September 25, 2007
how knitting will save the world
So this morning I was on the train to Turin and decided to knit a scarf for a friend. Before I could start knitting however, I had to wind the skein of Allison's luscious Hiccup yarn into a ball. Try doing this with only a pair of arms, and soon I found myself in a tangled mess of thick and thin.
The lady sitting in front had been watching me with a kind of amused look on her face, and she finally snatched my yarn, held it in her hands and said to me, in an exaggerated but amused tone, "Vai vai..."
How nice of her to help! So I rolled up in no time. And I started knitting the scarf, during which she stole glances at me, as if to check my progress.
At work, Andrea helped me deconstruct the scarf-in-progress since I decided it was too wide, and on the train home, he became the yarn-ball boy, holding the yarn and easing some yarn whenever my working yarn ran short.
And tonight, I came back from a lovely dinner with friends, to find an email from this guy properly titled "Sweet treats for the knit-minded" with a related article.
It's only Monday and people have been so nice. I hope it doesn't go downhill from here.
Posted by Yasmina at 12:22 AM | Comments (0)
September 18, 2007
kuntilanak
Oh sial, gara-gara gue baca cerita ini di 100kata, gue jadi ketakutan. Mana suami minggu ini harus ke Barcelona dan Stuttgart buat kerja, jadi gue sendirian di rumah nih...
Akhirnya, sebelum suami berangkat, gue nyuruh dia empty out all the trash bins in the house. Gue tau it's bulan puasa and all that, dan katanya para setan di-lock-up, tapi does that apply to makhluk aneh-aneh?
P.S. Mas Ote ngga usah komen yang aneh-aneh yang bikin gue makin takut yah...
Posted by Yasmina at 03:20 PM | Comments (2)
August 27, 2007
a scarf for everyone
So I saw this video podcast on Knitting over at Craft Zine, and I learned to knit... yippeeeee :) You can also download a pdfcast from their blog.
The first scarf I knitted was an experiment piece with different patterns. The result was a bit of a mutant scarf especially when I started out with 12 knits per row and in the middle I ended up with 15 knits, then 18 knits per row... ack! But I brought the amount of knits back down again and it's somewhat symmetrical now.
I thought that since I spend hours commuting between Milan and Turin, I could knit on the train. Sometimes I do work on the train and am quite productive on the train, mostly in the mornings, but I think knitting would be nice, and I get to make a nice scarf for someone.
I was looking for yarns to make scarves with, and because I have particular people in mind, I become quite picky with the colours, weight and texture of the yarn. I want it to match the person(s). It's funny to actually see what colours and textures I associate with certain individuals.
Mmm... let's hope this is really something I can keep up, and not just a temporary thing. People have been pinging me on Skype and Facebook asking for scarves.
Posted by Yasmina at 12:31 PM | Comments (3)
August 18, 2007
so many
There's so much that happened lately and so much I want to tell but the words just don't come out. Gue udah lose the ability to form coherent story deh kayanya; apa karena kerjaan gue sehari-hari banyak involve storytelling and narration? Jadi kalo udah di luar studio, otak gue udah malas stringing the words and pictures to together. Ngga mau membuat content lagi dan maunya consume content :)
Memasak
Kemaren chatting sama Mas Ote yang memang sudah lama ngga ketemu. Paling saling ketlisut di forum saja. Chatting sambil masak, seperti biasa. Kalo musim panas gini biasanya appetite kita menurun; too hot too eat jadi kita banyak makan yang light aja, seperti salad, sandwich, kadang zarusoba. Banyak makan gelato juga sih.
Gue kangen makanan Indo. Pengen makan rawon. Pengen makan gudeg. Pengen makan daging empal. Mmm, apa lagi ya? Ketoprak sayur. Ini kok masakan Jawa semua ya? Kadang gue pikir bahwa I would probably be better at cooking Indonesian food if Robert had been Indonesian, then he'd want me to cook Indonesian dishes.
Little green dots
So Skype was down this week, but it wasn't what I was really missing. Everyone's gone off on holidays, and I miss my "dailies", the people I work with, usually translated into little green dots and Growl notification bars. Andrea and Tal (who I miss physically too, because the three of us made up the 'Milan team'), the terrible twins Dona and Halli, and oddly enough, Mark.
