meeting.c�zanne.picasso.mondriaan

Finally I invited myself to meet Cezanne, Picasso and Mondriaan in person with their great master pieces in Gemeente Musuem, Den Haag.

Approaching Gemeente museum in Den Haag. Can you notice the thin layer of ice surrounding the small water fountain? It's just 2 or 3 consecutive nights below freezing point, if the weather goes on, the Dutch skating dream will come true again this year.


Anyway, back to three influential men in the area of modern arts - Cezanne. Picasso and Mondriaan ...

Paul Cezanne - Pablo Picasso - Piet Mondriaan

Impressionist - Cubism - Abstraction
Imagine, 3 painters of different generations yet they were like tele-ported through the time zone and getting the influence from the one before them.... Mondriaan's paintings are so abstract that no matter how hard I try to interpret and understand the painting but I never get the title right. It was rather interesting yet frustrating brain exercise. There are quite a lot of Cezanne and Picasso paintings in the exhibition too... I am particular impressed by the number of Picasso's creations....

Another painter that is new to me, Vloho Bukovac - an painter from Croatia but apparently born in Italy, has painted a lot of wonderful and lively portraits, his portraits rightly convey the atmosphere, facial expression and the cultural elements at the time of painting ....

A quick pick me up at the Grand cafe inside the museum, mainly to rest my feet. A cuppa cappuccino and a piece of Dutch apple tart just did the job.

I like the different elements in the Wonder Kamers (Wonder Rooms), there are a lot more interactive aspects, one can touch and feel almost everything that is not protected with glass or without a 'don't touch' label.

In the textile room, there are a few kiosks for modelling, is nothing of technology edge but a rather fun experience in shooting a head shot using web cam and selecting various clothes for oneself.

There are so much see in this museum, although the architecture of the museum itself is not impressive but the various displays and themes are wonderful. I love the Czech Republic glass work display, they are so amazing and of course I respect the 'no photo' rule when the sign is on display. This is definitely a place that can take up the whole day...

blue.blue.blue

The intention is just to go to Gemeente Museum in Den Haag only, but after a few rounds and not being able to find a parking space I drove further towards the Scheveningen old port. Today the port is exceptionally pretty, bright blue sky, almost empty beach and caf�s made such a wonderful walk at the beach with -2C temperature.

Beautiful old harbor of Scheveningen, blue sky, calm inner water, the reflection of the fishing boats, what a picturesque moment....

I almost have the whole beach for my own. With the sea in front of me (first time ever I notice that North sea is blue and not grey) and the blue sky above me, my spirit is lifted, not that I found my enlightenment in the nature, but with the freezing cold breeze brushing my face, exceptionally fresh air, I feel A LOT better, emotionally...

I had a rather blue weekend past week which I put the blame to the grey and gloomy Dutch weather and also blaming the medication. There were lots of irritations, big and small, also the sudden hormone surge on Sunday afternoon... but the Lord is good, He took away my blue-dy mood and replaces it with blue sky and sea that turn my mourning into dancing... He also turns my sorrow into joy....

There were a few trucks on the beach busy piling up the sand to the pier, the trucks left a lot of tyres print on the beach, which reminds me the famous poem about the footprint of Jesus... YES, I am never alone, Jesus is always beside me...

Thank You Lord for a wonderful time alone at the beach with You.

lemon.butter.shortbread

One of the thing that I love to do is baking and even with my 50% reduced work pattern I find it hard in tune to baking because the other 50% of work always barking behind my mind....

Now I am completely off, leaving work behind me for the coming weeks, concentrate on the switching of the medicine and getting on with my gym fitness regime, which in one way is a relief and I have embarked in to an interesting journey with baking... Holiday baking to be precise....

Lemon zest butter shortbread, not a typical Dutch cookie but more an origin from Scotland I think...

My cookies dough, I kneaded it this morning and then wrapped it in cling foil and leave them in the fridge before I set of to a museum in Den Haag.

Some of the cookie cutting tool that I am using, since Christmas is just round the corner, I chose the Christmas theme... Santa, Christmas tree, bell, angel...

