Reading in the train

Lately I find myself actually enjoying my commute because I am reading all the time. I actually look forward to the quiet time in the train where I can just focus on whatever it is I am reading. (That is of course after almost fighting to make sure I get a seat, preferably by the window).
I am currently busy with The marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, and I am truly liking it. The back cover convinced me from the minute I read that it is about a girl a bit obsessed with Jane Austen and everything romantic and Victorian in contra position with a boy who is a biologist, a darwinist, and a trip to South Africa Cape Cod . Also, the line "Are the great love stories of the nineteenth century dead?" made me want to continue reading. The fact that Jeffrey Eugenides is the author of The Virgin Suicides just did it. I loved the book, and I loved the movie. Sophia Coppola's dreamy aesthetics and the way she can make the screen full of feelings just with images is really something. And well, I could probably relate to The Virgin Suicides, having been to a rather extremist catholic all girl school for 5 years, rebelling to all of that while still questioning if they might be right with their stories of hell (at the time I was 11) and been raised in a household where my father was something of a skeptical atheist, and my mom a religious but not church goer person.
And well... because of paragraphs like this  and quotations of Barthes (that made me even more curious) I can not stop reading.

"Madeleine had never been close to anyone with a verifiable mental illness. She instinctively avoided unstable people. As uncharitable as this attitude was, it was part and parcel of being a Hanna, of being a positive, privileged, sheltered, exemplary person. If there was one thing Madeleine Hanna was not, it was mentally unstable. That had been the script, anyway. But sometime after finding Billy Bainbridge in bed with two women, Madeleine had become aware of the capacity in herself for a helpless sadness not unlike clinical depression; and certainly in these last weeks, sobbing in her room over her breakup with Leonard, getting wasted and having sex with Thurston Meems, pinning her last hope of being accepted to a graduate school she wasn't even sure she wanted to attend, broken by love, byempty promiscuity, by self-doubt, Madeleine recognized that she and a mentally ill person were not necessarily mutually exclusive categories. "

Image from here

Darioles (moelleux) au chocolat

 What's promised is debt, and I left you hanging last time. So on to the point, the chocolate and butter turned into tiny chocolate souffles with a liquid heart, oh yes. Perfection. And you will not believe how easy it is to make them. I used this recipe, but since it is in french, here goes in english:

You will need 
100 gr. dark chocolate (the higher the % of cacao, the better).
120 gr. butter
120 gr. sugar
50 gr. flour
4 eggs.

And here's what to do
The  first step is to soften the butter by pressing it with a wooden spatula, until it resembles an ointment. Next, you should melt your chocolate, previously grated or cut in pieces, au bain marie. you should then add the butter to the melted chocolate, and on a separate bowl, beat the eggs, with the sugar until then whiten a bit, and then add the flour.

 When the egg-sugar-flour mix is ready, you should add the chocolate and put the paste in the fridge for minimum 3 hours. I was confused about this step, I did not really want to wait, but I obeyed and understood. When I came back to get the paste from the fridge the consistency had changed, when letting it fall it made "ribbons" (I think that's the term).

 Anyway, now comes the good part. Preheat the oven to 200 °C, butter small oven moulds (I am assuming you can use a muffin pan as well), and fill them to half the volume. Then put them in the oven for 5 minutes, and there you go. Glorious chocolatey heaven.

The 3 Magi and what they brought us

A mexican "nacimiento" in the kiosk in San Miguel de Allende

Oh dear readers, please let me apologize. This post should have been up on Friday. But life got in the way, and I was so tired that I did not have the time to prepare it properly for you. Luckily the weekend is here. As you probably know, last Friday, January 6, many countries celebrated the last holiday associated with Christmas, Epiphany. Or, the day when the three wise men from the East came to honor baby Jesus. It is a day that is always full of magic, children expect it with butterflies in their stomach. Head over to Zarawitta's post for a moment to get a glimpse of how this day is celebrated in Mexico. It is all about balloons, and looking at the sky, searching for the three stars that indicate that the three kings were approaching. (Such stars are actually  the tail of Ursa Mayor, the bear constellation).

