Mojoblog

Welcome to Walter, our new furry companion!


(Photo by Ryan)

He’s 1.5 years old, and we adopted him from the kitty orphanage where he was living since he was found on the street in May. He’s adorable, well behaved and really funny when he does silly kitten things.

I finally took the time to take photos of our house and share then with whoever is still following this blog. So here we are!

The living room:





Dining room (notice the brand new furniture that finally finishes the room):



The cabinet at the back it the brew-closet. It is full of beer brewing equipment.



The lavender kitchen:





Our wonderful bathroom. We opened that window when we renovated it, and it’s the absolute best thing we have done to the house.





The bedroom:



Our terrace, opening from the bedroom:



The garden downstairs:



The crafts/computer room, in its natural state:



And from the outside, we have the top left quadrant of the house and the central balcony:



The church at the end of our street:



That’s it, you’ve seen it all now! (Well, except for the messy closets, but those don’t need to be shown...)

Mojo lost his hard-fought battle and had to be put to sleep on March 14 at 10.50 AM CET.

We’re still not completely clear on what he had; either a fatal virus or an aggressive cancer, but he was severely anemic and lost over half of his body weight in less than two months. Over the weekend he lost the ability to regulate his body temperature and was slipping into a coma, so I took him in first thing Monday morning. The vet was shocked that he hung on as long as he did and reassured me that this was the right thing to do and that there was no way to save him.

He was a terrific companion and I already miss him terribly, but after a little over 12 years, it was apparently his time.

-Ryan

Last weekend we participated in a spectacular regatta of old sailing boats. About 60 old Dutch barges from the beginning of the century were gathered in Enkhuizen for two very pleasant days, with a crew of about 25 people on each boat (depends on the number of masts, we had 2 on the Nirvana), where everybody sleeps on the boat for the weekend. An old coworker invited us there, and we took the opportunity to try a very local sport.



The first thing to tell is that we were incredibly lucky with the weather. Two days of gorgeous weather with just enough wind to push the boats around and give us a little bit of work to maneuver the sails. It wasn’t always easy to take photos, since we had some work to do with our sails, and there was some wind and waves at our post at the front. As a result, not many photos of the actual race, but rather of stuff before and after the action.



Here for example, we are parking after the first day of race, where we had to make a triangle between 3 cities of the IJsselmeer.



The boats pack themselves nicely in rows of 4, and everybody goes through several boats before reaching theirs. It’s very friendly.



All these boats have a flat bottom and a “sword” on the side, a big piece of wood that goes in the water to do the job of a quille when needed. They were used to transport all kinds of things between Dutch cities back in the day, and they can go on canals and the sea in the middle of the Netherlands, but not really in the rough sea. In the 70s the owners of these boats started to convert them in pleasure boats with cabins and more comfort, and to race in regattas like this one.



On Sunday it was a different type of race: an Olympic course. Here our skipper Irene informs us of the plan for the day: first we go against the wind (thus plenty of maneuvers), then we come back to the beginning in a triangle. We did the triangle 3 times to finish the race.



As a result the boats get very close to each other and sometimes play chicken.



It was quite majestic to see these old boats cruise around on the lake!



And it’s quite some work to hoist all these sails and manage all the ropes without mixing or entangling them!



At the end of the weekend we started to understand the principle and to anticipate the proper operations at the right time.



We even did a good score this year: combining the 2 races of Saturday and Sunday we finished 5th on about 60 boats!



Back in the charming town of Enkhuizen, after a very nice weekend learning sailing techniques and meeting very nice people:



We would love to go back next year!

It’s not a secret, Mojo is a fan of tanning his belly.



But honestly, have you ever seen a cat as ridiculous as this?



But watch out, he doesn’t like to be made fun of!



And the view from our dining room in near-infrared.

We appreciate when visitors give us a hand with our house!



Ryan’s Mom Ilyse came for a week and painted a lot of walls and windows.

We focused on our new house all winter, and last weekend it was time to take a little break away from home. Off to Piccadilly circus!



We took the train to Brussels and then the Eurostar straight to the center of London.



My friend Richard had crafted a walking itinerary for us, so we could see the obvious sights and interesting neighborhoods.



So it won’t surprise you to find the house of parliament and its famous Big Ben:



Or a red and black guard with a furry hat watching the palace.



