Romania in June: Malancrav

In June, we went to Romania for the wedding of Romanian friends of ours here in Germany. Following the wedding festivities (and were they ever impressive!) in their small hometown, we ventured to several other cities and towns before heading back to Bucharest for our flight home. Certainly among the most atmospheric places we've ever visited--anywhere--was the village of Malancrav, home to one of the restored guesthouses belonging to the Mihai Eminescu Trust. The Trust is dedicated to the conservation and regeneration of villages in Transylvania and The Maramures, surely two of the most unspoilt regions of Europe.

We had this lovely traditional home all to ourselves for a night, and amidst the clip-clop of horses and the curious stares of villagers, we truly felt like time travelers. 

For the rest of this post, I think I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Back soon with more from Romania, plus more recent destinations.

A Fairytale Video

This sweet little video from Anthropologie just might inspire you to start some Fall baking. Naturally, I love the fairytale-like setting in beautiful Prague. I've been to Prague once, many years ago. I do believe it's time for another visit.

In the meantime, here's a pumpkin dessert I want to make this week:

Mandarine's pumpkin pie that's like cheesecake

Also, I have an Autumn Love board on Pinterest, if you're in the mood for that. Come visit!

The Aesthetes: Eccentric in Tangier

I've been wanting to visit Morocco for quite a while. Marrakesh has been on my list, but now I know I also really, really want to go to Tangier. 

These people and their houses are nothing short of eccentrically fabulous! If you like the video as much as I do, be sure to read the article it accompanied.

edited to add--apparently the video has been taken down, so you'll have to take a look at the article if you want to know more

A Refresh, a Guest Post, and Some Hedgehogs

Announcement! Ahem! A couple of news items for you today: First, if you've visited my blog in the past, you'll note that my header has been refreshed a bit, by the fun and funky gal behind the blog Happy Loves Rosie. I just wanted some subtle changes to the design she did for me four years ago (how has it been that long?). Thanks, Happy--I'm loving it!

Also, today you'll find me guest-posting for my expat friend Ariana from And Here We Are, as she is in Tenerife with her family this week on a much-needed vacation. Ariana let me spout off a bit about some challenges my family has faced during our expat journey, most specifically in our move from Japan to Germany. I hope you'll head over and read my ramblings--and start following Ariana, who writes beautifully about real food, expat life, England, and simple but purposeful family living. 

Ariana has just published a wonderful ebook about how to get through, and thrive during and after, the difficult seasons of life. I'll be reviewing Pruned: Blossoming Through Life's Difficult Seasons next week, but if you want more information or want to buy it now (yes, I get a cut if you buy via my blog), please click the link in my right sidebar. Thank you from both of us!

And I'll leave today you with some lactose-intolerant hedgehogs, just for the sake of cute:

Global Style Love

If you appreciate and embrace global style as much as I do, I think you'll enjoy the first online magazine of Once Upon a Tea Time, a global interiors blog I've been following for several years. Due to great feedback so far, the magazine, which was designed to be a one-off, will become a monthly. Yay! 

Have a look and let me know what you think. If you love it, you may want to add Gypsy, the latest book by Sibella Court to your wish list. I'm such a fan of her styling, and I own two of her previous books.

Have a great day! And seriously, German Christmas markets are indeed on the agenda here!

November in Germany

Hope you don't mind my catching up a bit on last month before I get to the happenings of December. One day before Thanksgiving, we woke up to this scene. The snow had melted by early afternoon, but that's just fine, as we know we'll be getting more soon enough!

It was definitely time for warm drinks in a little corner of our favorite coffee shop in town. We stopped by a couple of weeks ago.

After our drinks, the owner, Guido, decanted some olive oil, walnut oil, and apricot vinegar for us. We love that he gets the finest oils and vinegars in his shop, displays them beautifully in glass, then makes recommendations and allows tastings before you make your choices and have them bottled. I used some of the walnut oil in the celery-date-walnut salad I've made for the past five or six Thanksgivings.

