Pastaholic eats a tree.

On Saturday something happened which has never happened to me before. I am still quite flabbergasted. Julia and I had bought all ingredients for a beautiful dinner including a nice big chunk of proper Parmesan cheese, because otherwise why bother? I made Caprese salad, fillet, and some pasta with a creamy mushroom sauce. After all we had just done some very hot yoga, felt we deserved a treat, and a lonely bottle of Pongraz rosé and a bottle of Alphabetical just wasn’t gonna cut it.
So we happily ate away, almost literally licking the plates clean (okay, in my case there was no almost involved, I licked the plate…). Right after the last bit of mushroom had disappeared from my plate, I realized the unbelievable: we had not put any parmesan cheese on our pasta! Never, ever in my life! We didn’t even miss it!

Apparently I make a mean, creamy mushroom sauce…

I know, I know for most of you this is all neither here nor there, but to us it was quite astonishing and unheard of. It also partly explains why I had pasta again* last night though I had mentally prepared for salad. The other explanation, which I have to validate the amount of carbs, is that I decided it was time to show a pastaholic’s take on trees.

 Of course coming to think of now in the bright light of day, a salad would have probably made for a better tree. But as it is, I spent the weekend asking myself what does my soul require and as you can imagine my soul has no problem requiring pasta two nights in a row. Once ingredients where laid out and photographed, I felt bad sending them back into the box/fridge/packet. So no worries, nothing was wasted, the pasta tree landed, if slightly disassembled, on my plate after..
If you think this girl, I mean me, should stay away from the pasta for a change and rather have a real tree, go here and get me one: http://www.givengain.com/activist/76000/projects/2652/

*And now owe Julia a new piece of Parmesan cheese.

En masse is enough.

Due to the recent events I decided last night that it was far more important to spend money on my well-being in form of a massage than on the well-being of my car in form of finally buying a new spare tire. It also went much better with the Admirable Me theme of the week; my car is very cute and already gets enough attention as it is.

Now I am delighted to announce that Hakim moved swiftly onto the no 1 spot of the monthly guy who left the most memorable impression on me list.  He works at Enmasse, which has been my favourite massage parlour (can I say that??) ever since they opened.

Good reasons why that is:

a.       It is basically next to my home/work, therefore constitutes as extended living room, therefore I can just roll out of bed and I’m there.

b.      It is open when I need it to be open. Kind of like a healthy McDonald’s.

c.       You walk in and the smell already makes you feel better. Airy happy pills and just as addictive.

d.      They give you funny outfits that are very complicated to put on (for me), but me trying always makes me giggle and gives Murray, the owner, a good laugh as well.  

e.      You feel like you ended up in a sexy sort of heaven with white cloud like mattresses and high night sky ceilings and French music (okay, nothing heavenly about that this week). It could only be better if they served cocktails instead of tea.

f.        I walk out of there with very dishevelled hair and don’t ever mind. No, wait, I never mind dishevelled hair. But for everyone else who may mind that would be a good point. Believe me you won’t mind.

Those are the basics. Now I want to get to the really good part and rave about my massage: It is part yoga class part love affair. No dirty grins here please! That is what a good massage should be.

My favourite of course is the head massaging and stroking. I am a complete sucker for head massages and usually I don’t get one unless when they wash my hair at the salon (and they are never thaaat good) or the one time when I asked for an Indian head massage (which came with a downside of having a litre of oil poured onto my hair).

So there I was yesterday – happy little head massagee. With happy feet to go with, because Hakim returned to them frequently so they ‘wouldn’t feel left out’ when he was busy with my head/arms/back. Very thoughtful indeed. My feet thanked him and my sore knee has been quietly bending ever since it was touched by him. Needless to say I left a very happy girl, rose like phoenix from the ashes this morning and felt much better than a new spare tire could ever make me feel.

If you wonder why there is no picture included – I had a slight disagreement with Murray about their logo (which admittedly would have made sense to include). Me: This looks like the scary movie The Ring. Murray: No way! It’s a love circle.

Sorry, no love circle on my blog, way too Austin Powers for my liking. Disagreement settled. I win.

Admirable Me.

After short but intense negotiations, the French-German relationship has officially come to an end. Not through mutual agreement by both parties, but it has also been confirmed from German side that any relations are literally off the table now.
Therefore it is now the beginning of the official Admirable Me week to celebrate the, well, admirable me. After getting an earful from Thekla for only publishing my funny faces, I hereby commence celebrations by showing the world my not funny face. Oh, yes, I also realized that this blog only shows my picture very, very tiny and I thought I should at least once show why we went through all the hardship of making me smile in front of a camera.

In addition my apparently very admirable bucket list, published. Whoop, whoop.

http://www.beingbrazen.com/2011/03/on-my-buket-list-by-annika.html

Now I am off, starting the week. Off to conquer the world as usual. Thanks to all my friends, who love Pinky and the Brain, and have quoted this to me (volunterily or not) many many times.