Saudades

 

Quando a chuva e o vento batem nas nossas janelas, eu penso no verão e nos dias de céu azul que hão-de voltar (eu adoro dias de céu completament azul)...tal como aquele dia no verão passado quando apanhámos pêras e ameixas com o Vovô! Os meus pequeninos divertiram-se tanto nesse dia...e adoraram provar a fruta também!

When the rain and wind are hitting our windows outside I think of summer time and that blue sky days, will come again (I love days with completly blue sky)...just like that day last summer when we were harvesting  pears and plums with Vovô! My little ones had so much fun that day...and loved to do the tasting as well!

Hans Christian Andersen

Por vezes, quando penso nas férias deste ano (que aprecem ter sido já há tanto tempo...) volto aquele dia perfeito em que fui a uma exibição fantástica do trabalho de Hans Christian Andersen, com as minhas queridas tia Qué e prima Luísa na linda Alcobaça! Que dia maravilhoso...cheio de inspiração, doçura e gargalhadas!

Sometimes thinking on this year's holidays (that seem to have happened so long ago...), takes me to that perfect day in which my aunt Qué, my cousin Luísa and I went to an fantastic exhibition on the work of Hans Christian Andersen in the beautiful Alcobaça! What a wonderful day that was...full of inspiration, sweetness and great laughs!

37

Hoje fiz 37 aninhos e esta é uma das minhas fotografias favoritas ...quem não se lembra do elefante do Jardim Zoológico de Lisboa a tocar o sino quando recebia uma moedinha? Uma das vantagens de fazer 37, é ter muitas e boas memórias!

I am 37 years old today and this is one of my favourite photos of all time...who (in Portugal) doesn't remember the elephant from the Lisbon Zoo that rand a little bell everytime he received a little coin? One of the advantages of being 37 is that I have many, and good memories!

Bola de Berlin

Today is my blog's anniversary! In the summer of 2007 I started discovering the online crafty community and fell in love with reading blogs...so much that I created my (sometimes neglected) own. There has been a lot of changes in my life in these 7 years, naturally, and I love to see that documented on the blog. A few weeks ago, a dear friend of mine asked me why had I never written a post about the name of the blog...so I have decided to celebrate this special blog-anniversary day with a little piece on that and a recipe.

I must start saying that I love cakes and all sweet things. That's the main reason why I'm not in speaking terms with my weighting scales, but I think that life wouldn't be as fun without cake so I keep eating them! Anyway...my love affair with the Portuguese cakes called "Bolas de Berlim" started when I was child on holidays in Montegordo (a beach in my beloved home country of Portugal). The sea water was warm and I loved nothing else but swimming and playing in it…except when I heard a man walking down the beach, all dressed in white, singing “ooooooohhhhh bolinhas berliiiiiiiiim”! That was it; I was out of the water as quickly as I could and straight to my parents’ parasol asking “please, please, please” for one “Bola de Berlim”. The man carried a wicker basket and inside were these lovely golden cakes in the shape of a ball ("bola" in Portuguese)…he’d stop whenever people approached him wanting to buy these delicious cakes and you would see him surrounded by kids and grown ups alike in no time.

Nothing tastes like it to this day…maybe it’s the taste of sweet memories that make it extra special for me. I named my blog after my favourite cakes because I wanted it to be as sweet as them. I know...but it's true :)

Bolas de Berlim – Recipe (found in an old family recipe book)

Ingredients:

* For the dough:

   – 0.5kg flour

   – 25g baker’s yeast

   – 75g sugar

   – 1 dl lukewarm water (to dissolve the yeast)

   – 1 egg

   – 3 egg yolks

   – flour (for sprinkling)

* For the Portuguese Pastry Cook Custard (filling):

   – 0.5l of milk

   – 1 lemon peel

   – 60g of flour

   – 150g of sugar

   – 6 egg yolks

First, dissolve the baker’s yeast in lukewarm water. then mix it with the flour, egg, egg yolks and sugar. Knead the mixture well, until it acquires the consistency of a bread dough, then sprinkle it with flour, place it in a container and cover with a cloth.

Leave it to ferment for about an hour in a warm place. Then knead it lightly and cut off 50-gram-pieces of dough. Shape these into small balls. Arrange the balls of dough on a narrow, spread out cloth sprinkled with flour, and leave them to ferment until they double in size. Pick them up carefully one at the time and fry them in moderately hot cooking oil. then drain and sprinkle them or coat them in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon in the proportion of five parts of sugar to one part of cinnamon. Open them up in the middle with scissors and add the filling.

