Toilet Art

I came across this amazing image on Pinterest the other day. It was absolutely captivating. Here is the artist’s website.

Anastassia Elias : BALANÇOIRE
2010 - Découpage - 9,7x4,5x4,5 cm

Elias cut shapes out from paper of the same colour as a cardboard toilet roll. She then used tweezers to stick them into the inside of the roll to construct these captivating scenes. I especially love the backlit photographs because the enhanced silhouettes and shadows really create an air of mystique.

I don’t always love intricate things, but this idea is beautifully simple and I was completely charmed!

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Berry~licious French Toast

I didn’t have a lot of food at home today. I felt too busy on the brain to go out. But I was hungry…

There were a few eggs left in the fridge, bread in the freezer, some cheese I didn’t feel like eating…I felt like something sweet…

And this is what I made: eggy bread, served with wild blueberry conserve, some fresh blueberries and a sprinkling of brown sugar. It was yummy. (Although I was a bit mean with the egg.  I could have used another one for better coverage!)

Beat one egg per each slice of bread. Cut bread into smaller pieces - you can remove the crust if you like at this point. Put into bowl and pour beaten egg over it. Make sure egg gets onto all bread surfaces and leave to soak for a few minutes.

Heat a frying pan and melt a knob of butter to fry the bread until golden brown. (I only used one egg this time and thinned it with some milk, so you can see that my bread is not very eggy.)

Serve with anything you fancy. I was in a sweet mood today, but I was almost tempted to try the Colman's English mustard with some grated Emmental cheese on top when I looked into the fridge again.

When I started making this, I only had the blueberry conserve in mind. But then, I remembered the fresh blueberries I had in my fridge. They worked like magic. I have never combined unsweetened fresh fruit with jam like this before. I was worried the fruit would be too sour. However, the berries tasted really fresh against the sweetness of the jam, and the little pops of juicy tartness actually sharpened the lovely syrupy-ness. I added a little brown sugar purely for some texture as I love the crunch of the granules.

With the unusually intense blue skies and bright spring sunshine, this was a perfect light something for brunch. I hope you enjoy it too! (Don’t tell my mum…)

Sourdough Pizza

I revisited Franco Manca for their simple but delicious “slow-rising” sourdough pizza recently. I had been raving about it for weeks to anyone who would listen, so it was inevitable that one of my friends eventually suggested I take her there, if only to shut me up!

Two halves: the meat special and the wild mushroom, mozzarella and buffalo ricotta pizza.

The Franco Manca menu is simple, offering only six choices of pizza plus two daily specials options, although you can customise your toppings. You can also order a couple of sides and the obligatory olives and bread of course (the olives are of the awesome variety, you may be able to see from the photo).  While your pizza is being prepared, you are treated to the view of pillows of sourdough waiting in wooden crates for their turn to be stretched out and decorated before being thrown into the wood burning oven for a short hot blast.

What ends up on your plate is a beautifully springy pizza that you really should eat with your hands rather than a knife and fork, for that gentle tug-o’-war between your teeth and fingers. If you are partial to a doughy, thick-based pizza, à la Pizza Hut, then this is definitely not for you. However, I love a thin base with simple fresh toppings, and the give and stretch as you bite and tear a piece off a Franco Manca pizza is nothing but YUM!

Thank God for these simple pleasures and for wonderful eating companions.

“I will try again tomorrow”

Zara TRF T-shirt

Way back when AltaVista was the go-to search engine and Netscape enabled slightly geeky people to “surf the web”, I had a website to keep friends and family up to date on what was going on in my life. I also diligently kept a journal for a decade and dabbled in poetry in between.

Somewhere along the way however, I allowed procrastination to take over my life. I stopped writing, sharing ideas, even dreaming…Last year, I realised that I had lots of ideas floating about aimlessly in my head and I decided it was time I developed some of these thoughts before they got musty and deflated. I tried to get back to journalling, but I had adopted lots of lazy bad habits and kept skipping days, weeks, even months.

Then, sometime in January this year, I stumbled across this blog and started following it because it was so pretty. And, one blog led to another. I suddenly realised that there is a community of talented people out there with great ideas, wonderful bottomless creativity and the urge to inspire and share.

When I saw this t-shirt in Zara recently, it made me smile. Yes I have a tendency to procrastinate, and I guess, as human beings, we will all be failures from time-to-time. Some of us (e.g. me) more often than others. But then, I’ve only got myself to blame if I don’t try again, and again…so I thought this photo is a good way to kick off my brand new blog.

Welcome and thank you for reading!