Z and her adventures

Recently, my good bud Z left Melbourne for bigger and better things (of course). She won't be back until 2016, unless she is able to find a way to renew her visa or finds out that London sucks and wants to come back. She's currently travelling at the moment, seeing, eating, drinking, absorbing and experiencing all these amazing things in Europe but will eventually settle down in the land of bangers and mash.

As a goodbye present, S (the third installment of the trio) and I got us Rocky Horror tickets and made her a journal/adventure book. We named it The Extraodinary European Expedition (vol.1) and filled the pages with activities and prompts to help her write. We came up with things like "how many drinks did you have today?"; "draw your dinner here"; "what are you thinking at the moment?"; "continue: Dear N.,"; "what's your plan for today?". We even got educational: "what is the number for the police in the country you're in at the moment?" And musical: we had Amsterdam - Coldplay; Norway - Beach House; Ni**as in Paris - Kanye; Polish Girl - Neon Indian; Postcards from Italy - Beirut; Another Brick in the Wall - Pink Floyd on our playlist.

We even stuck the Oyster travel card on the front of the book, covering the BY:__________ part. We thought it'd be a cute surprise to give her a chance to make it hers.

We had fun. Probably not as much fun as Z will have filling the book out, but I'm looking forward to the day I see this soon-to-be tattered, weathered and ripped book make its way back home.

N.

Au revoir Simone + Cibo Matto

On Sunday it was mother's day here in Brazil, but it also was Au Revoir Simone and Cibo Matto's gig at Cine Joia. I really thought I wasn't gonna be able to go because I wanted to visit my grandma (after all, she did have 8 children, including my mother) and she lives an hour away, but then I woke up after what was supposed to have been my prom (I didn't graduate because the exchange programme in Paris set me back one year) and I just couldn't get out of bed. My mom had never seen me hungover before, it was so embarassing! I blame my chepastake ways, I paid $$$ for the prom ticket and I thought I should enjoy food and drinks as much as I could (I even saw some people stealing the centerpieces hahah). Anyway, on Sunday I woke up vowing never to taste a drop of alcohol again, and my family left for my grandma's city leaving me dying in bed here in São Paulo. I slept until 5pm and studied a little, ate some papaya and felt strong enough to see the concert after all haha. Au Revoir Simone were so cute! 3 beautiful girls who dress really well. Cibo Matto were unbelievable though, it's so weird seeing a petite Japanese woman rapping hahaha. and they danced so well! Don't Honda's electronic instruments (mixing plate? I don't know what's that) look like a robot from a cheap sci-fi movie? So many cables! and they kept on speaking Portuguese, Cibo Matto even sang a whole Brazilian song. In love <3 <3 <3

A pleasant beginning of the week to you,

V.

Stuff

  

I won't lie. I have a ton of stuff. It's like, everywhere you look at around my bedroom, it's stuff, stuff, stuff. Sometimes it's useless stuff, like a huge plastic pineapple hanging from the ceiling. A lot of it's clothes! I'm a big time shopaholic, seriously, it's a problem. Specially since I started a new internship in February and got myself a credit card of my own (meaning I wouldn't have to ask my parents if I could buy a little dress or little shoes online), I've been FUCKING POOR. Like, my credit card bill totaled more than my wages last month haha. I can't help it though, it seems like money you spend on the internet is like magic money, that comes out of keyboard cat's mouth into my pockets after travelling through a ton of "what's in my bag?" videos on youtube. 

I guess I should really come down to earth and realize what a huge idiot I am for thinking like that haha.There's seriously no more room in my bedroom for any new stuff, there's barely room for my cats to play around in :(( (in the last pic you can see Mia and Meowth, my new babies!). It's just such a mess all the time, even when I tidy up when guests come over they still say mean comments like "OMG YOU'RE LIVING IN A BLACK HOLE" and I go like "BUT I'VE LITERALLY JUST CLEANED UP, IT WAS WAY WORSE" - I really need to get my shit together hahaha.

Tartbreaker

Not long ago a boy took me out for a picnic by the river. I'm pretty sure I came up with the idea (there's probably never a time I don't want to picnic), but he totally initiated it. He even brought hot water in a flask so we could have tea ! And PoP went my tart.

So anyway, I decided to make mini lemon meringue tarts for him because, you know, I fucking love them.