Gue juga akhir-akhir ini kan sering ngobrol sama Gaya dan Karen di London. Walopun ngga lama, dan isinya paling cela-celaan tentang orang lain tentunya, ahahaha doang, the words across my screen provides me dengan semacam emotional tanda sayang.
It was getting depressing, so in a way I was glad Skype went down and I didn't have to think about the gaping void that was my main communication and presence channel.
Teenage kicks
Pernah liat film 'The Virgin Suicides' ngga? I think the opening shots captured perfectly moments dari summer kita di tahun 1992. Masa-masa angsty, tapi full of lust for life, awakening, discovery.
Gue ngga tahu apakah gue merasa flattered, touched, awkward atau gimana, ketika someone from my blurry past mengatakan bahwa dia selalu berharap akan bertemu gue lagi ketika gue pindah dari US, Gue ngga tau apa mungkin dia punya unresolved issues atau memories yang membuat dia confess itu semalam. Anyway...
We lay on our backs in the grass
Silently watching the rain clouds move by far too fast
You said it was a night where anything could happen
But nothing was gonna last
And we're doing fine now yeah we do
We don't feel sad or bad or blue and you know
We ain't never defeated
Not broken inside all that is fine
Yeah all that is fine
- Beth Orton, Daybreaker
Posted by Yasmina at 12:17 PM
July 29, 2007
last.fm compatibility
So, the handsome and talented husband discovered that our musical compatibility on last.fm ranks quite low, and he went into a funk. Especially when I showed him that several people men on my last.fm list had high or even super compatibility with me.
I can almost see the panic thought bubble appearing above his head: "Oh, how can this be? We're married, how can she be more musically compatible with other men?"
Add to this paranoid mix the fact that I've been telling R about a certain man at work whose iTunes collection has been rocking my socks. Poor baby... the handsome and talented husband went straight into last.fm, started to audioscrobble my radio station and tagging random tracks as his favourites.
And actually, it works... After a while, our compatibility rating went up, from low to high. I guess this post becomes an entry on how to commit fraud on last.fm.
Posted by Yasmina at 12:06 AM | Comments (5)
July 01, 2007
Sunday swimming in Menaggio
Gaya came to visit last week. She stayed with us in Milan from Friday to Tuesday. Milan was warming up again after a couple of weeks of dubious weather, and it gets quite unbearable in the city when it's hot. So on Sunday we took a trip to Lake Como for a Sunday swim. We took the train to Varenna and then the ferry across to Menaggio.
There was a Vespa club convention in Menaggio and the road between the ferry pier and the beach was lined with colourful Vespas. I love the colours, design and details of some of them! We fantasised about getting our own Vespas with matching helmets (orange or lime green with white racing stripes down the middle).
We arrived early, just before noon, and spent the entire afternoon sunbathing. When it got too hot and we were basking in our own juices (eww!), we jumped in the water. The water was so cool and refreshing and we could see schools of fish swimming below us. It was lovely!
Maybe we should come here every weekend until August. I love the smell of skin after a day of swimming and sunbathing, kind of a mix of sun lotion and water and skin scent. We were fairly brown by the end of the day; Gaya tans so well, I've never seen anyone bronze quite like that after just a few hours. We were sleepy and tanned and relaxed.
In the evening, we had cold beers and sandwiches in Varenna before catching the train back to Milan.
I'm thinking of taking Gaya to Venice sometime this year, maybe September. It would be super cool, except Robert would get jealous that I travel without him.
Posted by Yasmina at 01:37 PM | Comments (1)
May 05, 2007
Labour Day Weekend
A bit of a delayed post since this week the handsome-and-talented husband and I were both working away from Milano.
Tuesday, May 1st was Labour Day so we ran away to Riomaggiore for a 4-day adventure on coastal fishing villages. We didn't do much. It was a weekend of waking up late, having coffee, orange juice and croissants on our large sunny terrace that looks down on Riomaggiore's main square, then going down the smooth pebble beach for sunbathing and swimming in the sea for the entire day, before heading home and dressing for dinner, either taken in our balcony again or at the quiet trattoria by the train station.
