Happines comes in a box: A gift from Japan

A dear friend who recently returned from his travels from Japan brought me a very special gift from the Tokyo National Museum. A traditional Japanese hand towel also known as tenugui.

Tenugui has raw unhemmed edges and comes with a leaflet showing numerous wrapping and folding techniques to create book covers, bread baskets etc.

It can also be turned into a neat little handbag using the enclosed faux leather handle.

Needless to say, that was by far my favourite folding technique :-)

For now I'm enjoying trying out the various different folding and wrapping ideas but I'm thinking of using the tenugui and the handle to sew a permanent bag.

Happiness comes in a box: Artisan beads

We all know them: the little trinkets that cost next to nothing but they make us incredibly happy. Whether it's because they fulfill a certain purpose in our household or are there simply for their intrinsic beauty.

The newest addition to my bead stash: two gorgeous pendants from Claire Maunsell from stillpointworks. I discovered Claire's work a couple of years ago while participating in my first Bead soup event and was drawn into the unique and incredibly complex and detailed beads she makes.

I saw the house pendant in her Etsy shop and had to have it. I rarely become so enamoured, so drawn to something that I've almost forgotten the accompanying compulsion of hitting that Buy! Buy! Buy! button and the frenzy of filling out the on - line shopping form.

I confess that at one point I had this paranoid thought that somewhere across the globe there was another person buying the pendant at that exact moment and trying to beat me at completing the purchase.

Claire was way too generous and sent along the extra tubular bead humbly suggesting I pass it forward if I didn't like it. Well... I don't see that happening any time soon ;-) Since I fell in love with the extra bead on the spot and I'm already plotting on how I'm going to use it.

 As for the pendant featuring the house, I already have a pretty clear idea: I'm going to make a long wire wrapped necklace incorporating faceted clear quartz. I'm also thinking of incorporating lampwork beads and maybe even some dyed fresh water pearls.

Lesson learned!

It's one of those ironies in life that this post follows the previous one I wrote mere two weeks ago lamenting about spring like whether in the middle of the winter. Yes, I've definitely learned my lesson! During this past weekend we've experienced a nation wide power outage due to sleet that caused a number of trees to fall disrupting power supply. The trees have also wreaked havoc on many of the roads and railways. As ice rain and snow continued to fall many people were completely cut off.

I spent part of Saturday without running water and electricity and let me tell you it's no fun to have less than half a litre of drinking water and a single (scented) candle which reads Happy Christmas. Yet another one of those ironies that when I will look back on this weekend someday it will no doubt make me laugh very hard. But on Saturday? Not so funny :-(

Water returned the next day and so did electricity, before it was cut again. The power shortage lasted for 18 hours, the longest power shortage in Slovenia in decades and something I've never experienced before.
The whole town went dark after five, there were no traffic lights, no street lamps, nothing. Just little flickering of candle lights from the windows across the street. Yet remarkably people stayed calm.

I consider myself extremely lucky: after the water returned I had access to both hot and cold water, due to the fact that our apartment building is well insulated the temperature in my flat never went below 21 C and I had access to the Internet via my smart phone. And thanks to Mr. C being extra prudent I had ample supplies of batteries, emergency lights and a car phone charger.
Sure it was annoying sitting in my car for an hour doing nothing, but at least I was able to chat with people, stay connected and informed about the situation around the country.

Things are slowly returning to normal. The fire brigade, police, winter service personnel and civil protection services are working around the clock to clear up the debris and restore power. Despite the fact that whining and complaining about all the things that are wrong in our country is our nation's favourite past time people are really taking notice of  the women and men providing these services (some of them are volunteering) and are gratefull and humbled by it.
I for one am grateful for my wonderful neighbours who've been kind and generous as well as the support I've received from my friends and family who've phoned to check up on me.
Rufus and I are looking forward to a relaxing evening at home. We've been arned to stay indoors seince the ice covered trees will continue to break and fall so going for a long walk in the forest or park isn't really an option.

Skipping seasons

 We've been having an unusual warm winter and last weekend in between drizzle and rain I managed to go for a walk to Močilnik, the source of river Lljubljanica. The waters were high and almost everything was in bloom.

