The one with a sunday walk

After all the birthday festivities (which mostly consisted of eating lots of food), I promised myself to take a big walk on sunday. These are some random photo's of things I spotted that sunny morning. I got all excited when I ran into a 'new' Wally, more Wally's are here and here. 

 

 

 

I wasn't the only one taking an early morning walk :-)

The one with our day in Amsterdam (part 2)

This is part two of the two-parter of our day in Amsterdam. Besides visiting the photography museum FOAM, we also visited EYE. This is the Dutch Film Institure, that includes a cinematography museum. In the basement are all sorts of interactive goodies, like watching movie fragments, introduced by Dutch actors. There was also a big screen, that changed colours if you moved in front of it. It was especially fun to see kids moving, jumping and dancing in front of it. We got there by ferryboat, which is kind of a big deal for me. I haven't been on the water since 2002. The last time I did, I got seasick. Very seasick. All was well, it took only a couple of minutes to get to the other side. But I think it might take me another eleven years before I get on a boat again. Still not my cup of tea.

 

The one with the high tea party & chocolate-orange cake

Last weekend we had a little high tea party, and each of us made something to eat. I tried to make the drink I posted about last friday. I blendered together cooled fresh strawberries, a bit of lime juice, mint and fizzy water. I might have added some honey for sweetness, but for a first try, it tasted pretty good. The other thing I made was Nigella's chocolate orange cake, to compensate all those vitamines. I've made it several times before (also once with raspberry confiture, which is very tasty too), I think it's delicious. That's it's easy to make is a bonus!

What you´ll need for Nigella's chocolate orange cake:

• 125 grams of butter
• 100 grams dark chocolate
• 300 gram marmalade
• 125 grams of sugar (Nigella's cake has 150 grams, but I think that's a bit too sweet)
• a pinch of salt
• 2 big eggs
• 150 grams of self-raising flour

How to make it:

Start by preheating the oven at 180 ˚C. Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan. When the butter is nearly melted, stir in the chocolate with a wooden spoon and turn of the heat. Add the marmalade, sugar, salt and eggs. After that, stir in the flour bit by bit. Pour into a buttered cake tin. Bake this for 45 minutes. Nigella's baked for 50 minutes, but my oven is pretty fast.

 Nigella cuts the orange peel of the marmalade into tiny pieces, but I like a bit of texture in my cake (well, I am a bit lazy too!).

The one with the trip to Groningen

Yesterday I went to Groningen with my mom, our destination was the Groninger Museum. I forgot the duration of the trip: 2,5 to get there and 2,5 to get back home. I was very happy with my fully charged iPod and a good book. Before visiting the museum, we took a little walk around the city and were very pleased to find a flea market at the town square. I found some great things, but unfortunately, the prices weren't very flea market-y, so they stayed in Groningen. 

At the museum is currently an exhibition named Nordic Art, which is an overview of 19th and 20th century paintings from Northern Europe. My favourites were the paintings by Albert Edelfelt and Vilhelm Hammershoi. Besides this exhibition, the Museum has it's own collection, consisting of photography by Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn and duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. Next up at the museum, from the end of may on, will be an exhibition co-curated by Ai Weiwei. I hope the time it takes to get to the museum will be forgotten soon, so I want to go there again for this upcoming exhibition. 

to the left

the Groninger Museum

Nordic Art

Bono, photographed by Anton Corbijn

what we found at the flea market

at the train station, before our long, long journey back home

The one with Nigella's almond cake and the high tea

Last weekend was high tea-time with a couple of girlfriends. We all made something, and I opted for Nigella's 'easy almond cake'. It wasn't very difficult to make, but easy, no. The cake has marzipan in it, and it was hard work to mix it in with the rest of the ingredients. The cake isn't exactly healthy, so the workout for the upper arms was very welcome. Instead of the vanilla extract I added lemon zest. It was worth the effort, and like Nigella's other recipes, tasted very good. The other goodies are the result of my friends' cooking experiments.

'easy' almond cake

brownies with walnuts and pear

bread with guacamole and wraps with hummus

cinnamon pull apart bread

tarte tatin with patato and onion

The one with the trip to Breda

Yesterday my mum and I took a little trip to Breda. Our first stop was the Museum of the Image (website here). It was the first day of a new exhibition named Couture Graphique, which was about fashion not just being about looking pretty. It's also meant to give ourselves an identity and communicate who we are. Some of the brands represented were Raf Simons, Paul Smith, Viktor & Rolf, Louis Vuitton and Bas Kosters. Unfortunately, the museum-people were very fuzzy about taking camera's inside of the museum. I did manage to smuggle in my phone, and I took a very terrible picture of a very beautiful Viktor & Rolf dress. After that, we walked through the park to our lunch. I was terrified to see that there were like a gazillion birds, chickens and roosters in the park. I haven't managed to watch 'the Birds', but I can only imagine what those creatures are capable of. Last stop was the Breda Museum, it had an exhibition about Dutch romantic painter Petrus van Schendel, which was pretty awesome.

Couture Graphique

Viktor & Rolf dress, sorry for the poor quality. Camera's weren't allowed

rooster at the park, after taking this picture a made a run for it

lunch

artsy looking lamps

on the streets of Breda

Breda museum

The one with the toy soldiers

Last weekend was a slow one. Between eating chocolate, watching CSI:NY and eating some more chocolate, I managed to do something a bit creative. A while ago I bought myself a big bag of vintage toy soldiers at the thrift shop. I had no clue what to do with them, but I needed to have them. Last weekend I came up with the idea to turn some of them into brooches. I painted them with nailpolish, sprayed them with varnish and glued the pins on the backs. Now I need to figure out what to do with the rest of these green men.