We took a nice stroll in Hyde Park, and that was most of the first day.



Despite this photo, we actually didn’t take the metro and walked about 50km over the weekend.



On day 2 we were up and running pretty early, and the streets were completely empty for a while.



Except for drunk people looking for their way home, after a night at the pub:



And of course, tourists as soon as we reached the neighborhood of St Paul’s Cathedral.



There is a very nice footbridge linking the Cathedral and the Tate Modern museum, called the Millenium Bridge. In the latest Harry Potter movie it gets destroyed by Death Eaters, but fortunately that was just special effects.



Along our walk by the river we stumbled on a wonderful little city market with fantastic produce and edible things of all kinds. We bought a bunch of lunch supplies and dried/canned things to bring back home.



Continuing along the river you can see some more famous sights.



Notice the very nice weather that we had at this point in time.



Just past the tower bridge on this side of the river there is a cute street called Shad Thames with funny little bridges between houses across the street.



And the last photo to show you what our cupboards look like, with jars of all kinds of beans, nuts, flours and so on.



We took advantage of being in a big English-speaking city to buy plenty of new cookbooks, and we’ve been making terrific food from them ever since we came back. Too bad that we’re so lazy with blogging about our food, because I’m sure some of you would enjoy our recipes!

Around the end of April the weather was perfect for a few weeks, and on a sunny Sunday we went to the forest with my coworker Kris, is girlfriend Lisa and their dog Scrubby. This forest had an eclectic collection of themes.



We took the path called the “Milky Way”, where there were models of planets along the way. The distance between planets was to scale, and after a few kilometers we reached the sun. In this representation of the sun, Scrubby found it logical to run in a circle around Kris as fast as she could, “her belly to the ground” as we say in French. She’s still young and she has A LOT of energy.



Very amusing. Around the corner from the sun there was this alignment of radio-telescopes listening to the stars.



And a bit further along that array we strolled through a transfer camp where an unbelievable number of Dutch people were deported to concentration camps during the war.

Well, it’s been a while... Everything is going well in Groningen, now that we live in our own little house and it’s all functional. I’ll try to give you some excerpts of the story.

We moved in our house on March 1st, then survived for 3 weeks without a shower while our bathroom was being renovated. Then I got very busy at work and barely had any brain cells left for home. Then the fam came to visit and help build storage. Then some relatives came for a couple days, which brings us to the photos of today, taken in a tiny fortified village called Bourtange right on the border with Germany.



This village is built in the shape of a star with canals all around, which looks awesome from aerial photos but obviously I don’t have any of my own as we stayed on the ground.



Just around Easter the spring poked its nose and all the trees and flowers in town have come back to life, what a pleasure.



Stay tuned for the next photos!

Vous avez de la chance, chers lecteurs, car grâce à notre nouveau projet photo on est forcés de prendre des photos tous les jours et du coup s’il en reste des potables c’est le blog qui en profite. Vendredi il faisait grand froid, et la campagne était toute gelée. Le brouillard était très épais, par moment sur l’autoroute on avait l’impression d’être tous seuls sur la route. La c’était plus clair:



En milieu de journée le brouillard s’est levé en laissant des petits cristaux de glace sur toutes les brindilles qui passaient:



Avec un grand ciel bleu, c’était vraiment magnifique.



Les brindilles avec des piquants avaient encore plus de cristaux, dommage que je n’avais pas d’objectif macro pour m’approcher plus près.

Ce dimanche nous étions invités pour prendre le thé chez ma collègue Vanja à Assen. Une vue très Groningen en se dirigeant vers la gare:



Elle emmène sa petite famille tous les dimanches faire une promenade dans la campagne, et comme la météo était incroyable (grand ciel bleu le lendemain d’une grosse chute de neige), nous avons profité d’une promenade magnifique.



Comme toujours et partout, il y avait des petits rigolos en vélos sur les pistes enneigées.



On est tombés par hasard sur un troupeau de vaches poilues, qu’elles étaient mignonnes!



Enfin ce n’étaient pas que des demoiselles, mais grâce à son anneau doré dans le nez ce taureau était très sage.



Meeeeuuuuuh!



La campagne était vraiment ravissante, on a eu une chance inouïe d’aller se promener le bon jour.



