gerbera daisies

My favorite flower. My favorite color. My favorite Tiffany vase.

I thought they were beautiful. Opie thought they were lunch :(

thrifted red coat

Aside from a few designer pieces, most of my wardrobe is secondhand/vintage, but secondhand clothing bargains are few and far between in Denmark.

However, I was in the right place at the right time yesterday, and I scored this practically new coat for 120 kr! (about $23)

Red is one of my favorite colors :)
Perfect.

copenhagen shoes & vintage

Yesterday was an amazing day in Copenhagen! I went early, stayed late, and the whole day focused on two of my favorite things... vintage shops and shoes!!!

I didn't actually buy anything, but I did see some lovely things...

A pink Valantino suit with black polka dots, which was love at first sight, but honestly, where would I ever wear such a thing?

Then there was a vintage Birkin bag... I covet The Birkin, but accept that I'll never own one. And besides, it was tan and if I were going to pay a king's ransom for a handbag, I'd pick a sensible color like black or red. Not that tan isn't sensible, but *yawn*.

One shop had a whole section of vintage wedding dresses, which were amazing, especially the flapper style one that was still in great condition.

There was also a silk Diane von Furstenberg dress that would've been a steal had it not been too big in the waist.

And a turquoise robe with beautifully decadent ruffles, worthy of Hollywood royalty, but alas, made for someone much taller than me :(

On the shoe front, there were of course Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Choos, but no matter how beautiful they are, Sex and the City sort of beat them to death and I refuse to succumb to product placement.

So the highlight of my day was the Christian Louboutin shop. It was like a shoe museum... or a church, but unfortunately, they were sold out of my size in everything I liked. They offered to waitlist me for a pair of black patent leather pumps, but I passed because I really, really wanted the red pointy-toe pumps and they didn't have a waiting list for those, just a very long wait. Oh, how I long for those red soles! *sigh*

All of the shoes and vintage goodness reminded me of this photo:

From a vintage shop in Siena, Italy.

SAD

I've been firmly in the clutches of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) since mid-December. It's been dark here about 18 hours a day. I go to work in the dark, I come home in the dark. Even when it's light, it's often a dark light that makes me feel like I'm living in von Trier's Melancholia world. And it rains or drizzles a lot.

This is a frustrating condition because I'm completely content with my life. I'm not depressed, I just feel "off" and I'm not able to enjoy things as much as I'd like and my creativity has all but dried up. At least depression sometimes leads to great creativity, but SAD has lead to nothing but wasted time.

It gives me insomnia, which means I'm exhaused, so I drink too much coffee to make it through the day, and then I can't sleep, and the cycle never stops. Once I'm asleep, I'd gladly sleep all day, but I won't because I will not surrender to this.

I've tried as much as possible to live my life as I would if I wasn't having this issue, but it's a haze that I haven't been able to completely escape. I've started light therapy and it seems to be helping. The past few days have almost felt "normal," which is a huge relief.

Anyway, that's where I've been all this time. Off, sitting in front of a lightbox in the happiest country in the world :)

But good things are coming... I'm going to Copenhagen on Saturday, I'll be guest blogging at Unplugged Sunday in few weeks, and winter's darkest days are behind us for now.

I'll be back soon :)

curried pumpkin soup

This spicy pumpkin soup is perfect on cold, rainy, windy days. Lately, that seems like everyday.

The ginger and curry paste warm me right up and I'm pretty sure this would scare away a cold PDQ, which is an important quality in a soup :)

olive oil
a large onion, chopped
1 - 2 t minced ginger
2 T red curry paste (or less)
1 diced tomato
29 oz. pumpkin puree
4 cups vegetable stock
1 - 2 t salt
14 oz. coconut milk

Heat a bit of oil over medium-high heat. Sauté the onions until they begin to soften, then add the ginger and sauté a minute or two more. Add the curry paste and tomato and cook another minute or so.

Add the pumpkin and the stock and mix it very well. Bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer it for 20 minutes or so. I like velvety soup, so I puree it with the immersion blender, but you could easily skip that step :)

Add the salt, then stir in the coconut milk and heat it through.

I love this soup! Once my US stash of canned pumpkin is gone, I'll be making this with carrots :(

Notes: 2 T curry paste for me makes a very spicy soup, but this depends on your particular paste and preferences, so use this measurement as a guideline, not gospel. If I don't have fresh vegetable stock, I substitute 4 cups boiling water and 3 t powdered bouillon. I've used up to 1 T salt in this recipe, depending on the curry paste and whether I use stock or bouillon. Taste, taste, taste... and adjust :)

my first (and last) danish xmas party

Well, my dear readers, I'm nursing a Hall of Fame hangover. Yep, this is definitely top 3 material, right up there with the one I got from drinking too much Chianti in Siena, and the 2 day version I got after I mixed beer, wine, and shots at my first Danish 30th birthday party.