 On my way home I picked a few snowdrops. They added a bit of colour and life to my kitchen table.

 And then I spent a good portion of the afternoon drying my jacket and cleaning my walking boots.

We've had a bit of snow yesterday and the temperatures have dropped considerably. I guess proper winter weather is finally here and I feel relieved. This warm interlude was beginning to feel unsettling.

Family

2006

This is my family. It consists of three people. Well one is technically a cat but that's exactly the point I'm trying to make. Families come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and living arrangements.
Mr. C and I have been together for over 11 years now and Rufus has been part of our family for the last 8 years. He's moved house with us, destroyed furniture, made us laugh with his crazy stunts, shed hair all over the place...
He can hear our footsteps the moment we open the front door of the apartment building and wait for us at the front door even though we live on 3rd floor! As far as unconditional love and acceptance go it doesn't get any more real than this.

2011

Mr. C and I jokingly refer to ourselves as mum and dad and some people can't get past it. And don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware that Rufus is a cat and not a substitute for a child. He's a cat and is treated as such though his living conditions vastly differ from a wild cat or a feral cat.

But still as a family member he gets treated like a member of the family not like some disposable commodity that gets thrown out the moment it's no longer useful.

2013

In the past I've had to deal with inappropriate comments and sideways glances when I mentioned the monthly costs of his upkeep. Some even had the nerve to propose straight out I get rid of him. I'm not a mean person per se but comments like that invoke a certain mischievous behaviour in me and I love to annoy people like that by proclaiming with a most serious face that Rufus is my baby and I'm his mummy.
Needles to say, they don't invite me over for coffee anymore. Fine by me.

Easing into 2014

Emperor's dream

Calming down after a hectic, memorable and exciting December 2013 I've chosen to start 2014 slowly. Unburdened by the need to review the past year as well as make any new year's resolutions or immediate plans.
Instead I've decided to ease in to the new year with some ingenious entertainment in the form of origami (a gift from a friend who's recently travelled to Hong Kong) and a delicious cup of my favourite tea (bought on my recent trip to Holland).

Origami grasshopper and pig

How are you spending your first week of 2014?

1st anniversary

Jungle jive

Time flies! Mr. C and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary Sunday 1st December. Traditionally known as the paper anniversary but hey, it would be so very predictable if the present were of the paper/stationery variety.
So instead my old favourite, a helium balloon. This time I got to pick the one I wanted and I chose the leaping tiger that was swaying along with a myriad of other animals, hearts and champagne glasses.

I call him jungle jive and he makes a nice addition to the textile birds, stuffed teddy bears and real live urban mini panther, our cat Rufus.

Giving new life to an old shawl

The shawl was a brithday present from Mr. C. I fell in love with the delicate colour palette and  the romantic print of butterflies and branches . But when worn the print wasn't visible and the colours were too mellow.

So I decided to give it a bit of a facelift with some purple trim. Keeping in mind the delicate floral print I chose a flower trim to match, but I wanted a colour with a lot of visual impact that's why I chose dark purple.
 

The trim is attached to the very edge of the shawl and handsewn in place. The tools required for this project are: a matching thread and a needle and lots of patiece. I was happily sewing away yesterday evening watching an old Miss Marple film and sipping a glass of wine.

closeup

I also chose to turn the shawl into a snood.  The shawl was too short to drape properly and any attempt to tie it into a knot resulted in a messy bulk concentrated around my neck.

After attaching the trim I sewed the shorter ends together using a flat felled seam to hide the seam allowances. The material is very gauzy making it difficult to get a clean sewing line, but the seams are tucked in and invisible when worn.

A somewhat blurry image to show how the snood is draped. I can never get decent photos of myself ;-)

Slow food

Špajza's beautiful garden and rustic interior

Every once in a while my quiet suburban life is interrupted with tiny occasions of splendor and luxury. It's these moments of pure indulgence that make life sweeter. The truly memorable part in this instance comes from the accompanying gesture of kindness and friendship.
Susan and Martin the pattern makers extraordinaire have sent me and Mr. C a gift certificate for a dinner in one of Ljubljana's most prised restaurants. Špajza (which is an old Slovene word for cupboard or pantry) is situated in the old part of town. It's a sweet place with a romantic rustic interior and a beautiful courtyard.

