Written by teekie@tsunami Tuesday, 21 February 2012 20:16

Today is Big Fat Tuesday! It seems we have a big fat everyday of the week recently. But, today it is official. You must get ready for the fast begins tomorrow on Ash Wednesday. And that preparation requires us to eat, consume or do everything in excess before tomorrow when we fast! Much of the world calls this pancake day. 

Traditionally pancakes were made in order to use up the final fresh ingredients in the house. The ones that could not be used during lent like eggs. NO eggs for forty days. I wonder if the chickens knew that! How did they hold them in? Well trained I guess.   The first pancake recipe was in a cookbook dated back to the year 1439. But the best part of a great Shrove (Fat) Tuesday in Great Britain are the pancake races.  A pancake day race has been run on shrove Tuesday since 1445 in Olney village in Buckinghamshire.  And there after in almost every village in Great Britain. It is thought to have started when one busy housewife heard the shriven bell at the village church and ran straight there so as to not be late. She was still holding her frying pan! This apparently started the pancake race. Modern runners now dress up in aprons and bonnets while holding a frying pan and flipping a pancake. The rules are that they must toss the pancake at least once to start the race and once to end it. Silly, but really so much fun when everyone lines up on the village green and runs flipping pancakes!

In 2007, it was reported that Earlsdon Cottage, the Warwick Street were treated with perhaps the most decadent pancakes in the world. They were the most expensive at £95 ($185) per pancake.  The batter contained Madagascar vanilla beans and were topped with a Dom Perignon Champagne jelly and fruit mixture  that were flambéed in in £100-a-shot Louis XIV cognac, and a scoop of amaretto ice cream. Chef Alex Lovell created them and the event was a success. Hopefully worth the price tag – wow.

Here is the obligatory weird stuff that comes with a day like this. The largest cooked pancake was made to celebrate the Co-operative movement 150th anniversary. The largest cooked pancake was 15 meters in diameter and weighed 3 tons. It was cooked in Rochdale, England and was estimated to contain over two million calories.  And then in June of 1997, Ralf Laue from Leipzig tossed a pancake 416 times in two minutes. In the 24 October 1999 Mike Cuzzacrea ran a marathon whilst continuously tossing a pancake in a pan. It took Mike Cuzzacrea three hours, two minutes and 27 seconds to complete the event.

Whatever the way Fat Tuesday is celebrated across the world, and whatever you choose to give up for Lent, we love this day of fun excess.  The best pancakes are really French crapes drizzled in dark chocolate from a Parisian Creperie. Guess I’d better get on a plane fast…

Written by AzulPescado Friday, 17 February 2012 06:23

And the Winner is...

I am a fan of music, I use it, I sing it (even in the shower), I dance to it, and when last Sunday night rolled around I was ready to see how my favorite songs and artists did. Let me just get right down to it?

There were twice as many performances as awards handed out at Sunday’s Grammy's. Some of them were excellent, most of them were mediocre and a few might even be described as just awful. And then there was whatever Nicki Minaj did — that is in a category of its own (after Nicki Minaj’s freaky performance, I am still having trouble sleeping at night after watching that). . Here’s the breakdown.

The Foo Fighters rocked the house at the Grammy's on Sunday night singing their hit "Walk." Singer Dave Grohl sporting a Slayer shirt was in amazing vocal form, unlike Chris Brown, who didn't even try to look like he wasn't lip syncing (but boy can that boy dance).  

They were playing off the main stage and the crowd went wild, even throwing up a few devil horns here and there. It was nice to see some actual rock music at the Grammys, complete with headbanging, sweat and concert t-shirts.

Rihanna had a scorching performance men (and women) everywhere were without a doubt zeroed in on the artist as the “only girl in the world” during both her solo and Coldplay collaboration performance on stage. Stunning attire that unbashfully showed off her bod and fashion fearlessness absolutely garnered a few fist pumps out of us ladies; the cherry on top being that her voice sounded top-notch and her feminine confidence was infectious.

