yummy bites!

i haven't been in this blog in quite some time. i've been in a serious cheesecake mood lately so it doesn't feel honest to come poppy seed ;) i baked this cheesecake here the other day and it was yummmmmy yummy yummy!

happy for polanski

h a p p i n e s s

"[My guru] says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you are fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it."

- Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)

the things that i cannot see

warm late afternoon light

the other day i recycled all the cinema tickets i had saved since i started going to the cinema. and cinema is everything to me. having these tickets was important for all the time i kept them. i had the dates and the theater in which i had seen the film and sometimes the name of the person that went to see it with me. yet, the other day at my childhood house, in the middle of clearing up my room to move to my new house, it was important to recycle all of them. i was already taking a lot of my travel guides in the car to give them away. it felt like the perfect timing. but i thought i should keep one. so i opened the stack of cinema tickets randomly and i found the ticket for 'les temps qui changent" by andre techine. what a perfect one to keep :) catherine deneuve and gerard depardieu together again :) and a memory of a beautiful day in 2005 in lisbon going to the cinema to see this film with n. coincidentally the character in the film is called antoine, and one of the most beautiful love stories i know in lisbon also has an antonio :) and then morocco, that somehow has that late afternoon light that makes it a perfect place to look at the love of your life and see him glow * i didn't put the end of the film here because i hope a lot of people get to see it :) but the way it ends always makes me think of a friend of mine who lives up north in the cold and always chooses her lovers depending on how the universe floats around her when she's with a new man. if they try to go to the beach and it rains, she breaks up with him. if she plans a skiing trip and they get perfect snow, that might be the love of her life :) it's a way, like so many ways. for something as huge as love sometimes it helps to have a way **

* longest day of the year *

here we go again :) happy sunshine!!

casa kike

i close my eyes under the sun in faro and i am there in the middle of the costarican nature

thank you life for being so wonderful!

i love lisbon for all the things it moves in me. it's hardly possible to be sad here. and it's so easy to be SO TOTALLY FULL OF HAPPINESS in this city :):):):):):) life gets crazy and then less crazy and spring comes and all the couples get moved around and old smiles turn into new smiles and distances get to mean new things and subtlety gives place to a summer afternoon of straightforward joy of life. it's wonderful how it's not necessarily about what you are doing, sometimes it's just in the air. or it's in you but you still point at the air when people don't want you to just BE so happy ;) i just love being happy in lisbon =)

sonic youth!

this is so cOol :D:D:D:D:D:D

with all the great new cool things happening in my life at the moment, here's one that has been happening for a looooong time that will get celebrated at the concert tonight!



i'm still pinching myself to know this is really happening...

1 bag, 2 bags, 3 bags, ...

i'm happy that as the years go by i pack lighter and lighter and not the opposite :) and i still love moving :) packing, changing, transforming, becoming, going from here to there and learning a new place, making things new, jumping

packing

when we're little no one ever tells us how many times in our life we're going to pack up all our things to move :) packing again!! it's 1am and everything is laying around the house with the empty suitcases ready to move our lives from one place to another.

this song is often there when this happens

in silence

just came back from 11 days meditating where we didn't talk and we spent 11 hours of each day meditating. the meditation center was great :) the woods were filled with great old trees and beautiful squirrels and chipmunks and amazing birds and coyotes at night :) and the fellow meditators were awesome! the food was all made by old vipassana meditation students and there was so much love put into that food that it made it my favorite food in the world :) every food after that tastes just a bit too bland and lacking the most important ingredient... the retreat was really an amazing experience :) and i recommend it to anyone! among many things in all those hours in silence, i thought of jason schwartzman, so here's the song 8)

out in the woods

just came to town today after 2 weeks in the woods :) it's great to be in the middle of all those trees and lakes and snow and quietness :):):):):):) yesterday i was walking in the woods and i stopped to make a snow man and suddenly there's an animal running towards me... and there i am alone in the woods reminding myself that all the winter animals are more afraid of me than the opposite, so i relaxed and suddenly the fox notices me and it jumps quickly into the deep forest and away from me and i stayed there smiling, totally amazed at the beauty of that bright orange fox with a huge tail :) so pretty!

back to the woods soon after a great dinner and an apple pie that looks just like the ones that donald duck's grandma baked :)

winter wonderland

this is when i feel i'm in some sort of fairy tale where everything is beautiful and peaceful 8) everywhere you look there's a pretty layer of pure white :) and the sensation of cold in the body is so great! i landed to a -16 degrees toronto and i was instantly happy with the snow :D then breakfast today came with an extra - lots of squirrels, a few of them were black squirrels! and a couple of deer!! amazing! and this is still southern ontario... can't wait for true winter wonderland as we move north!! i love the world in pure simple and calming white **

why don't we all open up your hearts and...

finishing packing

i think only now i can really feel this song

almost on my way

wherever i go

all of indonesia travels with me now, deep inside :) and on more external layers of me too ;)

(: this is where i'll be for the next 2 months :)

the pictures are from last year. i wonder how it all looks now? i can't wait!!


the gorgeous road out to camp always amazes me :) it's such a thrilling drive!

snow always makes happy in that kind of childlike happiness

i love it when it snows there and we wake up to the whole place covered in fresh snow :):):)









i wonder if the storks still have their nests there...

and i just love this light... it's so special in the way it touches us while we walk over the frozen lakes that still have a bit of water moving under us and at first it's kind of frightening and then we get used to it and after a while, with that deep blue light all around us... it becomes kind of magical

definitely one of my favorite spots in the world! i feel truly lucky to be part of it =)

in kuala lumpur

i miss the amazing pasteis de nata all over the world... but then i find them in those far away places and it always brings an unexpected huge smile on my face :D

* s * u * n *

feeling bali all over me

bali goes on growing inside me. its green and always flowing water, the smiles of the balinese, the balance in everything, the disposition of the houses, the family organization, the many gods, the many demons, the ongoing blessings and offerings and the healing all around the island :) i left bali 2 months ago, and the island is getting huge inside me **
terimah kasi bali!! sampai jumpa!

enjoy the bolo de papoila - poppy seed cake :)

1 cup ground poppy seed
1 cup milk
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs, separated
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 1/2 tsp. double-action baking powder
2 tsp. vanilla extract
powdered sugar

put poppy seeds in milk, bring to a boil, and set it aside for 1 hour. preheat oven to 350 degrees. cream butter and sugar together. beat in egg yolks. add poppy seed-milk mixture. sift flour, salt, and baking powder; stir into dough. beat whites of eggs until stiff, and fold into dough with vanilla. grease a large loaf pan with butter or margarine. sprinkle flour over sides, fill pan, and bake approximately 1 hour. if it springs back when touched with a finger and if a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, the cake is ready. invert it over a rack to cool. just before serving, sprinkle powdered sugar on top.

ukrainians take pride in grinding their own poppy seeds fresh for each occasion - and i like that idea :)

enjoy those sweet soft uncomplicated moments of life! celebrate simplicity with a slice of poppy seed cake *