How wonderful it is to swim in the sea! I'd forgotten how nice it is to plunge into cool blue waters, how the salt crusts on hair and how afterwards our skin would smell of salt mixed with sun lotion. For three days, we parked ourselves on large smooth boulders on the waterside, so we could lie with our feet in the water and watch crabs mating.
On Tuesday, our last day, the sea was the clearest it had ever been. I could see straight down to the rocky sea floor, and see the fish swim in between my feet. By this time, Robert had turned a lovely shade of brown, his eyebrows slowly turning blond. He's all shiny and smooth, swimming between the boulders, like an oversized otter, and he struggles to climb on the jutting rocks only to dive into the cool waters again.
Unfortunately this week it was back to rainy, gray weather in northern Italy. Robert was in Germany for work and I was in Torino working for three days until Friday. It rained almost non-stop and this depresses me; after a lovely weekend full of sun and love, it was hard to be away from Robert and having awful weather.
Posted by Yasmina at 12:33 AM | Comments (1)
April 09, 2007
Pasqua 2007: Firenze
This Easter weekend, Robert and I ran away to Firenze. Unfortunately, Robert was feeling poorly and by Friday evening, when we arrived at the Alberghino, he'd developed a fever.
After spending a delirious Friday night in bed, Robert felt somewhat better on Saturday morning to go on a relaxed walkabout. It was perhaps a blessing in disguise, because it we ended up taking things easy and discovered the quieter, untouristy parts of Firenze.
Firenze
I think Firenze should be renamed to "Little America" or "Little Britain" during Easter weekend. Il centro storico was full of domestic and foreign tourists. On Easter Sunday, you can clearly differentiate the Italians from the tourists: the Italians were dressed impeccably in their immaculate Sunday best. The tourists were all either L.L Bean catalogue variety or MTV Springbreak special; unfortunately, not all dependent on age.
It's a lovely city, but it's way too touristy. Just as I hated London during the summer tourist season, and why I prefer Rotterdam over Amsterdam, I didn't like Firenze for precisely this reason. Milano can get quite touristy but I've never had shopkeepers in Milano greet me in English. Hummm, maybe I'm developing this Milano-vs-other-Italian-cities complex...
We gave the main sights a miss and headed to Giardino Boboli. First tip of the day: queues to Palazzo Pitti and the main entrance of Giardino Boboli can get extremely long. If you go up Corso San Giorgio to where Giardino Boboli and Bardini neighbour one another, there is another entrance with a biglietteria and hardly anyone queues there.
Robert and I lay on the grassy hill overlooking Palazzo Pitti and Firenze. It was wonderful and we fell asleep in the sun like lazy house cats. The park started to fill up around lunchtime, so we left and went to Giardino Bardini, which was smaller and quieter and had an equally stunning view of Firenze.
Sunday morning, we went to the Duomo to see the Scoppio del Carro, an Easter ritual of blowing up an elaborate wagon decorated just for this purpose. Loud bangs, lots of smoke and sparks of fireworks ensues. It was all fun and good to watch, as the crowd gets really enthusiastic. This is followed by a procession around the city center.
After a heavy Sunday lunch, Robert and I hiked up to Villa Strozzi. We found the lovely gardens and again spent some time lazing in the sun. There were families on their Sunday afternoon walks and I noticed people were a lot friendlier and interactive; there were eye contact and cheerful greetings of "Buona Pasqua" and "Buona sera".
We then walked through the hills and olive groves in the dying Sunday sun, with breathtaking views. It was such a lovely Sunday stroll that I felt better about not renting bikes and cycling through the countryside as I had originally planned.
The food
We received a lot of recommendations from friends (thank you Tango, thank you James). We did find all of those places in town, but in the end we didn't eat there. We'll save those places for our next (more) museum-oriented visit, in the fall.
Too bad Robert was still sick so he could hardly taste and smell any of the food he ate! That's torture of the worst kind (for me).
We ate wonderful Tuscan dishes: faraona all'uva con crema di patate (guinea fowl stewed in grapes on creamy potatoes), polenta con al ragu di cinghiale (polenta with ragu of wildboar), ravioli di zucca con amaretti (pumpkin ravioli with amaretti), sformato caldo di patate con ragù di carni bianche o pomodoro (a molded potato flan with a tomato and meat ragu), bistecca alla fiorentina (yay for extra-rare beef!)... Everything was SO good, I was very happy...
