the ever awesome nara showed us how to make bread at her house. we put some amaranth in it, and ate it all up as soon with some butter and agave as it came out of the oven. delicious!
we made bread!
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Tag Archives: cooking
world premiere: nayou’s food documentary!
ladies and gentlemen, we are proud to present the second installment of nayou’s documentary series. this one is about a topic dear to all of our hearts – food. we were inspired to shoot a food documentary after nayou started concoting all kinds of recipes in the kitchen a couple of months ago. he has made us some delicious infused waters (some of which we sold from a stand outside our house), some great roasted vegetables and many other weird and whacky dishes. it was clear that he loves to play in the kitchen so we decided to film his antics and share it with the world.
so without further ado, here is the world premiere of nayou’s food documentary. bon appetit!
iron chef, jr.
we’re slowly but surely working on filming our documentary about food. watch this space!
lots of photos
here i am, finally breaking another drought of posts. it has been a rather busy time for us lately. i’ve been shooting off my resume to various and sundry companies to see where my next job is going to land us. school finished and all the kids are on holidays so there has been a steady stream of them in and out of our house. the rainy season has started in earnest so we have been making sure our house is keeping us dry (which it is). luckily brenda has been keeping up with her great ipod touch photos, so i’ll post them all here for you to feast your eyes on.
first up are two shots from a store called revolucion del sueno (revolution of dreams). its a super funky boutique run by a french couple whom we befriended the first time we were in sayulita. they bring a hip twist to the vibrant mexican imagery and colour palette, and its always a pleasure to go into their store and check out their wares. definitely worth a visit if you are in these neck of the woods.
these ones were taken by brenda at a beach called carricitos, about a ten minute drive from sayulita. its usually deserted, and very, very picturesque. we like going there because there are lots of beautiful shells as well as hermit crabs. the sun sets right over the ocean. for me its one of those magical places where just being there makes you so grateful to be alive.
but onto more important topics – nayou. our little guy has been doing a lot of eating and growing of late. he’s been bumping his head on countertops and other ledges that he used to walk under without any problem. brenda and i have watched his body grow taller and leaner, and his energy levels are high. which is to be expected from a five-and-a-half year old i suppose!
experiments abound in our house right now. nayou is always taking random dishes, tupperware, cutlery, duct tape etc for one thing or another. this is a great shot of the mad scientist about to embark on some new investigation.
he is still very much into finding insects and other creatures. check out the size of this ant he found in our front yard. we think it must be a queen ant who got displaced with all the rain:
this is our breakfast spot on our front patio. i love sitting here and welcoming the day with a nice strong cup of coffee. we found this local, organic brand of coffee called capulin which is just divine. its turned me into a coffee snob because all other coffees pale in comparison to the taste of these beans. notice also our “watermelon cake” – one of chef nayou’s breakfast inventions.
on most afternoons this family sets up a trampoline in the plaza and you get fifteen minutes for ten pesos (about $1usd). there used to be a bouncy castle as well which was the hot favourite, but the trampoline is pretty good too.
just in case you weren’t convinced that brenda is the best mama ever, here is something to seal the deal – she converted this space we have in our backyard into an outdoor bedroom! there have been about three outside sleepovers to date, and i’m sure many more will come as well. the space is really cosy and every time nayou has slept out there he was out all night like a rock. we’ve watched some movies out there at night and its good for that too!
its also a nice chill space during the day:
some days i have to get my practice in however i can. this was a pretty rainy day and our old foster doggie came in for a visit soaking wet. he really wanted to lay down on our palm frond mat, but i made him stay in the yoga room until he was dry. when i wanted to start my practice he refused to budge so i just began with him on the mat. then nayou saw us both in there and after that any hope of peace and quiet was dashed forever.
we met this great guy from canada called vasant (“was” as in calm for short) who stayed in sayulita for a month. he bought a bunch of indian spices with him and taught me how to make pav bhaji. he was generous enough to leave the pav bhaji masala with me so every now and then i have been satisfying my craving for indiand food by cooking it up. it is delicious!
