go organic bananas

Love this display of organic bananas I spotted in the supermarket the other day. Fun, colourful and important.

Did you know that bananas alongside grapes and coffee are the top three most important food products to buy organic? Their non-organic siblings have a devastatingly bad impact both on the environment and on health.

Go bananas, go organic!

the innocent orange juice

Yes, I may have *some* views on innocent's recruitment procedures, but that aside I still love their juicy smooth products. Apart from the smoothies I love their apple juice, but surprisingly (since I've never concidered myself to be an orange juice kind of person) it's been the orange juice I've been gulping down the most with breakfast this past year. 

Because it really is THAT superior to any other orange juice on the Swedish market. I think Swedes have become so used to and jaded by all the nasty concentrates and frozen juices, which have either put us off orange juice (if we don't make freshly squeezed one ourselves) or disturbed our palates.

This is always fresh and so full of flavour and delicious. Now I've stumbled over a family sized bottle too, which is much kinder to the wallet. Let the juice fest continue!

Which is your favourite breakfast juice?

first batch of lussekatter 2015

The first batch of the classic Swedish saffron buns (lussebullar or lussekatter) I usually bake for Lucia on December 13. But I decided to be a bit early this year. And tried out a new recipe which claimed to be "the best lussekatter ever".

It was not.

The buns turned out rather dry. And very tasteless. The latter could be due to that the saffron was crap, but that has never happened to me before, so who knows.

The recipe was vegan, but since it's impossible to find dairy-free butter in Sweden without palmoil I can unfortunately never go fully vegan when I bake recipes that calls for butter, so I used my usual liquid blend of butter/oil. And that can certainly not have been the reason for the buns turning out so dry. Most Lucia bun-recipes are pretty much alike, with only small variations.

As I shy away from dairy products as much as possible nowadays I don't use quark in the buns anymore - this is the old trustworthy recipe for lussekatter with quark, if you want to try it out - but that wasn't an issue last year, when I omitted that and used oat milk. The buns were flavourful and moist anyway. I don't think there's a vegan substitute for quark and oat milk usually makes bread extra moist.

I will bake a second batch next week and fingers crossed they'll turn out much better than this first one. Pretty ain't everything, but flavour and consistency is.

Read all about it: 
Previous years lussebulle-baking posts

sunshine mango smoothie

With the Wilfa blender came a simple, little recipe booklet that inspires me to try fruit combinations I probably wouldn't have come up with myself.

So today I made this fantastic, uplifting, sunshine in a glass smoothie - the blender works amazingly well to make a smoothie with crushed ice and if  you blend everything together at once the ice crushing isn't nearly as deafening as with ice only - with four ingredients only:

2 tins of sliced mango - I would have prefered fresh, but I also like using up what I already have in the fridge. Food waste sucks.
2 large organic pears
1 tsp grated organic, fresh ginger
10 ice cubes

Whizz together and ENJOY immensely!

sunny yellow day

Such a lovely early summer day called for the pineapple shirt. And lots of yellow in general.

And an adorable neighbourhood meet cute with Tingeling.

Happy day. Yellow day.

lemon bread and grapefruit butter

A sourdough thyme bread with a hint of lemon that looks like a tiny sun. A little work of bread art. From a new (to me) bakery (Du bon pain = Gott bröd = Good bread) and oh my was it tasty! Made for the perfect Long Friday breakfast sandwiches. And enjoyed by paw inspectors too.

As for the grapefruit butter, well I wouldn't recommend anyone to spread this kind of butter on bread. Since body butter it is. Kiehl's fantastic creme de corps now apparently comes in the shape of body butter too. And scented versions. Since I'm a great fan of the grapefruit scent - or let's stick to one of my favourite words pamplemousse, shall we? - I knew I had to get a jar when I sniffed it. Will be perfect for my still dry winter skin I'm sure. And who doesn't enjoy the scent of pamplemousse?

 

Correct answer to that question would most likely be: the cats.

happy easter 2015

since i will spend a good portion of my easter weekend working it feels apropriate to let prosit wish you a very happy easter! 

my favourite holiday, unpretentious, long and full of promise of lighter, brighter days.

i don't mind the work though. it's fun stuff (translations, copywriting and preparing a lecture on social media) and it pay the bills. i'm just grateful i'm lucky enough to be my own boss, do things i love and working my way to a decent income. 

which is something i tend to repeat over and over, but seriously, almost every day i need to pinch myself since it's a wondrous, marvellous thing.

happy easter one and all,

be kind ~

apoidea and beebee have been bizzy bees

a week since their arrival and 12 golden honey jars already. apoidea and wee beebee have been busy indeed.

leonard might have helped. 

and possibly the very local hobby beekeeper. 

honey is just like with most things in life, don't buy from large scale producers, buy organic, local and small scale. and if possible collected by bobbaloos.

yellow lemon heart

What do you do when life hands you organic lemons?
Well, colour match them with bobbaloos of course!