Back in Milano
We're still glowing from the weekend we just had... April will be a busy month with Salone del Mobile Milano and plenty of our designer friends flying in and crashing at our place... I love having friends visit...
I'm looking for our next little holiday at the end of April: we're going to Riomaggiore in Cinque Terre for 4 days! Yippeeee....
Posted by Yasmina at 09:35 PM | Comments (5)
March 14, 2007
La Dolce Vita
Life was certainly sweet last weekend when we went to Torino/Turin for the annual La Grande Festa di Cioccolato, which this year ran during March 2-11. Our friends, K&D, came down from Germany for a long weekend since it was K's birthday weekend. K's birthday coincides with our wedding anniversary (2 years this year, wooo!), so we celebrated together.
Piazza Vittorio Veneto was where the whole festival was based. A bit of historical fact: this piazza is one of the biggest in Europe and Torino has the most streets named after an Italian royal family member than any other Italian city. The buildings in the historical center have portico sidewalks, where in the past, the King and Queen could walk through in the rain without needing an umbrella (or so Giovanni told me). And, unlike Milan, Torino was built like most US-cities, in square blocks, so no wonder my Torino friends (namely, Giovanni) always complain of disorientation when they come to visit Milan.
There were the big names: Caffarel, Lindt, Droste, Streglio, Venchi, Peyrano, but also plenty of the local names. I had a delicious hot cup of cioccolato alla canela. Hot chocolate here is really different from hot chocolate drinks you'll find in other countries; it's literally melted chocolate, it's so thick (think of chocolate in a bain-marie/banho-maria and it's that kind of consistency) and can be infused with mint, oranges, cinnamon and lots of other complimenting flavours. It can be quite heavy and rarely can you drink more than one cup.
We decided against buying a Chocopass, which, for €10 is valid for 24-hours and allows 10 chocolate tastings around participating cafes around Torino. There was also one for €15, valid for 48-hours and 15 chocolate tastings. The thing is, they were not valid for the festival stands in the square, only in participating cafes in centro historico and we didn't want to be walking around the other parts of town while there was this great feast going on here.
Torino has a series of historical cafes, really really beautiful 18th and 19th century style interior, with dainty pastries and cakes, robust coffee, and traditional cioccolato con panna. I don't see these cafes in Milan. This is a tourist attraction in itself, I think, so no wonder they were aiming the Chocopass around the historical cafe experience. We had a peek into some of these cafes, since they were always really packed with people and we preferred somewhere more quiet and intimate.
I think seeing all the chocolates and food on display, as well as having the smell of chocolate permeating the air into our skin, just made our cerebellum fuse and we walked around in a frenzy of chocolate binging. We didn't know where to start! There were chocolate tablets, tasting squares, chocolate liquor, chocolate paste, chocolate gelato, chocolate spaghetti (would be lovely with some custard and strawberries), chocolate tea, and we were given a spoonful of this gooey chocolate stuff (kind of like a cross between zabaione and custard) at one of the stands that had chefs doing cooking demonstrations. We thought it was gelato, so were a bit disappointed at the flavour. It had a good cocoa flavour but way too sweet. I think it's because Kathya and myself prefer the taste of dark bitter chocolate.
Torino is well-known for its Gianduiotto, which is a blend of cocoa and roasted hazelnuts. Gianduia gelato is a derivation of that flavour and you must simply try it, especially if you're in Torino with gelaterias like GROM and Fiorio and Mondello, which coincidentally, was where we had breakfast on Sunday. Gelateria Mondello is known for its Sicilian gelato and they've won the Slow Food prize a couple of times, so yes, it was a delicious Sunday breakfast. We even had cannoli siciliani. Little did we know that K&D were also having a Sicilian breakfast with Paolo and Alessandra.
We managed to get gelato from GROM in the evening; during the day, the queues wind up along the street and you end up queuing for 20-30 minutes. Flavour of the month was matcha, te verde, and it was good. They must have used really good green tea stock; the other flavour I had was torroncino.
