Keks ... cookie ... Plätzchen

Christmas is over but it doesn't mean that I do not love to eat and enjoy all the delicious cookies or as it says in German Plätzchen or Keks (you speak it similar to cakes). The word Plätzchen is mostly used during Christmas time because of the very special recipes and ingredients. Keks is used all year round for cookies and biscuits. I am so lucky because I still have some Plätzchen left!!

My day started like this:

This Plätzchen made a friend of mine and I think these are the biggest Plätzchen I ever had. But the best thing is they are so yummy!!

Have a great (after Christmas and still loving the Christmas food) Sunday!!

crumbly, nibbling greetings

mElinus

Sunday and to-do lists

It is alway nice to have a sunday with no appointments, no house or home work and of course nothing to do except relaxing and chilling!

But sometimes a little to-do list seems also good, because after I am finished with it, the day feels longer, like I have more from my sunday. And if you have to do nice 'jobs' with a good reason it makes even more fun.

My TO-DO-LIST for today:

1

Go to the cemetery and 'visit' my grand grand parents, because it is the last sunday before Advent on which the dead are commemorated. And I will light a lil' candle for my grandpa and grandma.

2

baking an apple pie or cake for a good friend who helped us out this week, I will ship this to London so the first thing to do is find or modifie a recipe so the pie/cake can be shipped ;)

these are my ingredients :)

3

cook a pumpkin soup, because I have some pumpkins left and I love pumpkin soup and hate it to throw food away

4

and last write down all recipes so you guys can try them ... :)

So after I had my first coffee, I will start and of course let you know how the pie/cake, the soup and everything else on my TO-DO-LIST-SUNDAY worked out!!

wish everyone a great sundayyyyyy

milk in coffee pouring and getting ready greetings

mElinus

One of my favorite cookies

I love sweets, I love cake, I love good food in general, but cookies are my all over favorite sweets. But I do not like any cookie, they have to be special, different but most important delicious!!!

I can say, because I travelled a lot, I have in all countries I have been before at least one favorite cookie brand. Because I have been in Italy a lot, when I was a child, I had a lot of time to find my personal favorite one: PAN DI STELLE

These cookies are so good, they taste not to sweet, are crunchy but not crisp more like short bread. And they taste like cocoa, not the super sweet one you drink in winter time, more the real one, a good cake shop uses.

And then these lil' whit sugary stars on top, they do not only look lovely but give the first bite lil' bit more sweetens.

You see, I am all about this cookies, but now we have the bad news, they are not available in my area. I cant buy them. Sometimes you get lucky and get some from the internet, but not so often.

BUT

two good friends have been in Italy a couple of weeks ago and brought two bags of 'joy'!!

;)

sometime I fel like 

(credit:images.wikia.com)

So now I am off to enjoy some cookies...yummy

Wish you a great day!!

crumbly greetings

mElinus

bye bye summer ...

... welcome fall! I really love summer, the warm and sunny weather, eating ice cream, being outside and of course swimming. But on the northern hemisphere we are wearing hats, scarfs and drinking hot tea already.

 But I realized that this is the time to eat more delicious things.

Today I got an invitation for a lunch time BBQ and hat a yummy freshly grilled burger. And now I enjoy a delicious and sweet doughnut. 

Thats the good think about fall and winter, you don't have to take to much care of your figure, because the time of wearing a bikini starts earliest in 6 months.

So lets enjoy the good things of having fall/winter.  :)

wish you all a great weekend

sweet greetings

mElinus

Halloween at daytime

Not having a real Halloween party does not mean, we cannot celebrate the 'spooky' time of the year. To bring a lil' Halloween even to my rooms and friends I thought about it. How can we have a little bit of it without actually having a party.

We could not have a real Halloween party because we got an invitation for a birthday party without any theme, except birthday :)

So I invited friends to come over for a Halloween brunch and the pictures show you our decorated table. It wasn't easy to get some Halloween stuff one day before, but you can transform some regular things into spooky ones.

