It’s about this time of year that I start getting inundated with invitations to attend Maison & Objet in Paris. I’m not able to go this year, but as the business is growing it’s still very much on my to do list for next year.
Here’s who invited me today. Just loving the colour story on these. I’ll have to get a catalogue I think.
So this year I decided to ask for the new Nook e-reader from Barnes & Noble as my Christmas present. I’ve been avidly using both Amazon’s Kindle for iPhone app and Barnes & Noble’s E-reader iPhone app (both available for free) and decided it was about time I got the real thing.
After reading many reviews we decided to go for the Nook rather than the Kindle 2, though it was a bit of a gamble as the Nook is brand new and was only delivered to stores just before Christmas so it was impossible to do any sort of real-life comparison.
I chose the Nook mainly because a) it wasn’t Amazon, with whom I have a love/hate relationship b) its Android operating platform allows for future software updates which means it can be upgraded without buying a new machine c) it allows you to ‘lend’ books out to someone else (though only for two weeks) d) it reads PDFs, which will be great for knitting patterns and other stuff. Synching with the Barnes & Nobel iPhone e-reader is apparently coming soon, and will be delivered via a software update.
I don’t have a Kindle 2, so can’t compare it with that, but I can compare it with er, an actual book. And so far I’ve been very pleasantly surprised.
The Nook screen comes in two parts. The upper ‘e-ink’ screen which is where you do your actual reading and a colour touch-screen below which is where you navigate. To ‘turn the page’ you push small buttons on the sides. There has been some grumbling online about how slow everything but this was apparently solved by a software upgrade that was waiting for me when I unpacked my Nook. Certainly I have no complaints. The touch screen is pretty good, though not quite as responsive as the iPhone and ‘page-turning’ is MUCH quicker than turning the page on an actual book.
The grey e-ink screen is at first somewhat disappointing for someone who is used to spending all day gazing at a bright computer or iPhone screen, but it is designed to be easy on the eyes, easy to read and economical on battery life. I have to admit that when I’m reading it I sometimes forget that I’m not actually reading a real book – I’ve even caught my eyes wandering to the left to see what’s on the ‘other page’.
Another huge advantage is the size and weight. It’s about the same size and weight as a small old-fashioned cloth-covered hardback (an illusion which is also fostered by the cheap cloth-covered cover we gt for it). I like to read in bed and it’s really easy and manageable, moreso than the actual book would be – I’m currently reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, which apparently clocks in at 560 pages and 1.9lbs in real life.
In short, I’m a complete bookworm and I’m sold.
You’ve seen mine! Now show us yours.
This is a very lazy on vacation post with the idea entirely stolen from Liz at Violet Posy.
If you’ve done a blog post about your Christmas decorations, lack of decorations, other holiday decorations, beautiful decorations that you’ve seen round and about or anything else festive that you’ve done and want to show off then use the fun widget below to post up a link to your blog.
It will be running from now until 6th January or Twelfth Night or the Epiphany, the day when decorations are traditionally taken down in the UK (or else you face a year of bad luck).
I’ve added a link to my post and to Violet Posy to get you started and show you what it will look like.
I found this recipe for layered cookie mix last year on the Williams-Sonoma website and the Minx and I had fun making jars to give to some of her friends and godparents.
This year we decided to make some for her teachers.
This is a great project to do with young kids as they can be genuinely helpful, measuring out the different ingredients and patting it down into layers. I got the jars quite cheaply at Ikea but they were much bigger than suggested in the recipe, so we had to stuff them with coloured tissue paper. I like the decorative effect and it means the teachers end up with a bigger jar to put the cookies in afterwards. As you’ve probably guessed the Minx chose the colour schemes for each teacher (and she had very precise ideas for each one).
You could use any cookie recipe for this though the one given in the link above works very well as it makes for some interesting layers – brown sugar layered between white sugar and flour, and layers of nuts, cherries, rolled oats and chocolate chips. Recipes for hot chocolate mix, with chocolate chips and marshmallows would also be good.
All the recipient needs to do is stir in butter, eggs and vanilla and then bake the cookies, using the recipe provided on the label. The recipe in the book tells you exactly what to write.
Next year I’m thinking it might be quite fun to decorate the jars with glass paints.
