shadows and light

:: from the wood house, my brother's garden, and copenhagen zoo ::

interlude

i am not sure how many days it will take me to settle in back home, to sort things and prep the kids for kindergarten. and just in general get myself tuned in to daily life.

so, just in case, consider this a little interlude featuring my sweet and beautiful younger brother on piano.

the wood house

this is the house i grew up in. my parents' green and white wood house from 1923. it was built by a swedish carpenter who moved to denmark with his family, and it is full of amazing wood carving details, inside as well as outside. i really love this house.

this is my last day in denmark. i'm sad to leave the family and friends behind, to leave my home. but i am also looking forward to get back home. see, that's the good thing about this: i am always going home.

elderflowers. and now berries

in the early summer days my mom makes quite a few bottles of elderflower drink. i love it because it tastes of summer. danish summer. this summer my mom brought me two bottles to israel and i was so happy. so much that i wrote a post about it.

when we arrived in denmark in august those pretty white little flowers with their amazing smell and taste were long gone. so imagine how thrilled i was to find out that my mom had made up her own elderflower cake, available now months after the flowers are gone.

when she makes the elderflower drink she's boiling the flowers with lemon and sugar, but instead of throwing it away afterwards, she this year decided to make it into a paste in a blender with a bit of the juice. she then makes the dough for a basic carrot cake, but instaed of carrots, she adds her elderflower paste.

she froze down some of this paste and now we can enjoy a delicious elderflower cake. you can even see the shapes of the little flowers in the top crust. so delicate! (and don't get confused by the blue flower. it's just for pretty).

but she didn't take all the elderflowers. she left some behind, and they turned into dark and yummy elderberries. we took a lot down saturday, and sunday my mom made elderberry drink. right in time, so i can bring some back to israel.

summer morning bike ride

i left the kids with my parents this morning and went on a bike ride through the city.

D left a couple of days ago, but i'm staying a bit longer with the little ones here in copenhagen at my parents house.

copenhagen on a nice summer day is the ultimate biking experience. and with toe nails matching my mom's red bike and some flee markets on my route, i had a morning of pure perfection. oh, and yes, i made a few great finds that i have to share with you asap. the theme of my three finds was old wood. and then a pair of rain boots for little D.

i have billions of photos to share, including some of my parents' beautiful white and green wood house, which you can get a glimpse of, up there on the second photo. but so far i have been too busy having vacation to go through photos. i think i might have to get denmark sorted back in israel.

wishing you moments of pure perfection too :)

our favorite books

a while ago minnie from mama without borders asked me if i would like to participate in her project. she is putting together a serie of posts about kids, books and reading nooks from all over the world. i was honored to be asked, and even more so now when i saw the post she published today with my thoughts on kids and reading. thank you so much, minnie :)

and if you head on over to take a look, don't miss out on minnie's other posts about kids, books and reading. and all the other aspects of parenting, family life and designhome decor. her blog is not only beautiful, but also full of very inspiring.

two years old

little D turned two yesterday. i always get sentimental and emotional around my kids' birthdays. i wonder if that will continue into their teens and adulthood.

sunday we had the whole family here in denmark for the traditional danish birthday: buns (baked by morfar), hot chocolate and birthday cakes with nougat, whipped creme and fresh berries. and a chocolate cake by mormor, which was the absolute favorite among the young crowd. and then there were the sand cakes by his brothers. their beauty compensated well for the fact that we couldn't eat them.

it was a great day, we all had the best of times with the family members we see so rarely. the weather was beautiful and we were very happy.

ps: that handsome guy with my littlest one in the top photo is my older brother.

crocodile buns

when my mom was visiting last month, one afternoon we baked. a plain dough which i shaped into animals. J wanted a crocodile mom and baby, N then asked for the crocodile dad. and little D has a thing with elephants, so that's what he got.

when the animals were done baking and had cooled, they were ready to eat. but J, who's got a thing with animals, just couldn't bring himself to eat his crocodile mom and baby. or the fish from the leftover dough, we had decided was their food. so, he watched the others eat. he even got some of theirs, but he didn't eat his own.

later that evening (hence the bad light in the photo) i found them in his room. they had joined the rest of his animal collection on display.

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as we took off to denmark in the beginning of the month they were still around. by that time they were 3 weeks old, hard as stone and lived in a plastic box, i had convinced him to use.

i wonder how they are doing back home. we might have to do a new generation, this time with some homemade playdough.

