X'ed Up

The X is now made.  One more step done!

Ooooh, Pretty!

This little raspberry tart was from the bakery between our hotel and the metro station in Paris.  Isn't it pretty?  It tasted good, too!

Bands Of Blue

I can't believe how full this is looking.  I'm pleased with the progress!

Italian Dinner In Paris

 Our hotel was just to the south of the Buttes Chaumont in Paris (19th arrondisemont).  A block away was an Italian restaurant.  It sounded good for Friday dinner, so we went in.  The name of the place is Osteria Sicilia, and the demirigatoni had a very intense fresh tomato flavor, and the cheese was wonderful.  Andreas' pesto linguine was gone very quickly, as he loved it.  We had a meat and cheese plate as an appetizer, and it was both good and filling.  It could have been a meal in itself.

Almost Halfway Up

I've managed to get almost halfway up the side, meaning I'm almost halfway done with part two.  It's coming along, finally.

Cupcake Lessons

 Stephanie, a fellow embassy spouse and professional baker, shared her tips and secrets for making cupcakes a few weeks ago.  Thank you to Luidmila for the photos!  I learned a lot from observation, but I didn't really get much in the way of hands on practice.  It wasn't Stephanie's fault.  One lady brought her nine year old, who monopolized every part of the process.  It meant that the rest of us got imposed with a nine year old's sensibility of style.  I learned later that children weren't supposed to be there, but it's nearly impossible to be nice and to turn away a child at the door.  

I've practiced some with my own Wilton tips later and have had some good results.

Wandering Down The Sides

Down the bamboo sides I went this time.  No work on the leaves, but at least the frame is getting a bit more complete.

Block Progress

Top block is how I received Alice's step round robin block.  Bottom is my progress so far.  I plan on adding something to the top left before mailing it on.

Gone To Gok Oguz

 Salads and placinte look different when you go to southern Moldova.  The Gaguz people are of Turkish descent, Christian, and Russian speakers.  Their food sometimes even has spice.  The top salad is chicken; the second plate is placinte.  You can see how they look different from normal ones.  for one thing, they're puffier.  They taste good, too.  Sashlik and mamaligia are about the same.  Andreas got rice pilaf.  It looked kind of bland, but he said it was flavorful.  I had kuvarma, which is a kind of stew.  I chose chicken.  It had a bite of red pepper and was very well done.

Cloudy Day At Pani Pit

The consular department went to lunch on a chilly, cloudy day.  We ate outside anyway.  It was June, after all.  Pani Pit has a really good orangeade, so I had that to drink.  I also had the zeama, as theirs is supposedly the best in town.  The others took pictures of their lunches for the blog, too.  The picture below the zeama is salmon in sauce, followed by stuffed chicken wrapped in bacon.  I had the rolled up steak stuffed with bruschetta stuff.  It was really, really good.  Dawn had a typical Moldovan lunch of sashlik and mamaligia.  We all left replete and happy with the food!

All Wrapped Up

As part of my fascination with wrapped temari lately, I made this three way bow.  I think it came out pretty neat, despite being in absolutely nontraditional colors.  I am now on a three week temari break, as I did not bring any of my temari supplies with me to France.

Roses And Buds

A bit more work on the Little Extra project for CyberStitchers.

Lofty Lunch

We had lunch a couple of weeks ago at The Loft.  It was as yummy as usual, including the camembert and the mushroom soup.

Bits Of Both

I'm trying to do a little bit of each side every time I work on this.  It's easier to see the progress on the peacock, although there was some significant background progress this time.

It's A Cake!

 Dawn won a cake at auction at the Hospice Angelus ball.  She got this birthday cake with a pirate theme made for her son.  Isn't it cute?  The cake was made by Creme de la Creme, a bakery downtown.

Lighting Things Up

Firecrackers coming along.  This is stitching up fast.

Looong Dinner At Buffalo

 Heather got back in town, so we all went out to Buffalo Steakhouse to celebrate.  Andreas' iced tea was fruit punch.  John liked his chicken wings.  The food was all good as usual.  We ended up not leaving until nearly midnight, though, because we met up with another group of expats and socialized the night away.