NYC Waterfalls. Because they are close to our neighborhood and because they are a great photo opportunity.
Inevitably, however, the discussion came up, about why spending fifteen million dollars for erecting man-made waterfalls where they don't belong. Aren't there so many better things one can do with so much money?
Well, I think creating something that New Yorkers and visitor can look at and enjoy for free is actually a pretty good way to spend money. So were The Gates and all other public art event. And remember: they are all privately funded with no tax money wasted.
So be prepared for more waterfall pictures to come, especially when fall comes with its crisp light and the blue skies.

More from the Waterfalls

Since I pass them a couple of times per week on my way to and from work, the NYC waterfalls are my favorite picture project. But other than The Gates and Chihuly this installation is more difficult to photograph. First, it's summer and so far it was difficult to find a day without too much haze and good light. Then, unless you have a boat, the number of different perspectives are very limited. Luckily the installation lasts until fall, so there will be some more opportunities.

Look here to see what I could get so far.

Well, that was a lot of stress this time. I was totally wrong with my assessment that it would be much easier to get the iPhone 3G than the original one. The lower price seemed to make it attractive to more people and the convoluted activation process extended the lines. So by Friday it still took 5 hours to make it into the store on 5th Avenue and being handed a new phone.

But I bit the bullet and not a day too early. While many probably think it's crazy too wait that long for a freakin' cell phone, it is actually a real happening. At one of the most beautiful places in the city and with a lot of like-minded people around you. It gives you also (a somewhat false) sense of accomplishment: make it to the next loop, being the next person to enter the store, then being escorted finally downstairs and finally the moment where the activation happens and a phone is handed to you.

Is the 3G upgrade worth the effort? Not so sure about that. The 16 GB is the most exciting feature for me and they were available for the old iPhone as well. This means that I can load it with all my favorite music instead of just a narrow selection. 3G network speed is nice to have, but ironically with all those local applications there's less need to go to the web at all. Let's see how it goes with the battery life.

One thing I'm really excited about, though, is the wireless syncing with Mobile Me. I work on different computers and it's just convenient if changes propagate magically to all devices without the need to do a manual sync. That is amazing, but sure as hell the moment came where a change doesn't get synced, not matter what I do. There is a lot of components involved and it's not surprising that there are some kinks to be ironed out, but Apple better hurries - I need to rely on the fact that my calendar is current and I don't want to double check every appointment, just to make sure that has been synced correctly on all systems.

One more thing that doesn't work as smoothly as it should is handling invitations to meetings. Elke and I want to use the system to maintain our common activities (this is necessary, because we have a lot of activities and need to budget our time), but I'm not sure yet if this is going to work out. For starters, the invitation functionality is neither available on the iPhone nor on the Mobile Me website. I'm sure that Apple is fixing that soon, but I was also sure that we'll see cut & paste on the iPhone very soon and we're still waiting.

Posted by oliver at 10:47 PM in Culture, NYC, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 26, 2008

An Evening at the MoMA

In New York City you quickly bump into the limit of what you can afford, but there are opportunities that at least make it easy to pretend moving among the rich, famous and beautiful. In that regard the Fellow membership at the MoMA ($300/year) is an excellent deal. Besides the obvious advantage to visit the museum at any time without ever standing in line, you get invited to opening of "select exhibitions".

To be sure, these are not the real openings - for those you need a much higher and more expensive membership tier. But it is a nice event at the museum, with an open bar, lots of artist types and many beautiful women. Yesterday it was also the perfect weather to sip some red wine in the sculpture garden, surrounded by the skyscrapers of Midtown and of course sculptures. This was so pleasant that we skipped the exhibition, which is not a problem due to another membership perk: members-only viewing hours.

So for anybody who's into MoMA-style art, I can only recommend a museum membership.

Posted by oliver at 07:31 PM in Culture, NYC | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 21, 2008

Public Art in NYC

We love big art installations in the city and there's a really big one coming up for June 26th: The New York City Waterfalls by Olafur Eliasson. For towers are installaed along the downtown section on the East River and during the last couple of days they all were tested and the water started falling, for example under the Brooklyn Bridge.

