Ribon no Kishi

Also known in Italy as "La Principessa Zaffiro", this is really a masterpiece!

It is true that I prefer old manga, rather than new ones, but this is an historical pillar! In fact, it is considered the first shojo-manga ever written and his author (Osamu Tezuka) is well known for other really "important" works, like Astroboy and Metropolis.
What I liked the most when reading this manga was the drawings. They are quite nice, even though they are not as advanced as maybe drawings of other authors, but they are really expressive.
The story in itself is not the most original ever written, but it has some interesting point that, I believe for when it was written, was quite interesting and creative.
Zaffiro, the main character of the story, has both a male and a female heart and the whole plot works around this ambivalence and the fact that in her kingdom, the throne could be passed just to a boy and not a girl.
Love story, evilness, bad luck and envyness are the elements that make the story goes, but there are quite some interesting surprises!

I was surely not disappointed and I still remember the cartoon that I watched when I was small. I wish I had the time to watch it again!

A Di Penco visit

Already a couple of people I know had commented about this place in Malmö, so I put it in our "restaurants" todo list.

As far as I knew, the place was mainly a lunch/take away place, where you could eat fresh, homemade pasta.

I didn't know what to expect from an evening menu. I know that the place opened also as evening restaurant few months ago, but that was about it.

So, since yesterday I was exhausted when I came home from work, I took the phone and rang for booking.

When we arrived there, first we were confused if the place was a real restaurant (it is basically in a cellar of some building, a bit hidden), then, I was ashamed I called for booking, since it was basically empty. Bad sign or bad evening?

Nevertheless, we set and while reading the menu we got a plate with olive oil and some bread and we stupidly drown ourselves into it (which made me full quite quickly).

The menu was quite limited to few dishes (5-6 pasta, 5-6 pizza and 4 desserts) and the prices quite alright.

It didn't took too much for us to get the food. It was clear that at least it was really made by italians since the pizzaiolo was speaking napoletano and the other people working there were able to speak some Italian too. 

The pizza was alright (pizza Mario), with scamorza, ventricina salame and sundried tomatoes, with a quite nice dough. The pasta (fresh pasta with artichoke sauce) was a bit blend in the taste, but the pasta in itself was really nice. 

Alltogether, a quite nice dinner. I think the food can improve and surely, the atmosphere of the place. It is quite huge and it has some nice corner, but with the fact that it is "underground" it lacks a bit of light and cosyness.

I definetely recommend it for a quick dinner, italian style! 

Risotto con radicchio e pancetta

The other day I decided to try a new risotto. A risotto with rosesallat (in swedish) and bacon.

I took the recipe from my favorite recipes website, GialloZafferano and I had some radicchio and some bacon that needed to see a better life.

Hence I searched a bit and found this recipe.

As every risotto, in my opinion, it was not that complicated to do, but it requires just a little bit of patience since you need to take care of the status (and as a matter of fact, I almost burnt the onion ;-) ).

I think the result was pretty good and it seems that Mattias enjoyed a lot. I followed the recipe pretty closely and if somebody is curious and wants to have it and doesn't master Italian yet (which would be a big sin) I can help out!

In short, though: light fry the onion in butter, add the bacon cut in small pieces and let it roast a bit. Add the sallad cut in stripes and let it cook for a while. It is time to add the rice, let it toast, add the wine and let it steam off. When that is done, it is time to add the fond slowly slowly until the rice is cooked.

Once ready, add a bit of butter after removing the pot from the heat, mix and serve it with a bit of parmigiano, salt and pepper!

Enjoy!

Summer bags

When I was in Italy I basically didn't do any shopping. I saw some things I liked but I felt quite stressed in buying in a short amount of time...I need to think of what I have at home, if I can combine things with something I have already or if I need then some other piece.

So, at the end, even though I had in mind some items to shop for my wardrobe, I did just look around a lot and did not spend my money on anything.

Mattias instead found a lot of stuff...but, that's another story!

Anyway, when at the airport I saw a bags shop and I jumped in it since I wanted to "enlarge" my summer bags entourage and eventually I did it! There were a lot of nice bags at the Carpisa shop and I decided to stick with "just" two bags (and they were quite cheap).

 Both of the bags do not have any leather detail. I think the pink one is just plastic based and the turquoise one is instead in some synthetic textile. I think it is better to have leather, even though that would make them more durable, but I think in this way they probably are easier to wash.

I think they look pretty alright! 
What do you think? :)

Aperitivo

One of the things I miss a lot from Italy is of course the food culture.
It has become more and more popular to exploit the concept of "Aperitivo".
When I was a teenager we were having an aperitivo in some bar/coffee place in the main square on Saturday evening: that was usually something to drink with some chips, nuts and maybe some other small thing.
The concept has then developed to "Happy Hour". Basically, by paying a fixed price for each drink (alcoholic or not) you could also grab some snack in a buffet. So, this concept is still super alive...as you can see from the picture!

Every place has of course its way of conducting the ritual, I actually enjoyed another aperitivo when in Italy, with some friends of mine (Smash was the place). I had to restrain myself to eat like a pig, since we were supposed to have dinner with my parents afterwards in some restaurant...but the buffet was quite huge and there were some really nice things!

Wish this concept would spread also in Sweden....

Recycling CDs

I came back from Italy with a couple of old CDs where we have burnts some old software. Now, it is of course obsolete, so I want to get rid of the CDs...

I was looking on how to recycle CDs (writable ones) and CD cases. 

It seems this is terribly hard! And, strangely enough, in Sweden!

First of all, by reading Italian websites there is none that states that burning plastic is OK (burning plastic might bring cancer!!)! But it seems in Italy there is not a proper system to sort out CDs and DVDs.

