Cooking · DIY · Kitchen · Tutorial

Winter time warmness: SOUP

With wintertime come many of my favorite things; one of them:soup. We always had soup at home and my mom thought me the most basic but best recipes. A few of my favorite soups are Zucchini soup, Chicken soup and here’s my special orange soup recipe for you to try at home. Ideal for warm and cozy home moments. It is pure health in a bowl: pumpkin and butternut squash are low calorie vegetables that are both incredibly rich in vital antioxidants, carotene and vitamins. They contain no saturated fats or cholesterol and are a rich source of dietary fiber and phyto-nutrients. Vitamin A is a powerful natural anti-oxidant and is required by the body for maintaining the integrity of the skin and mucus membranes. It is also an essential vitamin for good eye-sight – ever seen a rabbit with glasses :)? Those orange vegetables contain adequate levels of minerals like iron, zinc, copper, calcium, potassium, and phosphorus.

Ingredients needed:

  • 2 large sweet potatoes
  • 2 large carrots – or more if you like it sweet
  • 1 large butternut squash
  • 1 medium sized pumpkin – there are many varieties, colors & sizes you can alternate
  • 1 large onion
  • salt & pepper
  • about a tablespoon olive oil
  • chicken/vegetable stock/cube
  • a mixer

Instructions:

  • clean, peel, and cut the vegetables as small as you can
  • heat the olive oil in a big pot
  • add the sliced onion and let it brown
  • add the vegetables and let them brown just for a few minutes
  • add boiling water
  • add salt, pepper and the cube
  • let it boil and cook on medium heat for as long as needed until all vegetables are soft enough
  • let the pot cool down and then mix together

Tip:

make plenty so you can freeze some. i usually keep them in individual plastic pots in order to freeze smaller portions and heat them up quickly later on. you can keep them up to a year in your freezer. just write the date on it.

That’s all folks. Easy and pure health and warmth.

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Bon appetit

Crafting · Design · DIY · Photography · Tutorial

DIY: Customize your photo camera

Do you have a camera? Do you like to personalize your items? Here’s a great idea to customize your camera strap. With clear and easy instructions to follow in Dutch via Elle.be and in French via Pop&Soda. Or you could do just like me: read it, print it out, plan it and then; instead of following the instructions, just improvise with what you have around you.

Materials needed: a camera, a slingshot, some fabric ribbon or an old belt, scissors and a sewing machine (or good handy sewing fingers for manual sewing or some good textile glue if you’re really impatient.)

In between my stash of yarn, collection of old and new fabrics, some denim and other recycled textiles and others, I found this wonderful ribbon from Liberty London and it perfectly fitted my camera strap! Really easy if you know how to sew and if not: again, just follow the instructions.

Here’s the result:

 

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DIY camera

www.elle.be

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http://www.popandsoda.com/diy-concours-fabriquer-une-sangle-dappareil-photo/

Baking · DIY · Tutorial · Uncategorized

Tutorial: Marilyn’s Apple Pie

Are we allowed to post a tutorial for baking on our blog? Hell’s yeah. I never come empty handed to family or Shabbat dinners. Therefore I’m always looking for new creations in the kitchen. Today I’m sharing an apple pie recipe that is based on existing ones but where I’ve added my own imagination and the ultimate secret ingredient* that makes the difference. Thank you Delicatessen for the inspiration and thank you Tori Avey from TheShiksa.com for the basic recipe.

Ingredients:

  • 5 ripe granny smith apples – peeled2013-10-053
  • feel free to add 2 or more other apples
  • a bowl of dried raisins
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup orange juice
  • 1/2 lemon, juiced
  • 1/3 cup white sugar
  • 5 tbsp brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp (or more depending on your taste of) Cardamom*
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
1. Start with the crust. Some people buy it. Some people make it. To make your own dough, you can use this website. Once your dough is cooling off in the fridge you can turn on your oven, heat it to 175°C and prepare a preferably round oven dish with some parchment paper.
IMG_26602. Cut your apples either in small little chopped squares or just cut them in to thin slices.