we need to get this kid and agent and retire.
another cool thing about having a big backyard to play in – waterfights! even better – nekkid waterfights!
after the success of nayou’s bug documentary, we have started shooting another one. this time its about food and cooking. we haven’t got very far yet, but hopefully we will get around to finishing it soon. watch this space. brenda made nayou the apron he is wearing out of oilcloth!
nayou snacking on the sayulita-famous chocobanana (full disclosure: he didn’t really like it).
this was so cute – nayou and brenda found a hole in the wall of our neighbour’s carport where a snake was hiding. the next day one of nayou’s friends came over so they took a bunch of stuff over to the hole to stake it out. these photos were taken before the mass of extra stuff arrived. i love this shot of them just sitting there in the driveway chatting away waiting for the snake!
nayou is in love with his new yellow frog umbrella. it gets lots of use as a sunbrella and also for playing in the rain.
nayou did his first photobomb with style:
our good friend sondra went back to santa barbara after four months in sayulita. we met her the last time we were here and ended up coming back more or less at the same time! it was sad to see her go, but i’m sure we’ll bump into her again somewhere… probably sayulita. these are some photos from her going away gathering at the beach.
the tiny photobomber (with bonus canine) strikes again!
crazy thing #314 you can do in mexico and get away with: chuck your kids on the roof of your suv and have them hold on for dear life while you drive (moderately slowly).
our friends are running a summer camp for kids at the beach. one of the activities they are working on is to build a surfboard out of plastic bottles. i’m very curious to see how they plan on tying the bottles together. if we end up with something wave-worthy, then i am going to build a stand up paddle board with the bottles! here is the beginning of the layout.
the fruit and veg you get around here is insane. especially the mangoes are just divine. this was the bulk of our haul today. it looks like there is a lot of variety, but its mostly just a huge pile of mangoes!
and to finish off, here is yesterday’s sunset in sayulita:
the recap
all kinds of things have been happening in hot hot sayulita. here is a quick recap, as told through the lens of brenda’s ipod touch. if you follow her on instagram then these may all be old news. sorry!
the biggest event was brenda’s birthday on the 6th. she (voluntarily and with pleasure) made herself a super yummy carrot cake out of coconut flour which we devoured in record time (thus no photos). we spent most of the day out at punta de mita catching some waves and relaxing on the beach. i was a bad boyfriend and neglected to take any photos of the birthday girl. shame on me one thousand times!
not to make this all about me, but my hair is crazy.
we hit up this cute surf bar on the way home – we’ve only been there twice but the food and views are amazing. definitely one of our favourite spots in the sayulita area!
nayou got a greek salad all to himself. the waiter looked at us strangely when we just ordered a salad for him, but nayou devoured it!
i love this kid.
once we were fed, lots of funny birthday shenanigans ensued.
these ones are my favourite.
there has been another surge in the number of private yoga classes i’ve been teaching. its supposed to be the low season but people are definitely still passing through. last week i had a wonderful lady from texas for a few classes and she invited the three of us to lunch at the four seasons in punta de mita. the place was as swanky and as awesome and you would expect it to be. basically there are beverages and snacks coming around all the time, and you don’t have to look very far to find someone who is willing to do whatever it is you need them to do. want a towel? no problem. need water? no problem. want to hang out by the beach? they’ll get chairs, umbrellas and beach toys ready for you.
jena and her two daughters were wonderful hosts, and i am so thankful for them for giving us a chance to live it up like rockstars for a day. so generous! i guess its one of the perks of being a private yoga instructor… karma perhaps?
brenda has been taking some rockin’ photos with her ipod lately. this is nayou with his friend perla. they used to hang out as two year olds when we did our first stay in sayulita. look at them now!
more cuteness:
nayou has been doing lots of experiments with flour, food colouring, water and other random things he has been scrounging from the kitchen. here is the mad scientist at work:
in addition to his science experiments, nayou has also proven to be a bit of an entrepreneur. this morning he made some agua fresca by infusing some limes and oranges into some water. he and brenda then set up a stand outside our house. one cup cost 5 pesos (~50 cents), but people loved the drink so much they ended up paying an average of 20 pesos per cup! those are some nice tips.
