Warm Toast...

Toast is an oh so stylish British company that sell exquisitely simple and beautiful clothes and home wares. And their styling is just heavenly too...

Many of Toast's products are handmade or sourced from co-operatives and independent producers -

'There is a value in the artisan made product and over the years we have always sought out the unusual over the easy and readily available. Some examples of this are our Ethiopian gabi and our Kenyan baskets. Both products are made by women's co-operatives where the money paid goes straight back to the local communities that make them.'

Stay tuned for some of Toast's gorgeous home wares.
(images and words from Toast)

Janne Peters III

Winterweiss by Janne Peters

I love how rich these all white images are. White interiors are often so cold, so clinical but these images are warm, cozy and make me want to snuggle in!

(images from www.jannepeters.de)

Janne Peters II

Tee by Janne Peters. Too pretty for words!
(images from www.JannePeters.de)

A Snippet of Style...

(Illustration cake topper by Miss Avocado on etsy. )

Rhubarb crumble

Take 4 stalks of rhubarb and rinse them in water so cold it shocks you from your thoughts.
With your mind on something else, chop roughly. Watch your fingers.

Melt one tablespoon of butter in a pan.

From a heavy glass jar take one heaped tablespoon of natural castor sugar as gold as Caribbean sand and add it to the butter.

Dream of somewhere warmer...

Gather up the rhubarb and add it to the melted mixture.
Hands still numb from the Scottish water,hold them over the pan while the rhubarb softens.

Concentrating, so as not to hurt yourself, peel and chop 2 large green apples.
They should smell tart enough to cut through the fog of worries.

Scooping them up and with hands overflowing, drop them into a pink dish, bought and given with love.

Smile, for it reminds you of a birthday morning, many months ago.

-

Reach for the scales, neat units of grams and kilos reassuring to your disordered mind. Weigh out 150 of powder light flour and with hands soaped and scrubbed, rub in 110 of unsalted butter.

With a light touch, rub your stresses and fears into the butter
(don't worry, they will evaporate on cooking)
and allow anxiety to drain through open fingers like sand.

Add 4 tablespoons of sugar. Add a wee bit more as life could use a little more sweetness.

Mix the sugar in using open fingers.

Some prefer a spoon, results will be cleaner but less therapeutic.

By this point rhubarb should be soft and bubbling gently. Pour pink rhubarb into the pink dish on top of the green apples.

Gently tip the crumbs out of the bowl, burying the fruit. While you are at it bury your anxieties too, then cook for 45 minutes.

Which should kill them.

I'm in love...

with a photographer.

From the ever cheerful and inspiring blog Decor Amor I came to find Janne Peters, a German photographer whose work is so exquisite, so delicious, so..... yum (for want of any more eloquent adjectives) that I am going to save some for future posts as they're just too good to eat, I mean look at, all at once. Remember when you were a child and you nibbled your Easter eggs one tiny bit at a time because when they were gone you weren't getting any more? (perhaps that was just me, I hear some children like to eat them with joyful abandon). Despite my best efforts they never lasted more than a day though, I would have one tiny nibble after another, every five minutes until the whole thing was gone. My small and futile attempt at self control.

Anyway, today I present Oriental Style, by Janne Peters...





I will try to save the rest, for to post them all would be like drowning in honey.