It's right in our neighborhood, so be prepared for some pictures about it. In the meantime, please enjoy some photo frenzies about past art events: The Gates and Chihuly at the Botanical Garden.

Posted by oliver at 06:30 AM in Culture, NYC | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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In New York City you quickly bump into the limit of what you can afford, but there are opportunities that at least make it easy to pretend moving among the rich, famous and beautiful. In that regard the Fellow membership at the MoMA ($300/year) is an excellent deal. Besides the obvious advantage to visit the museum at any time without ever standing in line, you get invited to opening of "select exhibitions".

To be sure, these are not the real openings - for those you need a much higher and more expensive membership tier. But it is a nice event at the museum, with an open bar, lots of artist types and many beautiful women. Yesterday it was also the perfect weather to sip some red wine in the sculpture garden, surrounded by the skyscrapers of Midtown and of course sculptures. This was so pleasant that we skipped the exhibition, which is not a problem due to another membership perk: members-only viewing hours.

So for anybody who's into MoMA-style art, I can only recommend a museum membership.

We love big art installations in the city and there's a really big one coming up for June 26th: The New York City Waterfalls by Olafur Eliasson. For towers are installaed along the downtown section on the East River and during the last couple of days they all were tested and the water started falling, for example under the Brooklyn Bridge.

It's right in our neighborhood, so be prepared for some pictures about it. In the meantime, please enjoy some photo frenzies about past art events: The Gates and Chihuly at the Botanical Garden.

Snatching an iPhone 3G

Well, that was a lot of stress this time. I was totally wrong with my assessment that it would be much easier to get the iPhone 3G than the original one. The lower price seemed to make it attractive to more people and the convoluted activation process extended the lines. So by Friday it still took 5 hours to make it into the store on 5th Avenue and being handed a new phone.

But I bit the bullet and not a day too early. While many probably think it's crazy too wait that long for a freakin' cell phone, it is actually a real happening. At one of the most beautiful places in the city and with a lot of like-minded people around you. It gives you also (a somewhat false) sense of accomplishment: make it to the next loop, being the next person to enter the store, then being escorted finally downstairs and finally the moment where the activation happens and a phone is handed to you.

Is the 3G upgrade worth the effort? Not so sure about that. The 16 GB is the most exciting feature for me and they were available for the old iPhone as well. This means that I can load it with all my favorite music instead of just a narrow selection. 3G network speed is nice to have, but ironically with all those local applications there's less need to go to the web at all. Let's see how it goes with the battery life.

One thing I'm really excited about, though, is the wireless syncing with Mobile Me. I work on different computers and it's just convenient if changes propagate magically to all devices without the need to do a manual sync. That is amazing, but sure as hell the moment came where a change doesn't get synced, not matter what I do. There is a lot of components involved and it's not surprising that there are some kinks to be ironed out, but Apple better hurries - I need to rely on the fact that my calendar is current and I don't want to double check every appointment, just to make sure that has been synced correctly on all systems.

One more thing that doesn't work as smoothly as it should is handling invitations to meetings. Elke and I want to use the system to maintain our common activities (this is necessary, because we have a lot of activities and need to budget our time), but I'm not sure yet if this is going to work out. For starters, the invitation functionality is neither available on the iPhone nor on the Mobile Me website. I'm sure that Apple is fixing that soon, but I was also sure that we'll see cut & paste on the iPhone very soon and we're still waiting.

Posted by oliver at 10:47 PM in Culture, NYC, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 26, 2008

An Evening at the MoMA

In New York City you quickly bump into the limit of what you can afford, but there are opportunities that at least make it easy to pretend moving among the rich, famous and beautiful. In that regard the Fellow membership at the MoMA ($300/year) is an excellent deal. Besides the obvious advantage to visit the museum at any time without ever standing in line, you get invited to opening of "select exhibitions".

To be sure, these are not the real openings - for those you need a much higher and more expensive membership tier. But it is a nice event at the museum, with an open bar, lots of artist types and many beautiful women. Yesterday it was also the perfect weather to sip some red wine in the sculpture garden, surrounded by the skyscrapers of Midtown and of course sculptures. This was so pleasant that we skipped the exhibition, which is not a problem due to another membership perk: members-only viewing hours.