The Civil Wars although this powerhouse duo from Nashville, Tennessee are still mildly under the radar – their undeniable country/folk talent and breathtaking debut album are, in my mind, more than enough cause to have them up on that stage (even if only for a brief snippet of their hit song) and winning awards. These two will absolutely stand the test of time, and if you haven’t had the chance to listen to them in full, please do – they’ll twang and two-step you into oblivion.

Bruno Mars I'd have to say, this little jazzed-up boy wonder and his Doo Wops and Hooligans trendy troop really impressed me. The bullhorn toss, the fancy James Brown-reminiscent footwork, sharp outfits and a whole lot of love for the 60s were only a few of the items that wowed me during the new kid on the block’s pumped-up presentation. Obviously pulling moves and costume looks out of the tickle trunk left over from days as a toddler Elvis impersonator – Mars’ overall new-meets-old concept had us grooving in our seats.

Let us now wrap it up with the winner who took home the show.  Adele swept the night and stole the show. Can we really be surprised? This shining vocalist and humble doll of a performer was the ideal inductee into the megastar Grammy-sweeping hall of fame, winning all six of her nominated categories (including Song and Record of the Year – a rare double-win), and sparkling as that undeniably gigantic voice who might ease the pain of having recently lost another one. Aside from her clean sweep and modest on-stage acceptance speeches, Adele brought the house down during her performance of the reprimanding break-up favourite “Rolling in the Deep”.

Written by teekie@tsunami Monday, 13 February 2012 21:12

The day before Valentine’s Day, we hope everyone is excited and happy for the day. This would be nice. It is not the case for some of us. So names like “Singles Awareness Day” surface and its understandable. However this exhibit in Croatia takes the Valentine’s cake! It is reported on by the Associated Press by Darko Bandik. It is a great comment on all those who have loved and lost – and ended it with a bang!

” What becomes of a garden gnome hurled in fury at a car during a stormy breakup? Or a teddy bear that was once a Valentine’s Day present? A wedding dress from a marriage gone awry? An ax that smashed through household furniture?

All are on display at the Museum of Broken Relationships in the Croatian capital, each with written testimonies telling tales of passion, romance and heartbreak.On Valentine’s Day, the museum sees its visits almost double.”The objects that are here represent all the stages of a breakup … and how people go through love,” said Drazen Grubisic, a designer and artist who co-founded the museum in 2010 in the Croatian capital.”We might say it’s a love museum, just upside down,” he said.

The mementos _ collected from all over the world _ are random and varied, ranging from fake rubber breasts to a cast from a broken leg. Each item comes with dates and locations of the relationships, and notes by their anonymous donors. Some are funny. The note next to a garter belt says: “I never put them on. The relationship might have lasted longer if I had.” Some are bitter. The garden gnome flew over a car driven by a husband who turned “arrogant and heartless.” It bounced on the asphalt, shattering its face. “It was a long loop, drawing an arc of time … that defined the end of love,” the note from Slovenia said.

An ax from Berlin was used by a woman to smash every piece of furniture her girlfriend had left behind. “The more the room filled with chopped furniture, (the more) I felt better.” The text by a blue frisbee reads: “Darling, should you ever get the ridiculous idea to walk into a cultural institution like a museum for the first time in your life, you’ll remember me.”

The museum, located just across from Zagreb’s City Hall where couples get married, currently displays some 100 “relics” out of about 1,000 that have been collected from around the world. Parts of the collection have traveled as far as Manila, London and Singapore to be put on display. In each city, the heartbroken can donate their stuff to the Zagreb museum. A prosthetic leg currently showcased in England at the National Centre for Craft and Design, was donated by a war veteran who fell in love with his physical therapist. A note says it lasted longer than the relationship because it was made of “sturdier material.”

The museum itself is the brainchild of a breakup. When Grubisic and co-founder Olinka Vistica, a filmmaker, split up, they got stuck when it came to dividing their sentimental memorabilia. They didn’t want to just get rid of it, so they created a museum. “Maybe sometime in your life you will want to remember some of the good parts of the relationship,” Grubisic said. He said that donors of mementos find the giving therapeutic. “They can move on,” he said. “They also show there’s something universal: We all have been brokenhearted at least once.”

