…this plum tree and this recipe for plum oatmeal bread, from saipua.

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…jennifer causey’s new online portfolio.

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…oh so west coast canada, portfolio of Jennilee Marigomen, found via vic (who just got back from paris, check out her beautiful paris pics here).

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I’m distracted by all of the above this morning, and some, so I thought I’d distract you too.

The other day, my dear friend Kylie (a.k.a paperboat press) sent me a photo of the above page spread taken from the june/july issue of  elle interiør norway which she’d just received a copy of in the mail. To her surprise, there on the page was not only a pic of one of her gorgeous ceramic tags (which I have dotted around my little boat) but also my book, right next to her work. How fabulous is that! Two Australians, two dear friends, side by side amongst the pages of a beautiful norwegian interior magazine. Thank you, elle interiør norway.

Would you like to take a little peak inside Homemade with me? I’ll pour you a cup of tea while you peruse it’s pages…

that little vessel on the left page is a gift I brought back with me from Australia at the beginning of this year for Yvette – it’s a sam robinson piece, and I’m thrilled to see yvette has used it as a prop in homemade! super leuk.

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I don’t know what I love more – the paper cut out chapter openers, the how-to sections, the personal stories and funny anecdotes peppered throughout the book, the photography (which will knock your socks off), the menu suggestions and “don’t forget the dog” section toward the end of the book, Yvette’s own handmade font, the unique and incredibly delicious recipes, the drawings,… the list goes on.  Yvette has created a seriously unique cook- & DIY book, with over 200 recipes and ideas for home cooking, and I have no doubt it is going to be a great success, it’s truly beautiful…

here is friend Floris who makes the best patés and terrines ever, he has his own shop here in Amsterdam, I’ll take you there one day soon!

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As far as the recipes go, what should I try first?  The lentil, apple & coriander salad (sounds like the perfect lunch to me!), oven baked rissotto with sausage and paprika, zucchini cakes with basil cream, camembert & apricot jam toasted sandwiches, hang op… just to name a few,  it’s all so gooood.  The book is only in Dutch at this stage,  but I’m hoping it will be translated into English soon, I’ll keep you posted about that.

Now, let me tell you about the book launch party last Thursday night! Foam Café was filled to the brim with press, publishers, Yvette’s close friends and family, and the very lovely and very famous French chef, Stéphane Reynaud.  Yvette presented the first copy of her book to Stéphane as he has been a great inspiration to her. I was terribly nervous for her when she was standing up there in front of all those people, I thought my heart was going to pound right out of my chest and into my wine glass. But she was amazing, and didn’t look one bit nervous while she addressed everyone and asked Stéphane to sign her book.  I was able to snap some fun photos of the presentation, would you like to see?

Yvette’s publisher Fontaine Uitgevers is also the publisher of the Dutch version of Stéphane’s new book 365 , which the first copy was presented to him along with Yvette’s book. And I was also pleased to find out from Stéphane that my publisher (that be Murdoch books) is publishing the English version of 365, and it will launch in Australia this coming month, yeah! I had a great long chat with Stéphane, it was the first time I’d met him, he’s super nice. We had lots to talk about, he is really looking forward to visiting Australia this coming month – he loves the place, and loves the food! I was thrilled to hear and see his enthusiasm for Australian fare.

here is yvette at the signing table, signing away like a champ!

So there you go, that was last week’s fun. Ah but wait, there’s more! We had a very special house guest this weekend, perhaps you recall her pretty face from here, here, here and here…

Yes, it’s marie! Yvette had a huge catering job to attend to over the weekend and asked if we’d babysit, of course we said yes. Marie was so well-behaved and completely charming. We did lots of things together – we had afternoon naps together on the couch, we went for walks, and on Sunday morning when she heard Romain get out of bed she jumped off the couch, ran into the bedroom with tail wagging furiously and right up into the bed to say good morning, giving us both lots of kisses and cuddles. On Sunday it was raining all day and we soon realised she had no intention of getting out there in the rain, instead she spent the entire day on the couch, and I spent the day looking over at her, snapping photos of her various couch surfing positions, check her out…

Classic! I miss her already. And did someone just say she can’t get any cuter? Umm, well, take a look at this…

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To find out more about Yvette van Boven’s new cookbook Homemade, click here.

All photography in Homemade by Oof Verschuren.

PS marie sat on that cushion while Yvette styled the biscuits all around her, and then posed for the camera! I remember Yvette & Oof showing me the pic when they took it, she is the ultimate photo-friendly pup, gotta love her.

Just a quick note to let you know about two online boutiques that I have been exploring lately  – first up is Jen Altman‘s pop up shop called ‘the favorites’ where she has a beautiful selection of prints from her past collections available for a limited time…

from jen’s feather & bone collection, now available in the favorites.

