Simple (and Beautiful) Acts of Vandalism
Swedish street artist: “The act is the beauty.”
Friday Photo: The Fix
An amazing cafe in Nevada City. A back patio surrounded by trees and filled with wrought iron chairs. A drink complete with bee pollen. A late winter afternoon spent sitting in sunshine.
Riding in the Rain
Video shoot today with Red Reel Video, which entailed bikes, puddles and a pair of red heels. That’s the way to do it.
Urban Portland in the rain is a beautiful thing. Brick walls and cobblestone alleyways. Spontaneous sun breaks paired with downpour. Drivers slowing down to stare at four ladies in silly outfits laughing from their cycling antics.
I road home in a downpour. Drenched. Water dripping off my bare hands.
I attacked every puddle, spraying water up to my face.
Pure bliss.
Semlor: Sweden’s Fat Tuesday Celebration
This week marks Fat Tuesday. Which in Sweden means it’s high time for semlor, a pastry full of almond paste and whipped cream. After all, it’s not called Fat Tuesday for nothing.
So honored that Johanna over at Kokblog (my new favorite food illustration blog) asked me to write a guest post for this favorite Swedish tradition of mine.
A semla, also known as fastlagsbulle or fettisbulle, is a flour bun filled with almond paste and topped with whipped cream and powdered sugar. Historically the decadent pastry was intended for consumption on fettisdagen, Fat Tuesday. But in modern day, the tradition of semlor has gone far beyond just fettisdagen, allowing for Swedish pastry shops and bakeries to fill their windows with the baked good from just after the New Year all the way through Easter. Several months of pastry bliss.
Read the full post — with more fantastic illustrations and my mother’s recipe — here.
Friday Photo: Swedish Baking
Certain tastes define food; if they alter, the dish isn’t the same.
I refuse to make kanelbullar without pärlsocker. The distinct taste of cardamom paired with the sweet addition of hard bits of sugar is what makes a Swedish cinnamon roll a Swedish cinnamon roll. You can’t have one without the other.
Foodie Humor
Stuck in the midst of a winter cold, and so when I came across the new series called Foodies, I was highly entertained. Nothing beats tongue-in-cheek humor in my book.
Mockumenting “a group of L.A. culinary enthusiasts whose passion for food spills off the table and into their personal lives,” the series is all devoted to poking fun at the smugness that so many love to point out comes along with loving good food. That assumed pretension some people think is inherent in the foodie movement may or may not be a valid argument, but in poking fun at it, Foodies is actually giving the movement more street cred.
I mean, come on… “She’s still into me, cheese puffs prove it.” Genius. Watch the trailer here.
More on EcoSalon.
Sunday Inspiration
Curled up on the couch with coffee, scones, and the New York Times. Hours spent perusing this season’s Times Style Magazine, looking for design inspiration and getting caught up in stylized photo shoots. Blissful Sunday.
Window Food
Love this concept fresh out of San Francisco, which I came across while writing this week’s Foodie Underground. It’s called Fat Cookies and they’re serving fresh baked goods straight out of their second story window with the good ole bag and string combo.
Image: sandwichgirl
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