Pizza!

When cooking with dough Lina always says is super easy, and for her truly it is. She is able to handle the pastry, pizza and pasta dough and finish withing minutes. For my dad and I is the opposite. Everytime I mean everytime we are trying to use dough to cook we finished with a ball of dough that is impossible to handle. No difference last night with the pizza dough. On the menu:

Pizza with peperoni, mozzarella, asiago, fontina cheese, sparkle chicken basil sausage (taken out of the case and grilled) and basil.




cheers, nazdarovia and prost at the end with Passito, wine from Italy!

Back in America!

I am super happy to be home. The weather is absolutely beautiful and I love being with my family.

Plans for the upcoming weeks: Paint, Sew and cook. Last night we did some amazing empanadas.. yummy.



I am working on a dress that I am going to wear for an upcoming wedding. My mom wore this dress when she was 16- Mom's picture
The dress is in pretty good shape but the zipper is broken and it is tight so I am replacing the zipper and loosening the back.

I am also painting again. I want to make a painting for the new nursery we have for Daniel. This is the crib

I have never painted with pastels so I am having a hard translating my inspiration into the canvas. I started fixing an old painting that I left behind a couple of years ago to get familiar again with techniques and oil treatment.

My work station is in the garden
Last project a Christmas stocking.
This is how the end product will look

I also joined a volunteering group that sews for needy children. We are in early stages but we sew pillows, fabric bags and make quilts.

As I am writing in the blog we are cooking Pot roast- The same recipe that I tried to cook Christmas day but failed.. so we are trying again..I will post pictures.

Back in Amsterdam

We are back from our trip I will post some pictures later this week. Thank you to all the ones that have sent us Christmas cards.. It makes our room look so cute!
My favorite things when returning home
1. Sleeping in my bed
2. Tasty Food

3. being potato couches
We were brave enough to leave the house and discovered frozen canals


with all our love Happy New Year hope to see you all soon

Fully satisfied

One of the things that I miss the most about San Francisco is Thai food. I have tried to cook Thai food before but have not been fully satisfied until TODAY! Yes, ladies and gentleman let me introduce you to my favorite dish Lemongrass coconut curry chicken with jasmine rice. I used 3 teaspoons of green curry paste that gave the dish a good kick, also I added a whole tablespoon of ginger, which honestly I was afraid that it would ended up very strong but it was perfect.




Look at that delicious yellow sauce that made the rice so moist. Yummy!




To finish up my lunch I started looking at other recipes and I came across the ultimate peanut butter sandwich. I saw the video to surprise Cristian with a nice peanut butter and jelly. The sandwich looked so good I had to tried it. So I did.. and as a foreign I have to say yummy again..doesn't it look good?

Lunch was pretty good today!

My first job in Amsterdam

I had the idea of doing community service once a week. In the community service office, I was offered this opportunity to help with kids and the environment. Today I had my first visit, I arrived to a farm in the middle of the city. The farm is a petting zoo where they have guinea pigs, roosters, chickens, turkeys, pigs, bunnies, goats and ponies. My job is to help kids get on top of the pony and lead the pony around the circle of mud. Because kids don't ride ponies in the snow I will start my community service in January.. Here are some pictures of the petting zoo..

One of the ponies
This is a huge pig...


and a big rooster.. look at his claws

"When good Americans die they go to Paris.”

Quote by Oscar Wilde.

After spending a week an a half with grandma in Amsterdam while Cristian was in Chile..Grandma was begging me to take her to Paris. For some reason I was sure I didn't want to go.. I just felt it was not the right time for Paris.. Yes, call me crazy but I feel there is right moment for every city and right now in my life, Paris was not on the list. Grandma begged and begged for me to take her. So finally I said yes. When I was looking for tickets, hotels, etc.. I realized Cristian took my passport to Chile. Who does that?? I felt that time was agreeing with me.. It is not time for Paris. My grandma was very upset and Cristian ended up mailing my passport for us to go.

I was going to Paris... So highlights of the trip

1. Food was absolutely awesome.. I used this book "Clotilde's Edible Adventures in Paris" one of Lina's frequent blogs to look for unique food.

2. Nike Paris. the store was AWESOME it has one of the four Nike ID labs in the world.. Most of the collection at the store was sportswear and just a few athletic wear for futbol and other sports. The ROSA soccer shoes were on display and they were powerful. Their walls were full of Nike ID designs from other people which was so inspiring.. it was a museum of clothes.



3. Patrick Demarchelier's photography exposition, Fashion photographer.. here are some of the famous pictures.





4. and the top attractions of Paris for every tourist..
















At the end it was a wonderful trip with grandma even though we got robbed, fell on the metro, got lost, got into fights.. but at the end "in Paris you learn Wit", - Virgil Thomson