 Little cups of happiness

Since I made them fresh in the morning before he picked me up, I was too pressed for time to make my own pastry. Instead I bought frozen shortcrust pastry sheets from the supermarket... and they still worked out great. All is good in the world.

Little Lemon Tartbreakers
(adapted from http://www.weekendnotes.com/mini-lemon-meringue-pies/)
Makes six

Lemon Curd
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1/3 cup caster sugar
2 teaspoons lemon rind
1 teaspoon lemon rind
5 tablespoons lemon juice
50g butter, chopped

Meringue
3 egg whites
95g caster sugar

Method
People usually make the pastry first because it needs time to sit in the fridge and to be rolled out. I left this last because I was using frozen sheets and figured it wouldn't take long, whilst the lemon curd required a bit more work.

I started off ruining my lemon curd by making scrambled eggs: I mixed all my ingredients over heat. Please don't do it. Mix the egg, egg yolk, sugar, lemon rind and lemon juice together in a stovepot before you turn on the heat (I know, you're all smarter than this... but that was a detail I clearly missed). Once it's throughly mixed through, put your stovepot over medium heat and add the butter. Make sure you're constantly whisking to remove any lumps, to stop the egg from cooking and to make sure that the butter is completely mixed through. The website suggested 8 minutes, but it took me much longer than that; the curd needs to be thickened that it coats the back of a spoon. Be patient my dears, and just whisk away.

Once this is done, remove from heat and let sit for 5 minutes. I then strained the curd through a sieve to remove any lumps and placed the result in a bowl. Put some Glad wrap (Saran wrap/plastic wrap ?) over it and place it in the fridge until chilled.

Now, onto the pastry. I simply traced out circles from a drinking glass on shortcrust pastry sheets and popped them into a cupcake tin. Just follow the Shape of Your Tart. I only needed 1 1/2 sheets to make 6. Note: I found a glass that had a circumference that was about half a centimetre wider than the cupcake tins, placed them flat over the holes, and let gravity push them into the tin. This allowed the pastry to stretch into the mould, rather than forcing it. I tried forcing it and my pastry just buckled and make creases everywhere. Just, no.

Bake according to instructions on the package. 

Once the curd is completely cool (note: completely!), pour them into the cases. If it's still warm it will make the pastry soggy and will start leaking a syrupy liquid. Don't Go Breaking Your Tart at this stage. You're close to the end !

Lemon baths

For the meringue, whisk the egg whites on high until soft peaks form. Add the sugar gradually, whisking constantly until the mixture is smooth and glossy. Place them into icing bags and pipe away! I placed these bad boys in the oven (200C) for about 7.6 minutes and then used a blow torch to brown the meringue (7.6 minutes ? I don't know, I just Listened to My Tart). If you don't have a blow torch I suggest you leave the tarts in the oven for 10 minutes or so. We don't want no salmonella!

Bam! And it's done.

Once done, dust some icing sugar and sprinkle fine lemon rinds over your beehives.

And you know what? He ate three in front of me. Three.*^

Have a great weekend,
N. 


*I may have pushed him.
^The tarts might not even have been that nice but he was probably being nice. Who knows ? But go on, try the recipe and win his tart (: (Yes, that almost sounds dirty.)

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

I guess I was part of a pretty cool event last weekend. You may not know this about me, but I'm a huge nerd - like, full on anime-quoting, manga-referencing and sci-fi-geeking. I think it all goes back to having studied in a high school whose student body was mostly formed by Asians. So, anyway, when I heard there was gonna be a Star Wars Night Run on May 4th I was like "OMG SIGN ME UP RIGHT NOW", which my mom was more than happy to do (and pay for hur hur) since she's always trying to get me to exercise with her. In the running kit we got storm trooper masks and I guess they had a huge army of storm troopers running in mind, but seriously, who can run 6 km with a plastic mask on? I wouldn't have worn it anyway, since this was finally the opportunity for me to borrow my brother's Yoda backpack (one that emulates the scene in episode IV where Luke is learning how to be a Jedi at that swamp planet and runs around with Yoda on his back!), and went as Luke Skywalker ahah. They hired people to dress up as some of the movie characters to cheer the runners along the way, and they were holding signs saying "run, darth vader, run!" and "Do or do not, there is no try" hahaha. 