And field & sea‘s etsy boutique is filled with some great new handmade treasures like little reminders,  printed cards, script beads and kraft stickers…

It occurred to me the other day that once upon a time, when I was much more organised, I used to have a collection of special little gifts for spontaneous gift-giving. I think these two boutiques are the perfect places to find such treasures. Also, how cool are the script beads? I know I’ve featured them before, but they still make my heart flutter.

For the past few weeks I’ve been looking into the best way to scan some negatives which I brought back with me from Sydney at the beginning of the year – just a small bunch of old and somewhat recent film,  images that I’d like to include in my upcoming book (commonly referred to as the book). First I asked all my photographer friends here if they had a neg scanner  – I figured at least one of them would have one since they all used to shoot film back in the day. But alas, no! Which was interesting. Then I looked online to see if any of my local photography shops scanned negs, but I also checked out the prices of neg scanners while I was at it.  Long story short, after getting a hefty quote for scanning a few negs I thought it worth investing in a neg scanner of my own as I’d like to start shooting film again soon. Yesterday the neg scanner arrived in the mail and even though it took a while to set up, I soon got the hang of it by scanning a few random negatives from my neg folders.  What is no doubt much more interesting to you though, is what I found among those random negatives: a spoon.

This spoon is possibly my favourite spoon of all time. I haven’t seen it for years, and I’m not even sure if it still exists. I think – I hope -  it is in my storage unit back in Sydney. It has a history which probably dates back to before my ownership of it, but its history with me is special: I bought it about ten years ago , possibly at a flea market,  when I had my store. And then when I opened the teahouse I put it on display there, behind the counter, resting on a little nail in the wall. However one of the staff knocked it unfortunately, and it broke. But I loved it too much to get rid of it. So I bound the two broken pieces rather crudely with some metal wire (time was of the essence back then) and over the years it fused together with rust. I must have taken a photo of it at some point in the last decade with my canon ae-1 and now, all the way over here in my home away from home, I have been reunited with my spoon again via this photo. Today, thanks to this spoon, this photograph,  I am inspired.

xx

PS This is the original photo scanned straight from negative, untouched, unaltered. I just love it. I might have to find a place for this photo in the book I think.

PPS I still think about opening another teahouse one day. I know it’s crazy since the last one nearly killed me, but I do think I’d do it soooo much better this time and really, how many cafés out there know how to make a proper chai these days? I need to bring back the chai.

PPPS I want to say thank you to everyone who has been leaving such luscious compliments about my writing of late. I can’t tell you how much that means to me since the book is filled with such writings, and your encouragement inspires me everyday. So, thank you.

I’m a very proud friend – Yvette’s book called homemade will be officially launched tonight at a private book party at Foam, I cannot wait. It will be fabulous to see the book in the flesh for the first time – this has been such a labour of love and passion for both yvette and her husband oof who has been busy taking all the photographs of all the delicious recipes over this past year. Above is a photo of Yvette looking over the book pages at the printers in Spain just a few weeks ago.

For my Dutch readers, if you’d like to be the first in line to buy a copy of Yvette’s book homemade, it is now available from de vries boeken.  I will definitely give more details about the book’s whereabouts once I have them.

For now though, I’d like to just make this post an opportunity for us all to shout out in unison a big CONGRATULATIONS to Yvette for the launch of her book tonight. Will you join me in this toast?

xx

Tomorrow evening,  ilovevintage here in Amsterdam is hosting a “miniature” exhibition in their beautiful new boutique on the Prinsengracht – for those who have Amsterdam: Made by Hand, you will find ilovevintage gracing pages 42-45.

There will be miniature handmade illustrations between 1 and 20 cm on display by two artists, based on the theme “woman”, along with music, performances, and fashion shows. Sounds like a fun night – doors open at 7pm, programme starts at 8pm. I’m going to try to go as I haven’t been to one of their exhibitions yet, and I remember when I interviewed the owner Faranak for my book, she was describing all the new ideas they had for the new store -  these special event nights being one of them.  Perhaps I’ll see you there!

When? Friday, august 27th
Where? ILV Atelier boutique. Prinsengracht 201, Amsterdam

It’s raining buckets here in Amsterdam this morning. The lack of sunlight makes my little boat dark, but oh so cozy.

On Saturday I received the latest (september) issue of Australian Home Beautiful. It is always a real treat to receive a little slice of Australia through my front door mail slot all the way over in this part of the world. But this particular issue of Home Beautiful is extra special, take a look…

A big thank you to Vanessa Keys for asking me to be a part of Home Beautiful’s style insight section in this month’s issue. The article is so beautifully written, and I love the little “guide to unearthing the handmade in your own city” at the end.