K&D were staying with Paolo and Alessandra in the Vanchiglia district, just 300 metres from the piazza, lucky them! They probably woke up to the smell of chocolate. They were also nearby the studio where I occasionally work and the wonderfully delicious GROM gelateria. The handsome-and-talented husband and I had a loft in Aprile, in the equally cool district of Quadrilatero Romano, just off Via Garibaldi with its many walking sidestreets.
Sunday was more relaxed. Waking up late. Quiet breakfast at the gelateria. Donatella joined us in the afternoon, for another walkabout the choco fest. We had cafe pinguino, which is a cup lined with cioccolato fondente, a shot of hot coffee poured in, then a dollop of panna (whipped cream) on top and sprinkled with some nuts. I also had a banana dipped in dark chocolate and nuts; the banana kind of eased my guilt trip about not eating fruit and veg that weekend.
Later on, we had apperitivo at Talmone, just in front of Torino Porta Nuova Station. It's a really good place for apperitivo because the food selection is massive! Half the cafe was platters of food arranged on tables: penne con pesto, artichoke hearts, various cheeses and cold cuts, pomodoro secchi, salads, onion rings, fritto misto, and lots of sandwich triangles with various toppings like salmon and cream cheese, anchovy-and-tomato, ham-and-cheese, prawns-lettuce-and-mayo. I keep drinking americanos and I think it's M's fault.
You can see other photos of the choco fest on my Torino Flickr set.
Posted by Yasmina at 09:08 PM
March 06, 2007
Woohoo! Mug goodness!
At some point during the day, one of the neighbours rang the doorbell and when I opened the door, she presented me with a box from US Postal Service. Wow! A package from Kenn! I'm so happy! It made my day!
Dear Kenn, thanks so much for this. I've never had a self-designed mug given to me before. Ever. It's totally unexpected so it's doubly nice. I was so happy that I ran out to get some pie from the panificio (yes, yes, any excuse to eat pie). Here's some pictures of the whole Wislander package experience... The funny thing is, for the last few days, I have been the character on the mug, hovering over my desk sketching because a rush-job tight-deadline project got dumped on my lap and I've been working non-stop.
Oh, and P.S. I got a haircut; Patrizia wasn't there but Mamma was, so Mamma cut my hair. It didn't help that she didn't speak English and mine is dodgy, so I said "piu corto" instead of "piu lungo" but luckily she didn't chop all of my hair off... At least now I know how to say "layered" in Italian, which is "la scala", and that concludes our Italian lesson of today... Ciao ciao!
Posted by Yasmina at 08:39 PM | Comments (1)
February 18, 2007
Vitello al curry con patatine e fagiolini
This is part of my effort to start learning and speaking Italian properly. What better way to start than with food, right? I have to say that I have no problems with food vocabulary in Italian, but I am totally terrible with the Italian language in general.
Oggi ho mangiato: vitello al curry con patatine e fagiolini. Mi scusi, io non parlo molto bene l'Italiano.
Ingredienti :
400g vitello/bovino adulto (beef/veal)
6 cucchiaini di curry in polvere (powdered curry or curry paste)
500 ml di latte di cocco (coconut milk)
2 cipolle grosso (onions)
200g di fagiolini bollire (string beans)
200g di patatine bollire (potatoes, chipped)
Sale, pepe, olio di sesamo (salt, pepper, sesame oil)
150g penne, perche io rimanere senza riso bianco (because I ran out of white rice, sorry!)
Per una ricetta vegetariana, cambiare (sostituzionare) il vitello con 400g di melanzane grigliata. Substitute the meat with grilled aubergines for a vegetarian version of this recipe.
Ricetta :
1. Fai soffriggere a fuoco alto le cipolle tagliate con un filo d'olio.
(Stir-fry the onions on high heat with a dash of oil)
2. Aggiungi il vitello a pezzi, il curry e lascia cuocere per 5 minuti
(Add the meat, curry and cook for 5 minutes until evenly coated)
3. Aggiungi il latte di cocco e lascia cuocere a fuoco lento per 45 minuti
(Add the coconut milk and cook for 45 minutes, over low fire)
4. Aggiungi il fagiolini e patatine, sale e pepe
(Add the cooked beans and potatoes, salt and pepper)
5. Copri e lascia cuocere a fuoco lento per 10 minuti
(Cover and cook over low fire for 10 minutes)
6. Fai bollire il penne/riso bianco
(Cook the penne)
7. Servi e buon appetito! :)
Posted by Yasmina at 09:06 PM | Comments (2)
February 06, 2007
Pastry-Eating Frenzy
I love the pastries they make in bakeries here... I swore off pastries for this week but then Eva came over this afternoon with a plateful... How can I resist?
