Bye bye 2010! Happy New Year 2011!!!

Dear all,

2010 has been for me a really full year, moving to anoity in another country, then moving back home (I must tell you I am really fed up with packing, altough I have become the packing queen). I took the liberty of getting inspired from Nookie and her blog fashion in my eyes as for to create the following picture selection of my 2010. It wasn't easy, I must tell you, but going through them was how a new NY's resolution resulted for me: in 2011 I want to be more photographed as from the moment I have gotton my new Nikon I am mainly the one taking pictures.

So here's my end of January, arriving at friends' house close to Berlin before starting my adventure at Montblanc in Hamburg. Little did I know that the snow here was a small example of what was going to follow in the next months. Hope 2011 will be warmer!


February was a bit Gaga...due to the new job and of course the season for carnival in Germany. Some friends and myself went to this huge party in Hamburg, with around 7 dancefloors...thousends of people were there...it was really crazy!


March was a month for myself, I relaxed, visited friends, fed an elephant, went back to Berlin (as you can see from the pic above) and had my first free day from work. This is also the month I started "Life and Luxury".


In April I came back home for some short vacation and this was the month I started going to vintage fairs. Once you start, it is difficult to stop!


May was crazy: visiting relatives in Germany, the harbour anniversary in Hamburg and the QM2 ship from Cunard, a new job proposition, which I finally accepted...


June 2010 was the month some crazy international people met in Monaco and started "the crew". I hope they will reunite soon. May the Buddah Bar power be with them...hahaha!

July 2010 was a month for visits and museums. This is me in a climate capsule. The idea of living in such environments in the future is a bit scary. Time to act for the planet!!!


Oh, August,...one week of discoveries with my dad! We had a really wonderful discovery tour of Romania and went to a lot of places I hadn't been before. This country is really amazing, one just needs time to discover it!


September 2010 was the month when we had our first highschool-reunion...just five years after finishing it. Another 5 years to go for the next one!


October 2010 - a great month for blogging - and for winter jackets.

November 2010 - dedicated to my passion: gastronomy.

December 2010 is now...I went to Bulgaria, met friends, wrote the 60th blog entry and counted over 7100 blog views (since adding the flagcounter). I am happy now and I can say I am leaving a good year behind and hoping for a great one ahead. But things are what you make of them, so I am happy I had so may friends I visited in 2010 and new things I learned, people I met (like Ada from classiq.ro), things I cooked, tastes I discovered, concerts I went to etc. As for 2011, there are some surprises for the blog and for my professional development.

Happy New Year, my dear ones, have a great year ahead!

Happy 60 blog entries!

Dear all,

as I have promised, here's a glimpse of the Christmas holidays which have passed, altough the mood is still up in the air over here,....maybe still meeting friends and receiving gifts every day helps the spirit to stay alive, haha.


I took some extra time this year, altough it was a bit difficult, and put some extra time in the presents and in the wrapping. I find that going to a mall and letting your gifts wrapped for free by some employee there is convenient but so without any heart put into all of the gifting process, that I just couldn't do it. And in fact, it's not the gift that counts so much, but what the gift represents that really impresses people. Make a small hand-made card and you'll see a diffrent reaction than to a ready-to-buy-one.



I must tell you, my mother was delighted by the Vivienne Westwood type of gift-wrapping which I did for her and both of my parents were most thrilled by the self-made 2011 calendar which is made from my personal pictures and which will be a gift for them to cherish the whole new coming year.




As for me, I got around 5 of the newest books from the luxury domain/luxury industry, which will help me be an even better blogger on this field for you guys and a better professional...for me! Oh, and I might change my mind about fashion as I also got the bible DVD for it, the September Issue. WOW! I simply admire strong and passionate women and seeing Anna Wintour the way I saw her in this documentary just gives me hope and power to follow my dreams and the path I have chosen for myself.

Enjoy the rest of the pictures and have a wonderful end of the year!

Santa's gifts

Hello my dear ones,
hope your previous days were filled with lots of love. I know I was really happy and hope the people around me felt the same way. Today I'm back to work, back to reality, but somehow it's all going slowly....maybe because most of our partners and clients are on holidays. That's why I'm sending you a teaser now. Have a nice day!

