[Hello April]
The not-so-official April day-dream list.
I want café frappés, the best euphemism of a kind that involves milkshakes for breakfast. I want to wear a sequin top and leopard ballerines from dawn till the next.
Rêveries – Riz au lait à la vanille et plus
[Daydreams - Vanilla riz au lait and more]
It’s ten am. The wind is howling through the windowsill. And the rain battering against the glass.
Yes, I’ve told you before, it’s my favourite kind of music.
Bonjour mars
[Hello March]
Right now, there is a snowstorm happening behind my window. Not unlike London turned into a snow-dome. I used to love them. And really, not much has changed since.
But if there is one thing I know for sure, it’s that by the end of the month, trees will be coated in a snow of blossoms.
Baity kitchen
172 walton street, SW32JL
http://www.baitykitchen.com/
http://www.baitykitchen.com/
I’ve told you about Baity before. Well, mostly about that absolutely adorable guy with the glasses and his Greek iced coffee.
But, really, this place is the dimestore diamond of Chelsea.
How to become a pastry chef? – The dark side of stainless steel
I received an email. Of a young pastry chef – L. – who was feeling like she didn’t belong to kitchens. We emailed back and forth. To me, there is nothing more magical than getting to do what I blindly love, and couldn’t even dream of a better place to be than in a too-hot, too-fast, too-stressful kitchen.
Goodbye, hello
I didn’t take enough pictures. At least not with my favourite camera. In fact, I think I had forgotten how to see the beauty in the unexpected. Some things can’t be forgotten, they say.
Western sous la neige
[Western under the snow]
There was the noise our feet made on the ground. There was the darkness. And yet, our world felt like millions of shooting stars were falling around us.
Not just a Sunday afternoon
I could have turned this into a follow-up of a favourite feature: how to become a pastry chef? – the days off. But I guess you somehow get it. As a chef, days off are unusual enough.
But we had us – Un gâteau aux pommes et au cidre, un peu comme une tarte tatin
[A cider and apple cake, not unlike a tatin tart]
There was that night made of champagne, flickering candles, crisps and smoked salmon sandwiches, the last of the foie gras smothered onto big fat chunky pieces of baguette, an endless game of trivial pursuit where – as it turned out – the one person who refused to play (my father, apparently stuck to his mots croisés) became the one who knew all the answers, our joker as we called him whenever we got clueless about a question.
And all the trimmings
I’ve been trapped into a world made of stainless-steel and ovens going off. A happy – and at times, not so – merry-go-round of services, and gin and tonics. Of course there was an occasional bloody mary too.
Note #2 – On heart-shaped dreams
“I am just a dreamer, and but you are such just a dream.”
— Neil Young
That moment when I’m going all tumblr-ish on you. Yes, it’s time for it.
PS. And the worst part is: it’s not over.
Le premier jour du reste de ta vie
[The first day of the rest of your life]
Today, I tied my hair into a ponytail. And slipped my bare feet into furry boots.
Up there I could barely see.
She fell in love with… #6
London, September 2012
You should see the skyline today. Nothing like it and yet, I haven’t found anything better than clouds blanketing everything around us.
Not unlike closing your eyes to the mountain sun.
Bonjour octobre
[Hello October]
Some may wonder what the point is really, to say hello when it’s almost time for goodbyes.
Well, let me tell you a story. Or more accurately the end of it.
Pure morning – Burnt honey, vanilla, and parsnip ice-cream
It’s the light, a cold blue grey. It’s the window, adorned with pearls. It’s the wind, carrying the scent of moss and ocean.
And just like you don’t even have to think to know you’ve fallen deep-hard in love, I didn’t have to look through the open window to know we’d been surrounded by cotton overnight.
Things that #2… make me long for autumn
The sound of wind through the trees. And of leaves under our boots too.
The hidden world behind puddles.
Knowing that Christmas is just around. Because, really, the best thing about Christmas is the perfect mix of anticipation and excitement.
Note #1 – On cooking and perfection
“Cooking is an endless quest for perfection; it is at the same time never reached and always there.”
— Julien Vaché
Bonjour septembre
[Hello September]
I’ve been falling asleep to bigger-than-life fairy-lights; of the skyscraper kind. I’ve been talking too loud. And I’ve French-kissed, at times with a reason, most of the time without.