To make matters worse, I may or may not have begun worshiping the porcelain god early... like on the bus early. Bloody hell, I'm too old for these kinds of shenanigans!

It's not exactly that I drank too much, it's that I drank cheap wine and didn't eat enough or drink any water. I was drinking a Chilean Carmenère, and likely a sub $5 bottle at that! I hate Carmenère and I hate cheap wine!!! Perhaps cheap beer would've been the better choice. Or maybe I should've just skipped the cheap booze altogether!

After springing for a cab to the bus station in the pouring rain, a 40 minute bus ride and huddling in a bus shelter in a hail storm waiting for someone to come rescue me in a car and drive me the rest of the way to the party, I was ready for a good time. However, it seemed more like a work dinner than a party and I probably would have had a better night snuggled up with Opie on the sofa watching Sex and the City, spending my wine calories on a big plate of french fries.

But live and learn. I've been to a Danish Christmas party, and next year I can stay home without wondering what I'm missing :)

lbd

Tonight is my first corporate Christmas party in Denmark!

My little black dress is cued and ready for trouble ;)

Will the party live up to rumours? A full (or slightly censored) report is coming as soon as I've recovered from the night's festivities...

julemarked

I was going to take photos and write about my first Julemarked, but I decided instead to enjoy the day, and not spend it squinting through a viewfinder and obsessively looking for photo ops.

Despite the freezing cold temperature, the rain, and the bike ride home from the train station in the snow, the day couldn't have been more hyggeligt.

Chai latte at a café, the Christmas Market, English tea, sherry, warm hospitality, engaging conversation.

And a new ring!
(via iPhone Instagram)

It looks huge, but it's actually much lighter than its platinum & diamonds predecessors... and so much more fun and less of a liability :)

What more could a girl ask for on a cold December afternoon?

barbeque tempeh

Hallelujah! There is tempeh for sale in my town! It is indeed a season for miracles ;)

I've had such a jones for tempeh since moving to Denmark (plenty of whining about this in past posts) that I actually brought some home with me from Amsterdam and my last trip to the US. It's amazing the lengths I'm willing to go to for fermented soybeans!

I've never met a tempeh dish I didn't like, but this is my current favorite. I love it so much I ate it for Thanksgiving! What? Barbecue is très American and they don't sell Tofurky in Denmark...

1 tempeh cake
olive oil
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, pressed
2 cups crushed tomatoes
1/4 cup molasses
1 T dijon
3 T tamari
1 t rice vinegar
1/2 t ground ginger
brown sugar

Cut the tempeh into whatever size strips makes you happy. I prefer my strips in the thinnish side. My tempeh comes in 425 g packages, so that's what I based the recipe on, but it should be fine to use your local standard size package. Let's keep it simple and say 1 tempeh cake :)

Bring a pot of water to a boil and add the tempeh strips. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes, then drain it.

Heat a bit of olive oil in a skillet and add the tempeh. Stir and cook it until it's browned, then remove it from the skillet and set it aside.

Heat a bit more oil in the skillet, add the onion, and cook until it begins to soften. Add the garlic and cook it a few more minutes, then add the tomatoes, molasses, dijon, tamari, rice vinegar, and ginger. Stir and bring it to a boil. I usually add a few teaspoons of brown sugar here because I prefer my bbq on the sweet side, but that's judgment call that varies by region and personal taste :)

Reduce the heat and simmer the sauce for 15 minutes, or until it starts to thicken, then add the tempeh back to the skillet and cook another 10 minutes or until the tempeh is heated through and the sauce is as thick as you'd like it.

My favorite way to eat this is on a baguette with dill pickle slices (and truth be told, a side of fries). It's like a pulled pork sandwich, except kinder and healthier :)

december 1st, copenhagen

It was one of those perfect days. We took an early train, shopped, had a hyggeligt lunch, shopped some more, dropped into a café to warm up, met a plane from Moscow to retrieve a new kitten, and had dinner at a vegetarian restaurant with the German woman who accompanied the kitten on the journey. She spoke very little English, but we had an instant connection.

Strøget, 12:08

My friend wanted to know why I looked so pretty, I told him I was happy. What have I done to deserve such a beautiful life?