Fresh blueberries from the island where they have their summer house! And they were still on the branch, ready to be picked. Small, juicy and tasty, it was indeed the perfect reminder of long Swedish summer days spent picking berries on the island over the past couple of years. And I can’t wait to get more when we go for a summer break soon!

In our garden the strawberries are in full, uhm, bloom too! We’ll be picking some for dessert tonight, no doubt. This must be my favourite thing about summer. What is yours?

The ice cream parlour near us opens at 12. Guess who’ll be front of the queue? And yes, I think I may just have three scoops, please. We’re also heading to Hyde Park to celebrate the Swedish Midsommer picnic with meatballs, herring, creamy sauces and Swedish brownies. And I’m thinking I may have to stop somewhere for another chocolate croissant along the way. Ha ha ha! It makes all those lentil dishes and having tuna and brocoli in your morning omelette all worth it. A friend in Cape Town who is also giving it a try texted me today to say that she’s realised she’s getting old / boring. Her biggest binge tomorrow is going to be on fruit!

So my breathtaking moment for today? Pure anticipation. I simply cannot wait for what lies ahead! Hurry up morning!

In one week I ate more calories, walked more miles, and spent more ‘friend time’ than I had in months in London! Rose and I had a 10k run in Central Park, which I absolutely loved and we worked our way through all the cocktails at Pegu Club, our favourite downtown bar where the doorman, K-Dawg, greeted both John and I by the name! It was good to be home…

And how weird that this strange city that I once loathed living in now feels like home to me. I can only hope that London will soon do the same!

Some new hotspots that we discovered include:

• The Hurricane Club – best frozen cucumber & mint rum cocktail ever
• The Bang Bang, sorry, Boom Boom Room at The Standard – gorgeous interiors and scary bathrooms
• Del Posto – most expensive Italian restaurant experience of my life – ha ha!
• Eataly – amazing Italian space with any type of Mediterranean food you can imagine…very New York!

And then of course we spent lots of time at the usual hangouts including:

• Joe’s Shanghai
• Supper
• Chelsea Market
• The Apple store (we didn’t have internet at home, so had to rush from free wi-fi spot to free wi-fi spot – such techno-holics…)
• Shake Shack
• Menkui-Tei – still the best ramen in town (in fact, we went there twice in the one week visit!)

You know, looking back on this list (and I didn’t even include the 3am pizza slices or the cream cheese bagels on here), the 3kg I gained does not seem that excessive…

We got back to London on Friday around noon and the entire city was covered in snow – quite a bit colder than the weather in New York, actually. Have spent the last couple of days mostly cooped up inside trying to shake the world’s most hideous flu – probably due to my overindulgence of the past week…a small price to pay, I say!

We finally booked our place, opting to go for the ‘Everyone Cooks Everything: Healthful Dishes‘ course and signed up about six weeks in advance. Apparently all we had to do was show up ready to cook and be hungry. Yes, you actually have to prepare and cook your own food and then serve yourself, sit down and eat your own concoction! All this over the course of four hours on a Sunday evening. So we were sure to have a late breakfast and no lunch and by the time we caught a cab to head downtown to the school, John and I were both feeling less friendly and in need of some serious nourishment. (Enough said, right?)

Luckily, we got right into it after a quick menu discussion with our chef. Eight couples (some married, some mom-and-daughter partnerships) started chopping shallots, adding a dash of this and a splash of that and soon all the gas burners in the test kitchen were going and delicious aromas filled the air. Our menu consisted of Bibb Salad with Warm Cider Vinaigrette and Asian Pears; Cedar Plank Salmon with Blood Orange Glaze; Roasted Asparagus, Peas, and Basil; Herbed Quinoa (a weird but strangely delicious newness for me); and Greek Yogurt Panna Cotta with Strawberries Soaked in a Balsamic Reduction – possibly the reason why we chose this particular course. I have discovered a love for Panna Cotta recently and could never have imagined it this easy to make. (If you don’t like Panna Cotta and get a fancy dinner invitation from me, you might want to reconsider…it’s bound to make an appearance somewhere! Ha ha!)

After making the Panna Cotta, we put together the salad and then all sat down to eat it before getting the vegetables and salmon going. We finished the meal with a big sit-down dinner with wine and fascinating conversation – what a great experience!

So if you find yourself stumped for a creative gift idea this year, take it from me…the recipients will truly appreciate this one (even if it takes them eleven months to use it)!

Ronda Carman, Paul Hooker and me

So when she got appointed as a ‘blog brand ambassador’ for the luxury linen brand, SFERRA, you know that something’s up! Last night I joined Ronda and some of New York’s hottest designers (Hello, Michael Devine!) at dinner with the president of SFERRA Linens, Paul Hooker. It was an evening filled with great wine, delicious food and really solid company. And it gave me such hope to hear about the great charity work that Paul and his company does. Here is the President of a really successful American-owned company that find the time and money to help those less fortunate by building two wheelchair-accessible playgrounds, getting involved in the Project Smile and countless other initiatives – while also keeping his staff happy! What a guy.

If you have never read Ronda’s blog, be sure to add it to your list of favorites – she is not only the hottest blogger out there, but also someone I now consider a friend. And that makes me a very lucky girl!

Created and produced by South African Neill Blomkamp, the cast is all local and it was shot in Johannesburg. I particularly loved the authentic South African accents and really had a good giggle every now and then when a Bliksem or Kak (Afrikaans swear words) made it into the dialogue. Also, I’m pretty sure that everyone who saw the movie will be saying ‘F*k You’ with an Afrikaans accent (which better way to say it in, right?) Without me giving away the whole plot, I’ll just ask that you do your bit for my country and go see it!

You won’t regret it.

John and I are both still battling with my cold and his man flu so we made a pact to eat out or order in every night this week, to ease the burden of cooking on us both. Also, it’s been so hot that the idea of  spending any more time than strictly necessary in the kitchen fills us both with dread and horor. So last night we had Indian at a local restaurant, the night before we ordered some Thai and the night before that we had burgers at our favorite outdoor spot, Pier I.

Tonight we decided to go for sushi. We have a great service here called Seamlessweb.com. It’s an online food ordering service and they promise delivery from about 50 different restaurants within 15 – 45 minutes. That’s my kind of take out! We always order from the same reliable sushi place, so tonight we decided to be daring and try something different.

The warning bells should have gone off when we saw the four $$$$ signs next to this new place called, Sushi of Gari, but we figured it’s sushi. How bad can it be? Right? Now we have the sushi order down to a T. Between John and I we usually order five rolls and sometimes we’ll throw in an order of Edamame or a soup, but we’ve figured out that five rolls fills both of us up with a couple of pieces to spare. Our standard sushi order usually comes to about $35, give or take a few.

So tonight’s order was no different. We ordered five pretty standard options and didn’t think too much of the fact that it said ‘Per Piece’ above the description. I said to John that I’m sure it’s just a language thing – they must mean ‘Per ROLL’. Well, after waiting 45 minutes, our rumbling tummies were so happy when the delivery man finally rang the bell. Only to deliver this:

$35 dollars for five squished pieces of mediocre sushi. Yuck! I was so upset by having been done in like that it almost spoiled my mood completely. Lucky for me, John quickly got our standard order in and within 15 minutes delicious, cheap, fresh sushi was delivered to our door. That’s more my style!