LOVEly Guestpost by Igor from Happy Interior Blog

Hello everybody! This is Igor of Happy Interior Blog and today I am particularly happy as I am guest blogging on my friend Elodie's beautiful blog. Elodie is hopefully enjoying her time out and is focusing on her new mother role, while I was pondering of a childhood memory of myself. Recently I went to visit my family in Serbia. And there was my idea. As a child, I was traveling every summer to what then was Yugoslavia. To visit the country of my parents, to mingle with my family. But I won't speak of the obvious. One other thing has left deep marks in my memory and shaped my personal view. It was the intense contact with the nature. With the green power surrounding me as a kid. I grew up in Austria and there is nature too, but in Yugoslavia I spent a more intensive time exploring the nature, walking through orchards, vineyards, picking fruits from trees on the go. I remember my grandmother preparing fresh salads with veggies from the garden, the hugest and most aromatic tomatoes, I remember exploring the surrounding hills with my cousins and picking blackberries, plums, apples, running through vineyards and snacking juicy grapes in between, munching on sweet figs while taking in the sweet scent of the fig tree. I remember dining on my grandparents' porch under a natural roof of vines. I remember the scents and tastes of nature and summer.

Today, I am sharing a few pics of our garden in Serbia that I took in August. It's fruits that I used to pick in the morning for breakfast. Just off the tree. As simple as that. Something that I am missing in a city like Munich.

My childhood memory is still part of my personality and I hope that all young parents will take their kids out into the nature. Make them appreciate that food comes from nature and grows. To make them feel the bond between us humans and our surrounding nature. And to make them understand how important it is to us. Hopefully they will become more conscious when it comes to our environment than the generations before and our generation, too. In this sense: Little Miss Love, embrace the beauties of the nature and be a happy, happy kid!

Blogst & Foodblogger-Event - my first post in German!

Hello everyone, I hope you had a lovely week-end! My week-end was just fabulous. I took part in a foodblogger cocking Event on Friday and in the German blogger conference BLOGST on Saturday and Sunday - and decided to write my first blogpost in German, as the topic is more relevant for my German readers ... I will come back to English soon. I promise! so there you go...I am so nervous. ★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

Ich weiss nicht warum es mich so nervös macht auf Deutsch zu schreiben. Für mich, kam das überhaupt nicht in Frage als Ich mit dem Blog angefangen habe, auf Deutsch zu schreiben. Deutsch ist für mich die Sprache in der ich arbeite, und mit der Ich mit meinem Deutschen Freunden rede, aber meine "private languages" sind Französisch (meine Muttersprache) und Englisch (die Sprache von Mr. Love). Es ändert sich langsam, da Ich jetzt ganz viele wunderschönen Deutschsprachigen Blogs täglich lese. Ich war am Wochenende, als Teilnehmer bei der Deutschsprachigen BLOGST Konferenz in Hamburg. Die wunderbare Lou von Happy Serendipity hat mich dazu animiert, jetzt auf Deutsch zu schreiben. Lou ist Italienerin, lebt in Frankfurt und schreibt meistens auf Englisch und ab und zu auf Deutsch, wenn das Thema besonders interessant für die Deutschen Leser ist. Wie Lou gesagt, das ist dein Blog, Du bestimmst die Regeln! Wie die tolle Danny aus Cozy and Cudly es schön formuliert hat: Dein Blog ist dein Zuhause! Ich schreibe normalerweise auf Englisch was es mir leichter fällt und weil Ich denke dass es gut zu meinem Multi-Kulti Lebensstill passt. Ich würde mich auch wünschen, dass die Leute die Kommentare hinterlassen auf meinem Blog, sich frei füllen, mich auf Deutsch, Französisch oder Englisch zu schreiben und sich kein Stress machen, weil sie denken, sie müssten unbedingt auf Englisch schreiben. Ich wollte heute ausschlafen, bin aber so aufgeregt noch vom Wochenende, dass ich seit 08:30 an meinem Computer sitze und an meinem Blogpost arbeite! Das ist auch das schöne an einer Blogger Konferenz. Es hört nicht auf am Ende der Veranstaltung, sondern, es wird danach noch berichtet, ausgetauscht und getwittert #blogst12

Neben sehr viel Input und interessanten Vorträgen, war es besonders spannend die Leute, die Persönlichkeiten die hinter diesen Blogs stehen zu treffen. Ein Rückblick über die Vorträge, werde ich an der Stelle nicht geben, das haben schon viele gemacht und ihr könnt es da auch nachlesen zum Beispiel bei Angelika Schaff oder Backbube. Wie die liebe Jeanny von Zucker Zimt und Liebe  in Ihrem Vortrag gesagt hat, "die Leser lesen keinen Blogs, die lesen Persönlichkeiten" und das ist es genau! Wenn man die Organisatorinnen Clara Tastesheriff  und Ricarda 23qmstil kennt und erlebt hat mit wie viel Leidenschaft die beiden animiert sind, hat man gleich doppelt so viel Lust deren Blogs zu lesen.