Also I read such an interesting piece - on LinkedIn of all places, it's in Swedish but I'm sure you can get the same info by googling - about the benefit of lemons and lemon water. And since I do feel a bit blah, pale, listless and frumpy - yup that too - at the moment despite good food and my supplements - it has indeed been a long dark winter and it's far from over... - I thought I'd give it an organic go.

Heart bowl by ceramist friend Lena

two hours of sun

It's official. The month of November has so far only offered 2 whole hours of sun in Stockholm. Two. Hours. Sun. And not even cohesively. Although in this case I'm not sure that would have been better or worse.

The lack of sun and natural vitamin D was an issue in October already. It's really really bad for the mood and the overall well-being. And given I'm eating vitamin D supplements and other stuff plus overall decent food I'd hate to know how it'd feel if I wasn't. Another depressing effect of climate change.

Two months ago the sun was still generous. Not to mention four glorious months ago... Everything feels better with a reasonable amount of sun. There's sadly only so much cat cuddles and good cups of teas can do for the overall mood when the body and soul scream for sun.

How do you survive reasonably intact during this time of the Scandinavian year? Or wherever you might live with similar dark, glum weather?

in july colour flow

Clearly one day I need to buy this magazine and not only admire the cover design and quote du jour that strikes a cord (which happens to be exactly one year ago since I did last). Life is all in the details. And to be great with details isn't a bad feature. And if they're colourful, all the better. Here are a few colourful July details so far -



I realised that the three blouses I had hanging on the wardrobe door were traffic lights coloured. I'm glad to report that the weather (in abundance) is screaming choose green right now.



I stumbled over a cardigan that clearly screamed my carrot-loving vegetarian name! I do believe the sale-price could have been reduced even more, so I just made a mental note and left the shop. But it was difficult, if not impossible to forget it.



So the next day I went back and tried it on. And it was oh so lovely. Both print and quality, the fit wasn't half bad either. It came home with me. There really should be more design and prints with vegetables. And fruit. And animals.



Like really big rabbits on a pink background. This fabric is such gorgeousness galore, wouldn't you agree? Unfortunately only a really heavy fabric sort fit for furniture (imagine an armchair or a sofa...) or curtains. Because I see this in a light cotton or linen perfect for a skirt or a dress. So much bouncy happiness in that notion.

So how has your July been so far, colourful, any details that have stroke a cord?

are you a deadline romantic?

Admittedly I'm much better at not procrastinating these days. It may have something a lot to do with the fact that having your own business and keep procrastinating is a bad bad idea... But of course if I'm better at not procrastinating work-related matters I'm still at it in certain other parts of life.

This evening I attended a most interesting talk - with journalist/author Lina Wennersten and psychologist/author Alexander Rozental plus two others whose names escape me at the moment - about procrastination, the whys, hows and methods to avoid it. Does social media play a part in procrastination these days? Procrastination can be both productive and destructive, the line between is sometimes a fine one. And working on the do not procrastinate is a long term project, but regular rewards (of various kinds) are essential.

The talk was held in the beautiful Stockholm Public Library and the audience was captured. And even if I'm not the worst of procrastinators I did get some really useful and simple advice how to avoid it.



I also bought one of the books sold, gorgeous wouldn't you agree? And even if I happened to colour-match it for the evening the main reason I got it was because I think it's a fascinating subject. Promise. The title translates "Dancing on deadline - the psychology of postponement".

How about you are you a procrastinator? Do you think you do a better job if you postpone your work until the last minute, are you a deadline romantic?

colours in the city

It was a day that called for colours.
It was a day for inaugurating the yellow blouse.


Colours on people.

Colours in city.

Have a colourful weekend one and all!

farewell april

For me April has been an overall good month, a surprising and hard working one, with, I'm grateful to say, more ups than downs. In parts a rather curious month with sprinkles of frustration and I'm still clueless about certain people's behaviour. Or rather a specific someone. Confusing and mixed messages seem to be the signature of some. When clearness has its obvious merits. I wish I was a mind-reader.

But, overall, April has been much enjoyed. Now I'm very much looking forward to May and all the excitement one of the prettiest months of the Scandinavian year will bring. Because I'm sure it will.



Today my always-picking-flowers-mum brought be a tiny bouquet of freshly picked cowslips. I couldn't find a perfect wee bottle or vase for it so I ended up using an empty Innocent smoothie bottle. It looks like it has an unruly hair of cowslips. Yellow in yellow. With yellow bobbaloo. And dandelions. All is yellow. Inspected by little miss redhead. And sister white.



Farewell fine April,
Happy Walpurgis,
Hallo sweet May ~

easter yellow

a very yellow easter eve has contained fabulous yarn - a yarn store is truly like a mesmerizing candy store, better for your health if not for the wallet... i didn't get any of this particular yarn, but i did get some other for a particular project i've decided to begin when i've finished (sigh) the tulip sweater.

a special breakfast at a special place held a delightful peach pie,

blue and yellow, granny square boots and yellow handbag is back in use! such things that makes it easier to cope with hibernation for the fabulous happy coat...

foxy fox cushions,

an easter bunny in a window and

a little bowl of easter candy for two.

hope your easter eve has been a sweet one!