Solli in Paris

On my way to the capital of Sweden, Stockholm..where I will be spending my weekend…It will be pretty intensive since I have to leave already on Sunday. But I’m happy it’s a holiday today in Copenhagen (where I’m working) so that I can start my weekend earlier ;-)

Wish you a great weekend!

Lanvin in Copenhagen…

Artichoke is one of my favourite vegetables. It has a spectacular taste and superb nutrition, who cannot love that vegetable?

The ones I prepeared yesterday and that you can see in the photos are straight from France (still not the season in Sweden…) and I boiled them for about 1 hour with one lemon (straight from Italy!) and with some salt, sugar and love from Sweden ;-).

The joy of eating an artichoke: First I remove the fuzzy choke guarding the heart in the middle and I put one to two tablespoons of salty butter on the heart so it can melt. Then I pull of one of the outermost petals and dip it in the melted butter…I pull the petal through my slightly clenched teeth to remove the soft flesh at the bottom of the petal..and I go on like that until all the petals has been removed and that is when I have arrived to one of the culinary rewards, the heart!  Now the heart is soaked with the melted butter and it is heavenly delicious!

Today its May 1st and it is also the day when French people are waving these beautiful porte-bonheurs (lucky charms) through the air and wishing each other good luck!

La Fête du Muguet (muguet = Lily of the Valley) and La Fête du Travail in France, are a public holiday to celebrate workers right and also an occasion to present the fragrant Spring flower, the lily of the valley to loved ones. When I was living in Saint Germain in Paris I remember that some representatives from Croix-Rouge française (the Red Cross) used to sell this fragrant Spring flower on the street. The photo above is acctually the muguet I bought from them on May 1st in France 2010….

Wish you all a bonne fête du muguet!

The French chain of cosmetics, Sephora, loves Copenhagen that much that they will open their first store in Scandinavia in Copenhagen in May….In the gallery Illum to be more precisely. That’s great news for all the people in Copenhagen & me  :-)

I’ve also heard that Sephora is going to open in Stockholm in the end of the year….

FR: Sephora bientôt à Copenhague, en Danemark.

Me and King Louis XIV of France have one thing in common, we share the same love for asparagus. In fact he loved that vegetable so much that he had special greenhouses built so that he could enjoy asparagus year round! Unfortunately I cannot do the same….

But with Spring comes asparagus and I love that! I use to boil them for a couple of minutes…then I fry them in a frying pan for a couple for 1-2 minutes with some salty butter…then I serve them with some parmesan cheese on top…delicious appetizer!

Did you know that asparagus is a good source of vitamin B₆, calcium, magnesium and zinc, dietary fiber, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K, thiamin, riboflavin, rutin, niacin, folic acid, iron, phosphorus, potassium, copper, manganese and selenium as well as chromium?

FR: Moi et le roi Louis XIV de France partageons la même amour pour les asperges. En fait, il avait des serres spéciales construites pour les profites pendant toute de l’année. Malheureusement je ne peux pas faire la même chose…

The Perfect Egg for me is boiled for about 5 minutes (for a medium sized egg)…that is when the yolk is still soft and creamy and the white is just set but still quite wobbly.  With some sprinkled salt on the top its total perfection!

When I buy eggs I always make sure the eggs comes from organic certified farms where the chickens can roam freely and have access to a natural environment. Organic hens and chickens are fed organic feed and it is prohibited to feed animal byproducts or GMO and no antibiotics is allowed except in emergencies. I believe that eggs coming from hens and chickens that has been grown up with animal welfare standards improves the quality of both the eggs and the meat, low stress levels lead to superior quality of animal products…with other words…happy chicken and hens = good quality eggs = good quality nutrition!

