Sugarbomb

Starting the weekend off the right way, with a Smarties-studded chocolate cake

2012 Presidential Cookie Bake-Off

I've already posted here about the traditional bake-off held during each US presidential election. This time around, I tried another recipe from Ann Romney: M&M cookies. Smarties cookies will have to do -- no plain M&Ms to be found (at least not easily) in Paris.

These cookies got the seal of approval from Bon Bon. My husband, who doesn't like peanut butter even liked them. I would've tried Michelle Obama's recipe for white and dark chocolate chip cookies, but again, no butter-flavored Crisco to be found in these parts.

Click here for the recipes (Update: Michelle Obama is the winner!)

Euro 2012

Now that the (French) elections are over, we can fully dedicate our nighttime TV-viewing to the Euro 2012 soccer tournament. Even Simon's getting into it, whereas whenever Des paroles et des actes came on the television, he would just leave the room...

Full disclosure: this photo was not taken during the Euro tournament, as "MAR" and "MIL" are not European countries. Though I'm fully incapable of telling you which teams these are, as I don't care much for soccer (ok, ok, "football")...

Love padlocks in Paris

As it's Valentine's Day, I thought I'd share these pictures taken last summer of love padlocks -- the urban equivalent of engraving your and your sweetheart's names on a tree trunk -- on a bridge near the Notre Dame cathedral.

This last picture makes me long for summer.

Beloved Brussels

Last month we went to Brussels to attend a Duran Duran concert, since they don't seem to want to come to Paris anymore (sniff sniff).

We've been to Brussels so many times already, so that when we do visit, we tend not to do much sightseeing. We did go to the city museum on the Grand Place, but other than that, we spent a lot of our time relaxing at cafés (above), taking long strolls and browsing some of our favorite stores.

Of course, I had to have my favorite carbonnades flamandes

No trip to Brussels is complete without some chocolate (yes, that's a chocolate orangutang)

Valentine's Day being around the corner, all the shops have their window displays up

Pierre Marcolini, above and below, in the quartier Sablon. We went into a few stores as well on the place du Grand Sablon, which reminds me of a real gem of a blog I found recently, Belgian Pearls. It's a great source of design inspiration.

The photo in this chocolate shop in the Galeries royales Saint-Hubert does not do it justice

Just slightly chicer than your typical supermarket aisle display

Of course I had to visit my all-time favorite cooking equipment store, the International Home of Cooking.

Good thing I live 3 hours away by car, or I'd probably be bringing home 600 euro surprises each month, like that hot pink pearl-finish KitchenAid mixer.

 

Not wanting to leave empty handed, I bought a top-notch potato masher and a cheese grater.