A break in the chaos

Despite being extremely hectic days (and hours) it is good to take a break and think about something else.
For example, it is good for me to stop thinking about all the emails in my inbox and write this entry in the blog, or finally do some shopping that it is really needed.

The cold season has already started here and I have never had anything that would be good for this middle season. I have gone from some spring jacket that would let me freeze during the coldest evenings, to winter coats and jackets that instead should keep me warm during the coldest days and months of the year.

So, I decided it was time to do an investment and I actually have done one that will hopefully last long in time. It was something a bit more expensive than I thought, but I think the quality is great and had a great advantage to have the material treated in such a way that water should not be absorbed at all. Perfect for this season!
A bit vintage look, classic cut... finally I am keeping myself warm when bycicling in this weather!

And Mattias approved it fully ;-)

At the end, it seems it is possible to find something nice also in Sweden... if one searches well!

Directly from Italy

Few weeks ago, one of my brother came to visit us. This was the first time in Lund and we hope that he enjoyed it. We tried to show in such a short time, the best of it ;-)

Anyway, he brought us a little present, which now is hanging in our kitchen. As the matter of fact, it matches the colors of our kitchen very very much.

The watch is made in ceramic and it is handpainted, as the typical ceramic from the Amalfi Coast.

We have just to find a new place for the "old" Tiffany style watch, instead!

Some experiment with filo dough

Still taking inspiration from my fav recipe website, Giallo Zafferano, to pick up another recipe this time involving tuna (canned tuna) and some filo dough. I have tried to use it one time before, but I thought it was something else, so this was a real try since the recipe wanted it.
Anyway, the recipe is quite easy, not that complicated and it doesn't take that much time. Unfortunately, I got stuck when it was time to remove the beans from the pastries and that turned out to be a disaster.
The beans got stuck and I had to use brutal force: in the pastries that were a bit lighter that turned out to be not the optimal idea since they broke into pieces, the others survived, but I was extremely irritated and a lot of dough fell off.

It seems though that our guests like them anyway and as a matter of fact the tuna mousse and the contrast with the dryness of the pastry was quite interesting, indeed!

Ta-da

After searching and searching, I have found at an incredible price, my two lanterns that I was drooling upon!
Google has been my friend once more and guided me towards Mixin, a quite nice interior design website, proposing many items that can be seen in many magazines. Among which, my two lovely lanterns from Dixie.
The best thing of them all was though the price: they were on sale at three times less than the original price! And I believe that on the website, they were cheaper than what I would paid in some shop.
I then ordered and finally, today, they have arrived.
Sweeeet :-)

Not bad, uh?

Autumn is on its way

Although we are still technically into summer, the temperature has dropped quite much and for most of the Swedes there is no doubt that we are already in "autumn" and not in "summer" anymore.
For me it will take still a bit to absorb the seasonal transition, but it is because I am stubbornly convinced that this is not that different than many summers experienced here in Sweden.
Hence, why not call it summer since there are still about 20 days until the autumn is astronomically in place?

We are, despite all of this thoughts, preparing for the autumn to come and we were around searching for some blankets and throws when we had a really nice encounter with a couple of warm, cosy, original wool blanket and throw, one of which was also made of ecological wool.

Both of them come from Klippan YlleFabrik, which seems to not be that far from Lund.
The one on top is a wool throw called Polka.
The bottom one is instead the wool blanket and it is called Nymphaea. The nice thing is that it is double sided, since the back of it is white with black flowers, instead.

From the website it seems that there is a nice shop that one could explore and I am tempted to prepare a small trip there to cover some Christmas' wishes.

Growing green

Well, in reality it is also about changing "green", since some plants have passed away and new ones have taken their places.
Of course, we are speaking of our famous balcony.

First of all, my beautiful dalia died :-( The final blow was given by one of the cats, I don't know exactly what they did but one day I went up to water the plants and it was like they smash those tiny plants to pieces. There was no big hope anymore for them.
So I substitute them with something called "Aster" which I hope will survive a bit better :-)

The little plant of coriander didn't make it through the summer at all. When we came back from our holidays the plant was simply not there anymore and we had not have the guts to ask our neighbor what did she do with it...
Anyway, we decided to risk again with an "exotic" herb and we ended up with the thai basel.
So far, so good...

Finally, but definitely not least important, our cayenne chilly plant is growing so much that soon it will be a tree. Of course that is not the only visible detail because the plant is full of flowers, and even funnier, many little (and not so little) chillies are appearing everywhere.
I believe soon we will distribute them to friends for a tasting sample ;)