Summer Restyling

Summer is on its way (just a bit more than one week to go) and I have decided to refresh the blog with something new.
Some new background and colors as well as a new format (3 columns instead of 1).

Still a lot to do, I have of course (!) big plans and I am using the time needed to rock Isabella on her little bouncing cradle to do some of the things I have in mind.
So, this is not going to be the final result (hopefully), but we are getting closer!

Some suggestions or feedback so far?

How to use a cute font when blogging

I have been using some unusual and fairly complex system to display cute fonts for headers and such in my blog. However, I had problems of transparency with Chrome on Ubuntu (see this post) since what was generated was basically images with some strange setting and, I had recently noted that the hosting of the font, on Webs.com was not working any longer and I didn't think that was a stable solution for what I had in mind.

Taking inspiration from other blogs (e.g. my friend Chiara's one), I had decided to find a simpler way to make the blog cuter, without too much fuzz.

After some quick Google search I found this wonderful page and decided to use some of Google Fonts. I think I have been playing too little with the web in the latest years to not know that Google has a font API as well as realizing that the modifications to the blog layout were not just HTML settings and some weird language, but the so call CSS language, which I am now somewhat learning by playing around with the blog. Nothing fancy or complicated, but just made me realize I have been out of the "business" too long :)

Now, I will play around more with some fonts and hope I will have a nice result!

Engaging the reader

It is not easy to keep the interest up of the few readers of a blog! There are so many blogs and maybe one lands on some blog when searching something on the internet, or simply, when surfing from blog to blog.

In search for inspiration, I have viewed several blogs that were suggesting at the end of each post, related subjects-posts. Today, I discovered that adding such feature is really simple! It is enough to use the LinkWithin widget, which takes few hours to sort out all the blog content and make proper guesses.

When doing this, I have noticed that my fonts got screwed up! I need to fix that - I wonder what is wrong with the Webs account where the fonts were lying....

New experiments in the garden

After the bad winter, some of my plants died, especially the ones that were in the "famous" sockerlåda. Nothing to do there, even though I could have spent some time trying to resurrect what was left over of the plants I had there, considering that they were mainly herbs.

So, I have now refreshed the "collection" planting something new and experimenting with some news.
We have now a plant of chilli (hopefully more spice than the ones planted last year), a physalis (I wonder how this will turn out), rosemary and sage coming from my parents vegetable garden.

The stones are an attempt to see if Romeo will let those poor herbs be in peace :-)

Pasta with asparagus and squash

This is a really nice "spring" pasta that doesn't take too long to be prepared and that gives some satisfaction also when served to guests.

Ingredients (for 4 people):

• 400 gr green asparagus
• 1 onion
• 3 spoons of olive oil
• 100 gr of bacon (in cubes or in small slices)
• grated parmesan
• About 400 gr of pasta
• salt & pepper
• A medium size squash

Dice the asparagus, leaving the tops untouched and put them aside, after having washed them and peeled the bottom from the hardest parts.

Dice also the squash into small cubes, after washing it and having removed the ends.

Finely chop the onion.

In a pan, warm the olive oil and slightly brown the onion.

Raise the temperature and cook the asparagus for few minutes.

Then, add the squash as well, sink the temperature a little after few minutes and season it with salt and pepper. I usually then cover it with a lid and lower the temperature so that the vegetables cook a bit faster (about 10-15 minutes)

In the meanwhile, in another pan, brown the bacon (without oil). I like to have it a bit crunchy, so I let it cook until I reach that consistency.

When the vegetables are ready (both asparagus and squash should be tender) add the bacon to them.

Mix well and see if you need to season it more.
It is now time to cook the pasta, when it is ready and drained add it to the vegetables and let it slightly fry  all together.
Serve it and add the grated parmesan on top!

The arrival of Isabella

It didn't take too long for Isabella to realize which day she was supposed to come. Everything did start according to plan, but then took a little bit too much time, so at the end, she arrived with one day of delay.

Now, it is time to adjust and learn about each other and of course, also wear all those pretty clothes we bought and got :)

As symbol for our little daughter, I got this wonderful jewel from Mattias. It does shine :)

A sunny Saturday

This weekend has been really sunny and we were afraid that all the Swedes would have decided to do as us: take the car and go in some nice place near the sea. It seems though that, for once, despite the sun shining in the sky and not clouds on the horizon, they had realized that it was not that warm yet.
So, when we reached Skanör, which is in a small peninsula on the most southern part of Sweden, we were glad we had our winter clothes on, but we were sad because the wind didn't allow us to take long walks.

We had as main target to go and eat at Skanörs Fiskrögeri, which is a nice restaurant fish-oriented with a small shop.
We noticed that, once again, the menu had been changed from the other two occasions we had come there and that was nice, because at least one doesn't need to always eat the same things, although good!

We ended up trying something new, but also taking something we knew already pretty well.

We first tried Kalixlöjrom. I think it is a special, unique caviar that can be found in just few places in the world, and I think that the fish from which the eggs come from is called vendace (lavarello in italian).

We split the portion and that was not that big, but we understood why after doing some quick research on the Iphone. Nevertheless, it was all worthy because the taste was great and the roe was like melting in one's mouth. They served it with some potato-cake which tasted great and some cream, making the combination really tempting.

The main dish was a straightforward choice for Mattias, who fell for the classical mix while I attempted to eat whiting, which however had not be caught that day. I got something else similar, closed to the family of the cod, whose name I didn't fully catch (bleke, blake, bleik...don't ask me).

Here there is what Mattias took. Some herrings and sauces on the left, potatoes and Västerbotten cheese in the middle, smoked shrimps on the bottom (I am crazy about them), smoked makerell and salmon (I think) on the right with a bit of fish cake on the extreme right and smoked blue clams on top.

I really enjoyed my dish! It had black salsify and spinaches, which tasted really great. The fish was perfectly cooked and had a nice crunchyness and saltness. Finally, the scallops were a really nice addition to the whole dish, they were fresh and vibrant (as somebody would say ;D) and not chewy at all and the click of sauce on top was not destroying the harmony of the plate. Maybe maybe, even my parents would have liked this dish since it didn't have too many sauces and the fish was definitely dominating the dish.

We decided to skip the dessert since we had heard of an ice cream place nearby (which delivers ice cream to the restaurant) and it took a while to leave the restaurant, since the payment procedure was a bit slow (zzZzZz), however, also this lunch confirmed that this place has great food!!!
We went to the fish shop just in front of the restaurant, but we were not impressed by what they had and there were too many people to consider buying anything and we decided to skip a walk near the sea since the wind was a cold pain!

We went to the ice cream place, Da Aldo, but we were a bit disappointed, probably because we had ice expectations and we had been spoiled with other ice cream places in Lund and Malmö.
The ice cream was ok, but not fantastic, it was a bit too ice and not so much taste. But the worse was how the waiter (probably a young guy working over the weekend to get some money) put the ice cream over the cone or in the cup. Pico and Romeo could have done better! (Result: I didn't even have to take the cone in my hands that some piece just fell off on the floor...great).
But at least, we enjoyed sitting outside in the sun (which was too warm for me) and observe the behaviour of the people around us (they seemed to know all each other).

Hope we can soon repeat a little trip like this again!