Chewing Gum Art by Ben Wilson

Trash to Art... Ben Wilson is an amazing environmental artist who paints on discarded chewing gum in London. His aim is to make us conscious of our impact on the environment and his art calls upon us to care more about this environment! I love it!

A lot more can be seen here

SOLOMO? Yes that's at LeWeb'11, Paris

LeWeb'11 conference is closing today in Paris. So.Lo.Mo... Social.Local.Mobile is this year's them and how they envision today's web. Gathering more than 3500 entrepreneurs, startups, bloggers etc. from around 60 countries... we can have a peak through the videos they post on Youtube.

Why am I talking about LeWeb? Well my daughter is on the Amiando staff, their ticketing provider. She's finishing her internship there in Munich and came home just on time to be part of this great adventure! I'm expecting a few photos to post soon...

If you want a look at JESS3's live interpretation of LeWeb'11, click here

Eric Schmidt and Loic Le Meur - 56' video, explanation for SoLoMo



Here's Dennis Crowley, Foursquare



Funny song on SOLOMO by Jérôme Choain

Pamplemousses Garden - Birds

At Pamplemousses Garden one can see a large variety of birds and animals like deer, tortoise... and so many fish... but let's have a look at some of the birds...

Pamplemousses Garden - Flowers

I was having a look at my daughter's photos of Pamplemousses Botanical Garden in Mauritius and here are a few pictures of beautiful flowers...

On television...our favorite series

Autumn is a season where we tend to stay at home a little more, relaxing, enjoying a good book or a film or a game. We have opted for ADSL TV and our provider is Orange, the main French telephone operator. We currently have a package with TV+phone+internet. We added to this package a subscription to Orange Cinema Séries (12€ monthly) which adds a few interesting channels with recent series and films and which allows you to watch the programs on demand, very convenient indeed.
Anyway right now we are watching (just mum and dad) The Walking Dead, season 2, which is being aired from November 2011 on Orange Cinema Séries. The family enjoys M6 channel's The Good Wife and NCIS, TF1's channel Mentalist, France 2's series Castle. Then I must admit mum and girls like to watch Gilmore Girls from time to time, Malcolm in the Middle is a lot of fun for us! These are two old series but we just love the characters and it gives you a good laugh. This month we are also seeing a few John Ford westerns from Ciné Géant... which remind us of our 2007 trip to West USA, and this gorgeous visit of Monument Valley... So tonight let's take a hot chocolate and go for a film...

Let's travel into space

I'm currently working on a translation about space and figured that's what I would post about today... direct from Hubble site, amazing pictures:

Dust around a super giant

Source: Hubblesite.org

Crab Nebula

Source: Hubblesite.org

Multiple generation of stars

Source: Hubblesite.org

mysteries...

Source: Hubblesite.org

Cécile de France

A few words about Cécile de France  (born in Belgium July 7, 1975)

A few years ago we had fun watching Around the World in 80 Days... where Cécile is Monique La Roche artist and young adventurous lady who follows Phileas Fogg and Passepartout round the world. Today Cécile de France is a brilliant and wonderful actress.

A few films:
Marie Lelay in Clint Eastwood's film Hereafter.
2011 films are "A Kid with a Bike" and "A Butterfly Kiss"
Coming next "Talk Show" and "A Chinese Puzzle"...

A few photos

"A Kid with a Bike"... Young actor is Thomas Doret

In "The Singer" with Gérard Depardieu

Dal Makhani, ready to eat...

While I didn't stay in Munich long enough to see everything it had to offer, I transited through Hauptbahnhof train station almost everyday - my daughter and I stayed at Adagio Hotel for a few days and then she moved on to an apartment she shared with a musician in Laim. Anyway we went into a small ethnic shop in Hauptbahnhof  one day and decided to try some ready to serve Indian food.
As I opened my cupboard looking for some lunch, I found this Dal Makahni "Black Lentils in true Mughlai tradition"... Microwaved it and ended up eating this with some salad. It was a little spicy and main ingredients were black lentils and red kidney beans in it. Although it was warm and a good stew like of food, I would rather stick with my Mauritian lentils recipe that I love to eat as a thick soup.