Ursa Mayor in Kahului, Hawaii (from here)

And it is about waiting and hoping that early in the morning there would be some presents laying by your shoe. The Gospel of Matthew 2:1–12 is the only one that describes the visit of the Magi. It is interesting to note that unlike the popular tradition that states that Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar were of European, Asian, and African origin respectively, the earliest translations of the gospel probably indicate that they actually came from the Persian empire, nowadays Iran: 

The word magi is the plural of Latin magus, borrowed from Greek  μάγος magos,as used in the original Greek text of the Gospel of Matthew. Greek magos itself is derived from Old Persian maguŝ from the Avestan magâunô, i.e. the religious caste into which Zoroaster was born, (see Yasna 33.7: "ýâ sruyê parê magâunô " = so I can be heard beyond Magi). The term refers to the priestly caste of Zoroastrianism. As part of their religion, these priests paid particular attention to the stars, and gained an international reputation for astrology, which was at that time highly regarded as a science. Their religious practices and use of astrology caused derivatives of the term Magi to be applied to the occult in general and led to the English term magic. (1)

 Anyway, as I grew up and understood more about the actual meaning of this holiday it became one of my favorites. Because epiphany, from the ancient Greek, means revelation or vision of God (2). And the main message is that Jesus  came to the World for all mankind. That no matter what your beliefs are, He is still there for you, no matter who you are or where you come from. And that is a feeling I always had. If you set yourself to analyse religions, and philosophies you will reach the conclusion that we have more in common than what we think. That is why I have never understood wars in His name, on His behalf.

This year I the three kings left us 2 bars of dark chocolate, some butter in the fridge and a book that I have been wanting to read (coincidentally on the same day that I finished the book I was busy with). What happened to the chocolate and the butter, I will let you know tomorrow. 

(1) from here and (2) from here 

Fruit cake (and patience)

 The first day of the year, I made a cake. I know people have all kinds of rituals to start the year, like putting travel bags outside or wearing underwear of a certain color, to attract luck. So I don't know what and if baking a cake on the first day of the year means anything at all, but perhaps I should learn to be patient. This cake has to stay 1 hour and a bit more in the oven. So. Long.
Anyway, thanks to everyone for your support and advice and specially Marcela and Zarawitta for your ideas. The doctor appointment went well, basically I only have spots of endometriosis in the bladder and behind the uterus and everything else is fine. So she used and algorithm and calculated that 25 % of people in our "statistic group" are able to conceive within 1 year. So now we wait. We will just enjoy the moment, focus on being us, really taking the moment as a present (such a cliche) and hope for the best. Anyway, here goes the family recipe for the classic Christmas fruit cake, that this year  I didn't manage to make in time for the 25th, but we ate it anyway so no worries.
You will need
2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate
1/2 teaspoon of grounded muscat nuts
2 tablespoons soluble coffee
1 1/2 cup mixed dried or crystallized fruit, chopped (we used figs and dates, you can use dried apricots, apples, prunes be creative here)
1 cup chopped nuts
1 cup raisins
2 eggs
100 g butter, melted.
1 can (397 g) condensed milk
1 cup apple puree
1 tablespoon honey or maple syrup
And here's what you should do:
Preheat the oven to 180 C. Sift 1 cup of flour with the sodium bicarbonate, coffee and muscat nuts. In a separate bowl sift the other cup of flour over the chopped dried fruit, nuts and raisins.

 Beat the eggs and add the melted butter and condensed milk. Then the flour and flour and fruits mix, apple puree and honey.

 When the dough is homogenous, pour in a greased and floured mould and bake for 1 hour. (Actually we had to wait for 1 hour and a half, at 1 hour ours was still not ready, so as usual, until a knife comes out clean). Let cool, unmould and pour the syrup* over it.