Ich habe auch Aurélie von Französisch kochen bei BLOGST endlich kennengelernt, eine andere Französin, die über Französisches Essen und natürlich auch über Macarons auf Deutsch blogt. Es war toll wieder Französisch und viel über Essen sprechen zu können. Wir hatten uns schon am Vortag, beim tollen France Bon Appétit Koch-Blogger Event kennengelernt. Das Event hatte die charmante Barbara von Finfint organisiert, die  über Schwedisches Essen blogt. Das Event fand im Kochkontor statt in Hamburg.

Ein sehr inspirierendes Gespräch hatte ich auch mit der wundervollen Thea, eine der zwei Schwestern von Sistermag. Es gibt Menschen mit der man sofort eine Verbindung spürt, und das war so mit Thea. Ich freue mich so sehr Thea und Toni wieder in Stockholm bei Meet the blogger zu sehen!

Unsere Hamburger Blogger Fraktion  war auch da natürlich, mit zum Beispiel Antonia von Behind the Gorilla oder Susanne von Lieschen heiratet und wir haben viel Spass zusammen gehabt wie immer! Ich habe auch zwei anderen Hamburgerinnen kennengelernt und zwar, die liebe Mel von Gourmet Guerilla und Stefanie von Genuss sucht. Ganz am Ende der Veranstaltung, habe ich auch Heike von Relleomein und die tolle Katharina von Essraum, die wunderschöne Food-Fotos macht.

Hier sind ein paar Fotos,  zuerst von unserem Foodblogger-Event am Freitag und dann von BLOGST.

Wir haben zuerst zusammen gekocht

und dann zusammen gegessen und getrunken von 10:00 bis 17:00! Ich habe mich wirklich wie in Frankreich gefüllt.

 ★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

Für die Blogst-Fotos, habe ich mich entschieden einen kleinen Spiel zu spielen, ich habe tollen Bloggerinnen von Hinten fotografiert weil die so schönen Frisuren hatten. Könnt Ihr die zuordnen? Habt Ihr Lust mitzuspielen? Einfach als Kommentar die Nummer und die Bloggerin daneben schreiben. Ich hoffe die betroffenen sind mir nicht böse, aber ich fand die Frisuren so schön, dass ich nicht widerstehen könnte!

Pfff! ich hoffe es war alles verständlich. Speak to you soon!

Elodie

The best way to prepare a trip: Wallpaper City Guides

We are currently preparing a trip to Benelux at the end of October. Actually, we will not do the Lux part of it and will go and explore the Netherlands and Belgium.We will start in Antwerp, then go to Brussels and visit friends and then visit some other friends in Amsterdam. For me a city trip is always a good reason for buying a new Wallpaper City Guide from the fantastic "Phaidon Verlag". For me they are the best companion for visiting a new City. They take you to hidden and cool places and show you the favorite bars and restaurants from people actually living in the city. This is not the guide you need if you want a description of the Cathedral and other typical landmarks of a city - but thank to a Wallpaper guide, we discovered straight away the designer district of Kyoto and a fabulous boutique hotel in Barcelona.  The guides are very affordable, as they cost 7,80 € on amazon and are usually available in English and German. The format is ideal and fits in any bag. Last but not least, they look fantastic on your shelf and just make you want to have them all! The photos are very minimalistic and very stylish. Here are a couple of photos from the Amsterdam and the Antwerp guides. The one from Brussels is arriving next week. Yeah!

Globe story

Yesterday I went to a very good flea market in Hamburg the "Turmweg" flea market which takes place twice a year in Hamburg. I felt in love with a beautiful new globe to complete my  globe collection.I think collecting globes is a sensible and natural collection for expat and international minds like Mr. Love and myself. I reminds me that we still have so much to discover and so many countries to travel to. I like the fact that our globes come from Eastern Europe (one from Russia, one from Poland and one from the Czech Republic). The one we found Yesterday is from the former GDR. The guy who sold it to us revealed us a fun fact if you want to know if a globe comes from the former German Democratic Republic. Here is how it goes: You have to look for Taiwan and if it's a socialist globe, it will written: "von den USA okkupiert": "Occupied by the USA"! I don't only have a physical globe collection. I also have a virtual one on pinterest: LOVEly globes, if you want to pay me a visit there. So here is the new globe with someone trying to hide behind it: If you look at the centre of the picture, you will see the communist detail:

Here are some other globes from my collection:

I think a collection reveals a lot about yourself. What about you? What are you collecting?