So for anybody who's into MoMA-style art, I can only recommend a museum membership.

Posted by oliver at 07:31 PM in Culture, NYC | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 21, 2008

Public Art in NYC

We love big art installations in the city and there's a really big one coming up for June 26th: The New York City Waterfalls by Olafur Eliasson. For towers are installaed along the downtown section on the East River and during the last couple of days they all were tested and the water started falling, for example under the Brooklyn Bridge.

It's right in our neighborhood, so be prepared for some pictures about it. In the meantime, please enjoy some photo frenzies about past art events: The Gates and Chihuly at the Botanical Garden.

Posted by oliver at 06:30 AM in Culture, NYC | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Next »

Categories

• Culture
• Current Affairs
• Film
• Food and Drink
• Going Out
• Hotel Bar
• Music
• NYC
• Personal
• Photography
• Sports
• Television
• Travel
• Web/Tech
• Weblogs

Lijit Search

unterwegs in NYC

New York Discovery

Twitter Updates

follow me on Twitter

In New York City you quickly bump into the limit of what you can afford, but there are opportunities that at least make it easy to pretend moving among the rich, famous and beautiful. In that regard the Fellow membership at the MoMA ($300/year) is an excellent deal. Besides the obvious advantage to visit the museum at any time without ever standing in line, you get invited to opening of "select exhibitions".

To be sure, these are not the real openings - for those you need a much higher and more expensive membership tier. But it is a nice event at the museum, with an open bar, lots of artist types and many beautiful women. Yesterday it was also the perfect weather to sip some red wine in the sculpture garden, surrounded by the skyscrapers of Midtown and of course sculptures. This was so pleasant that we skipped the exhibition, which is not a problem due to another membership perk: members-only viewing hours.

So for anybody who's into MoMA-style art, I can only recommend a museum membership.

We love big art installations in the city and there's a really big one coming up for June 26th: The New York City Waterfalls by Olafur Eliasson. For towers are installaed along the downtown section on the East River and during the last couple of days they all were tested and the water started falling, for example under the Brooklyn Bridge.

It's right in our neighborhood, so be prepared for some pictures about it. In the meantime, please enjoy some photo frenzies about past art events: The Gates and Chihuly at the Botanical Garden.

An Evening at the MoMA

In New York City you quickly bump into the limit of what you can afford, but there are opportunities that at least make it easy to pretend moving among the rich, famous and beautiful. In that regard the Fellow membership at the MoMA ($300/year) is an excellent deal. Besides the obvious advantage to visit the museum at any time without ever standing in line, you get invited to opening of "select exhibitions".

To be sure, these are not the real openings - for those you need a much higher and more expensive membership tier. But it is a nice event at the museum, with an open bar, lots of artist types and many beautiful women. Yesterday it was also the perfect weather to sip some red wine in the sculpture garden, surrounded by the skyscrapers of Midtown and of course sculptures. This was so pleasant that we skipped the exhibition, which is not a problem due to another membership perk: members-only viewing hours.

So for anybody who's into MoMA-style art, I can only recommend a museum membership.

We love big art installations in the city and there's a really big one coming up for June 26th: The New York City Waterfalls by Olafur Eliasson. For towers are installaed along the downtown section on the East River and during the last couple of days they all were tested and the water started falling, for example under the Brooklyn Bridge.

It's right in our neighborhood, so be prepared for some pictures about it. In the meantime, please enjoy some photo frenzies about past art events: The Gates and Chihuly at the Botanical Garden.

Public Art in NYC

We love big art installations in the city and there's a really big one coming up for June 26th: The New York City Waterfalls by Olafur Eliasson. For towers are installaed along the downtown section on the East River and during the last couple of days they all were tested and the water started falling, for example under the Brooklyn Bridge.

It's right in our neighborhood, so be prepared for some pictures about it. In the meantime, please enjoy some photo frenzies about past art events: The Gates and Chihuly at the Botanical Garden.