For the Portuguese Pastry Cook Custard: mix the sugar with the flour, add the egg yolks and then add the milk little by little, stirring continuously. Heat this up with bubbles, stirring continuously especially near the side of the pan. remove from the heat and pour into a cold container.

Casaquinho de bebé novo :: New baby cardigan

Já vos posso mostrar o casaquinho de bebé que tenho andado a tricotar nos últimos meses (muito devagarinho, com outros projectos ao mesmo tempo). O casquinho chama-se "Little Coffee Bean" e podem encontrá-lo aqui.

Foi um prazer tricotar este casaquinho! Foi muito fácil, muito bem escrito e perfeito para eu usar lã que eu tenho no meu "stash". Só tive problemas em encontrar os botões certos...tenho que dizer que a retrosaria local não tem uma grande variedade de botões mas, felizmente, eu tinha "alguns" em stock; mesmo não sendo do tamanho certo para mim (eu gostava que tivessem sido um pouco maiores), eu corrigi o tamanho das casas dos botões. E assim o casaquinho esteve pronto a tempo do Baptizado do bebé Rían.

I can finally show you the baby cardigan that I have been knitting for the past few months (very slowly, with other projects also on the go). The cardigan is called Little Coffee Bean Cardigan and you can find the pattern for here.

This cardigan was an absolute pleasure to knit! It was so easy, so well written and perfect for me to use some yarn of my stash. I only had trouble finding the right buttons...I must say that the local harbedeshery doesn't have a great selection of buttons but, fortunatelly I have "a few" in my stash; although they weren't the perfect size for me (I would have liked them to be a little bit bigger), I corrected the button cases instead. The cardigan was ready on time for little baby Rían's Christenning.

Fora do normal :: Out of the ordinary

Uma coisa for do normal aconteceu no final de Junho...eu ganhei um concurso na minha rádio favorita, fui passear com o meu marido sem as crianças (pela primeira vez em 5 anos) durante um fim-de-semana e participámos numa das corridas de cavalos mais populares do país! Foi muito entusiasmante...

O prémio do concurso na rádio incluía uma noite neste hotel maravilhoso e um dia no Festival "Dubay Duty Free Irish Derby"na Curragh, no condado de Kildare. Foi um bocadinho mágico...ainda que eu não seja uma grande fã de corridas de cavalos ou de apostas, adorei o dia, a ver as pessoas passar (era o dia das senhoras e havia conjuntos impresssionantes), as corridas e a comer comida maravilhosa. A minha parte favorita, devo dizer, foi a nossa estadia no hotel...eu adorei o quarto, a comida e o ambiente (o "cozy pub" na traseira do hotel era encantador).

E tudo isto por adivinhar o ano de uma das canções mais marcantes da minha vida..."Sit down" dos James, a música com a qual acordei definitivamente na Unidade de Cuidados Intensivos (quando tive o meu acidente de bicicleta aos 13 anos) e vi a enfermeira a dançar ao seu ritmo :)

Something out of the ordinary happened at the end of June...I won a competition on my favourite radio station, went away with my husband without the kids (the first time in 5 years) for the weekend and attended one of the most popular horse races in the country! It was a very exciting time... 

The prize from that radio competition included one night at this beautiful hotel and a day at the "Dubay Duty Free Irish Derby" Festival in the Curragh, in County Kildare. It was just magic...although I'm not crazy about horse races or betting, I really enjoyed the day, watching the crowds (it was ladies day and there were amazing outfits around), watching the races and eating gorgeous food. My favourite part, I must say, was the night stay at the hotel...I just loved the room, the food and the atmosphere (the cozy pub at the back of the hotel was lovely). 

And all of this because I  correctly guessed the year of one of the most important songs of my life..."Sit down" from James, the song to which I definitely woke up to in the ICU (when I had my bicycle accident) and watched the nurse dance to it :)

A little bit of knitting

 

 

No início deste ano, durante os meses em que a nova casa estava a ser remodelada e nós espeavámos  e desesperávamos, houve sempre tempo para um bocadinho de tricot. No princípio de Marco fiz umas botinhas, um casaquinho de bebé e um gorro para uma amiga...em breve partilho mais alguns projectos que, neste momento, sao secretos.

 

In the beginning of this year, during the months in which our new house was being renovated and we were waiting and "despairing", there was always time for a little bit of knitting. At the beginning of March I completed a pair of little booties, a baby cardigan and hat for a friend...soon I will share some of the projects that are now secret.