Let's picnic

This week, I took part in the third round of "Post aus meiner Küche": The food swap project organised by Clara, Jeanny and Rike.The motto of the last edition was Very Berry, and you can read my post here. This time the motto was "Let's picnic". I find it pretty inspiring: the last picnic of the season on the biggest virtual blanket. I decided to go French and do some madeleines (sweet and savory) & meringues (for the first time in my life! - usually my mum is the meringue queen.).So here are a couple of pictures of the little picnic basket, I put together for Sophia from Munich. I am looking forward to receiving post from Munich!

THE SAVORY MADELEINES IN THE BENTO BAG: 

I thought that the madeleines wouldn't look nice in a simple tupperware, so I decided to sew them a little Japanese bento bag - a bento is a Japanese lunch box. As I used some Swedish fabric from Lotta Jansdotter and some british fabric from Liberty of London, I call it my Scandinavian - British - Japanese creation.

THE SWEET BLUEBERRY MADELEINES:

THE MERINGUES:

THE PACKAGING:

White dinner in Hamburg

Yesterday I took part in my first white dinner in Hamburg and it was an incredible experience. I spent the evening with a very international crowd coming from all around the world: I had friends at my table from Japan, India, Germany, Portugal, Albania, Mexico and Serbia! Just a sample of the lovely people I met through the Girl Gone International network in Hamburg. We were in the middle of about 5.000 people having dinner outside together. What a feeling!Here are couple of photos I took last night. First is a picture of my friend Merry Merret, who put so much effort into organising our international table: Thanks Merret for this very special evening! That was just magical!

Tea Party by Miss O.

I followed the instruction from the invitation, and went to Miss O's place at five o'clock on Sunday for tea.To go with the tea - I prepared some cucumber stars in the afternoon. The dress code had been perfectly respected: red, blue and white with some floral print. and obviously, we had some pimm's, to pimp up the tea! It was a very fine tea party indeed.

My favourite room

Lieblingszimmer (favourite room) is a fantastic furniture shop in Hamburg Eppendorf. It is a bit hidden from the main road on the Ludolfstrasse 60. The shop sells antic furnitures and accessoires in pastel colours. From gustavian grey to pale green in the provencal style. You almost have the impression to be in the middle of a french vintage patisserie surrounded by beautiful macarons.The antic furnitures either have kept their original patina or have been renovated in the workshop. The total surface of the shop is 170 m2 and you can find almost every kind of furnitures - from bedside tables to cupboards or vintage vases. I especially like the vintage kitchen table. It is the perfect place to go if you want some furnitures with a soul but still at an affordable price.

Tea Party Invitation

Yesterday I received a very mysterious letter - I have been invited to a Tea Party - The old English way - red, blue, white - it's always right.The invitation comes from Miss O. and is very beautiful. It says that I can bring something to eat - something sweet like biscuits, cupcakes or macarons -  or something savory like small sandwiches or finger food. I also have to respect the dress code - I can only wear red, blue and white - and no trousers. In order to seek for inspiration I made myself a little present: The lovely Vintage Tea Party book I have been wanting to buy for ages by Angel Adoree. Thank you Miss O. and see you tomorrow.

Ploughman's Dinner

A ploughman's lunch is a cold snack or meal originating in the United Kingdom, served in pubs, composed of cheese, bread .Other common additions are grapes. It is usually served with beer. I decided to call my version ploughman's dinner (I'm sure you can guess why).

To make it a bit more international, I chose French cheeses and wine, and some German fruit mustard. The cheese biscuits (instead of bread come directly from the UK). It is perfect for a meal in front of the TV. Here are some pictures and the music to go with: Land of Hope and Glory.

very british

Today, I found this fantastic teapot at Habitat. It is designed for Habitat by the London- based wallpaper designer Lizzie Allen. It might be slightly kitsch, but I love it! see you soon, it is time for a nice cup of tea.  

Aujourd'hui j'ai trouvé cette magnifique théière chez Habitat. Elle a été dessinée pour Habitat par la créatrice de papier peint londonienne Lizzie Allen. C'est peut-être un peu kitch mais j'adore! A bientôt, moi je vais me faire une bonne tasse de thé maintenant!

eurovision & gazpacho

Saturday was the Eurovision song contest and in order to celebrate, we gave our famous Eurovision Party with friends from all over the world as usual. We try to keep this tradition we started in Berlin, alive in Hamburg.This time our guests were coming from the Philippines, from Japan, South Africa, Scotland, Germany etc... we prepared some "snacks": a gazpacho with some dips, a couple of quiches and a banoffee pie, and some other simple things - we had a brilliant and very funny night.