IMG_26613. Meanwhile, heat the butter in a medium saucepan. Then add the apples and raisins and then the orange juice, lemon, sugars, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom. Bring them to a boil and stir occasionally until you obtain a nice mixture and a great smell. Cover the pan and cook on medium heat for exactly 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Do not overcook. Uncover apples at the end of cooking and remove from heat and allow to cool.

IMG_2662IMG_26644. To prepare the dough – whether from your fridge or freezer – make sure it’s not too cold so you can work it. Roll out the dough with a tool or with you hand as flat as possible. Place the flattened dough in your recipient, cut off hanging borders and keep some for the top coat. You can use your fantasy for the top coat. I try to make a little apple too for those who can see. Poor in the apple mixture. Then finish with your top coat. When preparing the actual pie, I always make some tiny little individual portions to share and taste.IMG_2666

Collages1

IMG_26775. Bake pie for 45-50 minutes, until the top is golden brown and pie is cooked through. Serve warm or cold, whith some vanilla ice or not. Bon appétit.

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Art · Crafting · Design · DIY · Fashion · Israel · Jaffa · Lifestyle · Neve Tzedek · Photography · Restaurants · Tel Aviv · Travel guide

Noga Quarter, a bubble within the bubble…

Noga Area is a little bubble within our Tel Aviv bubble. It’s quiet and happening at the same time. Once again, one of the magic features of little Tel Aviv, you walk one street away and you’re in a totally different world. Noga is known for its little charming shops, hip cafés, upcoming artist projects and design studios. It’s surrounded by some amazing real estate renovation and conservation projects like The Village, the American Colony and actually connects Neve Tzedek to Jaffa. Together with fellow blogger and buddy Ross Belfer from Eager Tourist  and the amazing upcoming photographer Shiran “Poomilicious” Pomerantz we went on a short visit:

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Cafelix You can start off with a delicious coffee at Cafelix. If you’re a returning costumer, you may even get your own coffeecup on the wall with your name under.

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Gelada Studio Then visit Gelada Studio for some original T-shirt designs and new vintage accessories.

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Hastudia “is a multi-disciplinary studio for arts & crafts that promotes sustainable, community-oriented and creative lifestyle. Their aim is to become a hub for functional upcycled art; a place where amateurs and hobbyists alike, come to work on their own handmade projects and get their hands dirty. It is a place where people come to be empowered, learn a new skill, engage with members of their community and create.”

NaomiMaraavi

Naomi Maraavi’s shop is “an individual recycled re-designed eco collection blending art, fashion and storytelling.”

CasinoSanRemo

Casino San Remo is another hipster-hot-spot for food, drinks, art and music.

Noga

Crafting · DIY · Knitting · Lifestyle · Tutorial

Winters are more fun with Life on Mars

photoHave you ever given up something or someone and replaced it by something much better? You’re talking about your last boyfriend? I’m talking about trading cigarettes for knitting needles. One of my best decisions ever. I quit smoking  in October 2010 while on tour with Leonard Cohen in Poland and taught myself how to knit. Being a Gemini, I may be an autodidact but patience is not my strongest asset. I spent hours pausing and playing YouTube tutorials and after a few disastrous pieces of holed rags I made my first scarf.

And then, slowly but surely I started learning more about the wonderful world of knitting. There’s so much to discover about yarn, fibers, needles, techniques, stores etc. Then came the “Life on Mars” labels. Mars is my nickname since childhood, didn’t choose it, never really liked it but as it’s here to stay, why not use it well, right? I mostly knit scarves but I also love to adventure myself in new projects: socks, cowls, dolls, pillows and lately sweaters. My favorite yarn is Worsted Cotton by Blue Sky Alpacas and my favorite stitch is the brioche stitch (tutorial on Newstitchaday)

Knitting is much more than just a craft. A creative process in which every step can be delightful: from thinking and cooking the idea in your head, to finding the right yarn, feeling the fibers, imagining the colors, the actual knitting and until the final result. There’s great satisfaction when you wear your handmade creation or see someone else with it.  Is there any sexier gift for your man than a handmade scarf around his neck? Lately, and when my real-job-working-schedule allows it,  “Life on Mars” has been expanding to sewing creations like pouches and other accessories. Those items and some of the scarves below are still for sale, contact me for purchase inquiries (or for knitting advice).