 For the syrup*:
3/4 cups water
1/2 cup sugar
1 branch of cinammon
1 clove
1/4 cup Brandy.

In a small pan boil the water with the sugar, cinammon and clove for about 5 minutes. Then add the Brandy, wait until the alcohol evaporates (or not), sift and cool.
Traditionally this cake is to be prepared 1 month in advance, covered in aluminum foil and injected with syrup every week. Enjoy.

Anxiety ball

 Do you ever have days that you feel restless, stressed, nervous for no apparent reason? It is one of those days and I can't quite put my finger on what's making me feel this way. Sure, we have an appointment with the doctor in 2 hours, but I thought I was quite relaxed for that. What I know is that I want to punch things. I just told the boy that maybe a boxing pear wouldn't be such a bad idea. Pillows won't do the trick. I am not angry or anything, I just... feel this build up of emotions boiling inside me and it drives me crazy. Just a bit. I just had some tea and fruit cake (recipe coming soon) that I made (late for Christmas)on the first day of the year because I woke up in baking mood.

 You know how they say that the period between Thanksgiving and the Holidays is engagement season? Well turns out it's true. We are already planning little sis' wedding for real soon, but now my brother and his lovely girlfriend are engaged and I am so so happy. New sister yay !  And because we are in nonsense random rambling mode today, why don't I show you the little boots I found for my sister while we're at it? Aren't they cute?

 She found them online on a dutch website, and send me to get them. I couldn't do otherwise. I hope you have a great day, maybe a calm one at that, because this is not the best feeling.

Hello New year.

Time goes so fast. I can clearly remember the beginning of 2011. We watched the fireworks from the car, driving through the highway, and it was quite a sight, color sparks  from all over the place. A year went by and here we are again. A New Year. New dreams, new projects, new resolutions. Quite a human thing, the need to mark ends and beginnings. To stop for a second, gather and think about what has come and what is yet to come. Early this year we moved to our own little home, that we are building little by little. We  The boy finally finished painting our last room: light sunny yellow, and though we still need curtains, and a lamp, little house is basically ready and it does feel like our place already. The move was harder for him, since this was when he moved out of the home he grew up in for the first time. For me, well I've changed apartments about 7 times in the last 12 years and I've been living away from my parents' home for as long, but still. This is going to be our home, the home for our newly founded baby family, and it is, well, ours. This year we went on on a road trip along the Pacific Coast of Mexico for our Honeymoon, then to Italy in the summer, and to Brussels and Antwerp recently. I got a new job in September, and made an adjustement of plans. I started this blogging thing, that is oh so dear to me. Thanks to you, readers, and to the friendships and community and crazy happiness that comes from meeting people all over the world with whom you can share and learn so much. Just yesterday, the chinese lamps we used at our wedding went away to a new owner, a girl I found through APW. Her, her husband-to-be, the boy and I had tea and a chat together in our living room and it was nice, and surreal, when you think about it.
As for this New Year, well we have some plans:
-The boy and I  will set a studying schedule and focus on our spanish and dutch learning for real. As in every week, more than once.
-We will try to run together. I've had the prettiest running shoes for so long, and I must have used them a grand total of 4 times. It will take a lot of effort and crying (on my part) because I am so not the sporty or the self-disciplined kind. At least not when it comes to doing stuff that I don't enjoy.
-I will try to learn photography, I am determined to get a spot at the next "L'atelier"
- And keep the focus on the little drops of happiness hidden in everyday life.
- Of course also travel, travel, travel. We want to discover so many new places together.
- Finally here is our wish for unexpected surprises (but no, this time we didn't win the lottery).
I hope you had crazy fun celebrating yesterday and that this New year will be full of hope, dreams come true, projects, love and joy.
Oh and by the way, the picture above is an Oliebollen stand in Leidseplein in Amsterdam, right by the skating rink. Oliebollen are the traditional dutch treat for New Years Eve. They are somewhat similar to a donut,  basically  fried balls of dough, with raisins and powder sugar.