Monthly Archives November 2011

Lifestyle

Crystal Christmas at Harrods

Every mid-November Harrods is invaded by amazingly beautiful christmas-themed windows. No wonder I had to go there and scope it out with my own eyes, since I’ve heard it was similar to a intergalactic outburst full of sparkle and glitziness and the mannequins really seemed to have come to life (not in a creepy spooky way, thankfully!).

And there I was, and whoa! no kidding, dropped chin and eyes wide-opened to the max, simply astounded with such a spectacular sparkling Swarovskian beauty, lifeless drama queens and a superhuman attention to detail. Amazing.

Crystal Christmas by Swarovski

Crystal Christmas by Swarovski

Crystal Christmas by Swarovski

Crystal Christmas by Swarovski

Crystal Christmas by Swarovski

Crystal Christmas by Swarovski

Crystal Christmas by Swarovski

A Crystal Christmas inspired by Swarovski: Bringing the Spectacular Magic and Sparkle of Swarovski to London 

Crystal Christmas by Swarovski
Harrods
Knightsbridge, London

Hope you’re all getting your christmas groove going! XO

Food

Thanksgiving Feast Cook-off

The Thanksgiving cook-off marathon is about to start! I’m super thrilled ’cause I’m so passionate about cooking, especially for special occasions.

I’ve already sorted out the dinner menu and went grocery shopping with the boyfriend yesterday, which got him really impressed on how accurate grocery shopping for special days is, having in mind we’ll be cooking everything from scratch. Thank god we’ve got a Whole Foods Market right in our neighbourhood, with plenty of seasonal and organic american products including everything for a traditional american Thanksgiving, and vegan stuff. Talking about a thousand products I wasn’t able to find back in Portugal, ha!

As I mentioned in my previous post  we’re having a fully vegan Thanksgiving this year, which will be ten times better than our vegetarian dinner we had last year! So no gobble gobble, no dairy and no eggs, a total cruelty free dinner.

We’ll start with pimento-stuffed green olives, the main course will be a Roasted Tofu Loaf with a Sage and Chestnut Stuffing, Vegan Mashed Potatoes as side dish and Vegan Gravy, and of course Cranberry Sauce. For dessert we’ll have a Vegan Pumpkin Pie, which I never have tried before but hopefully it will taste amazingly.
I’m gonna follow some recipes I’ve found online during my research, so you can follow the hyperlink for each.

And you guys, what are you having for your Thanksgiving dinner?

Well, let the cooking begin! Don’t forget to have loads of fun in the kitchen!

Food

A Vegan Thanksgiving

After a couple of crazy hectic weeks and finally having ourselves settled in our new London flat (with broadband, YES!), well… we better start celebrating the fact that everything is gladly falling into place for us.

Thanksgiving is coming up tomorrow and even though it ain’t either an English or Portuguese tradition – it’s purely American, we’ve been always drawn to celebrate it the best way we can, making it our second Thanksgiving! But why celebrate it?

It’s the whole meaning behind it – truly being thankful and having a special day to do so. Being thankful for a whole year that has passed by and celebrating it. It’s not about the gifts, because we don’t really bother to trade them, we leave that for Christmas. Doesn’t have to do with religion either, because we’re both atheists and surely don’t buy Catholicism. It’s only about being thankful.

We seem to have forgotten the graciousness of the gift that is our Life and everything we have. We use to take for granted simple things such as peace, love, housing and comfort, having money on your pocket and kindness and we have vainly imagined by the deceitfulness of our hearts that all the blessings we have were simply handed on to us. These and more values should be gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice Thanksgiving should be celebrated world widely.

And of course we make it a Turkey-free dinner, Thanksgiving doesn’t need to be a cruelty feast. You just simply have to replace it with the good ol’ stuffed tofu loaf and a few delightful veggie sides, which I only adventure myself on cooking each Thanksgiving. Talking about making it special!

Later today we’re gonna make a trip to a couple of grocery shops to find the perfect ingredients and hopefully come home fully packed with amazingly looking and incredibly delicious seasonal goods.

And how about you? Are you planning a Thanksgiving special dinner for tomorrow?

Be grateful,

PS: So awfully sorry it took me so long to update the blog, kittens! Believe me, 22 days without broadband is recipe to drive anyone insane, apparently I’m alive though!


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