mango slaw

I'm still searching for the perfect summer salad that requires minimal cooking for hot summer nights.  Last week I think I came close.  It's this - Mango slaw.  I'm not much of a "slaw" person - but this one is good.  The cabbage is crunchy, the mango sweet and the onion gives the whole salad balance.  Next time I think I'll go for slightly firmer mangoes which keep their shape once cut.  When I made this I ended up substituting finely sliced fresh chiilis instead of chilli flakes which went down a treat.  The salad was spicey, sweet and salty awesome-ness.   Oh, and I couldn't find mint so I used basil and ended up using peanuts and not cashews because I picked up the wrong packet in the supermarket.  And that's the other reason that I love this meal - it's flexible enough that even when my head is completely frazzled, I can go to the supermarket, pick up the wrong ingredients and still make something that tastes delicious.  It's a winner in my book!

As with many recipes, I found this at smitten kitchen, one of my all-time favourite food-blogs around.

you capture : black and white

One more photo from the weekend in Copenhagen.  This week's theme for You Capture was black and white.  I took this photo of Nyhavn from a watertaxi on our way to Halvandet.   Nyhavn was one of the last ports in central Copenhagen to be gentrified in the 1970s.  It's now pretty much over -run with touristy restaurants, but if you squint your eyes (or turn your photo into B&W) it's as if time stood still.

This photo also got a bit of a sprucing up with a vintage texture freebie from Paint the Moon. 

a poem on thursday: high summer

This week Madeline Bea's prompt was traditional.  Keeping with "my tradition" albeit short-lived, I started with a poem - a traditional sonnet.  My mind immediately wandered to "shall I compare thee to a summer's day", but since this is supposed to be about me exploring unknown poets and poetry I kept searching.  Ebenezer Jones' High Summer was the answer.

No mixed-media image this week.  The creative juices weren't up to the challenge, so some pretty pictures instead.

High Summer

by Ebenezer Jones

I never wholly feel that summer is high,

However green the trees, or loud the birds,

However movelessly eye-winking herds

Stand in field ponds, or under large trees lied

Till I do climb all cultured pastures by,

That hedged by hedgerows studiously fretted trim,

Smile like a lady's face with lace laced prim,

And on some moor or hill that seeks the sky

Lonely and nakedly,--utterly lie down,

And feel the sunshine throbbing on body and limb,

My drowsy brain in pleasant drunkenness swim,

Each rising thought sink back and dreamily drowns

Smiles creep o'er my face, and smother my lips, and cloy,

Each muscle sink to itself, and separately enjoy.

this is who I am : celebrate emotions

I might have been slightly misleading about there being no photos of me from the wedding on the weekend.  There were a couple but the only one deemed blog-worthy was this one and I was saving it for Divas and Dreams Creative Workshop challenge.  Week three is all about celebrating your emotions.  The task was to think of the one emotion that takes up most space inside you, which feeling is the most dominant one? 

Perhaps it's a combination of summer heat and weddings but I'm feeling very sentimental and romantic this week.   Six months after moving to Berlin to live with Matthias I am beginning to feel like this is our home, not just an apartment where we live.  Moving was a bit of a gamble requiring a healthy dose of trust and a sprinkle of faith.  Well, I think the gamble paid off.  Six months on I still feel very much loved and in love.

Copenhagen Wedding

Photos from the wedding as promised.  The ceremony started at 3pm, dinner bagan at six (four courses and seventeen speeches!) and by midnight we were dancing in the old barn to a fantastic band from Copenhagen.  Supper was served at 3am (!) and although I didn't make it to the end, there was apparently a soccer game at 6am just before the last revellers turned in for a few hours shut-eye before brunch at 10am the next morning.  My only regret is that I wish I had remembered to take a photo of me!

K&K's wedding

This is the photo that Kim edited as part of Stay-Cation this week.  Thought it was only appropriate for it to start off my sneak-peek of K&K's wedding.  Even more so as it was taken in April when I was at another friend's wedding in Tuscany.  Pop over to Kim's blog to see a before and after of the image.  Kim is an incredibly inspiring blogger, artist and photographer - her blog was one of the first photography blogs that I came across and I love seeing how she manages to transform her photos into dreamy and romantic artworks.

And, before I go a photo of last weekend's happy couple.  More to come later.

lovely copenhagen

Just back and ready for bed, but before I go a few photos from the weekend.  Copenhagen was wonderful.  Perfect weather, a wonderful wedding and a chance to catch up with friends I haven't seen for over a year.  There was plenty of drinking, gossiping, eating and general merriment - so much so that looking back at my photos from the weekend there's a lot of happy snaps of people mid-sentence, mid-drink, mid-mouthful and not much else.  Oops! 

These photos are a case in point.  But I love them anyway.  A Bostonian, a Berliner and a Londoner all chilling-out, catching up and soaking up the summer sunshine at Halvandet, possibly the coolest beachbar Copenhagen has to offer.  

I'll be back tomorrow with a sneak-peek of the wedding plus a look at a photo Kim Klassen has edited for me using one of her wonderful textures.