The only really Halloween-like decoration I got have been some chocolates which look like witches and pumpkins. Oh and of course 3 really cute little pumpkins.

All the other stuff was transformed from normal to 'spooky'. Tangerines with Jack O'Lantern faces, orange and black napkins, spider webs from cotton wool and candles. Not that much, right?

I even tried to make a spider with an old black button and dark yarn, but to be honest after 4 legs I had no patience anymore and decided to have a very spooky 4-leg spider hanging over the table. :)

All thi picutres show you the table without food, because I decorated it bevore we went to the birthday party so I could sleep a lil' longer the next morning and just had to prepare the food.

Oh I forgot to mention, one of our friends has a really cute dog, and I thought he (his name is Klaus, isn't this funny) has to get a little Halloween as well and so he became an extra space decorated with orange and black napkins.

Just to give you an idea what we had to eat for our 5 hour brunch (yes we ate, talked and enjoyed our selves for 5 hours):

veggie lasagne

whole grain rolls

ham

6 or 7 different sorts of cheese

cream cheese

salmon

apple pie

solyanka

tomatos

egg salad

pickled herring salad

cold cuts

coffee

tea

juice

champagne

fruits

and so on

I think it was a really good way to celebrate Halloween even at day time.

Wish you all a great week.

spooky greetings

mElinus

a sneak peak at the city and a boats tour

Yesterday we cruised through the city and made a boats tour through the San Diego Bay.

CBD

an old hotel

an old brick house

Now the boat tour starts:

We came aboard the Marietta and had a nice guide named Marco. He is a former US Marine and was able to tell us a lot about the US Navy.

USS Midway

CBD

CBD

the Fish Market Restaurant

fishing pier

speed boat in front of hotels

a liner who brings American cars to Japan and/or South America

---------------------

And now lets talk about the day before yesterday. I think you heard or red it, that we had a huge black out here in southern California. It was just a lot of fun for us.

We all had a great afternoon, evening and night.

Because nothing was working, no supermarket open, no gas station nor any restaurant, we had to improvise. We had a gas grill outside and of course it was working, so we talked to Stella and Richard our hosts and decided to have dinner together, because their oven wasn't working like ours. And a very nice thing happened, a neighbor, Takehashi, came over and because he is a sushi chef we had sashimi and he made some fried fish and also fried rice. We had a huge variety of food, we made scrambled eggs with ham and cheese, we had potato salad and some left overs from our BBQ the day before. We had salad and Stella and Richard brought a huge bunch of candles, sushi, bread and pizza.

We made pizza on the BBQ grill and we figured out, it is the best way to make frozen pizza.

We sat there in the dark, just the light from the candles and the moon and had such a fun night, unbelievable.

So if you missed the huge 'event' here are the news:

So the power came back late at night and we heard all around people who clapped on hands or just screamed because of happiness.

We will start our last day in San Diego today, we are all very sad, but we will have a nice last day here. We will have dinner with Stella and Richard again. And afterwards the two will show us what 'rocks' in the city's gas lamp quarter.

Wish you a great day.

 'power' full greetings

mElinus

Yesterday in sunny San Diego

Yesterday, it took us a while before we could start our day trip. But after a lot of computing and emailing and mailing, we finally made it in the car and more or less straight to Coronado Island.

Because everything was so beautiful and we haven't done really spectacular things, I just want to show you some nice pictures:

view from Coronado bridge towards down town San Diego

view from Coronado bridge towards Coronado Island

after lunch we strolled through Coronado

old entrance

thats how people live here ;)

the sun and stars

a beautiful entrance in a private garden

after our stroll we went to the beach and visited the pier

the beach left from the pier

the beach right from the pier

surfer waiting for a wave

after some fun hours at the beach we headed home

back to San Diego via Coronado bridge

 a beautiful sunset towards town town

a ship is coming to San Diego


We had a wonderful day at the beach, with fun in the water and enjoying the sun.

