Love This: Homako

Believe it or not, the flight that I was supposed to take to kick off my honeymoon was cancelled.  Can you believe it?  We get an email from Edreams (FYI- never, EVER book a flight on Edreams) alerting us that our flight has been cancelled to Nice and we should call them to figure things out.

After fighting with two CSRs and no one willing to transfer us to a manager (a rather simple request), we are now rebooking with a new airline/website and re-routing our plans, hotels, car rentals and plans entirely.

So bye-bye to Nice, and hello to Lyon.  My fiance wanted us to to our trip off in Nice so he could say “It’s nice in Nice,” cheesy, yes, but it’s the simple things in life that bring a smile to one’s face. Oh well. I hear that Lyon is a delicious gastronomy city, so I am happy to have the opportunity to explore France’s second largest.

On another topic, I wanted to share another great Etsy find that I found a while back while reading Freakdelafashion’s blog.

Homako is a jewelry designer who is originally from Japan who now lives in Los Angeles. I love her jewelry designs.  She uses wood, fabric and other materials to make her geometric looking pieces and they are all available on her Etsy shop.  Soo cute!

Photo Source: Homako Etsy Shop

 I have never experienced travel hassle to this extent.  I hope you are having a less frustrating evening than I am having.

Leon and Khoo

As someone who has had the opportunity to live in different countries, I can assure you that it pays to have friends all over the world.  I mean c’mon, how else are you supposed to grow your cookbook collection if don’t have people’s bookshelves to browse?  Yes, I suppose blogs and Amazon recommendations will suffice, but sometimes browsing a REAL bookshelf is more fun than a virtual one.

A friend of mine in Prague, who shares my interest in cooking/baking, has a great cookbook shelf.  The other evening while my fiance and her were discussing her new website/editorial/writing services that she is launching in London, I decided to occupy myself by browsing her cookbook collection.

The Leon mini restaurant empire (they have multiple locations in London) is premised on buying and cooking with local ingredients, good, wholesome, high quality ingredients, low GI foods, and food to statisfy a range of dietary preferences from vegan and vegetarian to omnivore and carnivore!  I am totally going to a Leon restaurant next time I am in London (hopefully before the end of 2012).

#1 Leon: Naturally Fast Food (Two cookbooks – book 1 (Amazon.co.uk has it, Amazon.com is currently sold out) + book 2 can be pre-ordered for September 2012)

Photo Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

#2 La Petite Cuisine A Paris by Rachel Khoo.   Rachel Khoo, the English born chef and writer who now lives and cooks in Paris.  Her cookbook, highlights her cooking, and experiences of moving to Paris, enrolling in a program at Le Cordon Bleu and cooking/showing how simple it is to make French food in her tiny kitchen.

Photo Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 

I am always interested in new cookbook recommendations.  If you have any, send them over by sending me a note in the comment section below.

Speaking of Coffee: I Need Coffee!

Do good things come in twos or threes?  Today, good things come in twos as I am blogging about another coffee shop.  To extend the coffee theme a bit further from yesterday’s coffee post…. I visited I Need Coffee last week.  It’s the new coffee shop just south of Karlovo Namesti (Na Moráni 7)  in Prague.  One day after lecturing, I took the tram en route to the farmer’s market by the river when I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a new spot opened on the corner.  I made a mental note to come back and stop in for a visit.

I love this coffee shop’s interior design.  They went all minimal-industrial-Scandinavian with poured concrete floors, lots of light wood seen in their counters and bar stools, one big blackboard wall and the rest, stark white!  They play a mix of rock + indie music and have funky, bright posters on their wall.

I sampled some home made ice tea and next time I will try some of their yogurt and perhaps a cookie.  My partner in crime had the coffee and said it was decent.  Since I Need Coffee! has two big windows facing the street, this is an ideal place to people watch or daydream or both!

Coffee Supreme

I’m in the trenches with my sleeves rolled up.  I am referring to the volume of work related tasks I am attempting to plow through between now and the time I board a plane for Toronto.  With several projects on the go, my eyes will soon be in need of a rest!

Today I did something out of the ordinary while eating breakfast: Turn the TV on.  I don’t often flick on the television while eating my morning granola and yogurt but for some reason, I did.  One of those “discover” travel programs were on about New Zealand and the extreme sports and golf opportunities available around the country.  Golf, I would entertain.  I am not sure how I feel about extreme sports.  After thinking about how I could one day get to New Zealand to experience the beauty of its landscapes, my mind wandered to one of my few New Zealand associations:  Coffee. (The other association is wine).

Don’t ask me why I know about New Zealand’s reputation for coffee but I know it exists.  Apparently coffee is taken very seriously in that country. Ironically, being a non-coffee drinker, my only direct experience with any sort of New Zealand coffee is from visiting a kiwi run coffee shop in Toronto’s Leslieville area.  Te-Aro has good tea and vegan carrot muffins.

On the topic of New Zealand coffee culture, I started poking around to see who the players were, why NZ coffee has such a stellar reputation and why its reputation has crossed international waters.  While I am still searching for the answers to my questions, Coffee Supreme crossed my path. Coffee Supreme is an independent coffee roaster/sourcer & brewer with cafe locations in Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington and Melbourne (AUS). They also have a great online shop if you are looking to build out your in-home coffee routine with top of the line gadgets, accessories and beans.

