FAMOUS IN BRAZIL

It's a crazy world we live in. Some decades ago, going away to study or live in another country was like an end of an era. It meant leaving people behind and not seeing them or hearing their voice for months or even years. Now, my four closest friends live in different corners of the world - in the US, London, Brazil and Sofia, but I still get to talk to them all the time. Now, I am designing logos for Brazilian companies while sitting comfortably in front of my laptop on my desk in Sofia, Bulgaria. The world has never been smaller.

Leo was probably the very first person I met in college. He was, and still is, one of my closest friends from Colby; I don't think I can even count the number of movie nights, tango lessons, or conversations about Harry Potter we've had over the years, but I'm sure that the number is insane. Leo is from Brazil. His grandmother, who decided that retirement is definitely not for her, is opening her own company, so he asked me to design a logo for her. I was thrilled to do it. After all, how many times does a Bulgarian designer get to work on a project for Brazil!?

He gave me the following info:

- The name of the company is D.I.A.-D CONSULTORIA E ASSESSORIA EMPRESARIAL LTDA, which stands for Develop.Integrate.Self-Knowledge (Auto-conhecimento in Portuguese).Dynamic (to make dynamic).
- The company's objectives are to provide guidance, assistance and consultancy in the field of corporate management, in particular about health services and pedagogical and educational matters.
- His grandmother wants the logo to include a spiral to show that things are always moving and that her company is very dynamic.

Following these guidelines, I came up with the some designs:

The lucky winner was the logo on the top left. Now, when the company becomes wildly successful, I'll be able to brag to everyone about my part in it. I'll be famous in Brazil. Isn't that completely awesome?

GARDENS ARE BEAUTIFUL

Beauties from my garden:

Oh, I love it when the flowers are blooming...

PANCAKES!!!

I treated myself to some blueberry pancakes! Yum, yum, yum!
They came out really tasty, so I devoured them in record time :)

COOKBOOKS

After my cooking post last week, I got quite a few questions about recipes, cookbooks and food. It's always nice to know that people are reading the blog, even if they prefer to post comments on Facebook or send me e-mails instead of commenting here.

Anyway, I decided to write a little something about the cookbooks/books about food that I own for those of you who enjoy cooking and/or reading mouth-watering fiction and need some suggestions. And if you are not one of those people? Well, it's always nice to try new things! I enjoy cooking immensely - something about the mixing of ingredients and all the luscious flavors - and maybe after trying it out you'll love it too.

1. The Book of New England Cookery is a very nice book that, curiously enough, I picked up at the Colby College campus bookstore one day after classes. I am really happy that I got it because it contains a ton of delicious recipes that remind me a lot of my Colby days in the US. Whenever I get nostalgic or start craving something like American-style pancakes, muffins or clam chowder, I turn to this book. I haven't been disappointed yet.

2. Cooking in New England. Now this is kind of a touristy cookbook that I bought from Boston, but it has such nice photos of New England that I couldn't resist. Actually, the recipes in it aren't bad at all, so buying it was definitely worth it.

3. 101 Cakes and Cookies is that little gem of a book that had the Nutella Cinammon Almond Cake recipe and has a 100 more very tasty looking dessert recipes that I'm determined to try out. Of course, converting from the American measurements can be annoying at times, but I've almost gotten used to it. I often resort to jotting down the metric equivalents of the measurements in the margins, so half of the pages are filled with notes :).

4. The Бон Апети cookbook collection is a must-have in my opinion. I've tried many recipes from the Бон Апети cooking show or from the various Бон Апети cookbooks, and I have never been disappointed. In fact, my famous tiramisu recipe is a very slight variation of the Бон Апети recipe. I have a bunch of small cookbooks devoted to different kinds of food and one big cookbook with 1500 recipes that I bought as a present to myself this past Christmas. I recommend these to anyone who can read Bulgarian.

5. Нови и класически коктейли. I have other cocktail books, but this one is actually my favorite. It might not have as many fancy photos as the other books, but it has the highest number of cocktail recipes, and they are very well organized. Also, it has a couple of intro chapters on types of drinks and ingredients and the kinds of glasses and various other tools used in mixing cocktails.

6. The Bulgarian classics: Българска национална кухня and 1585 от най-добрите и изпитани рецепти от Пенка Чолчева (pictured on the third photo). These books are a must for every Bulgarian who cooks! They are priceless with their great authentic recipes for traditional Bulgarian meals. One of my specialties - "peppers with colorful stuffing" is what it's actually called, no kidding - is from Penka Cholcheva's book, and everyone who's ever tasted it has always loved it. I guess Penka Cholcheva is our equivalent of Julia Child :).

5. Last, but not least: fiction about cooking and food!
- Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber: lovely, lovely book about exile, being an immigrant, finding your home, falling in love and letting go of the past, all infused with the lush scents and flavors of Middle Eastern food.
- Aphrodite by Isabel Allende: the Sheherazade of Chile presents a book about love, lust, and the aphrodisiac that is food, and she even gives us a bunch of recipes to experiment with.
- Chocolat by Joanne Harris (not pictured, but a vital part of my collection): don't read this book without a stash of chocolate nearby, as it will make your mouth water with every page.
- Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel: a book about frustration, love and hope, all mixed in with Mexican food in every sense of the word. It can be a bit melodramatic at times, but it is magical nonetheless.

NUTELLA CINAMMON ALMOND CAKE

So, after a month and a half of not really having any time to cook for pleasure, I was feeling a little adventurous on Friday (and also hungry for chocolate), so I tried a new dessert recipe from a cookbook I bought from a little bookstore in Boston. Nutella Cinnamon Almond Cake!

Yes, it's just as yummy as it sounds!

1. Mix a cup of brown caster sugar, three eggs, a cup of flour, 4-5 tbsp of milk, 3/4 cup of butter, baking powder, cocoa, and cinnamon in a large bowl until the batter is smooth.
2. Butter a cake pan and sprinkle with flour, so that the cake doesn't stick.
3. Pour 3/4 of the mixture in the pan. Add four large blobs of Nutella and pour the remaining batter on top. Swirl a few times with a skewer and add almonds or walnuts.
4. Bake until nicely browned and springy.

The result - pure deliciousness!

GARDENING

After a stormy night, I spent most of my day hanging out in my garden.

I guess you could say that I was gardening, even though on a scale of 1 to 10, the intensity of my gardening was probably like 3. Still, I did pull weeds, I did trim bushes, and I did clean up the garden, and I believe that all of these activities fit into the definition of gardening. I even managed to do all that while listening to some lovely quirky songs by Fanfarlo, a band that I just discovered last night. Talk about multitasking :)

It was a nice day to poke around in the garden - it wasn't too hot - and I finished right before it started raining again. The wind last night had scattered peony and rose petals everywhere, which was kind of lovely, but still chaotic enough for me to want to clean up, so I did just that. I also gathered up most of the fallen tiny quince fruits from under the quince tree. It's a pity that so many of them fell victim to the storm, since the fruits, when ripe, make for a lovely jam. Still, that tree actually grows a lot more fruit than I can ever make into jam, so I wasn't too disappointed.

But you know something interesting about gardening that I realized today? Even the trash looks pretty when you are gardening.

SUNSET OVER THE CITY

Look at that sunset!!!