Autumn on Appalachian Treks Website

I love autumn, strolling in the park, watching these gold and red leaves. It's so beautiful and it's a sight I never saw while in my little Mauritius island where we only have two seasons (but of course gorgeous flowers, sea etc., that's not the point.
Anyway walking with my kids when they were small as they would walk on the crunchy leaves in the forest or collect these beautiful leaves or chestnut pods. Simple treasures but yet such lovely memories. Rain or dull weather does not matter, autumn is a precious season. And I find Appalachian Treks website a beautiful place to take a look at autumn in the US, the site focuses on Tennessee, western Northern Carolina and southwest Virginia... I would love to visit.  Here's a screenshot of the website

Mini Pizzas...

I've decided to try making mini pizzas and they were just perfect as appetizers for a little dinner we had with some friends. In fact I didn't use pizza / bread dough but instead a pate brisée - shortcrust pastry. I made some tomato sauce that we call rougaille in Mauritius. Used a glass to make nice round mini pizzas, spread some tomato sauce, fried onion, sardines-pilchard and grated cheese.
One thing about sardines is that since I'm a child I've always loved eating sardines - usually with piment confi - small pickled chili! So simple and yet delicious!!!! Only problem as I was a kid is that I didn't know how to open the cans - at the time we needed a can opener and that was too hard for me... always had to rely on my mum to open my sardines can!

Chard Gratin Tonight

After last weekend's adventure at Ferme du Sart, I set out to use all the veggies collected... Washing was already a lot of work but I didn't give up. So here's what we enjoyed this week : chard soup with the green parts, leek and potatoes quiche, and today it's chard gratin with the white part of the veggie...

It's simple to prepare. After cleaning and taking out all the stringy part, I cooked it around ten minutes in boiling water. Then prepared a creamy bechamel where I added salt, pepper, nutmeg and grated emmental cheese, then mix the chard and the bechamel and cook everything in the oven until it's crispy and golden.

Vegetable picking at Ferme du Sart

We had a perfect weekend in the north of France visiting our family. It was sunny and vegetable picking was great fun at La Ferme du Sart. You could freely pick 3 kilos of available veggies on Sunday morning, the surplus only cost 80 cts per kilo. They had carrots, chard, leek, onions, parsley, thyme and an few other veggies. Free, fun and healthy!!!!
Afterwards came the washing, the cooking... chard soup, leek and potato quiche and I haven't used all of it yet!!!

Sarkozy-Bruni, it's a baby girl...

Little baby girl Sarkozy-Bruni arrived October 19, 2011 ! No photos for the time being, baby's name's a mystery also!!! Parents Nicolas Sarkozy, 56, is father to Pierre (26), Jean (25) and Louis (14). Carla Bruni, 43, is mother to Aurélien aged 10. Best wishes to the family!!

As most French babies, this little girl will very certainly receive a Sophie la Giraffe toy!!! My two daughters both had their Sophie's and found it fun to play with.

Ambalaba, Mauritian Sega

I wanted to share a sample of Mauritian sega by famous Claudio Veeraragoo in 1966. This song was taken up twenty years later by French singer Maxime de Forestier… "Ambalaba".

So here's the Mauritian and French versions from Youtube videos, enjoy!

Ambalaba by Claudio Veeraragoo
You will notice that the first image from the clip is that of "Chateau de Mon Plaisir" in Pamplemousses Gardens, Mauritius.

Maxime Le Forestier's version

If you want the lyrics, here's a site for you

Egg size meteorite hits Comette's roof outside Paris!

It's not a joke!
Comette family, living in Draveil south of Paris, found a leak in their roof caused by a 88g meteorite that went through their roof a few weeks ago, probably as they were on holiday. A very rare case of meteorite falling so near Paris! And did it choose it's landing platform? Comette family house!!!!

Article in French here!

Agrandir le plan