Welcome to a 2-years old birthday party!

Since, clearly, I didn't have enough on the hands to play with, I decided to complicate my life experimenting for the first time with scrapbooking by doing Isabella's two years old birthday party invitations.
This was a stroke of genius because it made us send the invitations even later than we thought (but at the end, it didn't really matter because everyone could come to the party!)

First of all, I collected a good bunch of new and old material I had at home and then, based on some sort of concept I had in mind, I tried to play around with the tools and the little skills I have.

Decorated paper and heart shaped punch

Satin ribbon and adhesive lace

Butterflies from Karen-Marie Klip

Flower decorations, adhesive pads for attaching them and small adhesive stones

Paper Pad. 

The main problem was that the ribbon was not in colors that matched neither the paper nor the other decorations, but maybe it turned out a bit as a constrast with everything else. I am not sure.
Maybe the layout was very simple, but afterall, it was my first attempt and it had to be reasonably easy. There were already a lot of elements.
I cut the paper with some pattern scissor and glued it to the cards. Over that I applied two flowers, one of each color, with the stone as pistil and the butterflies.
Finally, I placed the ribbon over the composition, hoping for the best.
Inside, I did something that is almost my trademark (I used it for the thanking cards for our wedding): some pink hearts spread a bit everywhere...

Little pink hearts

And finally, this was the result of one of the cards (I did 10 completely different cards...!)

The only thing that became very strange was the invitation text. I delegated the task to Mattias and the text turned out to be a PhD thesis .... :)

Easter Menu

Ok, it has passed almost one month, but this has been a very peculiar period. In a sense very hectic, although  the workload hasn't been that high. But spring is here, we try to fix some small things in the garden, when no brand-new-inschooled-kindergarten-virus join us, and even if we are sick most of the time lately, we try to keep ourselves busy in too many ways.

Anyway, Easter was very nice. We had friends over, visiting from Italy, and we enjoyed a lot of home cooking.
If Swedes celebrate Easter mostly on the Eve (like every other festivity - why choosing the right day?), we, Italians, instead, stick to the "right" tradition. Well, especially for Easter it does make sense!
We then had a more swedish style dinner on the Saturday evening, with a collection of fish and seafood products, nice bread and even "snaps", on Sunday lunch we tried to have a more italian traditional meal.

Antipasto
I have found out that in the Naples area the antipasto (pre-dish) is quite simple. A collection of cold cut (affettato) and cheese.
We chose a mixture of Italian and Swedish products, just to make things even stranger.

Salame "Finocchiona" and Prosciutto Toscano

Grilled ham with mustard and smoked reindeer

Two types of jams: cherry and star anise, gooseberry and ginger with three different cheeses: a sheep cheese from Spain, a spiced cheese named Kalmar and another one named Svetia

Primo Piatto
The pasta dish was a very traditional dish that I have been "eating" (not really, because I don't like it so much) at my home every Easter. It is typical from Sicily, although, in theory there should be another format of pasta used.

Pasta al Forno

Ingredients:

• 500gr of pasta
• 2 aubergines
• 4 hard boiled eggs
• 400 gr mixed minced meat
• 200 gr of grated parmesan cheese (100 gr for the meatballs)
• 2 eggs
• 100 gr of bread crumbs
• a bunch of parsley
• 1 bottle and half of tomato sauce
• a bit of basil
• Chopped 1 and half onion
• salt, pepper, olive oil and flour in the right quantities
• a mozzarella

First thing to do is to prepare the meatballs.

One should mix the minced meat, with the cheese, 2 eggs (depending if the eggs are big or not, maybe one is enough) with the bread crumbs, half an onion, chopped parsley, a bit of salt and pepper. The mixture should be homogeneous. The mix shall rest in the fridge for at least one hour.

Afterwards, we can prepare the meatballs.

In the meanwhile, we warm up a bit of olive oil in a pan and I roll the meatballs in flour. I light fry the meatballs in the pan and make sure that they are well cooked inside.

The second step is preparing the aubergine: we slice them up in thin slices and we let them rest with salt under some heavy weight for at least half an hour.

We rinse the slices properly and we start to fry them in an hot pan where we have put some olive oil (one could choose another kind of oil if olive oil is as precious as gold). 

When all of this is done (or in parallel), we can start to cook the pasta and prepare the tomato sauce.

We start by frying the onion in a bit of olive oil, then we add the bottle of tomato sauce, salt and the basil. I personally add also a bit of laurel. I let it slowly cook for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, I cook the pasta (a little bit less than it should) and when that is done, I put it in a big oven pan.

I add the tomato sauce, the meatballs, the aubergines and the eggs, which I slice. I also add a sliced mozzarella and I cover everything with a generous amount of grated parmesan.

Some, before putting the pasta, cover the pan with a bit of bread crumbles and olive oil.

I put it then in the oven for about 40 minutes at 180 - 200 degrees.

Secondo Piatto

For this dish I didn't want to choose lamb. There have been a lot of discussions on lamb, Easter and environment and I thought they were actually correct.

Since in Sweden there is abudance of wildboar, I decided to do a dish with that and I found out that in Toscany, sometimes, they use to it a slow-cook wildboard dish for Easter.