The following Friday, Husband and I drove to a fancy mall in Luxembourg City to visit a Cora Hypermarché (large, very overwhelming grocery store). Our main purpose for driving an hour each way for groceries? Husband is mad this year for moules (mussels), and after recently figuring out how to prepare and cook them ourselves, we've had them several times. The next time we had mussels, we were fortunately able to buy them locally. Above is our third effort, Thai Red Curry Mussels. So good.

Note the gray skies. When the weather was dry enough, the Boy shot baskets at a kindergarten playground. He's getting so strong.

On chillier evenings, we got the wood stove fired up. I do love it, even when it's not really cold enough in the house to get it going! Our home, built in the 1990s (not 1890s), isn't drafty at all. 

Oddly, I didn't get a single photo on Thanksgiving this year. 

Oh, wait--Husband did. Here's the ham he smoked, which was fantastic. Ever since we bought this Brinkman smoker over the summer, he's been a smokin' fool. It was the first time in ages that we haven't hosted on Thanksgiving, but we and another family still managed to eat ourselves silly in the home of some good friends a few villages over.

Coming up: oh, yes: it's time for German Christmas markets!

Two Women Cooking, in France

It's possible that I am ever-so-slightly just a tiny bit obsessed with Paris-based chef Rachel Khoo. This is a trailer for her second cookbook, My Little French Kitchen. Ever since I spotted her first cookbook, The Little Paris Kitchen, in a shop window in Ireland last year, I knew I'd have to buy it and also find out more about this chef, who is clearly vintage-quirky adorable and also really good at making the preparation of French food seem quite accessible, even in the tiniest of kitchens.

Elle a Table, March 2013

 I somehow missed her BBC series named after that first book (sheesh, the names of the two books are awfully similar!), but I was able to catch a couple of episodes during a flight last summer. For twelve video clips from this series, visit YouTube.

Then there's Mimi Thorisson, who writes the blog Manger.

Glow Magazine/ Greece December 2012

She's all glamorous and Gypset, but she lives in the French countryside with a bunch of kids and animals (oh, and her photographer husband). She cooks and eats great food and throws fantastic parties.

Just look at her, making that tarte tatin in those heels! These two women live very different lives, but I'm thinking they both rock the Fairytale lifestyle. I know, I'm sounding all girl-crushy--but these women are just cool! Don't you think so?

**Update: you can now preorder Mimi Thorisson's cookbook A Kitchen in France: A Year of Cooking in My Farmhouse!

The Sullivans, and the Soul of a Home

Robert and Suzanne Sullivan (and their kids) are very, very cool people, if this video of them in their home is any indication. And I'm pretty sure it is.

As soon as I watched Our American Revolution, I immediately pinned it, but then I realized I couldn't stop there. I had to share it here as well.

Why am I so taken with it? Well, I love that these creative people seem to be living exactly the way they want, doing what they want to do. They live a home-based life, which I admire, and they appear to get along with each other really well. And I love that they surround themselves with beautiful things--not expensive things, but items that often have great personal meaning to them.

I sometimes like to look around my home--in any particular room, or two--and call up memories of where and when I got many of the things my eye falls upon (there's plenty to see--I could never be a minimalist!). I'm looking at one shelf now, and I see items from South Korea, Malaysia, mainland Japan, Okinawa, Hong Kong, Panama, Germany, England, and Ireland. I have these things because I truly like them, and they remind my of my travels (though a couple of the items were gifts from friends). The only thing there that I could remotely call "expensive" is the lamp from Hong Kong.

But of course, it's not necessary to travel abroad to build your own collection of tangible memories--you'll see this in the Sullivans' video. It's about having things that you love around you--not so you can show them off to others, but because they make you happy. Isn't that the best kind of "decorating"?

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Lovely medieval Rothenburg, eighteen years after our last visit. This time, with The Girl, The Boy, and The Dog in tow. More touristy now, but still entirely charming. Christmas shops, the obligatory schneeballen (only fan: The Boy), an afternoon walk along the Wall, the Night Watchman's tour after sundown, and an enjoyable (but unphotographed) rustic country meal in Hotel Markusturm (dinner and hotel both recommended). A delightful autumn weekend away.