Et dire que les vacances sont finies...



Rien que d’y penser ça fait pleurer.....

Mojoblog ne devient pas (encore) un blog culinaire, mais mes petits biscuits du jour sont tellement bons que je ne peux m’empêcher de vous en dévoiler la recette inspirée de How to Cook Everything Vegetarian par Mark Bittman. J’ai aussi fait la version au chocolat et cannelle aujourd’hui, mais ce sont ceux au citron qui sont mes préférés. Comme d’habitude pas de beurre chez nous, mais une recette à l’huile d’olive. D’autres parfums sont possibles en variant les huiles, les noix et les liquides, par exemple la version cardamome/pistache que j’aime beaucoup aussi.



Pour une trentaine de petits biscuits
Préparation: 40 minutes

- 1 tasse de farine (moi j’utilise de la complète)
- 1/4 de tasse d’amandes concassées
- 1/4 de cuillère à café de levure
- une pincée de sel
- 1/4 de tasse de sucre (j’utilise du sucre brun tout le temps)
- 1/4 de tasse d’huile d’olive
- 1 oeuf
- le zeste et jus d’un gros citron

Si l’on veut faire un glaçage:
- 3 cuillères à soupe de sucre glace

1. Préchauffer le four à 180°C. Mélanger la farine, les amandes, la levure et le sel dans un bol.

2. Fouetter quelques minutes le sucre, l’huile et l’oeuf, jusqu’à ce que ça mousse et s’allège. Ajouter le zeste et jus du citron. Si on veut faire un glaçage, réserver quelques gouttes de jus de citron pour la fin. Mélanger délicatement le mélange de farine aux ingrédients liquides pour juste incorporer sans trop mélanger.

3. Faire de petits tas de pâte sur une feuille de papier cuisson ou une feuille en silicone. Enfourner pour 10 minutes tout rond, ou jusqu’à ce qu’ils commencent à prendre de la couleur sur les bords. Après quelques minutes de refroidissement, transférer sur une assiette pour finir de refroidir.

4. Pendant la cuisson, préparer le glaçage: mélanger le sucre glace et quelques gouttes de jus de citron pour former une crème de la consistance de chocolat fondu. Placer cette crème dans un sac congélation. Quand les biscuits sont un peu refroidis, couper un tout petit coin (environ 1mm) du sac à congélation, et faire de jolis dessins avec le glaçage sur les biscuits.

Mon fond d’écran du jour m’a rappelé de vous informer de notre petit projet photo pour 2010:



Prendre au moins une photo par jour et la poster sur le nouveau photoblog Mojo 365. On se partage la tâche, donc ce sera une photo de l’un ou l’autre, en principe tous les jours.

Et pour ceux qui se demandaient, la photo ci-dessus vient du pied d’un glacier en Islande.

As everything is closed on Ryan’s birthday here, I prepared his birthday dinner at home this year. We’re spending the day in the train tomorrow so I decided to do it last night so we could enjoy the leftovers today, his real birth day. He’s always looking for new photographic opportunities, so he spent a good chunk of the afternoon taking photos while I was spreading flour all over the house. You would never guess how technical food photography is, and he tried a lot of settings to get to these photos.

The main dish: spinach and ricotta ravioli, all from scratch.



All the ingredients and the preparation are pretty classic, but every step takes a certain time, so along with the rest of the meal I spent most of the day in the kitchen (there are worst ways to spend Christmas day though, I would say).



The hardest step was to close the little pockets of filling without leaving air bubbles and avoiding that the little piles conglomerate.



The first try (below) wasn’t very pretty, but I got the hang of it quickly.



Some precision operating the cutting wheel:



And I let the army of little ravioli dry while I was taking care of the other dishes.



For example, to prepare the wild mushrooms before sticking them in the oven with thyme and olive oil as an antipasti.



And was it good? Oh yes! The ravioli, served with a simple tomato sauce, were the best spinach raviolis I had ever had. The foccacia with sun-dried tomatoes was also fabulous. The roasted peppers with basil-flavored oil are always a success. All this was served with an arugula and pine nut salad, and finished with a grapefruit sorbet, not completely sorbeted but very refreshing. Can’t wait until next year for the next birthday dinner!