Wine and cheese

Spent last night with two friends tasting different wines and cheeses. To mix and match the cheeses I had had a little help from my favourite cheese shop. Having bought cheese there for a couple of years now I know they are very good, but it was still very impressing to actually feel and taste how well the different cheeses and wine went together.

We started with a sparkling wine from Bourgogne – Geisweiler Monopol Crémant de Bourogne Brut and a cow's milk cheese called Langres. A cheese that has been dipped in champagne several times during its ripening.

Then it was time for goat cheese. One called Crottin de Chavignol coming from the Loire Valley and another one called Tommé de Chevre. Goat cheese is known to go very well with Sauvignon blanc so here we tried a New Zealand one called Omaka Springs. Just the right amount of citrus and elderberry to match the saltiness in the cheese.

Next was two hard cheeses made from cow's milk. Old Dutch from The Netherlands and Cherry Monte Veronese made in Verona, Italy. To this we tried Monti Garbi, a red wine from Valpolicella which really brought out flavours of nuts and oak in the cheese.

As last cheese we tried was a Roquefort which is rather sharp and salt, but still a fabulous blue cheese. To remove some of the sharp and salty taste we tried a sweet dessert wine - Château Menota. A perfect match, which almost made the Roquefort creamy and mild.

Having tried, mixed and matched the cheeses and wine in endless combinations I think we all realized that cheese and wine are one of the better things in life. Especially on a Saturday night.

15 books

Another book lover friend of mine asked me to list 15 books I read that always will stick with me. Here goes; quite a wide mix of books with some going back to my teens and some just going back to this year.

1. Margaret Mitchell - Gone With the Wind
2. James A. Michener – Recessional
3. Douglas Kennedy – A special relationship
4. Graham Greene – Travels with my Aunt
5. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – The little Prince
6. Harriet Beecher Stowe - Uncle Tom's cabin
7. Anne Frank – Anne Frank's diary
8. Anna Gavalda - Hunting and gathering
9. Constance Briscoe – Ugly
10. Lionel Shriver – The post birthday world
11. Maeve Binchy – Tara Road
12. Zadie Smith - White teeth
13. Patrick Gale – The whole day through
14. Sarah Waters – The night watch
15. Robert James Waller - The bridges of Madison County

Sailing

Spent the day sailing with work which was very nice. Growing up I sailed quite a bit, but before today it had probably been 20 years ago since I did some serious sailing. After a while some things actually came back to me just like I had been doing it all my life. According the Skipper sailing is a bit like learning to ride a bike. You will never really totally forget and when you do it again it comes back to you. So tomorrow I have a feeling I will have some very sore arms and knees after winching, but it was well worthy it. A great day out on the sea beats most anything. Let's just hope it will not take 20 years until next time.

Happy birthday Blogger!

10 years today. An old-timer on the Internet that feels rather young. I've been on Blogger since April 2006 and I think that's a long time. Then think 10 years. Wow!

Every minute of every day, 270,000 words are written on Blogger
Millions of people worldwide use Blogger to publish to their blog each week

Almost two thirds of Blogger's traffic comes from outside North America (What's the #2 country after the U.S.? Brazil, followed by Turkey, Spain, Canada, and the U.K.)

The most popular sport for our bloggers? Soccer (that's football to the rest of the world), more than four times larger than the #2 sport, baseball

Impressing figures! Let's hope Blogger will continue to thrive and be part of the Internet for another 10 years. Then we can start talking about being an Internet veteran.

Amazing photos

Missing my favourite city London a bit (I haven't been there in late June) I found these amazing photos of London from last year taken by photographer Jason Hawkes.

My favourite photos are number 1, 2 and 7. Just wow! The photos really take your breath away and certainly make my love for London even bigger.

Quick and easy pasta

A while back I found a found a recipe in Elle food & wine that said it was going to be the easiest and tastiest pasta I had had in a long, long time.

It was extremely simple with slicing 4 courgettes really thin and frying them together with chopped chilli and garlic. That was it! Then add spaghetti and drizzle a few drops of olive oil on top and mix. Being a cheese lover I also sprinkled a pinch of paremsan on top as well.

Sometimes chefs say that flavours marry in pan and that's what happened here. The three main ingredients where just made to be cooked together. The olive oil also brought of some of the flavours and together with spaghetti it was a match made in heaven.

The magazine was indeed right, it was the easiest and tastiest pasta I have had in a long, long time. So tomorrow it's time again to make courgette spaghetti with chilli and garlic. I can't wait!

Reading

I've just spent the better part of the weekend. Yes I know, a grown up woman should probably have better things to do, but it is so fun and most of all so relaxing. Growing up I read all the time and was best friend with the local librarians. Then life get in between I guess and it's rare that I have the time to read nowadays. Still I love books and can spend hours in book stores browsing and buying. There is just a certain feel to book store.

During Christmas and summer holidays I try to read as much as I can, but it usually takes a while before I get relaxed enough to read and disappear into someone else's world. I very much did that the last week of my holiday and when I started working again last week that was something that I really missed. I can't read in the evening because I usually a sleep the minute I hit the pillow. So this weekend I decided to read. Pouring rain and wind outside made it feel even better.

I dug into My life so far by Jane Fonda yesterday morning and read all day and evening just stopping to get something to eat. I even read in bed which is very rare and when I woke up this morning all I wanted to do was to continue to read and by noon I was done. It's a good read and again I'm surprised that famous women who seem ti have everything on the inside are so insecure and doubting themselves. But still for the outsiders they come off as very strong and capable persons who are admired by many.

