Tag Archives: photography

Cold weather baked goods

1 Feb

I am in absolute shock at the weather the last few days.  Living in Italy you don’t expect to get lots of snow and below zero temperatures.  But we have and apparently it’s going to continue for a while.  Which means I will be holed up in my house with the fire on and the oven ready at all times to bake various goodies.  Something about cold weather just makes me want to bake and make stews.  Here are a few things I’ve made over the last few days…I used my grandmother’s recipe for the lemon curd.  It’s just so good.  You could eat it by the spoonful.  I do actually. I used some of this batch of curd to fill a coconut cake with boiled icing.  It was good.  But very lopsided.  I have some issues with my oven and it’s hotspots.I made these yesterday evening and didn’t notice my son eating them by the handful.  Let’s just say bedtime was very wild last night.  He kept saying “Mama, these look like REAL cookies!”.  And all the other thousands of cookies I’ve made him?  What did they look like? Get shortbread recipe here.

Recipe for Lemon Curd:

3 eggs
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup white sugar
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

Melt butter in double boiler.  Add sugar and well beaten eggs.  Combine and cook, stirring constantly for 5 minutes.  Add lemon juice and cook another 3 minutes or until smooth and thick.  CHILL and store in glass jar.  Enjoy!

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Caramelle

30 Jan

I’ve been buying various candies lately so that the kids can make some Valentine’s Day gifts for their classmates.  Is there anything more cheerful than a bowl full of candies?  All those great colours and (artificial) aromas are just irresistable. 

I bought these cinnamon hearts in Canada when I was there after Christmas (because of course all the Valentine’s Day stuff was on the shelves by the 26th of December).  I’m pretty sure there aren’t too many kids that actually like cinnamon hearts but I just can’t resist.  Cinnamon hearts DEFINE Valentine’s Day for me.  They bring back warm and fuzzy memories of heart shaped chocolate boxes and drugstore bought Valentine’s cards.  I’ve already made each of my children suffer the spicy pain of eating at least one.

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The Classics

28 Jan

A friend of mine who is sadly moving away dropped by yesterday with a few things for the kids.  She gave them some paints, pastels, canvases, stickers, a few Dutch card games and a collection of English Classics.  Considering my kids are schooled in Dutch, French and Italian I’m really excited to introduce them to a little bit of Anglosaxon literature.  My kids absolutely love to read.  They pass hours curled up on the couch reading their novels and comic strips.  They almost exclusively read in Dutch so I think these books will be a great motivation for them to start reading in English.  And I have to say that I’m quite keen to re-read a few of these classics myself.

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Cugini

25 Jan

I was just browsing through some photos from our summer vacation last year in the South of France and came across a series of shots of all of the cousins from my husband’s side of the family.  I had the idea to make t-shirts for all 8 grandkids with the number of their birth order and give it to my mother-in-law as a present for her 60th birthday.  I hadn’t quite realised how hard it would be to get 8 kids (ranging in ages from 1-9) to stand still, not blink, not cry, not poke their neighbour, not look behind them etc etc etc.  We took tons of photos and in the end managed to get quite a few good candid (key word) shots.

#7 trying to escape

#7 very upset she couldn’t escape

#6 giving #7 a little shove and #3 with his eyes shut

Not a bad shot even if #5 sees something interesting to his left

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Scivoloso

25 Jan

I popped into the fabric shop the other day to pick up some black cotton to make a hooded cloak for my son for Carnival.  I left the store with a slippery satin-y mulitcolored nightmare of a material.  The lady assured me it was a material that is “facilissimo” to work with (she actually said it was probably the easiest material to sew with).  Call me dumb to have believed her.  Call her evil to have said it.  In any case it was the most trying experience I’ve had in a while.  That fabric was slipping and sliding the whole time I was cutting and sewing it.  I just have to finish the hood of the cloak and it will be done and I can hide it away forever.  Just look at this material and all it’s shiny slippery evil-ness.

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Robert Mapplethorp with the kids

23 Jan

For those of you who are familiar with the famous photographer Robert Mapplethorp you’ll be surprised to hear that we took our three young children to see one of his exhibits last week-end.  And I must admit there were a few photographs that were very explicit (if you get my drift).  We’ve been taking our children to all sorts of art exhibits and shows since they were months old.  Most have been thoroughly enjoyed and a few a bit less (I remember one Paul McCarthy exhibit in Milan where we had to carry out a few of the kids in tears).  Some people disagree with exposing kids to topics that are out of the average comfort zone.  We decided long ago to expose them to a wide range of different artists and types of art.  We find our kids don’t register or even really see the stuff they’re not ready for.  And the animated conversations we’ve had with our kids after these exhibits have been amazingly interesting. 

The kids have been refering to this art show as “the penis exhibit” due to…well….the hundreds of photos of penises.  But there were also Mapplethorp’s beautiful flower portraits (also quite erotic but the kids don’t see that).  If interested the show is on at Fondazione Forma in Milan until April 2nd.  Go on…take the kids as well!

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Learning Japanese (in Italian)

23 Jan

Every Monday morning I attend a Japanese language class which is taught by a wonderfully sweet Japanese woman who has been living in Italy with her French husband for years.  The teaching language of the class is Italian due to the obvious fact that we’re in Italy.  But surpringly enough there are few Italians actually taking the course.  There are Spanish, Mexican, British, Russian and Canadian (me!) students.  The level of the class is very high and my fellow students VERY keen (most are older and without kids to occupy most of their time and brain cells).  I’m trying my best and actually learning an amazing amount of Japanese characters (it’s primarily a writing and reading course).  I’m hoping this will help us out during our upcoming vacation to Japan (although not likely).Amazingly enough I can actually read what she is writing on the board here.  Seriously!

Look what a good student I am.  As you can see I can even ask “Are you happy?” in Japanese.  I think it will come in handy when we’re there.

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The Tea Party

22 Jan

This morning I noticed that my twin daughters were busily cleaning up and organising their room.  I heard furniture being moved, saw dishes being stolen from the kitchen and noticed their little hands rummaging through our party decoration box.  This is what I found when I finally went upstairs to see what all the commotion was about.Apparently they had decided to have a tea party for their two friends who live next door.

They decided that Pumpkin Spice cake was to be served  (and baked together with their invites). The guests arrived, baked, played then ate.  And were all very happy.  A perfect Sunday afternoon.

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Ghiacciato

22 Jan

The other day I was driving on my way to do some errands and came across this scenery in Piemonte.  The whole countryside was white, frosty and covered in a thin layer of ice.  I felt like I could have been on a back country road in Quebec in the middle of winter.  These photos were taken 15 minutes from my house where it was sunny and no ice or snow was to be seen.

As you can see, the risotto fields are covered in frost and ice.  I don’t know if this will affect the crops this spring but in any case it was a beautiful sight to see.

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Pigment Gland

21 Jan

Guess whose pigment gland is loaded up and ready to produce?  Our Marans chicken is finally laying again even despite this freezing cold weather we’ve been having the last few weeks (we’ve had below zero temps….BELOW ZERO IN ITALY!!!).  Once a year Marans chickens “reload” their pigment gland so that their eggs are again a dark Bordeaux wine colour.  Slowly as the year goes on the eggs become lighter and lighter in colour until they are a light tan/ brown.

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