Amuse-bouches and walnut liqueur

Without going into details about our hosts' generosity let me just say we had the equivalent of The Grand Tour, a seven course meal complete with amuse-bouches in the top photo, a cheese plate and the complementary digestif (Williams pear liqueur). Every course came with an accompanying glass of wine. And since I chose the fish degustation menu and Mr. C had the meat degustation menu the wine selection never intersected.

Cold and warm appetizers

In my opinion the main indulgence of slow food eating is time. Slow food is all about relaxing  in the slow paced evening of a wonderful mix of aromas, flavours and textures. It's also about enjoying the sights and the sounds of the surroundings but mostly it's about having a wonderful time with the person or persons you're dining with.
The passage of time is noticeable from the photos of the dishes from early evening (before sunset) into late night.

warm appetizer and first main course

I've copied the menu from Špajza's webpage to give you a glimpse into our fingerlicking extravaganza:

~ Meat menu dégustation ~

Pâté baked in puff pastry

Au gratin truffle polenta with boletus mushroom foam

Homemade chanterelles gnocchi with nettles and almonds

Lamb from the oven with a Port reduction sauce

Pineapple - tomato mousse

~ Fish menu dégustation ~

Tuna carpaccio with sesame and celery

Crab soufflé on spinach foam

   Saffron risotto with scallops and chanterelles

Cod fish fillet with carrot, green beans, black olives, cherry tomatoes and lemon

  Elder cake

Second main course and cheese plate

Even though playing favourites isn't my thing I have to say the saffron risotto with grilled scallops was perfection. As for dessert, Mr. C's pineapple and candied tomato mousse was refreshingly new and original.
I could devote an entire blog post to the wines we drank :-) 

dessert

Thank you Susan and Martin for this memorable evening! If you ever come to Ljubljana we're definitely taking you here :-)

Cooking marathon

Some things never change. Staying with my mum over the weekend always, absolutely always means I'll lug home at least two large bags of produce, fresh organic eggs procured at the neighbour's, fruit from the local farm....

I cringe at the idea of having to waste food, however eating all of the food my mum has prepared would require a family the size of The Brady Bunch. So I start preparing my cooking plan just as soon as the car engine starts. My method is always the same: plan lots of meals with hearty salads to use the vegetables, fruit and fruit salads for snacks the rest is either refrigerated, frozen, cooked or baked.

Easy start: simple hummus spread with fresh parsley and thyme

 The cooking/baking session lasts about four hours.  It's a tightly run military operation :-)

Project lasagna

Specially if lasagna is on the list. You can't make a proper lasagna without making a huge mess in the process. It requires three separate pots, one for pasta, one for tomato sauce and one for white sauce. And if you have to grind your own beef, things get massively more complicated. But it's worth it in the end.
* And a tiny little trick I use when cooking pasta is to add a few drops of olive oil into the water. This prevents the pasta from sticking together.

Tomato sauce

Next up: using all of the yummy tomatoes and making and easy tomato sauce. I love to use white onions or shallots and slowly fry them in olive oil and then pour a small amount of red balsamic vinegar and let it all slowly simmer until the acid has dissipated entirely and you're left with a thick fragrant onion sauce. And then it's just the matter of adding tomatoes, spices and letting the sauce slowly simmer for an hour.

Peach jam

Making jam is just as easy and gratifying as making tomato sauce. I decided to try a recipe that partially substituted sugar with honey. It's definitely better than standard sugary jam but in retrospect I think I'd be better off using a mildly fragrant honey. I only ever use chestnut honey which proved to be too heavy for the delicate peaches. Ah well, lesson learned for next time.

Pound cake with homemade nutella

And finally I made a pound cake for dessert because I've had two opened jars of homemade nutella that I needed to use up. If anyone is interested click here to see the original recipe for this cake. The only thing I did differently was to use both white and black nutella.
If I had any energy left I would have made some homemade crackers to go with hummus but I settled for store bought ones.