Merry Christmas!

Dear readers,
hope Santa was as good to you as he was to me. Here's just a short glimpse of what I got. Have wonderful holidays!

Yours truly,

Inge

Bûche de Noël

Yes, I know,...it's been a while. So many things have happened recently, some of them less pleasant, which have kept me away, from you, my dear readers. But I have not been away-away, from the shadow of my laptop I have followed my favourite blogs and indulged in the entries on Christmas. And I have had a blogger-"date" with Ada from classiq.ro, which was really nice and I hope we can repeat it sometime in the near future.

Going back to postings of other bloggers, I have seen a lot of suggestions on Christmas decorations, Christmas clothing, gifts, moods etc. etc. so as an addition to all of that I will write today on what I like most: food!

Two years ago I had a pre-Christmas-dinner in Monaco with my landlady from then, now my friend. She showed me some insights on their traditions. It was a pre-Christmas dinner as I went home for the so-called "real deal", meaning Christmas with my family.

I will not go in too many details, as French eat by definition a lot in many variations (and you can hardly see it deposited afterwards on their body), so I picked 3 of my long list of favourites.

The first one, a starter, is smoked salmon served on warm blinis combined with sour cream. A smooth combination of flavours and origins: salty, sweet, sour with Nordic, Russian and European composed a lovely French hors-d'œuvre.

(Picture Source: http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/imageBank/cache/s/_e_73d1d5236a676223e137df8d9124a841.Salmon-Blinis_13K)

The second one, is also a starter and I associate this one more with France than the first one. I could eat it till I would drop: the traditional foie gras. The perfect combination for me? Take some foie gras du canard mi cuit and serve it with toasted bread and jam made out of figs: again you have a salty, fatty flavour embraced by the smoothness of the sweet jam.

(Picture Source: http://www.comptoirgastronomique.com/images/files-extra-fields/coffret-foie-gras.jpg)

Most of the main dishes are found in Germany or Romania as well, so for the third gastronomic favourite, i will go directly to the end of a dinner: the traditional Bûche de Noël. As the name tells us, the traditional preparation and decoration/presentation of this cake is made that way in order for it to look like a log ready to be thrown in the fire. It is generally made from a sponge-cake (or pain d'Espagne) which is rolled into a cylinder, being filled on the inside with a butter-cream and a chocolate-butter-cream on the outside. Some make small mushroom-cakes out of meringue to decorate the Bûche (log) with it or use fresh berries, to give it the chopped-off-branch-from-the-forest-look.

(Picture Source: http://vanillepatisserie.com/images/BucheDeNoel.jpg)

As things evolve in taste and gastronomy as well, several variations of more modern cakes are to be found on the market: from different glazing (strawberries, bananas, etc.) to the small plastic decoration which is put on the cake, as you can see in the picture below. In Monaco I have seen some with small Star Wars or Harry Potter figures. These are of course for the little ones.

(Picture Source: http://www.howdididoit.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/041225buchedenoel.jpg)

Luxury can never avoid gastronomy (or gastronomy can never avoid luxury), so this year a renowned Patissier, Pierre Herme, offers a modern view and presentation of the traditional cake. Nevertheless, the composition is not the traditional one, being made of chocolate biscuits wrapped in a light dark chocolate layer. All to come in a superbe silver box, for stunning 160 Euros in all Pierre Herme boutiques. Or you could just take the time, take a or more family members, and have the fun and pleasure of baking it together. It will probably taste more like Christmas and holidays!

(Picture Source: http://www.luxuo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/herme-buche-noel-2010.jpg)

The Tie Between Thanksgiving and Burberry

This post is mainly dedicated to a friend of mine, who at the moment is an American away from home. So, my dear Darryl, wishing you again Happy Turkey Day. And for all of you Americand out there, happy belated Thanksgiving.

And because this post goes mainly out to Darryl, here's an item of news on one of your favourite brands, Burberry. The luxury fashion brand has passed over 3 million Facebook fans, being that type of brand with the most fans on the social network. I just need to remind you all that one month ago the brand had hust passed the 2 million line. 2011 they are also supposed to open a shop in Bucharest. I'm looking forward to it!