+To view the article in full, I suggest you buy the September issue of Home Beautiful… but also, you can click here.

+All images in the article are by photographer David Finato and me.

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I’d also like to direct you to a very special giveaway that dutch designer mariska meijers is holding on her blog this week: Mariska is offering a signed copy of Amsterdam: Made by Hand, read all about it right here. Thank you so much for your support Mariska. x

So what else was I going to tell you about on this last trip? Oh yes, my experience of making the book for Aunty Joyce. Well, it wasn’t so much a “book” as maybe a “zine”, or a “visual diary”. I didn’t get the idea to make it until I was in Paris so unfortunately I didn’t have any of my crafting tools with me except a signing pen. I thought BHV would be the place to get everything I needed, including some quick print outs of photos to stick in the book, but unfortunately they didn’t have anything that I needed- the notebooks were all of the ‘back to school’ variety (I wanted something a little french, or at least that had some french words on the cover), and the “instant” photo machine was actually a 3 day turnaround. So Romain and I looked for a copy shop, or a photo lab around the area but each time we found one it was either closed or, as one proprietor used the excuse “we’ve run out of photo paper for the machine”. indeed. So, our final trial was fnac, and low and behold, they had a real instant photo machine! So I put my usb stick in and printed out 10 photos that I randomly chose earlier that morning, all with key elements from Joyce’s time thus far in paris, and some family snaps of us all together etc. That is when we discovered the instant machine had a postcard option which we thought was pretty cool. The notebook I found at Merci, as well as the japanese tape. Oh and the paris stamps I bought at Melodies Graphiques.

So, if you come up with the same spontaneous idea of creating a notebook of your adventures in Paris, then know that you can go to fnac in les halles to fulfill your instant photo needs. You could also stop in one of the metros and take some photo booth photos of yourself for good measure. Romain and I attempted this late one night but he accidentally broke the machine by pressing too often on the buttons.  If you happen to be in the pont neuf metro and want to take photo booth photos, I’m here to tell you it is probably still broken. oops.

Here are some photos of the wonderful window display at emmanuelle wittmann’s atelier, how lovely that she put le book in her window among her beautiful creations. Merci Emmanuelle!

And one last thing, I want to tell you about a great cafe Romain and I stopped in for lunch in the Canal St Martin area. It’s called “L’Atmosphere”. It was one of those places again that I’d often walked past but had never been in and it was really good – the service was great, the food delicious, and at the end we ordered a ‘café gourmand’ and a ‘thé gourmand’ for me, and it was lovely- lots of little desserts including a mini creme brulee, along with a pot of tea. miam.

Therefore if you happen to be in the Canal St. Martin area (10th arrondisment) on ‘wander 6′ (pg113) in Paris: Made by Hand, then check out L’Atmosphere. The address is: 49 rue Lucien Sampaix, 75010 Paris and they are open every day of the week. Sydney-based photographer Jillian Leiboff just got back from Paris and wrote a great post with beautiful images about her wander of the area, visiting some of the ateliers and shops  from the book, check out her post here. Thank you Jillian!

Before we got on the train to head back to Amsterdam, I spotted this piece of advice/street art on the pavement crossing a bridge, heading toward the gare du nord…

In English it is something like “forever cursed is the useless dreamer…”. And I thought how fitting this sentence was for my time in paris on this particular occasion, although I’m not exactly sure how to interpret this sentence, I’d love to know your thoughts on it…

One of the things that I’d been wanting to do for some time  is visit the Opera Garnier. It is such a wonderful old building in Paris (one of many) and I’ve been intrigued by it every time I’ve walked passed, so on this trip back to Paris I thought it about time we go and take a look. It is rather magnificent indeed, and after about 15 minutes of strolling around and viewing all the different rooms, I was starting to feel slightly self-conscious and uncomfortable being there in my cut off jean shorts and birkenstocks. Not for the sake of the other tourists visiting, but for the walls, and floors, and gilded mirrors and chandeliers. It just didn’t seem right to be in this incredible, opulent space as a tourist in the year 2010. Sacrilege was the word that came to mind, and if the walls could talk I would have been apologising to them the entire length of my visit.  What was it like to walk up the stairs in a flowing gown at the turn of the last century? I wondered.

My favourite space though was the library museum, where there are rows of set dioramas for various performances held within the Opera Garnier over the years. They were so completely inspiring, I was mesmerized by the detail and creativity in each scale model…

It is an amazing building,  I won’t say much more as I always like people to discover their own magic when visiting these places, but I recommend a visit there if you are in Paris… just be sure to wear something a little more genteel than I did, you will feel better for it…