also nayou asked me if i wanted to do some yoga with him today! that was pretty cool. he led me through some of his poses, including his very own “love pose”. its not the one we’re doing in the photo, so we’ll have to get a shot of that some other time.
cooking with nayou
more madness from our kitchen
super fun science time
nayou, wheatgrass master
scenes of domestic bliss
i’m going to stop whining about how long its been in between posts. it seems like every time i sit down to write, i start off with something about how long its been. from now on, i’m gonna just write what’s up and leave the excuse making alone 🙂
things have been pretty cruisy lately. nothing major happening, but lots of day-to-day fun. we’ve been enjoying the small stuff this “winter” (sydney winter is like a wellington summer) – going to markets, playing at home or at parks, digging (nayou’s new obsession), reading, that sort of thing.
oh yeah, somewhere in there brenda and i did a ten day juice fast. compared to the lemonade diet that we used to do, it was super easy. i felt amazing afterwards and we have continued on with the juicing in the mornings. here is nayou getting acquainted with the fruits and veggies.
this photo is amazing because it was taken on the front lawn of the house i used to live in back in high school! we stopped by took look at the house on our way back from a market on the north shore, and the owners were super nice and gave us a tour. they are in the midst of a huge renovation – essentially a new house – so i was just in time to see our old kitchen cabinets before they went off to where old cabinets go to die. the owners also found an old box of books that we had left in the attic 17 years ago so we scored some pretty awesome new reading material too!
photo dump
yep, its that time again where i’ve left it too long and have lots of photos to post, so i’m just going to whip through them and let the pictures do the talking.
first up some photos from august 1st, swiss national day. nayou has been really into each peach pear plum, but couldn’t quite relate to plum pie since he had never seen or tasted one. so grandma made one!
that evening we went to the village get-together, but went home before the fireworks because of poor weather. on our way there i noticed that my parents and i were all wearing these earthy tones, as if we had coordinated or something. it reminded me of the outfits that the vampires wear in the twilight movies, so we did a little photo shoot to commemorate this amazing coincidence.
we also had the privilege of having a look into my mum’s two beehives. because of errant weather her honey harvest this year was dismal, but apparently its a lucky thing that the bees are even alive and healthy. we still managed to get 2+kgs out of one hive, although it wouldn’t last long if nayou got his hands on it!
last week we did an overnight trip to grindelwald, a town three hours drive from geneva. its classic swiss setting has made it a huge tourist attraction, especially for the japanese, but it still looks more or less like the village it has been for centuries. its located deep in a glacial valley which affords spectacular views, but unfortunately we were greeted with clouds and rain on our first day and more greyness on the second. still, it was fun to check out the town and its environs. this place is truly stunning, even when you can’t see much!
here we are in the gondola on our way up the mountain. we were planning to hike along a trails famous for its marmots, but had to cut it short 15 minutes in because of torrential rain.
our clothes got absolutely soaked, and since we didn’t have any spares, my mum and i hit the town in our sexy wear, reserved for only the most special occasions.
at least nayou had some proper rain gear, courtesy of our neighbours.
thankfully the beds in our hotel were warm and cosy!
the next day we voluntarily got (a little bit) wet when we hiked along this rather precarious path bolted into the stone. it was cool though – it was a reminder of how powerful the force of water is!
this weekend brenda and i went up to montbovon, another town up in the mountains where my friend layth lives. layth and i know each other from high school and there were a couple of other friends from that era there. it was very awesome to see them again! the only bummer was that i forgot to take a photo to commemorate the occasion. got some nice ones of our hike though.
the view of mont blanc on the way home was gorgeous too:
grandma found these fairy wings and she has been playing fairies with nayou for a couple of days now. we also found a matching tunic to go with it (at h&m no less!). soooo cute!
nayou and jiji discover the joys of the ipod touch:
and that’s about it for now. time for bed!
