Have you ever had one of these days when nothing seem to turn out right for you? Sun ray is something holy for me. Funny. It’s been weeks and months since we’ve been blessed with rain, bad weather and no chance for climbing outside. You feel how the cobwebs are growing on your arms making them heavy, your butt’s all sore from surfing the weekend thru in the internet (looking for sun – yeah!) And suddenly when the sun comes out for a couple of hours, you hurry down your cellar, grab your rucksack and equipment and drive 2 hours to a favourite climbing spot…. only to find out that the crag with over 140 routes were all soaking wet?
Or have you have driven hours, only to find that the sun’s shining but at the wrong valley? You’re all packed up in your down, not even wanting to think of ever taking off the down to climb, looking at your compact thermomter saying it’s a mere 2°C. A shrilly mobile phone rings, and someone answers it, and that rascal next to you says “hey look, it’s really warm today, I’m just in my shorts and tee. You’re missing out something if you stay home. .. No? oh well….” I eyed him carefully….he must be wearing angora strings or something!!! Nope, I can’t understand that….and pulled my woolen cap down the face. Jeez i think anything’s better than standing around freezing your butts off.
The best trip was when a few different weather forcast gave us green light forbetter weather in the southern alps. When we got there, it was cloudy, with a chilly wind and temperatures dropping from 14°C to5 degrees within 10 mins. Wow, it stayed that way for the rest of the weekend. I got home on sunday night and ran to my home sweet pc, and checked the weather once again. Yep, he didn’t change his mind and said the day was sunny with a few harmless clouds! Never trust the weather man ever again!
In days like these, it’s better to stand in the kitchen to cook up a good meal to have a highlight for the day. Here’s a small example how:
Ingredients:
2x Chicken drumsticks with thighs, deboned
Ginger 5cm, sliced & peeled
1 big white Onion, cut in wedges.
3 cloves garlic
2 tbsp. vinegar
1 tbsp. sugar
Tube Tomatopaste (Tomatenmark)
1 Cucumber or 1 small brocolli
1 chicken stock (cube)
Method:
Clean the chicken drumsticks and debone. You don’t have to debone them if you’re not blessed with plentiful water. But they get cooked a lot faster. Another alternative is to use chicken breasts – but for my taste, they are far too dry. In any case, cut the chicken meat into 2,5 cm pieces. If you’re using cucumber, peel off the skin, cut them in wedges. Remove the seeds in the middle. For those of you using brocolli – cut off anything that’s yellow, and wash thoroughly. Cut in small pieces.
Fry your ginger and garlic till golden brown. Add the deboned chicken pieces and fry this till it gets a little brown. Add 1 chicken stock, crumbling the cube into pieces…otherwise you might find this little cube undissolved in your food later on! Add about 1/4 tube of the Tomatopaste together with some water, vinegar and sugar. Simmer lightly for 3 minutes, then add cucumbers or brocolli, and the onions. Simmer for a further 5 mins and close the cover of the pan. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with rice or couscous.
An alternative would be to use pork meat instead, then you could save yourselves from deboning the chicken or having to deal with cutting those chicken skin with an unsharp knife in your camping cutlery 