I believe there’s also a deeper lever and power to knitting; call it therapy, meditation, whatever. Waiting becomes a different experience, meaning less stress and more zen. While others get nervous standing in lines, you go like “Yesh, I have that much time to do that many lines and finish this or that project”. The repetitive movements and the sound of those bamboo needles rock me into the utmost comfortable well-being.

Shalom… or to my Flemish readers (doe je) Sjaalom…

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DIY · General

Wedding Reception DIY

Quite recently a friend asked me if I was up for decorating and organising her wedding reception, which will take place end of August. The location was already set: a beautiful garden in the city. With more than 2 months time I started my research for the perfect reception. I read a couple of articles online about planning a wedding, and every article said that you have to start planning everything at least 6 months ahead! That kinda stressed me out! There is so much to do and think of! What will be the theme? What furniture will we use? Will it be a walking dinner reception or a seated reception? What music will be played? What lighting? Who will sit where? What if the weather is bad?

(!!!!!)

Thank God I don’t have to plan it all by myself. I will get by with a little help from my friends 😉

Here are some of our ideas already.

Pictures by Tumblr and Weheartit.com

Baking · Crafting · DIY · Shoebox · Tel Aviv · Tutorial

DIY: How to make a cookie jar out of a shoebox

I don’t know what you do when you’re “surfing” on the net, but often I look for creative projects; for the house, the garden and also a lot of practical things. Now it’s my turn to post a tutorial for a DIY project: how to make a cookie jar out of a shoebox.

1. Start by baking cookies. My 2 favorites are chocolate chip cookies (recipe by Jacques Torres’s Secret Chocolate Chip Cookies) and granola cookies (recipe by Carine Goren)

2. While they bake, take a shoebox and fill the inside with baking paper by stapling it at the corners.

3. Pick some scrapbook paper or any other material (newspaper, photos, magazines) and start gluing. This is where your creative freedom comes in. You could also paint or draw if you have that talent.

4. Take a photo and send it to me 🙂

You can use the box at home but it’s also a great present for home made cookies when you bring them to a diner!

Bon appétit.

Art · Crafting · DIY · History · Uncategorized

Got my Singer workin’

Some people got their mojo workin’. I got my Singer workin’. Until now I had a very nice Singer sewing machine ‘borrowed’ from my boyfriends’ mom (it was his grandmother’s). I practiced a lot and made some fun stuff (pouches, pants, aprons, bags etc.) I thought that was a ‘retro’ machine (it has a pedal and works on electricity), until I found out there is an even older machine coming my way.

My belated grandmother was a professional sewer. I had heard the stories, how she would sew uniforms for the kids of the village where she was hiding during the Holocaust and that she had sewn a secret pocket in her bra to put a few diamonds so she could buy food during the war. My father mostly remembered playing “Tram” with it where he would be the conductor. Kids remember the sounds, smells and move of their mothers sewing and threading for a long time and it evokes a lot of nostalgia.

My grandmother, Daisy Ouziel (1915-1985), died from Alzheimer when I was only a kid. I always heard how much I look like her, talk like her, move like her, dance like her. How I bite my lip like her, etc etc. So apparently I’ve also inherited the sewing passion. My uncle took  the machine with him when he moved to Australia with his family. In 2010 he died, sadly. After discussing it with the family, we all came to the conclusion it would make sense to ship the Singer sewing machine to me in Israel.  How beautiful is it to close the cycle, to have this machine here in Tel Aviv in my home. There was a lot of work to do to repair it and get the wheel back to spin, but here it is finally. I got my Singer workin’.