Vintage napkin giveaways' winner

I've been so busy for the past few days and have not much time to update my blog as promised earlier ;).

Anyway, for the Vintage Napkin Giveaway entry, we have a winner!

I've picked the top three ideas from the bunch. Thanks to all who took part in this fun activity. Since I wasn't sure which one is the best of the best, I did a draw.

Before I arrived at a winner, the picked names were: Budlee, Mr F and Tiami.

First, I picked three chocolate candies and each colour represented their respective name.

Then, I jumbled the candies in my hand with my eyes closed. With eyes still closed, I picked one candy as the winner!


And, it was the pink one! Winner Mr. Budlee, please send me your home address to my email, and I'll mail you the prize! ;)

For the promised Affogatto pictures, I'll only post them in the next entry.


Find out how I had used my Dalloyau chocolate candies in my Affogatto!

Vanilla at hand...

I always stock up some vanilla ice-cream in my fridge. Not only because I am such a fan of vanilla ice-cream, to me it can also be a life-saver when I just have no idea how to make my dessert interesting!

Everytime I have guests at home, I love serving them with plenty of my cooking, but my favourite part is the dessert. To make my guests feel more welcomed, I had always made sure that my dessert surprises them. Whenever they drop by unexpectedly, vanilla ice-cream is always my solution!

One such occasion happened just last week. So I cleverly used vanilla ice-cream for all my desserts.

First, I made poached pears in sparkling juice and served them with scoops of vanilla ice-cream as you can see in the picture above. To prepare it, you just need a little effort.

Poached Pear in Sparkling Juice.

All you need are a few simple items (serves two):

2 pears (I had used red angle pears)
500ml of red sparkling grape juice.
150 grams of sugar
2 star anises
zest of a lemon

Steps:

Peel the pears from the bottom up, making a hole so that you can remove the seeds and core of the pear. Leave the stems on.

Boil some sparkling juice with sugar, star anise and lemon zest in a pot. Once boiled, place the pears in the pot and cook for 20 minutes or till they get as tender you want them to be.

Put the pears aside until they cool, and then cooling them further in the fridge. Continue boiling the sparkling juice until it gets thicker, so that you can use it for your ice cream dressing.

Pecan Brownies with Vanilla Ice-cream and Strawberries.

Instead of serving the brownies with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream, I had layered the ice cream on them this time. Then, I had arranged some strawberries on top of them. Sprinkle some caster sugar as finishing, and walla!

Then you must keep your well-decorated brownies in the fridge for 5 minutes (at least) to let the ice-cream firm back.

Affogatto!
Come back tomorrow, and I will continue with the Affogatto... plus, find out who's the lucky winner of the vintage napkin giveaway!

Another peaceful demonstration

I didn't realise X'mas is just around the corner until I saw X'mas Bearista Bears being displayed on Starbucks' rack. To me, X'mas simply means end of the year. Somehow, I felt this year has been the most fruitful year, and am glad with all the decisions I have made.

Anyway, I bought a couple of Starbucks X'mas Bearista Bears as a gift for someone who has never missed collecting any Starbucks Bearista Bears since 2004 ;)

Starbucks Galerie des Arcades at Champs Elysee.

On my way to the Metro, once again I saw yet another peaceful demonstration.

I got very close to them, and listened to what they were trying to shout about. It was actually a peaceful anti-Israel demonstration .



"La france est une farce, SARKO est une garce"France is a joke, SARKO (Nicolas Sarkozy -) is a bitchy girl.(Nicolas Sarkozy is the current president of French Republic)












"Boycott, Veolia, Alstom, Dexia qui participent a la colonisation des territoires palestinies" Boycott Veolia, Alstom, Dexia, which takes part in the colonization Of the Palestinian territories.
Veolia - is formerly Connex) is the international transport services division of the French-based multinational company Veolia Environnement.
Alstom - is a large French multinational conglomerate which holds interests in the power generation and transport markets.
Dexia - is a Belgian-French financial institution.





The 2009 Starbucks X'mas Bearista Bears.

Anyway, the vintage napkin giveaway is still open! You may still submit your creative ideas, latest by this coming Friday!

Vintage napkins and giveaways!

Monsieur... Monsieur..... Monsieur! ( sir...sir..sir! ) If you're a guy, that's the typical word that would greet you, by the pimps and their "social ladies" as you make your way through Pigalle, the red light district of Paris, home to the Moulin Rouge cabaret. It's a bit annoying when they get too pushy to get your attention.

The Moulin Rogue

But, somehow, there are many "decent" shops in that area where you can find collectibles and vintage items.

Vintage napkins!

I managed to buy these ten vintage napkins at a very good bargain (€ 18 each) . Their printed graphics look very cool, mostly taken from old French magazine covers and movie posters. I planned to frame them nicely or stitch them into a cushion cover as designs below:




Giveaways!

Anyway, I have something to giveaway! To all of you out there, you can win one of the napkins above by simply following the rules below:

1- If you have the ten napkins what would you do with them, to show how innovative and creative you are in displaying them? Leave your answer in the comments section.

2- Your answer must be in English or Bahasa Malaysia.

3- I will pick the most creative answer as the winner. Remember, only ONE winner! If the winner is a follower of my blog and a fan page member, he/she will receive a vintage napkin PLUS a pack of multi-flavour macarons like the pic below!



Get creative, guys!

Salmon, Salmon, Salmon!

I thought of pan-grilling two slices of salmon for lunch, and keep another two for dinner. Nowadays, I'm more into blogging about food; and styling the food is my latest interest!

Photography on food styling is really satisfying! Cooking of course is one of my passions. I still remember about my favourite chef Laura Calder. She gains her interest in cooking only at age 30! She had a linguistics background and later became - a chef? How cool! That, is really inspiring... I just wish that one day, I get to run my own cafe, and at same time, able to display my painting collection, selling them at my cafe? *dreaming*

O.k, here is a slice of fresh, raw salmon... Really fresh! In Paris, salmon can be considered cheap!

I simply marinated my salmon with crushed black peppers, paprika, some salt and sugar. Drizzled some olive oil just before grilling.




And here is how it looks on my lunch plate... I had also prepared a boiled potato in pumkin and cauliflower soup. Yumms! And for dinner, I had salmon - again! I made a salmon baked rice with a mix of mushrooms... And I just hope that I didn't overdose on salmon!

Salmon again... for dinner!

And the next morning just before my class started, I had raw salmon at the cafeteria... Wow, I even impressed myself, what a true salmon maniac I could be!