Afterwards we went to the supermarket and bought some really big steaks for our BBQ we had for dinner. The steaks were better than in every restaurant, just perfect. And since we know how to make Margaritas, it's our drink for the evening and night time :)

I send you a lot of sun!!

little tanned greetings
mElinus

what happened the last 3 days?

The day after we went to the outlet shopping center we decided to see something from the inner country. We drove 1 hour NE to Temecula. It is a city which is famous for the old town, with its wine bars, lil' shops and a lot to see. 

(from anne4property.com)

We walked along the historic streets on wooden sidewalks with music playing from the lamppost and the sun burning our skin by at least 96°F/ 36°G.

It was pretty warm but I thought it's OK, only the guys complained about the heat. When I went to the tourist office, the lady told us it isn't hot today because it's under 100°F. 

:)

(from temecularealestateandliving.com)

Later we drove further east to the wine country of Temecula. We visited one winery and bought 2 bottles of wine at the Callaway winery  (still in the fridge).

....

The next day nothing really happened, we went to the beach in La Jolla and had dinner with our incredible hosts. This evening was amazing, we had so much fun and absolutely delicious strawberry Margaritas. Stella and Richard are awesome!!!!
....

Yesterday the weather wasn't perfect to go to the beach and so we decided to stay in San Diego and visit the 

Festival of Sails and the USS Midway. 

We also watch the sun set and it was soooo romantic!!!


Thats for now and all of you who took the challenge to find out whats wrong with the picture from my last post, will get a post card, just write me your address in Facebook.

I wish you all a great week!!

coffee thirsty greetings
mELinus

harbor & beaches in Oceanside

Bench in Oceanside

Yesterday we made a beautiful trip to sunny Oceanside, just about 30 min. north of San Diego. I mean it would have been 30 minutes if you are going straight, but it's vacation and that means once in a while you do not have to do straight things. We drove up the Hwy. 101 and had stunning views over beautiful beaches and harbors. The waves have been great and we saw a lot of surfers. So yesterday was all about "Harbors & Beaches".

not Hollywood but beautiful as well

When we arrived in Oceanside, we needed a break from all these impressions and of course to get something to eat. We had lunch at a roof top restaurant in Oceanside and the pic below shows our stunning view over the harbor of Oceanside.

lunch view

It was an amazing time, because the food was good, the music absolutely perfect and the breeze from the ocean was the perfect addition to the midday sun.

blue water, blue sky and white boats....

We even saw some monsters at the beach ... ;)

sand monster

The best was the parking lot, because it was way more than this. A lot of campers and families had their vacation homes there and enjoyed the sun, the ocean and the beach right at their 'door step'.

beachy parking lot

When we came back to our vacation home, we had a nice talk to our lovely host Stella. She is amazing, I mean she is way more than that. No 5 Star hotel can offer this love, dedication and personal passion for details. I can't say how much I love her and her husband. 

Last but not least we had dinner at FLEMMINGS in Down Town San Diego with steak and mashed potatoes, exactly how it should be.

Now I am looking forward to another wonderful day at sunny California and wish you at least a sunny day, where ever you are.

sand between my toes greetings
mElinus

First Breakfast in San Diego

As promised here are some pics of my first day in sunny San Diego. And by now, I can say, I LOVE IT. The city is beautiful, the ocean is stunning and the people are the nicest you can wish for your vacation.

BREAKFAST

My first breakfast in San Diego were Texas Eggs Benedict with hash browns and a cappuccino at 1pm in the gaslamp quarter.

GASLAMP QUARTER

This area is so beautiful and the perfect place to watch people and enjoy a breeze from the ocean in the wonderful California sun.

DOWN TOWN NEAR GASLAMP QUARTER

We took the stairs up to the top of the San Diego Convention Center to get the stunning view at the San Diego Coronado Bay Bridge.

SAN DIEGO CORONADO BAY BRIDGE

What an amazing start in San Diego. Afterwards I laid on the beach and got a lil' sun burn.

Today was great and we will go out for dinner tonight.

Wish you all a sunny day tomorrow.

overwhelmed greetings

mElinus