the best kind of bribery.

Some things never get old. Chocolate chip cookies are at the top of that list, I'm sure.

The week before exams is always a hectic one. While finishing up a final assignment the other day, I was struck with a cookie craving. Okay, fine. It was a cookie dough craving. (you know you have them, too.) So I gave into it. Because schoolwork bribery in the form of chocolate chip cookies totally works. True story.

chewy chocolate chip cookies

adapted from chatelaine magazine.


ingredients
>>2 cups all-purpose flour
>>2 tsp cornstarch
>>1 tsp baking soda
>>1/2 tsp salt
>>1 cup chocolate chips
>>3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
>>1 cup brown sugar
>>1/4 cup granulated sugar
>>1 egg
>>2 tsp vanilla


1. Preheat oven to 350F (180C). In a medium-sized bowl, using a fork, stir flour with cornstarch, baking soda, and salt until evenly mixed. Measure out chocolate chips. Place butter in a large bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat until smooth, about 1 minute. Then beat in brown and granulated sugars until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla. Using a spoon, stir in flour mixture and chocolate chips just until evenly mixed.


2. Lightly spray a baking sheet with vegetable oil. Scoop out about 1 tbsp dough and place on sheet. Repeat with remaining dough, spacing at least 2 in. apart. 


3. Bake, one sheet at a time, in centre of oven until cookies are golden around the edges, from 8 to 10 minutes per sheet. (Press cookies down with a fork halfway through baking.) Remove sheet to a rack and let cookies stand on sheet about 2 minutes. Then remove cookies to a rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough. Once cool, cookies will keep well in a covered container at room temperature up to 2 weeks - if they last that long! 

Enjoy! xo,

abbey

my grandmother's house

Elegant is the word that describes it best, I think. Photographs and stately pieces of wooden furniture that are a tasteful nod to her past life. The vases and calendar and metal boxes on her desk that have been there for as long as I can remember. Classical music always pouring out of the speakers. The paintings she's painted, the rugs my father played on as a little boy, and my favorite snapshot of my grandmother, the epitome of glamour, and my grandfather, whom I never met. The old trunk piled high with her favorite stuffed animals, all of which have a story, the dictionary that gets pulled out when we have Scrabble competitions, and the two thousand year old wooden sculpture we're always extra careful around.

This is my grandmother's house. And every time I go there, I discover something new.

What does your grandmother's house look like?

much love,
carlotta

taking the train alone

There are certain milestones in life that make you feel, "yes--I am growing up." Moments where adulthood feels so close, independence is within reach, and you reckon you could pass for eighteen, what with how mature you are. As teenagers, I think we are so fixed on what we can do and where we want to get to and what our lives will become, that really any small event can be blown up into this amazing stepping stone to adulthood. In the thoughts of people older than us, it might seem a bit silly, but these tiny steps, to me at least, feel like a start to Getting Somewhere.
And Wednesday 28th October 2011 was one such day for me.
It marked the first time I would travel out of my village and town on my own. My mum drove me to the train station, told me to be sensible, and then drove away as I walked into the train station.
It was a day of firsts. The first time I asked politely for a "child return to Norwich, please". The first time I had to consider if I had enough time to get a drink. (I didn't) The first time I had to find my way to platform six by myself.
The 10:12 train was incredibly empty. Across the aisle, a man and a woman were filling out the crossword in The Sun, and behind me there was a boy, perhaps a year or so older than me, travelling alone too. Other than that, I was alone with my book and my thoughts.
It was strange to be sat alone. To have no one to talk to about the scenery. There wasn't anyone to laugh with. I was sat alone, and I was aware.
When you are alone, no matter where you are, your senses are heightened. Everything is an exercise in observation. But sat on the itchy seat of a rumbling and empty train, you soon run out of things to consider and admire. The drop-down tray was sticky and had a piece of gum stuck to it. The maroon carpeting had a geometric diamond pattern, and the blue seat had a wild colourful print. The velour material scratched my hands, the window was cool, and the book in my hands.
I was ready to pull out my phone and send inane texts to my brother, who was waiting for me at the other end of my journey. Suddenly, a voice crackled through the speakers.
There had been a crash ahead.
Our train stopped.
There was no one for me to roll my eyes at. Instead, I had to find it in myself to stay, sat in the itchy blue seat, waiting for the train to move again.
Eventually--it moved.
I left the train, and stood in the huge echoing station, staring around for my brother.
That was the scariest bit. More than the lonely carriage and the unexpected halt and the blue seats. Not knowing where my brother was for those few short minutes sent me into a flurry of fear and worry. Had I got off at the wrong city? Was my brother safe? Did I have the right day?
Then I saw him, just around the corner. I knew then--
I could travel alone. I could be by myself. I could cope with these tiny problems.
I was a baby step closer to growing up and travelling further afield.


