tȟatȟáŋka oyáte // a day at the buffalo ranch neukieritzsch

Studying all things Native American and in particular Lakȟóta for quite a while now and knowing about a buffalo farm near Leipzig for almost three years, a visit at this Buffalo Ranch was on my must-do list for a long time already.

I’ve seen buffalos at the Leipzig Wildpark before, but I wanted to see a whole herd of it and also wanted to try buffalo meat. So Ro and I and a friend of us with his two little sons went to Neukieritzsch the other week. It was a pretty cold and slightly rainy day, but we packed everything for a picnic anyway.

When we arrived, all the buffalos were in very far distance, some of them lay on the ground and others were just standing around. But after a while, when they finally had recognized us, they smoothly got up and the whole herd of about 20 heads of buffalo started walking towards us very slowly and calm (This literally gave me goose bumps!). We stood right behind the fence (which was a pretty thin one) and if we had wanted to we could have touched the friendly buffalos since they came very, very close. Except for this bull pictured above which was the most respectable one and a really thrilling one to watch too.

I told the boys that in former times the Lakotas used everything from the buffalo, such as the tanned hide not only for clothing and moccasins but also to build their tipis. I tried to remember all the other parts and their use. This sustainable concept of only hunting/shopping meat when meat is really needed and using almost all body parts of a creature and leaving the rest for other four-legged or winged ones and therefore producing in fact no garbage at all really fascinates me.

Since we could witness that the Neukieritzsch buffalos live appropriate to their species’ needs, aren’t penned in stables but can graze all year round outside, we went to the little farm shop and gave buffalo meat a try. We bought meat, sausage, jerky, and mini salamis. The latter one we ate right away with all the bread rolls, veggies, and cookies we had packed for the pic nic. As far as I can tell now, the taste of buffalo meat is similar to beef but the texture of the meat itself is way more soft.

Well, I don’t know what took me so long to get there but I know for sure now that I will be coming back sometime soon.

paper dudes // sustainable design gifts

One of the exciting things for me being a blogger is that I’ll get informed about cool events I otherwise might have missed because people reach out to me. So last weekend I followed an invitation from Paper Dudes and visited the Paper Dudes Pop Up Store over here in LE.

Paper Dudes are little characters made out of 100 % sustainably produced paper. There are many different little dudes ranching from famous football players to musicians and actors already and when visiting dudestore.de you can have your very own dude designed as well. While at the pop up store it was really funny to look at each little dude and guess who was who. In the end, I was thinking such a little dude would make a great gift for a design-loving friend and having a special person in mind Ro and I went for Robin. We also were lucky because the makers offered us some of their little plant pots for free, so we got Batman and Joker too.

Well, time flies and the holiday season is right around the corner, so if you’re looking for a very special and also affordable kind of gift, I think a paper dude is the perfect one.

new & good // burgerheart leipzig

Another burger place, really?? That was the first thing I thought when I discovered these huge ads from Burgerheart everywhere around my neighborhood. Because besides the common burger fast food chains we already have great places to eat delicious burger in walking distance/the city center: Burgermeister (three times!) and not to forget the good burgers you can get at restaurants such as Barcelona, Mr. Moto and Café Cantona. But since my man loooves burger sooo much another burger place was on the must-visit list for us.

A reservation, really?? That was the first thing I thought walking into a full house at Burgerheart on the evening of last week’s Friday. But we were lucky and got a free table soon after (which we had to share with another couple a few minutes later). Meanwhile I took the chance to dive into the visual atmosphere which I really liked: white brick walls, huge blackboards with small white crayon sketches, wooden tables, lots of plants, entertaining placemats. The design of the place is minimal, industrial, natural, let’s say: totally my style. We sat “in between” floors because the whole place is separated in three parts, the entry with small tables, the middle part with huge ones and the kinda like cosy third part with smaller tables and huge windows in the back. They played some kind of rock/metal music which was fine first, but later on kind of annoying since with all the people talking the noise level was already pretty high.

Well, we ordered some beer, fries and fried yams, some cole slaw, a cheeseburger and a caramelised new york cheesecake. The service was nice and the food was fine (really no fast food ;-)). I now already know I will come back since I’d like to try some other things from the menu: the falafel salad, créme brulé, and homemade lemonade. But I am not sure if I will have another beer there since…

Almost 4 Euro for one single 0,33 l Heineken?? Yeap, that’s what I thought when I got the check. ;-)

summer break // impression #7