Confession: I'm a nerd.

1997

Goose dinner

Edvard Persson, actor personifying this region's food traditions.

Preparations for the annual goose fest begun weeks ago with the acquiring of a goose the size of a small aircraft. Since then I've slowly acquired the rest of the ingredients and on Monday I begun the actual cooking process; I made pralines.

The classic dinner begins with a blood soup, heavily seasoned with Christmas spices and alcohol, and the lungs, heart and neck of the bird, cooked with apples and dried fruit. The goose is accompanied by a stuffing with apples and dried fruit, roasted potatoes, cooked red cabbage and a sauce. The whole thing ends with an apple cake and custard sauce.

I have tampered somewhat with this classic dinner but essentially it's what we're having. We'll start the dinner with a rosé cava before sitting down at the table. The gospel says Madeira for the soup but we're having a white mulled wine instead. Works well with the Christmas spices, better in my opinion than a Madeira. This beverage gospel also tells us to drink Bourgogne, Pinot Noir, but we're scrapping that in favour of a Spaniard, El Pedrosal. With the apple cake we're having Nederburg Late Harvest, a South African dessert wine. If anyone still feels like drinking even more alcohol, we're serving Dahlwinnie whisky and Bache-Gabrielsen cognac with the coffee - and dark chocolate pralines with bilberries and sea salt.

Ack, I'll not be able to eat anything more this weekend.

Can't get too much of The Coffinshakers

They're called The Coffinshakers. If you want to know more, go to their website.

The dead are with us today

Food design

I want to go to Amsterdam again. I have known it for a long time but today I got a fun reminder: the Dutch are remarkable at many things. They are the quirkiest in design and architecture (not to mention that they have the weirdest language too). And it shows when you're in Amsterdam.

The most intimate capital of Europe is a treasure with it's history, the abundance of places to eat and so many small shops - and the flower market! It's definitely not the flimsy mediocre bouquets and sad roses you find here at the few stalls selling flowers.

And the reminder I got? I came across the company Proef this evening when figuring out what to feed hungry people with. Instant Internet love! Visit Proef's page and have some food fun!

Invite nature

A bit of Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord in the garden. Let the industrialism flower.

Peacock

I have a flair for the dramatic. I want to cut my dreads off, dye my hair black and get one of these veils.

The veil on the picture is from Castle Bride Couture.

Yah, I'm married. Rockabilly style.

Ma hood

My home town in the 1960's.

Scrap made pretty

 

A DIY'ed corsage. All of it except of the felt in the swallow and the sugar skull are made from left over bits and pieces I had in my boxes.

It turned out better than I imagined and I'm quite pleased.

Sugar skull cake toppers

DIY blankets

In this northern part of the world we always run a risk of getting cold evenings, even in the hight of summer. If we're lucky we get a heatwave with tropical nights, but it's rare.

I got creative and made my own, and it's an IKEA hack on top of it.

It's the cheapest blanket available at IKEA with the cheapest quilt cover available at the same place. Two blankets and one quilt cover makes two swanky romantic/shabby blankets.

Rockabilly fever

The call of Rockabilly is hard to resist. I'm getting married in two months time and I'm not wearing a white wedding dress. Gingham and denim seems so much more simple and like

Cultural revolution invitations

Spikes and glam

If you're going to wear crippling clothes because you think it makes you a woman, at least do it in style.

Just do it. From (in)decorious taste.

Anyone for dinner?

Did anyone say Margaritas?

The batcomputer is none too frisky today, Batman.

This evening I have been working on Batman and Robin outfits for Chupa Chups. I spotted the idea to give lollipops superhero looks a while ago (here) and decided to make a Batman and Robin outfit for those lollipops. It's of course with the small ears on the mask and the less pointy black bat against a larger yellow background, just as in the original series.

 

Moss graffiti

Don't just grow  stuff in the ground, use the whole garden room. Moss thrives in many places where other plants can't or don't like to grow. In any shady part of the garden it's possible to grow moss in more innovative places than in the lawn.

The recipe I was taught when I was becoming a gardener was moss, some soured milk/yoghurt and some water. Whisk the moss and yoghurt well and add water until you get a paint like mixture and use an ordinary paintbrush to paint the surface you want to have moss on. If it's dry you might need to spray it with water. Quite soon you'll see the result of your work.

There's also a beer recipe where you whisk moss with beer, buttermilk and sugar and paint it the same way as with the recipe above. Some recipes say you should use a mixer, but I personally care too much about my mixer to do that.

More pages on the subject:
Stories from space
Inhabitat
Apartment Therapy
Craftzine

There are many other sites out there writing about this. Spreading moss by painting it on objects isn't exactly new knowledge and gardeners have known about this for very long, though it wasn't called graffiti (I dare to say centuries here) but it can never be repeated enough. Go forth and spread the knowledge!

Colour!

I've been looking a bit on Etsy.com today, mostly because I'm in need of some inspiration. There are many pretty things to look at over there. For a splash of colour (and things to pull inspiration from), have a look at these! Click on images to go to the shop in question.

It's simple really

Eternal flame

My Darling don't like jewellery. He's also got a job where it's potentially dangerous to wear rings. So what to do when you wish to have something to show to the world you have made the decision of your life? You go under the needle. Haven't decided what we should get yet though.