xx
Libby

on article submissions

Over the past few weeks, we've received many reader submissions but sadly we've not been able to accept them all.
However, we're currently planning and scheduling for February, and we'd love to include some of your work here!

{Libby's photo}

Our guidelines are simple:

• Each article has to be unique to Fernweh and cannot be published anywhere else.
• All photos in the post must be no wider than 720px wide.
• If you submit an article, you can include a brief bio with a link to your site, but please do not promote your own blog/work on Fernweh.
• We will try to respond to your email within a week's time. Due to the amount of work, we cannot feature each article submitted, although we're grateful for your support.

If you've got a seasonal, simple and sweet post that you'd be interested in sharing here, please email us through fernwehmagazine[at]gmail[dot]com and share one to two photos/short excerpt of your piece with us.

Thank you so much for all your support over the past two weeks. It's been an incredible experience and your kind comments, lovely emails and friendly tweets have made it even lovelier. Including your work on Fernweh would be a delight. 

do something good

We at Fernweh are believers in the little things. In noticing the way the sunlight casts shadows on the arm chair through the slats of the blinds. In remembering the feel of soft green grass on a hot summer day. In knowing how it feels to enjoy the tiny parts of your day.
But we can't deny that bigger stuff happens. Scary stuff that keeps you awake at night, and frightening news stories and general doom and gloom. When you can do something small to reduce that, it's great. Today,  we're writing about two ways you can do this--vocabulary and make up.

{Abbey's photo}

First--Abbey wrote about Bags 4 Darfur earlier this week. Your response was incredible! If you want to help combat hunger in another way, see Free Rice. Basically, you have to click on the correct synonym for the word; there's also a few other subjects you can choose such as capitals and multiplication tables. For each word that you define correctly, ten grains of rice are donated. It might not seem like much, but it's a start.

The second point we wanted to mention was an email from Siriana, about Human Trafficking. It's Human Trafficking Awareness Day on 11th January, and Siriana has written a very intelligent article about it which you can read here. For most of us, it would feel like there is nothing we can do. We can't rally or march or petition. But there are small things that we can do to support. Things like buying make up or shampoo can contribute to a change. Radiant Cosmetics raise funds through cosmetics, to provide resources for those on the forefront of change as well as victims of trafficking . Like with Free Rice, this might not seem like something huge, but buying your eyeliner or blusher brush from there is still something.

You could also give all your spare change to charity, donate clothing, books and toys to charity shops/thrift stores/op-shops, or even volunteer a Saturday morning to litter pick!

What small things do you do to make the world a better place?


xx
Libby

coffeeshop poems and whatnot

Sometimes, I like to call myself a poet. Not of shakespearean sonnets or ababcc rhyme schemes, but of thoughts that fall into place and make something like a song. My moleskine is filled with scribbled thoughts, jotted down journal entries, lists (some crossed out, others not), quickly done sketches, and a plethora of poetry. Many that are just one line, others, spanning several pages.

I love flipping through the many pages and stumbling across a poem or sloppily scrawled (my penmanship is atrocious) thought that makes me smile. Some letters that fit together just right where I somehow found the words to express them. More than that though, I love finding a gem where I remember how the world was when I wrote it.

I have several books of poetry and perusing the pages and savoring the words like sipping tea is one of my favorite things. I'll sometimes sit at the coffee shop, people watch, and write. There's something about coffee shops that lend to an inspiring atmosphere. So alive, bustling, full of energy, and artsy. Just my kind of place.

Straight from my moleskine, here are some words and whatnot.

