STOP!

I have been considering the usual New Year's resolutions and feeling utterly uninspired to make some this year. Instead of assuming the resolutions are a magic potion that will turn me - overnight of course - into a perfectly healthy and organized human being, I have been inspired by this article by Danielle LaPorte to make a stop doing list instead...

This year I will stop...

...beating myself up if something doesn’t work out (like immediately!)

...eating unhealthy food just because I’m too tired to cook and it happens to be available and … well you know the excuses

...losing valuable time on twitter and blogs, when really I wanted to spend an evening doing something creative

...finish reading a mediocre book just because I started to…

...doing design work for the salary of a cleaning lady (if people want their house redesigned and can’t afford my fees, I will suggest they hire a real cleaning lady)

...worrying and daydreaming so much, instead being present in the here and now

What will you stop doing in 2010?

Christmas food

It's been a quiet christmas this year with one of my sisters as well as P's sister abroad visiting family. It has also been very cold and snowy so there has been plenty of reading in front of the fire, sipping wine.

On Christmas day, P's dad came over for lunch. We had a roasted butternut squash and apple salad, followed by standing rib roast with spinach porcini stuffing, irish whiskey gravy and horseradish cream both from the epicurious website. The making of the gravy was a bit of an adventure as I had never before used this sort of flambeing technique and didn't realize the extraction wasn't supposed to be on... It made for an impressive flame that singed my hair and P's eyebrows. The roast was amazing though and so easy to make. It was accompanied by a potato mushroom gratin and sherry vinegar and molasses glazed carrots. The dessert was chocolate glazed chocolate tart, which was very nice although I think I would make the base myself next time instead of using chocolate biscuits.

I hope you all had a nice christmas!

Memories of Bruges

Snow has been falling heavily since Thursday, painting everything white. It's piling up on our balcony and makes for a very pretty sight when looking out over the rooftops. My going out of the house has been limited to a friday night christmas party with colleagues, a trip to the bakery and deli and to the library. Today I'm cleaning up so as to start the New Year afresh.

When clearing out my desk, I found the contact sheet of the photos I took during our last trip to Bruges. It was a very cold day but so clear and the light was beautiful.

London in 48hours....

As one of P's friends was having his stag do in london this weekend, we decided to drive up and take the eurotunnel. On Friday night, we had dinner with our friend L in Hammersmith whose house we were staying at. We treated her to a Bombay Bicycle takeaway including our favourites: peshwari naan (the best I have ever eaten) and chicken korma. On Saturday, P was off clay pigeon shooting and drinking beers with the boys, whilst I went into town.

I got off the tube at Hyde Park Corner, wanting to stretch my legs and get some fresh air. In my mind's eye I saw myself skipping through the leaves, squirrels jumping on my shoulder... In reality, Hyde Park was taken over by the horrifically commercial Christmas Wonderland and whichever way I turned, I could still see the rides out of the corner of my eye. I couldn't even bring myself to go to the ponds, and walked instead up to Marble Arch and then on to the Selfridges food hall to stock up on goodies (Daylesford Organic has the best chocolate cookies for anyone interested). I was due to meet my friends J and A for lunch in Galvin in Baker Street and decided to walk there too. I love walking in cities in general but especially in London. The houses look so quaint with their basement steps reminding of a time when upstairs, downstairs was definitely a reality. I love the little private courtyards that you stumble upon unexpectedly, a burst of greenery in an otherwise very built-up city, the blue plaques, the painted railings...

After a delicious lunch and catching up on girlie gossip, we took a cab down to Piccadilly to the White Cube gallery for the Damien Hirst exhibition. I am not a big fan of his work (it's the veal cut in half and suspended in formaldehyde that was a step too far for me) but I did enjoy the drawings. OK so they were a bit "Francis Bacon" but I still felt drawn into the pictures (why were there always three, and why always black birds and why etc etc). Then we went to the Hauser & Wirth Gallery for "Awkward objects", I found it all a bit contrived other than the beautiful "Beggar"face by Louise Bourgeois that I almost missed as it is in a dark stairwell, but exquisitely lit. I did enjoy visiting the actual gallery which is housed in an old bank and that I had never been to before.

Then we went back to Marylebone High Street for the shopping part of the day, looking into the Conran Shop, the Monocle Shop, a couple of food shops, Comptoir des Cotonniers.... We made it as far as Selfridges where I made a halfhearted attempt to shop but there were just too many people there, so I bussed it back to Hammersmith for another night of girlie talk with L.

On sunday, we went for brunch at Tom's Kitchen, voted one of the best breakfast places by Time Out. I very much liked the white tiled space with black and white canvas prints, although the atmosphere was a tad too "posh" for my liking. Even the children where immaculately dressed, copying mummy or daddy down to the hairstyles! We did have some very good food: I had Eggs Royale, the egg yolks a bright orange and perfectly runny, P had porridge and eggs on toast, J had eggs benedict. Then we went to the Saatchi gallery for the Abstract America exhibition which I found a bit hit and miss. The pieces I liked most were "Nine" by Guerra de la Paz, a piece made with discarded clothing and the Jonas Wood paintings (or happy art as my friend called them). There was also the creepy "Old people's home" installation by Sun Yuan and Peng Yu with wax dolls in motorized wheelchairs on an eternal loop.

After that we did a bit more shopping before returning home. I loved the weekend in London but sometimes wonder how I could live in this hectic city for seven years! It is such an amazing place yet I am always quite happy to come back home;

Joyous little thing #3 - Fresh flowers

Fresh flowers and a luxurious lunch to celebrate our seventeenth anniversary. Bliss!

Joyous little thing #2 - Sharing food with friends

I love having friends over for dinner. We made salad with blue cheese and wine poached pears and game ragu with pappardelle according to a recipe from this book and this recipe.

Best chocolate cake ever

It's a tradition in our office to treat colleagues to cake on a birthday. I am 2 weeks late but I hope all will be forgiven as I baked my favourite chocolate cake. It is a recipe that was served at Will and Toby's in Sydney, now sadly closed down. The original recipe calls for a side of chocolate fudge sauce and vanilla bean ice cream but i usually skip the fudge sauce and serve it with the ice cream only as the cake is quite heavy.

Will and Toby's chocolate cake

Recipe by Chris Fryer

serves 10-12

340g Lindt dark chocolate, chopped

200g unsalted butter

250g caster sugar

6 eggs

60g plain flour

Preheat the oven to 150°C. Line the base of a 20cm round cake tin with baking paper, then butter and flour the sides. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Remove from the heat and stir until smooth.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs and flour alternatively, mixing well after each addition. Add the melted chocolate and mix well. Pour into the prepared cake tin, place in a baking dish and fill the dish with hot water to come three quarter of the way up the sides of the tin. Carefully transfer to the centre of the oven and bake for about 1 and 3/4 hours until set.