The thing I love most today..

..is this sweet little 50's cocktail dress from Thrush Vintage on Etsy. Although I couldn't justify such extravagance at the moment, this is definitely being added to the long list of dresses on my 'to make' list.

Reflections

Some of you may remember my last blog: Food, flora and felines (now long closed down) which focused on my interests in nutrition, cooking and organic gardening. I wrote it a couple of years ago when I was in the middle of my nutrition degree and we lived in an adorable  little old cottage in the country with a giant veggie patch. Clichéd as it sounds it was a really magical time in my life, we had a very serene little existence that revolved around our garden, pets, a handful of neighbours and the nature that surrounded us. It also happened to be an amazing place to blog from, I'm always a bit awestruck when I look back on the old pictures at just how beautiful our life was. Don't get me wrong, things are still great now, I feel so lucky to live in such a beautiful old flat, to have a garden with a view of the river and fantastic, fun neighbours but it's a very different existence in the city and not nearly so naturally charming.

Satchel lust..

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I 've recently come to the conclusion that I need this bag in my life, lugging a huge Canon camera around the place is a serious pain in the butt, and I often don't bring it out for fear of getting it damaged or lost (we already lost our previous beloved Canon in a house robbery!) or just because it's so awkward to carry, but if I had a bag this pretty I would be fishing for excuses to sling the camera on.. just think how much my photography would improve! While I probably wouldn't be able to justify such decadence on any average day, this baby is definitely getting pride of place on top of this years Christmas wish list. Could this be the ultimate satchel? 

Moonrise Kingdom

I can't wait to see this! It's the latest movie from American cult director Wes Anderson creator such eccentric heart-warmers as: The Royal Tennenbaums, The Life Aquatic, The Darjeeling Limited and the magical stop-motion animated Fantastic Mr. Fox. Before I rant on too much about Wes Anderson, I should mention it's actually a collaborative work with Roman Coppola of Francis Ford heritage, but seeing as I'm not so much  in love with him, I think that's mention enough. It's a story of delicately embellished childhood love, in which two twelve year lovers (Suzy and Sam) make a pact to run away together into the woods, and the ensuing madness that follows as the rest of the cast tries desperately to track them down. 

Wes Anderson's films always ooze cool but the saturated colours and 60's styling really make this one stand out to me in particular, Also, Suzy carries her cat around in a wicker basket!  Best two seconds of a movie trailer ever yes, quite possibly!

Amazing 60s dresses, knee-high socks, cats in baskets and candy coloured suitcases aside, if the aesthetic nature of Andersons previous films are anything to go this movie should prove to be a delectable visual feast and no doubt one to be enjoyed on this big screen, so make sure you get there before it's too late, this baby is in cinemas now!

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Also, how amazing is it that somebody has not only made an adorable little cross-stitch tribute to this movie but has a whole collection of Wes Anderson inspired pieces in her Etsy shop!

Flowers from the market

Random Recipe: Peach and vanilla crumble with a white chocolate and pecan crisp

  This is possibly the greatest crumble recipe of all time. I know it may seem like braggine ranting on about something I made myself but in this case it has to be forgiven because it's so very true. I came up with this recipe at about 2.30AM last night (all my recipe ideas come to me really late at night for some reason) and I couldn't wait to try it out today. I was really unsure if the white chocolate would work in the crumble bit (I thought it might just melt into a gooey mess in the oven) but happily it worked better than I even hoped for. The edges of the chunks actually caramelized while the middle was all melty deliciousness, can you imagine how good that is! Note, this is not for the faint hearted.

Serves 8

Ingredients;

                   200g plain flour

                   75g butter (at room temperature)

                   3-4 tbs brown sugar (I used 3 tbs and 1 tbs Stevia powder) for the filling, 1 tbs for the crumble

                   1 tsp baking powder

                   1/2 tsp cinnamon

                   1 tsp vanilla essence

                   1 tbs lemon juice

                   2 punnets of ripe peaches (around 10)

                   150g pecans 

                   200g good quality cooking white chocolate

                   1 scant cup water

                    

To make;

- Set your oven to 180 to preheat.

- Halve and de-stone your peaches and lay out in a baking dish.

- Mix the vanilla, lemon and water and pour over the peaches, then sprinkle the sugar (or sugar/stevia mix) over the peaches.

- Sift your flour, cinnamon and baking powder together, then mix in 1tbs sugar.

-  Rub the softened butter into the flour mix with your fingers until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. 

- Chop the chocolate, leaving lots of big chunks and roughly break the peacans with your hands.

- Add the pecans and chocolate chunks to the flour mixture and mix.

- Pile the flour-pecan-chocolate mix onto your peaches, spreading it out to evenly cover the fruit.

- Bake until the crumble browns nicely and serve immediately with a mound of whipped cream.

I got to try my bad-ass crumble out on some very lovely ladies I know, who came over for 'afternoon tea' (we're very sophisticated really you see)  and a good old natter, mainly about boys and dresses and other fairly predictable stuff :)

When we couldn't drink any more tea we decided to pop out to a gem of a charity shop up the road from my flat. I've become a bit disheartened with the charity shops in Cork of late because they have nearly all become flooded with mass produced rubbish selling at ridiculously prices. This one however, still has a great proportion of vintage and antique treasures compared to the usual junk so I'm really glad I discovered it. I found some amazing kitsch bits, you can't have to many shiny kitten figurines after all. I also found an amazing 60's style wind up clock.

To top our afternoon off we went a little mosey around the fabric shop where I found this lovely blue floral cotton. It's a really lovely quality for the price, I got enough for a nice full-skirted dress for 25 bucks. It's such a retro print, I'm planning to make my dream 1950's inspired dress with it. 

Today's been a great day, my boyfriend got off work early and the weather's even cleared up for a few precious moments so that I'm able to sit outside in my garden as I type this. We're planning a bbq for tomorrow evening so fingers crossed it lasts another evening. Hope you're having a  happy sunny day wherever you are too! 

Window to the past: part 1

This is the first in a series of posts in which I would like to share our old photos with you. This one, of my pocket-watch pendant came from an Alice in Wonderland inspired personal style shoot we once did.