These are my lemon zest butter shortbread cookies, cooling them on the rack.

I just took a bite of the round shape cookie, it's good, butter (to be precise margarine) creamy and the fragrance of lemon fill my mouth, first attempt SUCCESS!!!

holiday.baking.starts

I have a batch of not so acidly/tardy apple compote that I didn't like to eat with yogurt so I turned them into chocolate cup cake with apple compote filling...

These cupcakes were baked last weekend. It was okay, in fact our little nephew likes them so much that he ate two but to me the taste is not perfect. The clove that I used in apple compote creates a contradicting taste to the chocolate batter, also I forgotten to add vanilla essence .....

Today I used black forest batter to make another batch of cup cakes, this recipe calls for butter milk which gives the cake a moist texture…

These are really moist and fluffy....

Since I am already off from work completely, with such a cold winter weather, I am actually in the mood of baking....

first.frost

First forst of the year, woke up in -2C... Winter is definately here...

last.day

It's Friday again, today is my last working day of the year 2009. I know the holiday season should start about a week later than this, but I have decided to start early...

With 50% working and 50% illness, I only need to take 50% vacation days to stretch my holiday season to 8th January 2010....

We are not making any long distance trip this year but I should have enough to do and also a new medication regime to get use to and with Christmas and New year lining up, I can fill my time with baking as well....

Happy Friday!

a.box.of....

Usually one should be excited when receiving a parcel...

Well, in my situation, it is not really a surprise or a Christmas gift, but is a box full of supply of needles, stripes that needed for blood sugar monitoring...

I went for my scheduled appointment at the hospital and after much thoughts I decided to switch from oral medication to 4x injections.

It will all depending on the outcome of the hysterescopy (8th January 2010) to decide if I can go further with the "project", but the pre-condition to that is I must stop taking the oral medications. So switching it now would give me at least one and a half month to stabilize and get use to the injections. Though emotionally and physically I am not sure if I can cope with 4x injection a day. Perhaps is the beginning of the lesson of endurance that I have to learn. All I know is if I don't make this move, the "project" will not stand a chance to move forward....

What it means to me is a lot more inconveniences when it come to dining out, as I have to excuse myself for a little jab job before each meal in the coming months....

carrot.walnut.cake

Last night we both felt hungry... Johannes asked "why didn't you buy some cake or muffins, so that we don't have to hunt for food at night?". Deep in my heart, I was thinking... "I can't even eat any sweet stuff that offer by bakery or supermarket because my life is too sweet at the moment".

Today my intention is to make 6 carrot walnut cup cakes, but I have too much batter again that I have to make a small cake out of it on top of the 6 cup cakes....

The making of this cake also gave me the opportunity to use up some of the mini carrots that I have in the fridge for almost 2 weeks. A lot of grinding but worth the effort...

I was tempting to make the cream cheese frost, but on second thought I shouldn't do that by inviting more fat into my body... So I will leave the cream cheese frosting till the next time when I bake for Christmas, then I will decorate it with the lovely white cream cheese frost and sprinkle with shredded dried coconut flakes to make it looks like snow...

Here are my 6 carrot walnut cupcakes

Taste almost perfect, fluffy and yet crunchy (walnut) carrot cake

today's.gratitude

Even though I am doing the sermon translation to English today, I still caught the message of Paster Henk clearly. How often do we express our gratitude to the things that the Lord has blessed us with? Instead many of us express our complains and focus on the things we don't have or prayers that are yet to be answered....

The Americans took at least one day a year to express their thanksgiving and how often do we think back of the goodness of the Lord and count our blessings....

I am determine to re-install the thankful heart in me and thanking Him for all the goodness that He has brought to me and also thanking him for the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen (Hebrews 11:1).

Today I also want to express my gratitude to a sister S who has given me a gift... When I asked "for what occasion?", she just smiled and said " there doesn't need to be a special occasion to give" ... Yes, I thanked God for her kindness and the unconditional prayers that she has been interceding for me everyday.... Bless you, sister.