The wildboar is cooking

Maremmana wildboard with mashed potatoes

Ingredients:

• 600 gr of wildboar meat
• 200 gr of black olives
• 800 gr of tomato pulp
• 0,5 l of red wine
• a bunch of chopped rosemary, sage and thyme, 
• 2 piece of celery, 1 carrot
• a leaf of laurel
• 2 onions
• olive oil, salt and pepper

Wash the meat and slice it in small cubes. Let it marinated the whole night with the chopped celery, carrot, onion and the herbs. Cover it with the red wine.

The morning after finely chop the other celery, the onion and the remaining herbs and, after taking the meat away from the marination, let it light fry for about 15 minutes in a pan with olive oil and the mixture of chopped things above.

Save the wine from the marination and clean it from the herbs and vegetables. Add it to the wildboar, after slightly warming it up, and let it evaporate.

Lower the heat and add the tomato and the laurel, salt and pepper. Let it slow cook for about 60 minutes and add the olives at the end.

 

The dessert

For the dessert we decided to do something simple and something that Mattias masters. A Tiramisu'.

Mattias' Tiramisu'

But it is his "recipe" so I don't know the details on how he does it :)

Poe no Ichizoku, by Moto Hagio

Poe no Ichizoku 3 by Moto Hagio
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I started reading this manga, I was very confused. The story didn't seem to make too much sense except it was a story about vampires.
However, the more I read the more I got entangled in the story and the fact that it is narrated without respecting the chronological order of the facts gives another dimension to it (although, sometimes, it gets a bit hard to understand all the references and to remember all the characters).
Some of the stories are a bit cryptic and made me a bit puzzled because I didn't understand the role of it, althoug it is an obvious step in the more general story, which is unvealed mostly in the last two chapters.
The beauty of the drawings and the way the vampires are depicted are the key components of this manga, which is a precursor to so many vampire stories, and the fact that this is written by a Japanese makes it even more impressive.
I also enjoyed the historical references that are spread there and then and that helps the reader feeling the difference between a human and the immortal vampire.
In the Italian edition there were also some small paragraphs written by different people and, some of them, gave the opportunity to get a deeper understanding of the story.
I can easily recommend to read this manga, especially if one is fascinated by vampires, but it is not a prerequisite for enjoying it.

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Happy Easter!

And the last item of the collection is what in Swedish is called Påskkrans, Easter Wreath (for the ones that do not celebrate Easter, this is instead a Vårkrans, Spring Wreath.
Doors wreaths are actually popular the whole year and this is something that I have never seen in Italy (although historically we have the laurel wreath coming from the Romans).

With this on our door, it is time to wish Happy Easter!

Easter decorations

Since I lived in Sweden, I have noticed how different is the concept of "decorations" respect to Italy.
We have only Christmas. That's basically it. But Sweden brings whatever festivity and occasion to be an opportunity for decorating your home.
And I know why: the weather sucks so much that one has to have a very very cosy home for surviving!
Hence, decorations are brought into another level by our Nordic friends!

Having the duty (but not the time) to fill up the house with few items, so that it doesn't necessarily feels like a trench, I have decided to embrace the so called "Påskpynt" activity, although I didn't have the energy to produce anything by myself.
I surfed few websites, got some ideas and especially, scanned Tradera and won a few auctions (and got few items from friends and from Isabella).

The result? Here it is!

Two chicken arrived today

And they were anticipated by two fat hens

Our Easter hunt starts from the doors

Also an egg ad found its way on the handle

A rabbit family is hiding from Pico and Romeo

Look who is hiding there! A small chicks nest!

My first Påskris

I decided to mix a bit traditions, starting from the concept of "Easter hunt" which I think is mainly an american concept. What I did was, instead of hiding eggs, to put small decorations in very odd places.
From the Nordic side I took instead the Påskris. This is something done for welcoming spring (not this year, clearly). Branches, typically from birch, are put together and decorated with feathers and, also, with eggs. This is the answer to the Christmas tree!
I am lucky that I could cut whatever plant I wanted in my garden (but not birch, of course), so I put together a nice "bouquet", then I decorated with feathers and put small wooden and handpainted eggs (at least, most of them) hanging from the tree.
Tradition wants that at home, one would put the branches in water, so that they would bloom for creating the "green" that there is not all year round.
My main problem is that I have to hide the Påskris, because the cats wants to play with it and that would be a broken vase and a big mess everywhere...

Our kitchen table, tablecloth, eggs, chick and flowers decorations bought on Tradera, hen from TGR, candles from Lagerhaus, vase and narcissus from Plantagen

I decided to put few items on our kitchen table to make it more colorful. Possibly, some stuff from the 70s (wild guess) are a bit a "fist in the eye" (as we would say in Italy), but I thought the general view was acceptable.
One of the nicest decorations are the narcissus flowers. In Swedish they are called Påskliljor (although there is also a variation for Pentecost, Pingstliljor, Pinkster Lily) since they bloom around Easter time. There are several variations, of course, and I bought few different tipes.

Narcissus Salome

Two little chicks hiding...

