A crack in the ice?

I’m not sure if I’ve uploaded this before… Nonetheless, it’s a very powerful video IMHO. It’s a video the hubby made of one of the songs in their band’s latest album, Beacon of Light

 

Almost there…

Ok. I know. The hubby has said it a thousand times. Lately I have been very much obsessed with being able to make that most finicky of all French baked goods– the almighty macaron Yup, ever since I tasted my first macaron from l’Atelier Jean Luc Pelé in Cannes, it has become my obsession to learn how to make one myself…

And now, after a couple of cookbooks (which I had to order from Amazon.co.uk, btw), several visits to several food blogs, and not to mention two attempts at baking macarons, after each of which I nearly lost the will to live… I’m finally almost there. My macarons aren’t perfect yet– they’re still a bit porous, they still lack the signature “feet”, and they’re still a bit flatter than what a proper macaron should be… but hey, even Rome wasn’t built in a day (or three, for that matter)

Chocolate macarons with espresso buttercream (3rd trial…)

Bienvenido a Gran Canaria

Finally, after 6 hours on the plane, we’ve arrived in warm and sunny Gran Canaria!! Well, at least I’m hoping it will be warm and sunny during our stay here– given my condition, I wasn’t at all sure how smart it is to travel out of the country. But then, this winter in Norway is a bit colder than usual and it did seem like it is going to stay that way for at least 6 more months, and I definitely did not want to spend all 9 months of my pregnancy in frigid temperatures… so we decided to escape towards warmer climes

All seems to be going well thus far. No cranky attendants at the check-in counters at Værnes, unlike the last time… and although we were two hours delayed from taking off, our pilot made up for the lost time so we still arrived at Las Palmas airport on schedule
The hotel we booked (Barcelo Margaritas) also looked very promising. We got one of the apartment suites with its own kitchen. The kitchen is quite small but adequate, since we only intended to use it to prepare breakfast (toast bread, fry bacon/sausages, fry/boil eggs); for the other meals, we prefer to try what the restaurants nearby have to offer

Okay, enough blogging for now– have to go out and buy stuff for tomorrow’s breakfast (luckily, this place isn’t anything like Norway, where the grocery stores close from Saturday afternoon until Monday morning)

Above the scenery we left behind…
Below the scenery that greeted us at the hotel