Nearby our flat are a couple of really great panificio/pasticceria/bakeries, where we usually stock up on fresh bread (if the husband doesn't feel like making his own), get our focaccia for our soups and salads, catch a morning coffee with a freshly baked brioche, and getting seasonal pastries.
I love the selection of seasonal pastries, like chiaccere (sp?) which is a crispy fried dough sprinkled with powder sugar that you can find only during carnaval season. As well as pastries and pies that use seasonal fruits like mirtillo (blueberries) and fichi (figs) and lampone (raspberries).
Posted by Yasmina at 10:03 PM | Comments (1)
January 29, 2007
idlehands
Milan is a great city to live in if you're working hard, and you love your work, and afterwards you and your friends go to apperitivo-dinner-dancing to celebrate or commiserate.
Milan is not great when you don't have anything to do. There's only so many times you can go to the Triennale or other galleries. Not to mention that my social life has shrunk in epic proportions since everyone graduated and buggered off to their next destinations. My friend M has started a Tuesday night get-together to exchange information on the intersection of design and culture and prototyping (he's a technologist), so I'm starting to go to that and meeting new people that way.
I did spend a couple of weeks lost in transition but that's all over now. I spent some time working on my good friend Kathya's website; she's a photographer. It was fun to do, and I'm just finishing things up. I've also been talking to a few prospects on possible collaborations and they've all been mostly positive. Work is starting to snowball around me... Exciting, and I'm feeling really positive, energetic and enthusiastic towards anything that comes my way.
Posted by Yasmina at 06:58 PM
January 14, 2007
lost in transition
I'm getting used to seeing friends on Skype and knowing that I won't be seeing them for lunch, or apperitivo, or Sunday movie night. I'm getting used to being able to just work on my own projects (namely, knitting, *which is going horribly* and soldering robots and electronic kits *which I'm better at*). It's been a week since we got back to Milan and it's a new kind of daily routine that I'm trying to get used to; even if only for a little while.
Last week, I was updating my website, and talking to some people about possible collaborations. I can't talk too much about that yet, only that I'm fortunate to know so many people who are happy to open their doors for me. In the meantime, I am keeping myself busy with new ideas and projects, and making new friends.
I'm glad we are staying in Italy for longer. I like my life here, with Robert. Hooray for 2007.
Posted by Yasmina at 05:18 PM
July 26, 2006
under the tuscan sun
edit, 060727: I'm back in Milano but only for a night, as tomorrow we are catching a 9 am flight to Amsterdam, where Robert and I will be chilling out with our friends for a week... Ciao ciao...
Wow, what a week! I'm loving it here... meeting interesting people, eating yummy food, waking up to the amazing view out of my bedroom window, even the heat is not as intense as Milano, we get cool breezes at night. We slept with the windows open and one night ended up with a bat flapping round our livingroom, poor thing...
The presentation went well, I thought. We always have to present last so on Monday I felt anxious all day, but once I slip into the presentation mode, I just get comfortable. Feedback was positive so we're happy.
Last night we went to Siena, to Piazza del Campo, where we had a refreshing apperitivo *make mine a mojito* and watched people. Dinner was absolutely amazing! I had a Tuscan specialty pasta: pici, which is like spaghetti but thick. Pici all'anatra for starters. Then I had veal with chestnuts.... Ooooohhhhh heavenly veal with chesnuts... No picture would do justice... The veal was perfect, rare and coated in a super-duper-delizioso (chestnut?) sauce, with pieces of tender chestnuts.... omg, to die for...
More news when I get back to Milano. Right now, I need to prepare for this afternoon's presentation :)
Posted by Yasmina at 01:21 PM | Comments (1)