I do really like this pearl-ish pouch, it can be use to carry a packet of tissue or in my case I am going to use this as a hand phone pouch....

flavors of wuhan

Saturday 'Sinterklaas' dinner at XL and DY place.

Gathering around the dinner table, my cake is at the edge of the table, wrapped with cling foil ...

Both XL and DY are from Wuhan (武汉), province of Hubei (湖北), thus the food naturally carries the flavors of wuhan or following the cuisine (鄂菜) which is prone to hot & spicy or sour taste. Among other dishes, here are some of the highlights ...

Top: fragmented black bean shrimps
Bottom: sweet and sour fish soup - very appetizing...

Top: Spicy MaPoh tofu (麻婆豆腐) - I love the kick of the sichuan peppers
Bottom: Duck soup with white radish - reminded me of my mum home cooked duck soup...

sinterklaas.bake

"I will take care of the dessert ok?", that's what I told our friends who have invited us over for "Sinterklaas" dinner later tonight. Well, it is just a dinner just happens to fall on Sinterklaas day...

Been thinking about what to bake and finally settled down with this....

Cranberry Upside Down Chocolate Cake

It does reflect the winter season that we are in, and it does lift up the festive season a bit...

Caramelizing the fresh cranberries while whisking the chocolate cake batter

setting the cranberries and batter in the spring-form

Done!

I think a serving of vanilla ice-cream with the cake would be good since cranberries are generally quite sour by nature, what do you think?

Happy Sinterklaas and have a lovely time everyone!

chocolate.letters

Today after the gym, I ran a bit of errand since Sinterklaas is tomorrow. Sinterklaas is a kind of Dutch Christmas and more or less like the day of the Dutch Santa Clause but with a different historical background…

I bought the chocolate letters for our niece and nephews.

J - Jo Jo
J - Jeffrey
C - Carin

For some reasons kids or adults alike always received a chocolate letter with the initial of the first or last name during Sinterklaas.

We are in fact not really celebrating this ocassion but it's no harm to give...

It's Friday again - Have a nice weekend!

trial.gym

I started my first gym session after 6 years.... I signed up for the one week free gym pass at Fitness Dome located just 2 roundabouts away from home.

The day started at 10:30am and was instructor guided, mainly to introduce me to the various equipments and explaining the usage and purpose.
Strange enough those equipments seem so familiar to me and yet so unfamiliar. After awhile I pick up the feeling and rhythm of those equipments.
The sauna and steaming room were the perfect ending note to a sweaty and tired body. Tomorrow I have another guided session again...

November Foodie

Well, with December already here, it's time to clean up some photos from November. The upgrade of my laptop also came just in time to do some backups and purge of old photos... Here are some of the food that we have eaten but not posted so far...

Japanese simmered bamboo, Miso beef stew and a day where we preferred porridge over rice..

(Top) Some homemade Japanese char siu aja Johannes (Bottom L) a farmer style Korean's Miso soup with assorted vegetables and some beef. (Bottom R) A quick made over of Udon with some Teocheow fish balls that come with juicy pork filling..

Dinner at Kimchi House, the food was good. We had a few round of Korean BBQ with shrimps, bulgogi and rib-eyes. But I just love the appetizer of kimchi, marinated cucumber and spinach so much that I asked for 4 rounds....

I made a lot of compotes this month, starting from apple compote and slowly evolving to pear, cranberry, strawberry & raspberry. All the compotes are cooked with cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and clove or all spices, so the scents are always warming in the autumn. These are delicious when added to plain yogurt...

With Christmas and New Year round the corner, more delicious foodie will come...

winter.laptops

Hello December! Not sure if you are ready for the winter, but tonight the wind is really chilly and the temperature will be dropping to around freezing point for the first time. A sign that winter is here....

Today I went back to office to hand in my laptop for upgrade to a new Lenovo R400.

I also was given the option to buy the 'old' laptop a HP Epson at a rather reasonable price and I bought it as a Christmas gift for someone **ehem**

So, tomorrow afternoon my new laptop will be ready and my 'old' one also will be waiting for me to collect at the same time...

It's December!!