It's a very frank and personal book which touched me in many ways and gave me things to think about. The book is of course also about moving making in the 60's, 70's and early 80's. Long before today's special effects and after the Golden Age era. Quite interesting for all film buffs.

Quote of the day

The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.

~ St. Augustine ~

Snacking habit

I just realised today that I have a bad snacking habit. The minute I leave the office I can feel how I suddenly crave something to eat and I need to put something my mouth right this minute. This means I usually buy something on the way home. Most of the time chocolate but also nuts and dried fruit that I love or some sort of bar. If I don't buy anything I raid the cupboards when I get home. I usually don't need much, just something to keep me going.

I think it's my blood sugar talking. I know that I have very low blood sugar. Twice at the annual health checks at work the nurse has asked me if I have skipped breakfast since my blood sugar has been so low. So I guess it's not very likely I'll get diabetes in the coming years...

Needless to say I want to break this habit. This is probably my real down-fall after a day of good eating and the pounds are packing on. I'm starting to wonder if it isn't a bit psychological too since I can eat an apple 10 minutes before I leave the office but still need something to pick me up on the way home. Or maybe it's only a real bad habit... Thinking back I remember doing the same thing when coming home from school. Maybe I need to feel some sort of comfort or reward that the day is over?

What have gotten me thinking as well is that in France for a whole week I didn't crave chocolate or any other snacks. I just ate three times a day. Plenty of fresh vegetables, fruit, seafood, meat, cheese and wine. I did have desert every day, but it was more like the last touch of a fabulous meal, not that I was craving and needed something sweet. Back home again, it took me one day and then I was into the chocolate again. I know some people say that Mediterranean food is very good for you and I'm starting to think it's true.

So what to do?! I seriously need to think about this. The first choice would be to move to France, but since that's not possible... The second best would probably be to go cold turkey. Not so sure about that though... Drink water? Chew gum? Brush my teeth?

First day done

First day done back at work and it wasn't that bad. A lot of people came back to work today so it almost felt a bit like when school was starting again. But I could certainly tell that I hadn't used my brain for a while. Running some reports I had to do them all over again three times since I managed to click the wrong button over and over again. To my surprise I didn't have that many emails (about 200) to go through, but still going through them and see if any action was required took most of the morning. The afternoon passed by rather quickly and I think I got a t least a few things done.

I left the office on the dot (don't want to overdo it the first day..) and walked home. My walks back and forth to the office is actually something that I have missed, and I can tell after today that they do me good. Not much, but they keep me moving. Home I couldn't quit yawning and for 20 minutes I actually took a quick nap on the sofa. I could not believe how tired I was and still am. It's not like I've been doing anything. I've only been to work...

The last hours

The last hours of my 4 week holiday is here. I really can't believe how quickly those weeks went by, but on the other hand it's been a fabulous month. France, seeing Frida, eating and drinking lovely food and wine, cleaning the attic, sorting and fixing the cupboards, a lot of rain but also long days in the sun reading.

It always takes me a while to get into reading mode, so I guess that's is what I'll be missing this coming week. To just read, read and read. My big pile of books has for the first time in a very long, long time actually gotten smaller. Some of the books I've just read I bought in London 3 years ago so that's really a sign I've done a lot of reading.

Of course I'll miss sleeping late and going to bed late and even having a nap if I feel like it, but after a a couple of days back at work getting up at 6 am will not be a problem. Could just someone remind me of that tomorrow morning, though?!

So to conclude things, I'm happy, relaxed, well-rested and actually think it's rather OK to go back to work tomorrow. I must have had a good holiday...

Always looking up

Another very good read this holiday has been Always looking up by Michael J Fox. In this book he continues to tell us very honestly how it is to live with Parkinson's disease and what he has done for the last 9 years after leaving Spin City. If his first book Lucky man was about the years being a successful TV and film star leading up to the first signs of PD Always looking up is about an incurable optimist who needs to find something new to do for a living. Never sentimental or bitter, instead with a great sense of humour, quite dry from time to time, we learn that giving up is not an option and one should always look up.

Even though the words inspiring and touching can come off as bit of cliché this is what you feel reading the book. It doesn't matter how much fame, fortune and celebrity friends you have. It is what you do with it when the though times arrive, and Michael J Fox decided to make lemonades from the the lemons life has thrown at him.

The whole day through

I haven't read as much as I thought I was going to do this holiday but most of the books I have read so far have been very good. At one of my many trips to London during the spring I found The whole day through by Patrick Gale. I started reading the book at supper time my first night in Nice and continued reading every night. During the day I actually caught myself looking forward to supper so I could continue to read and find out what was going to happen next.

The whole day trough tells the story about love, as bitter sweet it can be, together with morality, memoires and the art of being good. Laura is a 40-something woman who has been forced to moved back from Paris to take care of her ailing mother in Winchester. There she runs into Ben, the love of her student days, who has left London and his wife to take care of his younger brother that has Down's Syndrome. Their old love is immediate but the question is if can sustain the tests of love, i.e. the failings, the triumphs and the regrets.

I finished the last pages sitting at Copenhagen airport and when I had turned over the last page I found myself staring out through the window feeling the same bitter sweet pain in the heart just as Laura and Ben had felt. In another word I had been touched by love.

Favourite photos

As usual I took many, many photos from my trip. That's the good thing with digital photos. If you don't like the the photo just press delete and take another one. Also as always I'm very fascinated by the ocean. Especially this time when it was so blue and and along with a blue sky – très magnifique.