Economy

Keep Calm And Carry On

Admittedly, even when you have an interesting project, there are some really stressful moments. Moments when the scope of the project seems to suddenly explode beyond the hours in the day you need to complete your work (or beyond the hours in the day where you enjoy completing your work.) That's often the nature of consulting services. Because you are creating a SERVICE and not a product - or let's say a STRATEGY and not a product (As in software product) - there is certainly room for interpretation. And what one person thinks is a bullet point or a few bullet points in a document, another person can consider an entire chapter. Anyway, point made. So as we REALLY and TRULY come to the end of this phase of our project, there is some stress - although nothing compared to the beginning of the project, when we were busy trying to figure out how to work together constructively.

To cope with it, you can find all sorts of little helping tools all over our work area: piles of fresh fruit and bottles of water, magazines and books for inspiration, smiley faces scribbled on white boards, and...my colleague Britta ordered a cloth poster to hang on the wall. :-)

...2 hours later.....

And then there are the colleagues who adapt your message for their own needs and purposes. Thankfully not on our project...Thomas just posted this in response to my entry...:-P

Not Sure About The Counter Space...

...but great design.

Sort of try to imagine the rest of the apartment based on such a tiny practical kitchen...

Julie looking forward to Julie & Julia

Saw a movie poster for this movie on Saturday evening, when we went to see Harry Potter (no strong recommendation for Harry Potter..but it was watchable).

I read about Julie Powell, the blogger who turned her blog into a book deal and then into a movie a few years back. The screenplay is by Nora Ephron and Meryl Streep stars as Julia Child, so it's gotta be good. :-)

Hard to Resist

...and it was good - everything turned out pretty well, at least if I am allowed to judge.

But what is hard to resist is Lorenz and Lucy, who thought it was great fun to run around the room and then launch themselves into the air to land on the sofa over and over again. The cats were scared out of their minds. :-)




All in all, a lot of work - the cooking - but sort of like meditation when you get into it. Chop this, chop that, mix, stir, taste, correct, mix, adjust heat, wait. Wait. Wait.



Menu was:
Spicy pototoes and peas
Spinach Kofta (dumplings) with a tomato curry gravy (was supposed to be Fenugreek, not Spinach, but I have a hard time finding that here...)
Steamed Halibut with a coconut chutney smeared on it
Rice with some dal (mung beans in this case) mixed in
Raita
and dessert - Aunt Sue, you'll be happy to hear...Key Lime Pie - made with your recipe(with a couple adjustments - almond crust rather than graham cracker, and individual rather than one big pie) and your lime juice. ;-)

Feast

Christian, Anna, Lorenz and Lucy are headed over and i was in the mood to try out a bunch of new recipes (yeah, indian-i know, i am getting a bit unvaried but after a week of cream and butter in France, i needed to spice things up a bit) so have been cooking most of the day... well, i guess about 5 hours. I woke up thinking about spicy potatoes and peas and told Andreas I would meet him at the gym. Around 11 am i showed up after cooking two dishes. So...5 dishes later, the guests arrive in 10 minutes. Didn't make much of any one thing, just tried out a bunch. Let's see how it tastes. I guess next weekend Andreas can recreate some French crepes. :-)

Confiture de Lait

Before we left for the trip to Paris/Normandy, my creative director (a German man married to a French woman - who spends a good amount of time in France with his family) asked me to bring one thing back for him from the Normandy.
"Of course," I said.
"Please bring me back a jar of Confiture de Lait."
"What's that?"
"It is a preserve made out of milk and sugar," he said.
And indeed, that is what it is. But for whatever reason, I didn't remember that description. I thought it was a preserve made from butter...somehow..memory...failed. So I was asking everyone:
"where can I get the classic Normandy preserve made out of butter?"
"Butter?" No one knew.
Finally, I emailed him the second to last day and asked again.
"What is this stuff called?"
And he reminded me. And of course only an hour later I found it in a little town called Villedieu des Poeles, sold to me by a very well-fed round woman who was more than delighted to sell me four jars of the stuff because by that time I figured it must be REALLY good. And in the end, we bought yet another jar at the cider factory a few hours later.

It is basically...a not-so-rich-tasting caramel sauce - pleasant and sweet, but not overwhelming. As our creative director explained to me this morning, best eaten on a plain piece of bread, no butter, with a strong cup of black tea.

This evening I am was not so hungry, so I improvised a TINY bit on his advice. I scrambled an egg, toasted a half of a muesli roll, and spread the Confiture de Lait (i know, sacriledge) on the roll and piled the scrambled egg on top. Not bad, but I have to think up a few other uses for it. Meanwhile, I have three jars of the stuff to give away (ALTHOUGH...flavors are: chocolate, plum, and vanilla - not the natural caramel flavor alone...) Any takers?

Mont St. Michel

Normandy (mix)

Wedding