The best was definitely the run's location, though: it was on a famous viaduct here in São Paulo called the Minhocão (the Big Worm, in English). It's considered one of the ugliest parts in the city; as you can see in the second pic it's like it was placed in the middle of a bunch of buildings and the people who lived on the first floors basically lost all of their privacy. (Also, doesn't it look like the world is gonna end and people are running away? ahah). The buildings around it are all falling apart now, since the region lost a lot of its value after the viaduct's construction - I must confess that everytime I drive by them I always take a peek inside the buildings, so this run was almost like a dream come true for me and my voyeur ways haha. I had to stop to take the last pic because the person had placed a tiny Darth Vader toy along with her plants, how cool is that? 

Sundays are the worst

Sundays are the worst. I always feel like I wasted my whole weekend (WHERE DID TIME GO???) and didn't do any of the things I had/wanted to do, like studying or watching movies or reading magazines. It's also always a time when I get really nostalgic, usually because I spent the whole day without much more social interaction than yelling at one of my cats for peeing on me again - so I had the whole day all to myself to think about all the things that are wrong with my life, hahah. That does not summarize to getting peed on, unfortunately. 

So it's really good to have things around me that remind me that good times are coming, or that there are good things in life in general. Usually it's something that reminds me of N. A care package of hers just came in the mail last week (or was it the one before that?), loaded with love <3 and cute gifts, of course! She gave me the red dress in the first pic, it's so beautiful - and the tights in the third pic I picked up in Melbourne when I visited her last year. The best in her care packages are always her cards though <3 HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE SOMEONE WHO SENDS YOU A CARD LIKE THAT???

Thanks for always cheering me up, N., even from so far away :))

David Bowie's exhibit

A couple weeks ago it was the David Bowie's exhibit's last day here in São Paulo. I had already seen it in London August last year with mine and N.'s dear friend A., so I thought "why not relive those joyous moments?" and made my way to the Museum of Image and Sound with my mom (who was the only person willing to stand in line with me for FOUR hours. Yes, that's right. You have to be a big David Bowie fan to endure that).

Of course, she didn't really stay in line with me for four hours, as she quicky found a bench she could sit down on. On the back you can see the David Bowie studio, where I recorded a karaoke version of "Ground Control" hahah. (Also, you can note how the light changes from the first pic to the second one: the day was over by the time we managed to go into the museum).

David Bowie: what a man. He called this outfit "ultraviolence in Liberty fabrics", how awesome is that? (He's a big fan of The Clockwork Orange). My mom kept on making comments about how people actually wondered wether he was a boy or a girl at the time (so I guess "Rebel"s lyrics are autobiographical haha). I guess I just love how he sends out a message that everyone can be whoever they want to be. So can I be David Bowie, please?

Indeed, he was so many people throughout the years. I wonder how he feels about that. I always think about how actors have to really become a character to make it believable to the audiance, can you believe how hard it'd be to actually be a character 24/7? How does one decide what their new them is gonna be like? And how do you know what you really are like after you're done with a character, how do you know what's your true self like? Anyway, ignore my musings about David Bowie's possible identity crisis ahaha.

 

Like I said, I had already seen the original exhibit in London. It was SO MUCH better than the one here :(( the V&A one actually covered Bowie's whole life, not only his music career, and generally had more than costumes and pictures of him. Sigh. 

At least I got to be in a real recording studio pretending I was Bowie, something I didn't do in London! yay <3 My love for him goes way back, in fact I even forced my friends to be in a remake of his video for Dancing in the Street with Mick Jagger (I was Mick Jagger though).

I'm not gonna post the videos of our remake because I really don't think J. (the friend I made play David Bowie's part) would really appreciate that being on the internet, but here are some stills you can enjoy (I think that for a one-night project made by three 18 year-olds, it's pretty good hahaha). I wish I still had friends who'd be willing to play with me like this, people seem so self-conscious nowadays (both J. and K., the friend who taped it, are living abroad now) :(( Anyway, we were dancing in the middle of São Paulo's Korean neighbourhood, so I guess that doesn't apeal to a lot of people (we did go karaoking after the shoot though, who doesn't like that?). Sometimes I think that I really need to get new friends!

A pleasant end of Sunday to you,
V.