Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

People, since I have last spoken, a number of things have changed in my life. Within the last 10 days, I have turned 30, changed apartment (bigger, so much better and incredibly located) and acquired something I never dreamed I would own.

The move was ridiculously awful, and if you ever find yourself in a position to wonder wether you should move before or after you have three children, I urge you to do it before! Our kitchen ended up not being done on time, so we ate pasta pretty much everyday for about a week, until my sister came and saved us with champagne, good spirits and delicious sushis.

My birthday itself was not so fun, despite the fact that I absolutely don’t mind being thirty. In fact I have to admit I find it very chic (not sure when the novelty will wear off, though!). On the actual day, we went to ikea, a big box hardware store and took a stressful trip to our new local supermarket which is packed, this time of year and sells food at prices that boggle the mind. So it was a pretty normal day for a move but rather not so cool as a birthday.
The evening got better, as we had a dinner amidst boxes with some delicious cakes, our friend brought some candles for me to blow out, and I got some lovely gifts – one mostly, gifted by my parents who took their cue from my obsession of wanting a gift that would last and mark the birthday:

And isn’t the color gorgeous? It looks so pretty in my shiny new white kitchen, I keep wanting to touch it and turn on the motor just to hear the lovely purring-sound it makes! I haven’t yet gotten around to using it, nor have I tried my shiny new oven. In fact, right now is the first ‘free time’ I have in about a month and I’ve felt so bad about neglecting the blog, that i thought I ought to give some news.
The stressful times are mostly behind us now, and we can focus on the good parts about moving, explore our new neighbourhood, enjoy our big and beautiful new kitchen and it’s shiny appliances and enjoy the view from our balcony.

Tomorrow we leave for my parents house were we will be celebrating Christmas. I’m pretty sure there will be cooking and baking, and I promise the next post will be a bona fide recipe+photo post.
For now, I will leave you with my best wishes for Christmas, I hope your year ends with as many great changes as mine did!

the perfect mousse, now with even more details!

Lately, the stress of our impending move has been getting to me in ways that are less than funny for everyine involved. Meaning I am completing the transformation into a cross between a harpy a fury and a completely disoriented three year old – FUNTIMES!

I also feel like I am getting completeley cheated out of the normal advent (pre christmas) season, what with the decorating of apartments, the baking of cookies, getting of gifts and general cozyness generally associated with this time. And, to quote my four year old niece, J’adore Noel’, I love chrismas. fiercels. So, in short, I am a little bit meh around the edges here.

I managed to cop out on regular posting last week, when I gave you lots of details about me, but this week, I am here, and present and ready to share with you my views (opinionated, as always) and recipe (excellent, as always!) on the hot button issue that is mousse au chocolat. And ok, maybe it’s only a hot button issue for me (see opinionated, above) but I am sure my views and recipe will make you converts and crusaders on this topic as well.

You see, chocolate mousses seem to come in all shapes ansd sizes, with any number of possible add-ons and fancy frills, when their actual truth and beauty really lie in the fact that they are chocolate, but in a mousse, billions of calories in guise of something airy and fluffy.
And so I say, down with the creamed up, brandyed and sugared beasts from hell, and up with the original true recipe, the one many a french persons still makes following the words on the packaging of this particular brand of chocolate . It only requires 200g of good chocolate and 6 eggs (preferably organic) and maybe 15 minutes of your time to achieve chocolate heaven. And I think that’s what makes it a perfect recipe, a keeper in times of stress and exigencies of perfection (way to sum up my life here, BTW!). And because I just shared this secret recipe, I can now confess to the secret behind the mousse pictured here.

I doctored it. Not a lot, but still. I needed to impress (I always do, see exigencies of perfection) and in order to impress and soothe the christmas spirit, I came up with the lovey idea to use this german favorite of mine, a dark christmas chocolate, flavored with a hint of coriander and cinnamon. And to melt my chocolate in the microwave, i didn’t use water, I used orange juice. There I said it.

But you know, since the chocolate rules are self imposed, I figured I might as well bend them at will, especially since I was in dire need of something to make me feel like I wasn’t loosing the christmas spirit inside of one of the boxes I was packing. In truth, followed the recipe to a tee: melting the chocolate (no ones says you can’t use flavoured chocolate) in a bit of liquid (no one says you can use orange juice for that, indeed, I did and used maybe 4 tablespoons) mixing in the 6 egg yolks and carefully folding in the 6 stiff beaten eggwhites. Chilled it for 3h (or overnight) and served it after a trully fantastic homecooked chinese meal at our friends d & a.

You should try and do a mousse like that, I promise you’ll become as opinionated as me! And thus ends todays “posting in times of stress while revealing more details about ones character than possible possible”!

details

I got tagged by my friend d. over at alle meine ponies (don’t you just LOVE that blogname, btw?), and because I have been unable to pull my latest recipe post together due to some photo issues, I will now give you some

details

Clothing

I have a very feminine obsession with shoes and an unexplicable one with grey t-shirts. I wish I could dress with a more definite or adventurous style, but the way we live (three small children and a lot of bike riding) often gives me an excuse for comfort over style. My favourite pieces this winter are a gorgeous leather jacket given to me by my mother and a lovely jeans blouse given to me by my sister, along with a handwoven and hand-dyed purple scarf from africa (my mother again).

Furniture

My ideal would be a mix of simple modern white and grey furniture, and a more flowery pink british style. My reality, sadly, is a few nice old pieces and a lot of budget-conscious ikea. On a side note, I am obsessively organised and forever putting things away and in their place.

Sweet

Chocolate. Hands down. I always joked that my ideal gift would be my weight in chocolate!

City

Berlin, Paris, Montpellier, Stuttgart. All sorts of homes.

Drink

Tea in the morning, water every other time. The occasional beer.

Music

I used to listen to music all the time; but sadly, I don’t have the time nor the mental space to really listen anymore. In the past couple of months I’ve liked port o brien, bon iver, mgmt, and alela diane. I also really like chamber music, especially the complete beethoven string quartets.

TV

American series mainly, lately enamored with gossip girl and mad men alike; but always tatort.

Film

No snobbery here: french films from the sixties, nostalgic films from growing up (stand by me, dead poets society, dirty dancing) and today, wes anderson, sofia coppola, south-american cinema but also big american productions.

Workout

Haaaahaaaaahaaaa. No.

Pastries

The first one that comes to my mind would be a proper, still warm pain au chocolat. After that, the list would be so long, one could make a blog out of it – oh wait…!

Coffee

Espresso, black, with added hot water.

I am tagging Cynthia, Berlin Reified and Tim.

edited to add: I am really happy to see that Anke Gröner kindly answered the meme as well, go read hers!