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note: i am on vacation most of august and will not be posting or commenting as much as usual.

butterfly bag

i made this bag with a butterfly print for a dear friend's birthday last month.

she's got a butterfly tattoo on her left shoulder. seems fit, right :)

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note: i am on vacation most of august and will not be posting or commenting as much as usual.

summer pizza

a while back michelle/nytesong from vanilla icing wrote about the joy of a good, simple pizza margherita. and i just knew it would be a perfect way to use our tomatoes from the garden. the thing is, we don't have that many, but we could probably have made a nice little salad now and then during the summer - if it wasn't for their sweet and tempting taste and color. see, the tomato plants are right next to the porch and the kids pass them all day long. and those pretty little red tomatoes (and sometimes the orange and the green ones as well), they are just too good to be true. so the kids eat them. and i think it's cute in a way, so my orders not to eat them are not so serious. and half hearted orders are immediately sensed by kids, and ignored.

once in a while i manage to get a little handful collected, but not a lot. and that's where the pizza margherita comes in. it doesn't really require that many tomatoes. and i would have had enough for the pizza topping photographed above, if it wasn't because the boys had found their way to the little handful i had collected that day too. so i had to add some big ones from the store. but since the recipe - and pizza in general - calls for oregano and basil, i at least can add all home grown spices.

this is a really yummy pizza, fresh and just full of summer. and in most families i would assume it's also a great family dinner. not here, though. here pizza is an adult thing. the kids don't like pizza. yes, you got that right. i must have done something wrong: my kids don't like pizza! but it's ok, cause this pizza has a perfect size for a late dinner for two.

you will find the recipe and nytesong's beautiful photos of the making of the topping right here. she even was so kind to share her own recipe for the pizza crust with me, since i never really managed to find one i liked. and this one is good. simple, easy, but oh, so perfectly crispy:

1 1/4 cups flour (italian flour, but all purpose flour will work just as well)
1.5 teaspoons yeast
3/4 teaspoon salt
4-6 ounces warm water

• in a bowl, combine the flour, salt and yeast.
• slowly mix in the water to form a shaggy ball of dough.
• knead by hand (or switch to dough hook) until the dough is smooth and elastic.
• shape it into a ball, and place in an oiled bowl.
• turn to coat and cover with plastic wrap or a towel.
• if you use a towel, make sure the top of the dough is well coated or else it will form a dry skin on top.

allow to rise in a warm place for about 3 hours. stretch dough into a 12 inch pizza, brush lightly with olive oil and top as desired. bake at 500 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.
UPDATE: that would be 500 degrees fahrenheit which is around 260 degress celcius. sorry for the confusion :)

and just as she explained me, the dough is very easy to use and shape.

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note: i am on vacation most of august and will not be posting or commenting as much as usual.

august 8, 2003

what a ride. so far it's been a joy. some bumps, unexpected sudden turns and great surprises.

a few extra passengers joined along the way, changing the speed and sometimes the route, taking up time and space, but making it so much better.

i cannot wait to see what's ahead of us. somehow it always seems to be just right.

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note: i am on vacation most of august and will not be posting or commenting as much as usual.

summer gift: elderflower drink

when my mom came last month she brought me two bottles of her homemade elderflower drink. i don't think i could have recieved a better present. it was like she brought the taste of danish summer right in to my middle eastern home.

i have been saving the last bit, but yesterday i finally made that glass. the timing wass perfect: we're off to copenhagen to see family and friends, to tour the danish summerland. i am so happy and excited.

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i will be posting here and there, and i already scheduled a few posts. but my commenting, posting and internet access will probably suffer a bit. but hey, it's summer, let's enjoy!

beach days: playing

little D likes the water. but he's younger and smaller than his brothers and the waves are tricky. so he mostly runs at the shore and plays in the sand.

and sometimes J or N needs a break and will join him. looking at his fish (or is it a piece of seaweed?) or playing a bit in the sand.

beach days: flying

i'm pretty good in playing with the boys. getting in to it. the running, throwing stones, fooling around, getting my hands dirty and hair wet. but dad beats me. he runs faster, jumps higher, throws you higher in to the air. he's stronger and he takes it a little bit further than me.

but hey, that's ok. i don't mind coming in second. gives me more time to relax, watch and enjoy the view. i'm pretty good at that too.

beach days: surfing

i think i mentioned it in this post. how D pretty much had the surf board and fishing gear ready for his boys in the delivery room. at the beach or in the water, that's where he loves to be.

this summer the boys have been introduced to surfing. and i must give it to D: he's very enthusiastic about it. i think he's getting the energy from seeing how they love the thrill of riding through the waves. just like him.