Enjoy the weekend! And also the Burberry collection for the Festive Season pictures you can check out here!

Vintage fairs...

(Picture Source: http://bagvanity.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/fake-louis-vuitton-bags.jpg)

Copied from its use in wine terminology, vintage is a term used now for clothing showing they are new or second-hand, but from a past era. It has become very fashionable to use this term nowadays and vintage fairs are more and more often in Bucharest as well. If I'm not mistaken, there is at least one each week and you can meet the same people more or less with the same merchandize, so this can be good (if you don't have the money on a particular week) and also not so good, when you see the same type of merchandize.

Between the people who have vintage jewelry on sale or vintage clothing, there are also new designers (Romanian ones), who are working hard (or not so hard) to get out there and become someone through what they are producing. You can really find great creations, but also can be disappointed,...but I guess this is a matter of taste and desire...

Today I visited (as usually I do on weekends) another venue of this type and, and this is the reason I am writing now, I was really disappointed by something that happened to me. Fortunately, I know something about luxury and this saved me from committing a mistake.

The story goes like this: I am thinking of buying a type of LV bag for myself, and I noticed that model at the fair. I asked the woman who was in charge of it, if it were a replica or an original one. The bag really looked great and it was packed like an original one would be... and she told me it was a real one. So I grabbed it and started looking at the fine-tunig of its interiors. They were almost the same as the real one, but the zipper looked slightly different (you must have had the original one in your hands to notice the difference!!!), so I asked the woman where she got the merchandize from. She didn't know where they were imported from. This was my first question mark... Then I asked for the price, it was something around 120 Euros... Considering that these bags rarely loose their value, especially if they still are available on the brand's website, I asked the woman again if it was a replica or not. She then said yes, and that for that money I couldn't dream of having a real one (true). Sadly, she added that that bag would cost thousends of Euros, in the attempt to sell it to me. I told her that wasn't true, that it would be 400-500 Euros on the internet (depending on the size). She then answered that those are also fakes. WHAT??? I told her, that's not true, it's that much on the Louis Vuitton site. She then was speechless and I was furious. I just walked away!!! I am still angry thinking that they, who are uneducated concerning what they are selling, are also selling fakes to other uneducated buyers...who then think they are something they will never be. Plus sustaining the counterfeitting industry means less work for us, here in Europe, it means giving up values and traditions for cheap plastic just to show off what those people are not.

Fortunately I also found someone who sells the real deal. They are called Budoir Vintage and have clothes and bags and shoes and clothes from various very known luxury or fashion brands. The prices go to confirm it. Nevertheless you can find some nice pieces at reasonable prices.

I hope this entry will make you more attentive when buying at these fairs. Being educated in fashion and luxury is a plus. Knowing what you want to buy is a plus. Understanding the quality of a thing is another plus. And knowing the value of your money is the most important thing!

Christmas is around the corner...

...and I am thinking decoration and decoration and decoration. What colour will you choose? Montblanc has again red for this year. Will show you the shop once I'm done!

What attracts...

...to luxury? What do you relate with luxury except for high prices or some bling bling people? What is your personal link to luxury?

Koreafilm - Introduction to Korean Gastronomy

This past Saturday I have had a wonderful time. One of the reasons for the great day I had was the Korean Gastronomy presentation organized by Koreafilm at Korea House.

So there I was, looking at the table with ingredients and hoping for a delighting cooking insight. Here are some pictures:

Ingredients for the Kimpap and the Chapchae

Mr. Kim, our host

Frying pan getting ready to fry some of the ingredients and to prepare the eggs

Cucumber being sliced

Carrots having the same destiny as the cucumber

Carrot being fried

Korean student watching the Korean chef

Eggs stirred with chopsticks

Cutting...

Careful, it's still hot...

Now for the ham...

Preparing to roll a Kimpap

Ready to be cut

Ingredients for second dish...

This Kimpap here looks yummy!!! :)

And here I am talking to the chef about the importance of not burning garlic...

Presenting some of his results. Thank you Mr.Lee for this great insight into a foreign cuisine!

Oh, and the icing on the cake was this little angel here called Yury, Mr. Kim's daughter.

Hope you had a great time looking at these pictures.