Coffee Shop Poems

We sip coffee with chapped lips
(at least I, from winter winds)
that steal words from
my mouth -- how are you doing?
I try to ask in thehustle
white chocolate mocha!
they cry, and I wish I could tell
you that I know you're sad, even
while drinking hazelnut, smiling,
your eyes are licked
with the winter wind.

home

quiet is a word almost never heard
in our house --
with someone (or many)always shouting or
running,
noisy isn't a strong enough word to describe
the chaos.
Don't tell anyone, but sometimes,
I like the noise better than silence,
because it means home.

starlight

it was dark and rain fell like stars
from the heavens, dropping silver on
theparched ground.
we drank it up as if we had never seen sky
before -- or even light
and perhaps, we hadn't.

waltz of the flowers

There it is -- the magic begins
I remember the beating of my
heart, faster than a whirlwind,
my fingers clenched tight
(I could not unclench them -- it was
as if I was holding onto something)
flowers unfold, feet point, and they jump,
while I sit and watch the ballet begin
and remember what it was like
to dance with my feet flying in pink
ribbons.



Do you write poetry?
xo
Hannah

french boys blush too.

I was thinking about France today, and how I was so far away from the teenagers who liked the same things as me. They listened to the same music, read the same books, and lounged at my favorite coffee shop. We were worlds away just by virtue of not speaking the same language. 

I met a French boy one day last summer. It was raining hard outside, (as it did for most of the summer- my kind of weather) and my umbrella, much less my shoes, weren’t protecting me very well. My mother and I darted inside a shop, partly to wait out the rain, partly because we were lost, and partly because it looked like our type of store. There were eclectic mixes of furniture, pillows, Eiffel Tower figurines, and Beatles posters. I didn’t want to walk away without buying anything (and the French boy at the register? Even my mother agreed that he was cute). I browsed the Beatles paraphernalia, sure that I would find something there. I ended up with a mug. It’s squat and round, the type of shape that comes across as a square. I have a healthy sense of irony- the Union Jack emblazoned on the mug that I bought in France attests to that. Sometimes I buy things or do things purely because of the story, and as far as souvenirs go, the only one that tops that is the camel bone ring that I stole off the top of a mountain in the Middle East. 

In line at the register in front of me was an older French woman. She had one of the carts typical to that part of Europe, basically a large canvas shopping bag on wheels, with a convenient handle. She was buying a tall, wooden giraffe, half the height of me and nearly as tall as her. The French boy, acting as the gentleman that he was, walked around the front of the counter to help her load it up. As she began to walk out the door, she turned back to him, saying something in French while she gestured to me. His cheeks lit up and he ducked his head. 

It’s an odd to be an American girl in Europe. It’s not so bad in England, where all the boys speak the same language, with the addition of a delicious accent. Half the teenagers there are hipsters, in the way that’s only possible in a rundown city in England. I fell in love with them, the way they wore their slouchy cardigans and fat scarves- and did you know that curse words sound better in a British accent? 

It’s different in France. The smattering of words that I knew did nothing for me in regular circumstances. Faced with an attractive, blushing French boy, the best I could do was duck my head and hand him the mug. 

He scanned it, asking me a question. I shrugged my shoulders, croaking out one of the phrases I’d perfected over the course of the summer: I’m sorry, je ne parle pas francais. He grinned. Was that relief that flashed across his face? His halting English was, if possible, even more beautiful than the lilting accents of the British boys that I loved. “I’m sorry, my English is not very good.” 

“Not at all, it’s fine. Much better than my French.” I smiled up at him. Was I flirting? Is that even flirting, such a short conversation with a foreign boy? 

“I wanted to know if this is a gift, if I should wrap it.” 

“Oh no, don’t worry about it.” 

He smiled again, this time directly towards me. 

I wish I was the kind of girl who could lean forward and ask him quietly what the woman had said that made him so embarrassed- and so relieved when I couldn’t understand her. Flirting is hard enough when the boy is obviously interested and actually speaks the same language. Substitute that with a hopelessly awkward girl and a French boy with barely any English, and you get the kind of story that ends when the girl walks out of the shop.

edit: this is a true story. his name is max.