baked goods

tonight E is having a barbeque for all the apples folks that are in town, so in their honour i made apple cupcakes with salted caramel frosting. the cupcakes turned out a little more muffiny than i liked, but S claims that they are tasty, so hopefully it's just that i hate muffins (not a cake! not a bread! the chicken of the baking world).

Process wise, it was pretty straightforward. Just an ordinary vanilla butter cupcake swirled through with oven roasted apples (from New Zealand! crawling with fireblight!)

And topped with caramel frosting

Spring is in the air

The weather is in finally starting to look up in Geneva, after S was welcomed home by a serious grey turn.

But never fear, the sun is kicking the ass of the gloom and the parks and lake are once again looking their best .. and I have a wonderful new celebratory spring skirt.

So green!

Unfortunately, the sun is not so triumphant back home and tonight I am going to pick out some red wool for a scarf project in honour of my poor freezing southern hemisphere pals.

Art Basel

E and I jumped on a train and went to Art Basel. Not only did we get to see lots of fun art, but we also got the chance to race around Basel and eat delicious snacks and enjoy the sunshiny weather. Switzerland in the springtime is pretty damn cool.

Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take photographs in the halls (although I bet no one stopped Brad Pitt), but I did get to see some beautiful installations. Some of my favourite pieces were the Yoshitomo Nara haunted playhouse, the Nan Goldin retrospective, Annetta Mona Chisa and Lucia Tkacova's "Haiku" series of neon tubes:

The speech of Confucius;

is a crack in the upside-down growing

or, everyone's blonde

and Marcel van Eeden's "Sammlung Boryna" series.

Le Cabinet

Francesca is totally famous now.

Oh, Jerusalem

Words can't describe the spectacularness of my trip to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Great friends, great food, great weather, great coffee. Beachy goodness (and I got to wear my fabulous new bikini).

Words can't describe, but photographs will suffice. If only I had thought to snap some pictures of the shukshuka.

A, A and E: I love you guys.

love is

this kara walker print, which is currently for sale on artnet.

s says it is a little out of our price range, though, so i have to settle for a book instead.

baked goods

Green tea cupcake (l) and vanilla cupcakes with salted caramel swirl frosting (r), baked for the first big barbeque of the summer.

On a related note, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, professor olivier de schutter, recently released a report examining how the WTO agreement on agriculture and the reform program on trade in agriculture impact on the right to food.

all the good people i've left behind

I am reading "The Importance of the Frontier in American History", and thinking about boundaries. Boundaries between places, boundaries between people.

It is a damn good book indeed that makes you think about your own place in the world in a new way, rather than simply rehearsing the same old song sheet again and again.