If I search on English websites, instead, I find that both in USA or in UK there are companies specialized in collecting CDs and DVDs, which are not recommended to be sorted as plastic since they contain a special film that doesn't make them fully "plastic" objects. 

I found even something like that in the Netherlands.

But if I search in Swedish, I can find that for everyone that has asked this kind of question, the answer is always: put them among the trash that can be burnt and it will be burnt as well.

What??!?!?!

Now, I really don't know what to do with these CDs. I can keep the CD case for some CDs I can burn still, but the CDs themselves, I surely do not want to trash them in the normal garbage...

How is it possible that there are no organizations collecting CDs for any sort?

I am actually astonished!

City Hunter

Hello hello,

haven't had really the time to play with this lately, but there will be some new posts coming up soon...(and yes, of course, I still need to fix the layout and other amenities...)

One of the things I have been doing in these days, since I have been in Italy, at home, has been reading manga. During Christmas I picked up a big pack of manga from my masquerade buyer, who also borrowed  many of his comics. Results: I have a big piles of volumes to read and I can't bring them to Sweden because the bags are always full of clothes, wedding presents and, of course, food. So, the cultural things end up downprioritized.

Nevertheless, I focused on a manga that has been published in Italy about 15 years ago, originally published in Japan instead at the end of the 80s: City Hunter.

It was 39 numbers and I had just 5 left and so I managed to finish it!!!
This is definitely not a manga for girls! The protagonist is constantly flirting (or drooling desperately) over every single woman appearing in the serie, except for his work partner.
City Hunter is his nickname and he is a sweeper. The story is basically about his work and who he needs to help out in several occasions (tendentially, beautiful women) and, especially during the end, unveil the background story of Ryo (City Hunter) and Kaori (his partner) and how their lives is interlaced with the one of some recurrent characters (Miki, Saeko, etc.etc.).
If at first the manga can appear a bit long and repetitive, it actually is quite funny thanks to the comical aura around the two main characters and it gets really involving at the very end. I think, though, that the last two numbers could have been skip and that the story could have been properly concluded before.
I think this is a really nice manga to read, since it has a nice mix of action, comic scenes and a bit of love stories, plus, it shows a bit of Japan and that is always pleasant to see/read. I also like a lot the way Tsukasa Hojo (the author) draws the story....but still, of his works, Cat's Eyes is still my favorite!

Well, time to go to bed!!!

Work in Progress

Hej Hej,

Today I am trying to play around (instead of trying to decrease my hideous to-do list) with the style/design of the blog.

If you are using Google Chrome it will look horrible, since there are some problems with the transparency of some images.
Nevertheless, I have followed this *awesome* tutorial for personalizing a bit the fonts used and I think we are getting closed to something nice.
What I don't like (except the horror with Google Chrome), is the fact that there is so much space around the font title and the font seems a bit too thin to be read properly. Maybe I should find another font?

I have also modified the header, but I am not fully satisfied there either. I don't like so much the frame around it and I think the font for the Blog name is a bit too "unclear".

What's your opinion? :)

Ronan & Pico

It is quite funny to see that in some games Pico has been chosen as character ;-) (Pico is the little animal on the shoulder of Ronan)

Yesterday, we were at Christian&Marina and we played some "Descent: Journey into Dark". It is a board game that has a fantasy setting and a quite advanced board. One of the players (generally Christian!) would be the evil Overload that decides that will set up the game and make possible for our heroes to have different encounters.
We have been playing before, so we have been sticking to the characters from the previous quest (that we won!) and I have Ronan and Pico. So far, this campaign hasn't turned out to be easy: yesterday, we barely managed to survive (actually, Marina died once already) and we are hunted by some Manticore and Sorcerer and some other creature I don't remember the name.

We haven't finished the session (it is a quite time taking game) and we haven't decided on when to continue trying to survive in this epic world! But I hope we will manage ;-)

Addictions

There are two shops that hypnotize me and when I enter them I get into some sort of frenzy. I would like to buy basically everything and in some cases, I start to pick up stuff and then I realize I do not really need it so I put it back, drowning in guilt.

One is about accessories, colorful, less colorful, whatever taste: http://www.monsoon.co.uk/page/acchome
The other one is about beauy: http://www.thebodyshop.co.uk/_en/_gb/index.aspx

Every time I fly from Copenaghen I pay a visit to the shop and sometimes, I get out of there completely sad because I don't buy anything (I restrain myself, otherwise I would buy LOT of stuff).

When in London, I went to the shop in Victoria Street and spent about 40 minutes there undecided on what to buy. I think the security guard was keeping me under control since I was taking up constantly stuff and then putting it back, shaking my head.
At the end, I bought just a little present for Francesca...!
But then, when in Gatwick I decided that I could not spend 4 days in London without buying ANYTHING since the last time I was at the airport I didn't buy anything because I would have been buying whatever when in London....

So, this is the result!

One is a little present, the heart shaped mobile phone charm is going to be used on my white Bric bag as "decoration". And yes, I needed some tools for my pony tails ;-)

Good morning (and good night) London!

Well, this is not going to be an incredibly creative post, since it is really late, I have been working a lot today and I am quite tired!

Waiting for the bus 507 to Waterloo

I turn the head, while on the bus, and look what casually appears in my sight! Good morning London :-)

While waiting for the train to London!

Well, it has been a quite productive day, after all. It is nice to look at the English "countryside" from a train (even though the network coverage is awful) and I must confess...even English engineers dress better than Swedish ones!!!!

Good night!

First post

Hi,

it is time also for me to create a blog and I have a lot of ideas on what I would like to write here.
It will surely not be a description/list of what I do all the day (because it will end up being just a list of "cleaning&working" probably)!
For the moment, it is about creating the blog in such a way that it looks good :-) I haven't played with web&fonts&images for quite some time.

Time for some creativity! :-)