31 December 2012

Sretna Nova Godina!



Doviđenja 2012....a year of many firsts and many new life lessons.
Dobro Došla 2013....a year which will bring a welcome list of new and amazing things.

My wish for one and all:
May the new year bring you health, happiness, and much joy.  And may there always be something wondrous lighting the path ahead of you.

Sretna Nova Godina!












17 December 2012

Ho Ho Ho




Here's a pan of fresh baked Christmas cookies right out of the oven, and they are gluten-free too! 

Wishing everyone a holiday season filled with lots of laughter, love, good friends and good cheer.  Sretan Božić y'all  :-)







01 December 2012

Shiny things

So it is December 1st, 2012.  There's a nip in the air.  There's snow in parts of Croatia (and we might get a few flurries tonight in our neck of the woods.)  Christmas is coming.  There's about a million things to do.  And all I can think of is this:  what the heck do I do with all my illy coffee cans?



I switched over to illy brand coffee about a year ago.  Before that, I was a Lavazza lover.  I exclusively drank Lavazza coffee for almost 12 years.  Here in Croatia the Lavazza was a bit stronger, but I adjusted my tastebuds and continued loving it.  But then it got harder and harder to find.  I ended up going directly to the distributor in Zagreb at one point and bought an entire carton (48 boxes) so I wouldn't have to go without my precious coffee.  But it kept getting harder to find.  The shelves at Konzum and Plodine and Mercator started filling up with lots of instant cappuccino mixes, and there was less and less space left for old-fashioned espresso coffee.  I actually started rationing my Lavazza!

Jump ahead to last year when I admitted defeat, and decided to try the illy coffee.  It was love at first taste.  I couldn't believe that I'd been denying myself the pleasure of such a beautiful tasting coffee.  So I switched and never looked back.

The illy I like comes vacuum packed in these nifty shiny cans.  With screw top lids.  So they are reusable.  At first I used them for things like pencils and pens.  Then for dried beans.  Then thumb-tacks and elastic bands.  But now I've got about 25 of these sitting in my kitchen pantry and I don't know what to do with them.  They are just too gorgeous to throw away.

For now, I'm just stashing them in my cupboards and hoping that I come up with some useful idea.  Maybe there's a secret illy-coffee-canister-horder-society out there.  If they contact me, I'll let you know.