Happy New Year!!

And this is my New Year's resolution: to seriously improve my portrait photographing skills!

Midnight Milk Punch - Lenka's suggestion from Paris

Hi Lenka,
thank you so much for your suggestion! Your Midnight Milk Punch reminded me of the legendary Eggnog, Cary Grant offered so adorably in "The Awful Truth". Only that in all the years I tried to serve the Eggnog all my guests denied in favour of some more transparent liquids.
But you won't believe it: just mentioning your name  (so much cooler than Cary Grant!), everybody
has been keen to try it.
Big hugs and kisses and a very happy New Year (I'm sure it will be, because now we entered The Age of Aquarius!)

Chin chin!

Booja-Booja

Completely guilt free, high pleasure discovery of the month!! Booja Booja truffles. As always I was tricked into buying a few samples BECAUSE THEY LOOK CUTE! Note: investing in packaging design is never in vain.

Our personal favourite is the champagne truffle. They make for a great gift, if you don't eat them before you can give them away. Your willpower will be tested to the limit.

finally found a hot second to post some NewYork

highest top of the Empire State Building

Juicy Couture

Henri Bendels

Le Parker Meridien, poolside

paper weight Christmas dinner

on the Highline

Meatpacking District

fish market in Chinatown

Prada store

Museum of Natural History

Metro Station 6 weeks after hurricane "Sandy"

Wall Street

I love the eclecticism of NY architecture

room service

it's not a fire, just fog

view onto the One World Tower

the Hudson

Brooklyn Bridge

MoMA, Shadow Monsters, 2004, Philip Worthington (my favourite!)

the famous Christmas decorations of Bergdorf Goodmans

Chanel on stage

The Knave, Le Parker Meridien

Merry Christmas to all of you

Terrace Heart Biscuits

My dear friend Mela sent me a recipe of her grandmother and a picture of herself (cute!) as an extra feature for this blog! I was so excited about the submission so I felt rather guilty for taking so long with the actualization of the blog post! Mela, I finally baked the terrace heart biscuits, so what do you think?

I must say, they were fingerlicking good!

The recipe (as seen above):

120g sugar
250g butter
peel of one lemon
1/2 vanilla pod
a pinch of salt
1 egg yolk
400g flour
some tablespoons of jam, I took raspberry because of the nice red colour, although the original recipe requests apricot
icing sugar

Prepare a short crust working together the sugar, butter, lemon peel, the inside of the vanilla pod, egg yolk and flour.
Let it sit in the fridge for 1/2 an hour.
Roll out the pastry with a rolling pin and cut out the biscuits with a heart shaped cookie cutter.
Bake on a tray at 180°C for about 15 minutes (until the pastry turns slightly golden).
Assemble the hearts using the jam as glue and dust with icing sugar.

Bon Appetit! Enjoy the terrace hearts on your terrace or elsewhere... if your terrace is currently frozen to -5°C like mine, a little bonfire and some mulled wine (bah!) will help your toes to stay alive.

December 16th

In a land of myth and a time of magic...

Dresden Christmas Stollen

... as rich as the treasury chamber of King August the Strong.

Click here to find out all there is to know about Dresden Stollen, history, recipe, beautiful step-by-step pictures!

December 2nd

making Advent wreathes

It has already become a great tradition that the day before first Advent Christiane, Carina, Nancy and myself get together to turn fresh pine green, ivy, box, holly and laurel into the most beautiful Advent wreathes.

We make wreathes for our doors, for the windows, for the childrens' school and the typical wreathes with four candles to be lighted one more every Advent Sunday.

I'm horribly untalented in tying together the wreathes. My part rather consists in decorating. I love using the hot glue machine to stick on crab apples, nuts, pinecones and apples. I love choosing ribbons, drinking coffee, chatting around and eating Christiane's freshly baked waffles....

 

If you are interested in the recipe,  I'd be happy to request it for you. The only thing I know is that they are made with cream instead of butter. Just sublime!

When everybody had gone I stayed a moment longer to continue chatting with Christiane and, you won't believe it, while talking, my fingers all by themselves had made that sweet little heart from the last twigs remaining on the table.