Travel

Barley Chocolate Chip Cookies

I no longer remember why my friend Michelle and I settled on late November for our trip to New York. It seems a bit nuts looking back. Sure, the week of Thanksgiving is a great time to go to New York if you want cheap flights and low hotel rates. But you will soon discover why there are less than average number of tourists per square meter: it is bloody cold! Walking around all day in sub-zero temperatures while worrying about the forecast snow meant frequent coffee breaks were needed just so we could escape the cold for a bit, warming up with our hands wrapped around multiple mugs of coffee and our winter coats draped over our knees like woollen blankets. It also meant that a bowl of ramen for dinner one night at Ivan Ramen in Clinton Street totally hit the spot. The only reason I decided to wash down my steaming bowl of ramen with iced (!) tea

read more Barley Chocolate Chip Cookies

Black Sesame Loaf with a Kinako Glaze

 Alessandro and I came back from our trip to Laos and Thailand a few days ago.  We have been back in Rome just long enough to take care of mountains of laundry but are still fighting our jet lag on a daily basis.  The day after we arrived the packing materials for my move to Brussels arrived and thanks to surprisingly decent day-time TV (House MD, Gilmore Girls, Friends re-runs) one of the walls of our living room is now made up of stacks of boxes, some taped shut already, others waiting to be filled. I have moved a lot in the last few years and far too many of those moves have been of the international kind.  I love having had the opportunity to live in so many different places and countries but let’s just say that international moves are even more fun (read: stressful) than moving already is.  It inevitably starts with flathunting in a different country and

read more Black Sesame Loaf with a Kinako Glaze

Big News!

So I have had some news to share for a while but wanted to wait until things were finalized. Now that they are, I can finally share that I will shortly be moving to Brussels to start a new job. While neither Alessandro nor I are keen on going back to long distance dating (something we were hoping we had finally put behind ourselves when I moved to Rome in 2012), it was unavoidable even before I was offered this great opportunity in Brussels as Alessandro has to move to Turin for work this summer. At least we are used to the long distance thing already, having survived years of it when I was still working in London and Alessandro was working near Milan (and hopefully it is only a matter of time before we are back to sharing the same flat). I have actually lived in Brussels before, working there for six months a few years ago (back when

read more Big News!

Back from Morocco

Alessandro and I got back from our whistlestop tour through Morocco just under a week ago. My bags are unpacked but the mountains of laundry staring into my face every time I step into my room remain untouched. And don’t get me started on the photos we took. Let’s just say I got a little excited with my new camera and ended up taking over 1500 photos during our 2 week trip. But I am hoping to find some quiet time on one of the next weekends to sort through them so I can share some pictures with you of our beautiful trip. And beautiful it really was, from the bustling souks in the old Medinas of imperial cities such as Fez and Meknes to waiting for the fishermen to bring in their morning catch in Essaouira on the Atlantic coast to watching the stars while sleeping in the desert close to the Algerian border, this trip had it all.

read more Back from Morocco