Just looking at their branding (from Hard Hat Design) and crazy, eclectic interiors (industrial-lab-vintage-retro-market-chic), it is easy to see why they have such a loyal following of coffee drinkers.  So cool.

These cool coffee bags (in the image below) were designed by Work Art Life in Melborne.

16 different takeaway cups were illustrated by the Hard Hat design team in paint, ink, chalk and pencil. The three different colour cups reflect the three different sizes of coffee available, making it easier on the baristas when line ups get busy.

Photo Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Has anyone been to Coffee Supreme?  Feel free to share your experiences in the comment section below.

Have a great Monday.

Lunch at Chateau Mcely

Before moving to Europe, lunch was neither a meal I would look forward to nor a meal that could last a couple of hours.  Maybe it is a Canadian thing but we don’t do long lunches.  I can eat a sandwich and salad in under 30 minutes and continue on with my day.  Not here.  I am slowly learning that long lunches are celebrated around Europe.  Long, leisurely lunches are certainly not a weekly occurrence in my life but a couple weekends ago,  some friends and I decided to dress up, and venture out of the city for a special dining experience: Lunch at Chateau Mcely.

I had afternoon tea at Chateau Mcely once before and after such a positive experience, I was curious about their non-sugary fare.  My guests and I each ordered a starter and a main (no, all the food you just looked at was not just for me!) and the consensus was that everyone enjoyed their meals.  The service was a bit slow and overly formal, however we were at a “Chateau” so I guess formal service is expected.  I ordered the carrot and sweet potato soup and fish that was sliced in half and “filled” with roasted root vegetables (see photo above)- both were fresh, flavourful and light.

Our meal + mini road trip was a really nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.  If you haven’t done something like this before, I would highly recommend it.  In some cases, long lunches beat long dinners.

OvenLove

I saw this project on Behance Network from designer, Stuart McQuarrie (Artlstudios) in Glasgow, Scotland and had to share it with you all.  If you love kitchenware I think you will appreciate the branding for OvenLove 🙂

Photo Source: Stuart McQuarrie on Behance Network

What I can’t figure out, is whether this project came to fruition.  I searched high and low for an OvenLove site but nothing turned up.  Either the company is in serious need of SEO or it was just a design project.  If someone knows the answer out there in the blogsphere, I would love to know.

Exciting News: One Month To Go…

How exciting is this?

One month today and I am getting married to someone I have been with for almost seven years!!!

I can’t believe the “big day” is almost here.  It feels like we have been planning this wedding for months and months.  It is kind of scary and I wonder whether all the planning will come together in the end?  I am curious to see what all the details will look like set up in the venue and whether the vision in my head can be translated into reality….

I will be sharing more wedding details over the next couple weeks, so be sure to come back soon.

Any advice for the bride to be?  Leave me a comment 🙂

If you want more wedding ideas, or a sneak peak into the wedding aesthetic in my head….I’ve been pinning up a storm on Pinterest here, here and here.

Veltlin

I have been giving some thought to what makes a neighbourhood amazing. What things does a community need to make its residents feel proud of where they live?

I admit, my philosophical questions are directly influenced from the strong urban planning bent of my favourite print magazine, Monocle.  Monocle’s July/August issue did a great job discussing this topic and even put forth a hand picked fictitious neighbourhood containing the best services, stores and restaurants from around the world.  I think a large portion of creating a welcoming street vibe comes down to having an optimal retail and service mix (not too many chain stores and lots of interesting local businesses) plus green space and landscaping.  People are on the street from morning till night in my neighbourhood because there are things to keep people engaged.

One business that just made my neighbourhood a little bit cooler is a wine bar named Veltlin.  Every community needs one of these: An adorable, themed, wine bar with fabulous furniture, modern lighting and a beautifully illustrated mural.  Fortunately for me, one such wine bar opened in my neighbourhood within the past two months.  The business name Veltlin, comes from an important grape in the Central European wine growing region: the Gruner Veltliner, a white grape that is grown in Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary.

Veltlin is a wine bar that is themed on the wine regions from the former Hapsburg empire in Central Europe.  I have been to Veltlin several times since it opened and each time, the chatty staff were happy to help me navigate the regional wines by the glass or by the bottle. I watched this place like a hawk while it was under renovation (pre-opening).  I could tell it was going to be something cool when I saw the mural, wall paper and lights go up.  The mural, as the owner explained to me, was illustrated by a local artist and is a map of the Hapsburg empire.  You then have smaller vignettes on the wallpaper around the bar that give the joint a modern feel.  Another interesting aspect that I appreciated was the actual bar: it is a plexiglass case made up of various soils from around the wine growing regions Veltlin carries.

This is a great little spot to stop in for a glass of wine when the evenings are hots.  They also serve small snacks, which I haven’t tried yet but will report back when I do.  I noticed there is another retail slot being renovated across the street from Veltlin and I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will be a bakery or green grocery- two things Karlin is missing.

Veltlin’s Facebook Page: here

Veltlin’s Website/E-commerce: here