Pardon my French

Do you know anyone who wouldn't love Paris?
I don't.

What's not to love about sitting in a café, sipping delicious coffee and watching people walking on the Boulevard Saint Germain?

Reading time...

It's a book like no other. Pascal Mercier takes the reader for a philosophical journey from Bern to Lisbon. A classics teacher realizing he is being stucked in his life leaves the classroom and out of blue decides to go to the capital of Portugal. He has a book written by a mysterious man and his aim becomes finding any information about him. Willing to know more? Read it! It's worth it.
Or if you dislike reading there is a film adaptation with Jeremy Irons and Melanie Laurent coming in 2013...

Fat Thursday!

The tastiest holiday of the year! Fat Thursday is this one day when girls leave their calories counters at home and despite hard frost form long lines in front of confectioneries in both Germany and Poland. What we eat are pączki or berliner, that can roughly be translated as doughnuts. Usually they have rose jam filling and are glazed (sometimes also decorated with some zest).

Bon Appetit!

XXFV8EA66FCA

And the Oscar goes to...

Jean Dujardin as George Valentin and Berenice Bejo as Peppy Miller

Nominated in 10 categories, "The Artist" is a real phenomen of this year's Academy Awards. Who could have predicted that people will absolutely love a silent film in the era of 3D and special effects? Even one month after the official release the cinemas in London were full (I went to see it on Wednesday afternoon and there was almost no free tickets).  Michel Hazanavicius brought back the charm of Hollywood's best times and let's praise him for that!

Uggy - the shining star of "The Artist"

[heart, heart, heart]

British Velvet

Since I'm a passionate baker and I like to experiment with different recipies to finally find the perfect one, here is the recipy for absolutely divine Red Velvet cupcakes. The dough is from Nigella's book and the frosting my own invention.

Cupcakes:


250g/ 8 oz plain flour


2  tbsp/ 30 mL cocoa powder


2 tsp/ 10 mL baking powder


½ tsp/ 2 mL baking soda


100g / 3 1/2 oz soft, unsalted butter


200g / 7 oz sugar


1 heaped tbsp/ 15 mL red gel food colouring (it may take more!)

2 tsp/ 10 mL vanilla essence


2 eggs


175 ml/ 3/4  cup buttermilk


1 tsp/ 5 mL cider vinegar

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C / 325 degrees F and line muffin tin with (24) paper cases.

2. Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl.

3. In another bowl, cream butter and sugar, beating well, and when you have a soft pale mixture, beat in food colouring and vanilla.

4. Into this vividly coloured mixture, still beating, add 1 spoonful of the dried ingredients, then 1 egg, followed by some more dried ingredients, then the other egg, followed by the rest of the dried ingredients.

5. Finally, beat in the buttermilk and cider vinegar and divide the batter between the cases.

6. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, by which time the redcurrant sorbet-coloured batter will have morphed into a more sombre, but still juicily tinted, sponge.

7. Leave the cupcakes to cool on a wire rack and do not ice with the frosting until absolutely cold.

Frosting:

8 oz. cream cheese (I use Philadelphia)

5 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2½ cups powder sugar

1 tsp. gelatine (you can skip it if you want to simply have some frosting in an irregular shape on the top of the cupcake and not extraordinery decorated)

1. Heat some water and let the gelatine melt in it.

2. Combine butter and cream cheese until smooth

3. Gradually add sugar

4. Add vanilla and gelatine

5. Decorate you cupcakes :) (I also put the blue royal icing hearts on the top to achieve the union jack effect :)

20's inspired

Gucci S/S 2012

 2012 is definitely the year of the 20’s comeback! The new Gucci collection is just one example of this beautiful trend (personally my favourite for this season). Along with those perfect t-strap pumps Frida Giannini offers us a selection of flapper dresses.

To see the whole fashion show go to http://www.gucciconnect.com/gallery/#  and choose Women's Spring Summer 2012

Just starting...

Hello Everyone!

I decided to start this blog so I could share things I find interesting with the readers. At first I was going to make it all about fashion, but finally I changed my mind. I think that a lifestyle blog is more entertaining, so you are going to find here posts on music I recently like, baking, cosmetics, architecture, interior design  and fashion.

I hope you will enjoy it!