The Williams-Sonoma recipe comes from Kids in the Holiday Kitchen. I picked up the book this year as we’d enjoyed the cookie jar recipe so much last year. There are lots of fun projects for kids – including makes, not just baking , though I was a little perturbed by how unhealthy some of them food was– yes that is a chocolate brownie covered with buttercream and crushed candy canes you can see above. Also not all of the projects come with pictures, which is a great shame. But overall I think we’ll be using this book a lot.
This looks very, very, VERY useful.
Uber-cool design blogger and web designer swissmiss has had this simple and free little To Do app built. I’ve been playing with it this morning and my productivity has already increased! (Or maybe that’s because the Minx is back at school). It looks nice, has been well thought out, has no distracting fancy bells and whistles and will soon be an iPhone app too.
My only slight quibble is with the name. Being a pretentious European with a degree in French I’m finding it very difficult to pronounce it ‘Too Doo’ as I’m meant to, but instead keep calling it Teuh Deuh in my head. This does however give it a nice Ta-da!ish quality.
{via Not Martha}
About this time last year I did a little blog post on Petrossian’s very exciting-looking ‘Hot Chocolate-on-a Stick’ – big chunks of chocolate on sticks specially designed to be stirred into hot milk.
Petrossian somehow found my post and very kindly offered to send me some to try. Sometimes this blogging business is very hard, but someone has to do it. Today I have a sick little Minx at home, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to experiment with decadent hot chocolate.
Each chunk of chocolate comes packaged in its own little box. My only criticism of this product is that the packaging could be SO much more exciting, as it is it doesn’t give much of a hint of the pleasures lurking within.
There, that’s more like it. There is after all nothing more attractive than a large unadulterated lump of chocolate. The Minx and I decided that our Snork Maiden and Moominmamma mugs (we are great fans of the Moomins) would be most appropriate. If you’d like some of your own they are available here from FinnStyle in the US or from the DesignShop in the UK.
The chocolate blocks are designed to be enough for 8 fl oz of hot milk, so only one is enough for two Moomin mugs as they are quite small.
The blocks seem to be made mostly of Belgian chocolate, with cocoa powder and heavy cream. Petrossian recommends eating them within 2-4 weeks. I expect all ours to be used within 2-4 days.
All you need to do is stir the stick into warm milk or cream. It takes a minute or two for the chocolate to fully melt into the milk, but it’s worth the wait.
This hot chocolate is seriously divine, not too bitter, not too sweet, just really rich, creamy and chocolate-y, with no clumps of unstirred powder. It’s like the gorgeous stuff you get in European ski resorts. You could add whipped cream or marshmallows, but honestly this doesn’t need it. The Minx pronounced it ‘yummy’ and devoured it in about 5 seconds flat, so it’s not too sophisticated for kids either.
You can get yours here.They cost $18 for 6 individually packaged 1.3 oz chunks, which will make six enormous mugs-full or 12 perfectly reasonable cups-full.
Thanks Petrossian!
We’ve just had a new delivery from French design studio Atelier LZC and I will be adding several new products to the site over the next few days.
First up are two stunning new sets of teatowels – the Potager set, featuring vegetables and kitchen utensils
and the Nature set, with birds, butterflies and foliage
All four of these teatowels would also look wonderful framed (the Potager ones would look great in a kitchen I think) and I love the idea of using a pretty teatowel to wrap round a bottle of wine for a VERY acceptable hostess gift.
I’ve been having a mini blog PR blitz recently and the store has been mentioned by the following utterly fabulous and extremely discerning blogs Not Martha, Shelterrific,The Bedlam of Beefy and Violet Posy. Thank you all SO much for your help and support.
Stupidly I was so busy offering their readers FREE INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING on all orders that I forgot to offer the same to you, my lovely and very much appreciated readers. So go to mirrormirror, place your order choosing ‘free shipping with offer code’ when you come to check out and then use the code ‘jingle bells’ in the ‘how did you hear about us box.
(Any overseas orders placed over the weekend will be shipped on Monday and should be with the recipient in time for the big day. UK readers you still have the rest of the week.)
I don’t normally like just linking to other people’s posts directly without adding ‘value’ or ‘insights’ of my own, but seriously if you haven’t already seen this incredible stand-up gingerbread partridge in a pear tree on Not Martha then I suggest you rush there straight away, where you’ll find lots of additional pictures and full instructions. Much better than anything you’ll find round these parts anyway.
{picture from Not Martha}