So, plan a trip to see this anti-Valentine's exhibit. Then go out and let loose in the city. That sounds like a great way to spend February 14th. Maybe, you'll find a new Valentine? Damn straight!

Written by teekie@tsunami Saturday, 11 February 2012 00:39

Traditionally it seems the world and its people would get a bit bored during the long winter months of February and March. Churches remembered being full to bursting during December at Christmas and the populous by February was only interested in that one St Valentine and falling in love. Horror! The problem with falling in love is that the churches saw it as trouble.  It leads to decline in the morality of a society. At least that is how things were viewed a very long time ago. It is also somewhat why all the Carnivals started popping up in the weeks before Shrove Tuesday. The people had to get out their immorality before lent! Or else. Now it just makes for a great party.

One of the most famous of these carnivals in Europe takes place in Venice. It is a fantastic masquerade. We highlight this event as a magical party and it is to the extreme. It was historically as well. The practice started in 1268! This is old and apparently very wicked too. So much so, that the churches banned the wearing of masks in public so many times due to the moral decline of the public. Guess people felt a little freer to express themselves when no one knew who they were.  The practice kept coming back though and the tradition is an exciting one and remains magical. With one of a kind events happening during the two week period.

Bluefish describes the carnival as able to offer “you an unforgettable opportunity to walk back in history. From the moment of your approach to the magnificent Carnival Ball Palazzo, your imagination will soar… Then, upon your arrival on the doorstep, you will be welcomed into a fairy-tale world of dancers, singers, jesters, musicians, acrobats, fire-eaters. There is a team of well over one hundred artistes, technicians, set decorators, and especially make-up artists, who all assist to make the evening truly unforgettable and the best Venetian chefs who will prepare a Venetian style feast which will delight the palate as much as the eyes and waiters in livery will serve you the sumptuous dinner, and the wine will flow well into the wee hours of the morning. A true re-creation of an 18th Century Venetian party, where the guests are themselves actors, dressed as though they are being received by the Doge himself at the Court of the Serenissima.” This tradition is alive and well in Venice and must be seen and experienced to believe.

What will you be? Different from the American Halloween, this Carnival requires beauty and style with mystery.  The glamor will thrill and intice. What would you do with your mask on? 

Written by teekie@tsunami Thursday, 09 February 2012 04:04

“They” keep statistics for everything.  And consumer reports are our favorites. It is the way we keep the country thinking we are doing well.  So when American Express put out this study, places like design houses, champagne bottlers, and luxury destinations all cheered with relief. According to Amex, affluent consumers anticipate spending an amazing $281 million this year on Valentine’s Day! That well exceeds the $196 million of general consumer spending.  We should be thrilled! That is up 18% from last year – again 10% higher than the general spending. Are we all feeling a turn around in the economy? Or better yet falling in love at the same time?

Funny thing, the study showed that affluent consumers buy most of the same thing for this day of love than the general consumer. They just spend more!  That was logical. As a society we kinda are bombarded with exactly what is romantic to give on the 14^th. So advertising tells us that we want roses, it follows that we get them because we want to be romantic! Hallmark has us brainwashed? No? Too cynical?  Another statistic is that even though so much money will be spent, only 57% of us will get a gift. And the break down is that flowers will be given 29 percent of the time, gift cards at 19 percent, jewelry at 15 percent and electronics at 13 percent. Nothing says I love you more than a gadget or the romantic thoughtful gift card.

Maybe this has just been a wonderful year of love.  We will surely be spending on experiences. I mean Bella did marry Edward in the beautiful woods. And there was that royal wedding too.  The industry predicts that we all will take these examples and proposals and weddings will be up as well this year. And if you are planning to pop the question on Valentine’s Day, don’t think of yourself as a statistic but put all of this speculation out of your mind and take out the gigantic rock you’ve purchased  (thank you) for the occasion and think of her smile when she sees it. That really is all that matters! Oops, and that she says YES!

Whatever the reason, our consumer confidence or hopeless romanticism, it all bodes well for the Day of Love.  Wait, where was any mention of chocolates?..... Yummm – Don’t forget the chocolates!