So it’s not enough when farmers label their eggs “free-range” because that only means the chicken are not in a cage, but usually still confined in barns at high population densitites…

View from my window in my apartment at Boulevard Saint Germain, Paris

While some people are fascinated by skyscrapes and other extraordinatry views I was and still I’m fascinated by the view over the Parisian rooftops. No building ressembles the other, time and history has clearly left signs…the window shutters are my favourite ones (please let them never be changed into ugly new ones)…and the “l’œil de bœuf “s in zinc…I remember when we were selling those in the gallery I used to work at. People use them as decoration in homes, by putting a mirror in them. Sometimes I wish I could turn into Mary Poppins, open my umbrella and just fly in the sky above all these beautiful rooftops in Paris :-)

“Chem Cheminée Chem Cheminée Chem Chem Tchéri,
Pour avoir d’ la chance, prends ta chance telle qu’elle vient.
Chem Cheminée Chem Cheminée Chem Chem Tchéro,
Dans vos mains je trouve chaque fois mon étoile d’or.“

(Mary Poppins, “Chem Cheminée”)

View from my window in my apartment at Boulevard Saint Germain, Paris. You can see the two towers from the Saint Sulpice church and the Montparnasse tower.

Rue Jacob is a charming street in St Germain in Paris and since there was a period I was working at Ladurée Bonaparte that is situated in the intersection of Rue Jacob and Rue Bonaparte, I was walking on Rue Jacob pretty often. While working at Ladurée and I had my daily breaks I always used to go out and have a 15 minutes of walk exploring the area and looking in the display windows of the boutiques…..often dreaming about the beautiful Hervé Léger dresses in the Hervé L.Leroux boutique next to Ladurée…or just being fascinated by the beautiful buildings…decorated with typical French shutters, antique lanterns, boutique signs and the building facade covered with the dirt of exhaust fumes, they all showed signs of the years that had passed….

I love REN‘s products and this Rosa Centifolia Cleansing Gel is one of my favourites….cleaning my face has never been more joyful and pleasant! When I rub some of this cleansing gel between my hands I can feel the beautiful scent of rose petals that is one of the bio extracts in this gel. I close my eyes and imagine myself being in a rosegarden…surrounded by roses while massaging it onto my face…The gel cleanses my skin throughly and the result is a fresh, glowing and happy skin :-) Another reason, apart from the benefits, why I love RENs products is that they only use skin-friendly ingredients…read about their 5 principals here.

I discovered this brand when I moved to Paris in 2010…in Paris I used to buy RENs products at Colette and here in Sweden I buy it at the pharmacy.

FR: J’adore les produits de REN et ce Rosa Centifiolia Gel Nettoyant est un de mes favoris. Avec ce produit c’est plus joyeux et agréable de faire le nettoyage de mon visage.

J’ai découvert cette marque quand j’ai déménagé à Paris en 2010…. A Paris je acheter les produits de REN chez Colette et ici, en Suède, je les trouver à la pharmacie.

Look at her, isn’t she just adorable? My mom has two cats and this is one of them. She is so cute and charming! Always waiting for me outside the door when I’m coming home from my work in Denmark…just so that we can go inside together…..

Les nuits sont longues à Paris (the nights are long in Paris) and that is so true. The photo above is taken when I was living at Avenue Carnot in Paris…with the beautiful view over L’Arc de Triomphe. Paris by day and Paris by night…I enjoyed Paris anytime. I really don’t know what more to say than…tu me manques beaucoup Paris (I miss you alot Paris).

A couple of days ago I published some photos with cherry blossom trees that were taken in Paris earlier. The good news is that the cherry blossom trees in Copenhagen are in bloom now aswell :-) Nowadays I try to stroll around in Copenhagen before juming on the train back to Sweden after my working day. Copenhagen is a true beauty and I can’t wait to discover this beautiful and charming city. These photos are taking on my way to the little mermaid, the Ivar Huitfeldt Column with a statue of Victoria on the top caught my attention…and so did the cherry blossom trees that was almost covering the ground around it.

FR: Les cerisiers sont en pleine floraison à Copenhague.

I need your help! Anyone who can recommend a slim and light but still professional digital camera that takes good quality photos that I can have as a complement to my SLR camera? My Nikon is super heavy and I would like to buy a slim camera that I can bring with my daily…..without having pain in my shoulders.

So if anyone of you who got a great compact digital camera or knows good ones …please recommend me a camera to buy :-)

I’ve had Canon G12, which was great but still t0o heavy and big and I gave it to my sister when I visited her in Asia…

Now I’m using a SLR camera, Nikon D5100, Lens: Nikkor 35 mmf/1.8 G…but as I wrote in the beginning, it’s too big and too heavy to bring with me daily.

Cherry blossom trees in Paris

Paris in pink! The beautiful cherry blossom trees are finally in bloom…..

Cherry blossom trees in Paris