Happy Birthday Mommy!

Today is my mom's birthday!!! Happy Birthday Mamma!!

As soon as I go back to Italy I prepare a huge chocolate cake covered with crunchy nuts!

Here with my mom: she's tricking you, she was standing on a stair, I'm not so short! hahaha! :)

A Tiramisú for Perry's Birthday

As I told you, Perry and I took some days just for us. Yersterday we went to Amsterdam and we had a great vegan dinner at a Thai restaurant (and for lunch a great felafel-humus at MAOZ). And for his birthday I wanted to try something that I haven't done since I became vegan almost 7 years ago.. a tiramisú!!!! I had this psychological block, I thought it would be nearly impossible to make a real (vegan) tiramisú, but I've made it and I even wrote on top of it with pure delicious chocolate!!!!!! I'm very happy that it came out wonderfully.

You should also try it. **yummy**

Perry was very happy, and we spent a shining birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PERRY!!!!!!!!!!

VEGAN TIRAMISÚ

First make a Sponge Cake. Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Mix 2 cups of flour, baking soda and 1 and 1/2 cup of brown sugar. Add 6 spoons of margarine and 1 and 1/2 cup of soy milk. Mix again. Add 4 spoons of Corn Starch and vanilla extract. Bake for 45/50 minutes.

When the cake is cooked let it cool. For the cream I used a vegan vanilla dessert cream which is perfect for it if you don't have time like me.

Prepare a strong Italian coffee (espresso), put sugar in it, and let it cool.

When the cake is cool, cut it in strings and put on top of them a bit of liquor, like Vermouth or Martini bianco. Dip the cake strings in the coffee and lay in a pan.

Pour some cream on it (a lot) and repeat.

Sprinkle with cocoa powder. Write something nice for the ones you love and put it in the freezer for one night. Then call them and enjoy!!!

busy time

I'm just in a crazy period! I've left the bar and now I'm taking care of my sweet Susie because she has a bronchitis.. sweet sweet love. I hope that all our love helps her to feel better soon!

For the rest the last month has been really tiring and well, I won't miss the lunch bar at all! Now I'm going to write some proposal for grants and scholarships and I hope to start my research soon. :)

Today I've tried to make something I ate a couple of days ago in a restaurant: a broccoli-potatoes cream with toasted bread and I totally loved it!

Now I have some more time to post and read your blogs.

To Candi: I've tried to comment something but it fails sometimes.. anyway, I wanted to tell you that I'm totally proud of you, and your choice to go for more raw food!

follow your bliss.

There's not so much going on at this moment, just a lot of work.. I know this is part of the process to make some projects we got in mind possible! But I would just leave right now for going to the Fiji's and opening a hut/bar in a village! ahah.. that would be sooooo good. I'm trilling to spend some days just with Perry and forget all the rest!! It's his birthday soon and I'd love to make some special cake for him. Any suggestions?

I thought about something like a huge chocolate cake or a tiramisù.. who knows! Anyway I'm craving for some free time and I'm going crazy for working for three weeks - everyday- without a rest day... :( so tired..

It's good it's not gonna be like this for a long time. At the Caffè where I work everything is fine. Now we also have vegan cereals soups!

I'm so sleepy.. Goodnight!

If you wanna shoot down birds.. then shoot yours!

Autumn is here and the birds are gone. Only if you live in the countryside like I do you can understand what I mean. How sad.. to wake up in the morning without the birds’ songs.. and just hearing that annoying wind that blows so hard! I think autumn can be considered the saddest season, everything is dying, the trees are without leaves and the sky is grey. The other day I went to the beach because I was craving a bit of sunrays and I wanted to relax and give away my thoughts and worries to my beloved sea. Even the sea sounds blue in autumn.. anyway all these gloomy feelings made me think about how wonderful birds are. It just makes me happy to hear and see birds in the sky and when the robin (my favourite one) comes closer and closer to me to take a little piece of bread.. it fills my heart with joy. All this made me think how horrible is hunting and how awful are those monsters who get a gun in their hands and go hunting.. how can it be fun to wait for an innocent animal who’s passing by and living his life and someone just kills him..? Sport? What kind of sport is that! To all the hunters: if you wanna sport go running and leave the animals free to live. And if you really wanna shoot down birds.. then shoot yours!
(in the picture: a shirt from my mom that says this line!)

a vegan biologist in a bar?

I finally have some time to post something. I hope you spent a great Halloween night! Did you get lots of candies? Lately I've also started to work in a bar, it won't be for a long time I think, but I have some fun. It's funny to be a conservation biologist in a bar.. people ask me stuff about the sea and fish, so there's a lot of talking going on. Of course, I had to veganize it a little bit. Since a week ago, we have cappuccino made with soymilk which is fabulous, just tastes delicious! And people start asking for it even if I don't offer it. Some girls want to know more about vegan diet and about my theory that soymilk makes people prettier! ;) *blink blink*. Anyway, my action made it possible to actually have vegan couscous for the happy-hour night, vegan chocolate for the coffee, and so on for caffè macchiato, caffè-latte, chocolate cake and biscuits to go with the tea. I don't have the power to veganize the whole bar but in the short time there I want to spread around a bit of *vegan taste*.. Who knows that I might get some people who actually decide to change their habits.

But yeah, all this veganization and yes! -the data- are keeping me away from spending some time with my beloved one. So we're going to take 4 days off just for us very soon..

ps. I had problems with commenting on blogs lately, but I'm reading your blogs! sorry for that!