Hand embroidered table cloth from Tradera, pink egg from Åhlens, small egg and chick from Isabella,  candles from Lagerhaus, candle holder from Ystad Metall, "Lilja" from Mattias' mother

Differently than in Italy, in Sweden there are no enormous chocolate eggs with a surprise. The eggs that the kids have to track down are made of cardboard and are usually filled with candies or small chocolate. I must say though that, although the surprise is usually questionable, the Italian eggs are much more striking.

Hand embroidered table cloth, eggs and chicks basket from  Tradera/flea market, vase and narcissus are a present.

And for making all of this completed, at least for this year, there are few things missing, but they will appear tomorrow!

A ski vacation

This winter we did for the first time one thing that we have wished to do for many years!
We went on holiday with some friends. For us it was great, not only because we really enjoy their company (and I hope they could stand ours) but also because we went to the Alps - which I love - and had the opportunity to experience some "winter sports".
Unfortunately, time flew and the logistic of having three kids with us didn't allow us to do all the things that we wished for, but maybe there will be other occasions?

We went to where I have always gone, in the Great St. Bernard's Valley, in the most north-west corner of Italy.
Our intentions were to pay a visit to the ski resort, Crevacol that is nearby and we managed to do it.
I didn't ski, I mainly took care of Isabella, while Mattias and our friends did ski in different extents.

The first day we went tough to the nordic ski tracks, where there is a "snow park", which was mainly designed for the kids. Despite that, we had also quite some fun since it was possible to do some sledding and other similar activities.
The place was equipped with some soft sleddings shaped like animals, more serious sleddings and bobsleigh as well as some rubber dinghy that one could use over a quite fast track.

Going up the hill

And down again

View of the valley

Looking up from the snowpark

This though was our warm up activity.
The other two days we went instead to the downhill tracks.
The place is divided in such a way that there is a "baby track" quite low in the valley and then there are the more serious tracks up on the mountain. We, the mothers, and the kids were down in the "baby track", while the two husbands had the chance to run down the hill a couple of times.

The baby track

From an Alp-top

The restaurant in the ski resort

What a view!

The lift

They both stated that they enjoyed the tracks, although not too many and not too fancy: but there was not too much people, the sun was shining and still, the view was great, according to them and the pictures.

Of course, we can't go anywhere without enjoying some nice meals out and here we didn't manage to fulfill all our plans. On the saturday, I had thought we could have dinner in Aosta, however all the restaurants were opening too late (19:30) for our nordic kids and with that in mind we went to one of the restaurants I have often visited when there: La Croix Blanche, in Etroubles.
The place has the same rustique atmosphere as always, but despite this it doesn't feel outdated.
The menu presents typical dishes from the area and also some more classical italian dishes, and in general, everything is very tasty and the portions good. Unfortunately, there is a lack of vegetarian dishes (as in most of Italy) as well as fish dishes, which is partially justifiable by the fact that of course, meat is a main ingredient in the alpin food.
If the Crespelle alla Valdostana is my favourite primo, one must enjoy the mixed grilled on the stone that is the specialty of this restaurant. Meat and vegetables (and fruit) are grilled on a big stone in the middle of the restaurant, then, a small "plate" of stone with the ordered quantity is brought to the table. The stone is still hot so one can still "cook" his own meat.
It is a very simple way of cooking, but still very tasty and it is somehow surprising to know how nice a grilled apple taste ;-)
That evening, me and Mattias ate whatever was possible to ate (we were indeed very hungry) compensating our daughter which was instead overtired (and hence didn't eat anything). We hope that despite the long evening (thanks also to the fact that we ordered 700 dishes) our friends enjoyed the dinner (also despite the lack of a nice fish dish!).

We left for Gallarate/Sweden possibly too soon to experience everything: we didn't even manage to buy some speciality of the area. But hopefully, I will manage to bring to our friends all the things I have mentioned and blabbed about (e.g. some nice piece of toma or a bottle of genepy, a liquor made with juniper). And even better, I hope there will be some other occasion in the future to repeat some similar experience :)

Hime-Chan no Ribbon Colourful, by Shiho Komiyuno

Hime-Chan No Ribbon Colourful vol.4 by Shiho Komiyuno
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Making a remake of an incredible popular comic is surely a mission impossible. I really wonder where the idea for doing this, in this case, came from.
Not that this manga per se' is horrible, but making a comparison with the original is just natural.
Unfortunately, this remake lacks much of the charm that made Hime-Chan No Ribbon almost a masterpiece.
The story is set in "modern times" and the plot has slightly changed, but also the characters, although the main points are the same between the two stories.
The drawings are very modern and they are not too bad, but the characters result to be a bit too similar too each other. It is clear from how everything is placed in the pages that the story has a quite high tempo, thing that I didn't perceive in the original.
I must confess though that despite this I didn't mind reading the manga, but I didn't find it anyting special. If I try to disconnect from the comparison, I think the story is also quite entertaining, but I still think it lacks some verve that would make it at least a very pleasant one.
If you are much devoted to Hime-Chan no Ribbon it is possibly best to avoid reading this remake.

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