The World at Home

I like the idea of things that show your travels around the world--show your life. And I enjoy the idea of all the different cultures meeting here. Japan meets Peru, Peru meets America, America meets England, England meets Denmark, Denmark meets France, you know. Total integration of cultures. I guess it's the future, no?--Mario Testino

Thanks to renegade interior designer Abigail Ahern for bringing this quote to my attention. Mario Testino's self-designed home was recently featured in Vogue US, and I love that it's not the typical Los Angeles "loads of money but little taste" abode, as Abigail says. Testino has chosen to enrich his home with items he's found in many places--not to impress others, but to bring himself joy and give himself a sense of his own personal history.

My own home integrates elements from the USA, Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, the U.K., Germany, France, and other countries.

I love looking around my house and being reminded of the places we've been. Also, I really do like and value each item. 

Happy Valentine's Day

This little Scottish dude brings heartfelt wishes from me (and him) to you for a lovely day. Wish I could give you some Belgian chocolates, too. We could, you know, share them, if you wouldn't mind taking all of the caramels.

But I'll just be here keeping warm and watching large snowflakes fall in my little corner of Germany, with a cup or three of tea and a snoozing lap-dog as my daytime companions.

Frohes Fest

Be happy.

We're back from Edinburgh in time to enjoy Christmas at home. Have a warm, merry, blessed holiday season!

Gypset Style

I've been meaning to blog about this book for ages. I bought the book last year, but somehow I just discovered the blog. Here's what author Julia Chaplin has to say about Gypset Style:

My general approach to life and my writing is to have hi-low grand adventures. During my travels I came up with the word Gypset: (gypsy + jet-set) to describe a new type of travel, and cultural foraging at home, that redefines the optimal adventure as something with the global references and chic speed of the jet-set mixed with the alternative, anti-commercialism and nomadic wile of a gypsy.

Cool, yes? Though I may not have the financial profile (not necessary, supposedly, but...) or street-cred (Devendra Banhart! Jade Jagger!) of the true Gypsetter, I certainly appreciate the mindset and aesthetic. And I certainly don't think I'd mind hanging out for a bit with Damien Hirst and Maia Norman on their Thames-River houseboat.

Note: the book is more about a way of life than a certain "look," so don't expect lots of house photos (I would have liked more). But since it's text-heavy, if you're curious about the Gypset lifestyle, you're likely to learn a lot.

Magazine Love: A Shot of Green

It's starting to turn chilly here now, after a few fits and starts over the past several weeks.

But just before all thoughts of color turn toward oranges, browns, reds, and yellows, let's behold the green glories of the holiday home (I think?) of Helma Bongenaar and her family, in Amsterdam. When I caught a glimpse of this wonderful house, I had to buy the August 2010 issue of Vtwonen right away. I've been meaning to share this feature here for a while.

I especially love the kitchen, of course!

It's all so vintagey-gorgeous! Hope you like it as much as I do. Now, Autumn--full speed ahead!

Modern Vintage Style

I have a new design book to love (sorry about the fuzzy photo--I'm too lazy to take another one). It's the latest offering by Emily Chalmers, the woman behind two other favorites of mine, Table Inspirations and Flea Market Style. Have I mentioned that I made a pilgrimage just over a year ago to her London shop, Caravan, only to find it closed for the winter holidays? Oh, the disappointment! 

I'm such a fan of the eccentric, hodge-podge interiors that catch her eye. Did you read that recent article about the "trend" of undecorating? To me, the lived-in creative world of Emily Chalmers exemplified this kind of style way before it had a name.

It's a look that's quirky and deeply personal. I love that Chalmers encourages us to "clash fabrics." Isn't that fantastic?

She also wants us to "bring back crochet" and "create clusters." Pile on the color and texture, and please do mix vintage items with modern ones. Yay!

all photography by Debi Treloar

The last photo? That's Nathalie Lété's bedroom! I'm so not surprised it appealed to me.

So, yeah--this is a lovely book that exceeded my expectations. Maybe you'll like it, too!