ANNOUNCEMENT!

We finally have our own site! Voilà enfin le nouveau site! 

http://thebohemianmemoir.com

FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/thebohemianmemoir

Food Photography: Purple and Watermelons

There really isn't any explanation for this mood board. It just felt like a good time to put together the colour purple and watermelons :)

Lazy Girl Foods: Chocolate Cake

The Easiest Chocolate Cake. Ever.

I finally baked a decent chocolate cake. If I could bake the cake above, you can bake it too :) I was inspired from this Marmiton French recipe in here.

Ingredients

3 eggs

100gm sugar

60gm self-rising flour

1tsp baking powder

80gm melted butter

1 handful raisins

And chocolate! As much as you want!

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven at 180°C for about 10 mins. 
2. Melt your lovely chocolate. Resist eating it if you can. For a quick job, place it in the microwave in defrost mode for 5 minutes. If you're unfortunate to not have a microwave and defrost mode, melt the chocolate in a bain-marie or double-boiler. Watch this video to see how to do a bain-marie. DO NOT melt chocolate in normal heating mode, lest you wish to kill your microwave.
3. In a bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar, until the mixture is whitish in colour. 
4. Next, add the flour, baking soda, melted butter and chocolate. Mix until the mixture is creamy. 
5. Pour the mixture into a well-greased cake pan.
6. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes. 
7. Eat your cake. You deserve it.

Food Photography: Berries

"A happy life is filled with continuous small treats." 

"La vie est faite de petits bonheurs." 

Happy Sunday people of the world! :)

Mood board: Wild Lavender

Recently, on one of my unemployed-wilderness walks, I found wild lavender growing in small shrubs. Firstly, finding any lavender in the North of France and in midsummer is amazing. Secondly, finding it a few blocks away from my house, is just the most epic thing to happen to me. 

I've been obsessed with lavender since I was a child. Since it's a native of the Mediterranean region, it was impossible to find in Goa. However, women in my family managed to always find lavender products, mostly from Yardley; lavender soap, lavender essential oils, lavender potpourri, lavender talc, lavender perfume etc. But none of these products seemed natural to me. Even though their scent was peaceful, the packaging lovely, the colours appealing and our armoires pregnant with the scents of Provence, I never really fully embraced the lavender I grew up with. I was always curious to know what the real plant looked and felt like, and whether it had an actual scent or was the scent processed in factories the only one. 

As it turns out, in France, the lavender plant is pretty much a common thing. People use it like we would use coconut oil. I haven't been to the South of France yet to see the lavender cultivated in fields. It was just a chance to stumble upon wild lavender near Paris. If it makes sense to say that romance has a colour, I'd like to say it's lavender. Moreover, I put my doubts to rest, because the plant actually does have a delicate scent, better than the scent that's packaged and sold. I couldn't resist plucking some sprigs to bring home with me. Beware of bees in the shrubs, because they love lavender just as much as romantics do! What ensued at home, was a mood board with all the lavender coloured products I own :) 

I've brought home more lavender sprigs since my little discovery. I've put them in small sachets and use it like my personal organic aromatherapy. It's strange that lavender is such an ordinary household article, but for me it remains one of the most unique goods I could own. Probably since I associate it with a part of myself I cherish. Every time there's a light breeze, the fragile dried blossoms emit a faint familiar scent, and memories and olfaction get intertwined. Explained scientifically, my olfactory bulb is a member of my limbic system, better known as the brain's emotional center. So according to science, it's simply a process of association (olfactory input followed by emotional output. Voilà!). However, I'd like to add a transcendental experience to olfaction. How else can I explain being transported by the lavender, to that house on a hill, nestled in the woods, where the electricity went out every other night? While the rains poured on our red-tiled roof, around a kerosene lamp we'd gather and all I saw were three or sometimes four pairs of hands, crocheting away in the dark, perfectly and tirelessly. Unfazed by the heat and humidity, my mother's voice would demand I recite the multiplication tables. Occasionally one pair of hands would clap in appreciation of my perfectly recited 12 times table, while another would sneak a toffee into my sweaty palm and another would dab my forehead with her lavender-perfumed kerchief. I'd slowly drift off to a humidity-dazed multiplication-frenzied folktale universe. 

Food Photography: Farm Foods

We discovered a local farm in our town by chance and here are the bio goodies we hauled in today. The "Ferme de Saint-Thibault Les Vignes" is a real treat for bio lovers. I hope you all have the chance someday, to try a heart shaped soft cheese, resting on a coulis of red berries. Yummy! The bio apple juice was quite delicious as well. This is our second visit to the farm and we're not going to stop as long as they continue making the amazing cheese and yogurts :)

We've recently started integrating local and biofoods into the daily diet and turns out it isn't as expensive as your supermarket chains want you to believe! A slice of divine 'tome' cheese, garlic and herb seasoned cheese, an assortment of yogurts, semolina pudding and fresh milk for 9,51 euros. It's a small effort but worth supporting your local farmers. Cheers. 

Food photography: Afternoon Tea

Because tea deserves to be a food group by itself!

The Instagram feed

I've had a hectic yet peaceful summery July. I've started using my Iphone 5s camera more often and network with other users on Instagram. I love Instagram for a gazillion reasons. As cheesy as this sounds, it gives me a reason everyday to believe in creativity, originality, style, passion and everything amazing that humans are capable of doing. It's also a place where you find people find inspiration in others' work, or just plain rip off their creations. But I guess imitation is the best form of flattery. My mum always said, people can steal your style but not your mind :) You can find my Instagram page here. 

Captured on my phone, this is the Meaux Cathedral. Construction on this gothic monument began in 1175 and finished in 1540. In the Little Prince, there is a sweet quote about cathedrals.

"Un tas de pierres cesse d'être un tas de pierres, des qu'un seul homme le contemple avec, en lui, l'image d'une cathédrale." 

"A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral."
~ Antoine de Saint-Expuéry

My absolute favourite film with the magical Audrey! 
“Reading dreams. That's what started her walking down the road. Every day she'd walk a little further: a mile, and come home. Two miles, and come home. One day she just kept on.”

In mood for some Guerlain ;) I couldn't afford this ridiculously expensive perfume, hence it just seemed natural someone would gift it to me :) Merci Monsieur S. 

Because yesterday's roses deserve another chance. My local florist was going to chuck these away because they were "left-overs". I couldn't bear the thought of such pretty things meeting such a hopeless end! What's that they say about beauty being in the eye of the beholder?

Or an artistic demise like these beauties..

Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them!

Wanderlust creeps up on me ever so often. Here's the magnificent Saint Stephen's Basilica in Budapest. I miss backpacking across Eastern Europe. It was once of the happiest trips I've ever made. Le sigh..