Virgin: Spot the band

Here's what I just received from a very 'busy' colleague of mine. It's an advertisment of Virgin Megastores packed with notional illustrations of 75 big artists / groups. Could you identify them? A solution of this nerve cracking photo follows...(when?).

A Weekend over Baked Food

Let's start from the basics. Place: X's country house in Kineta. Date: Weekend of 19-20/11/2005. Persons: Me and X.


Our idea to hit the road while the weather forecasts stated heavy storms over the weekend was kinda risky. But we did it. Packed our stuff and go. It's only 40 minutes drive though. Why waste our weekend in busy Athens while we can go to Kineta and relax? (we thought) and that's why the big storm found ous trapped at X's house.

But for the weather, everything else was planned until the last detail. The food, the food and the desert! We both had the idea to use the big oven (the old style ones that use wood and charcoal to bake) and prepare a nice piglet (sorry Winnie fans!) with potatoes and quinces!

Preparations started 2 hours in advance in order to heat up the oven and turn woods into charcoal. Until then we prepared the tray with the food. An old greek recipe suggest placing the piglet on top of vine tree branches to add taste and that's how we proceeded. Two hours later everything was ready. 5 extra minutes later everything was devoured!

Since there was extra heat left, X suggested preparing our own bread and baking it in the oven. The dough was ready in 15 minutes and the bread (actually two loaves of bread, one plain and the other filled with the tradiotinal greek cheese: feta).

Finally our lunch/dinner ended with a specially prepared chocolate profiterol prepared by myself. All from scratch, all deliciously eaten with worries and concerns! Recipes for the cheese bread and profiterol follows.

CHEESE BREAD WITH FETA
1kg of flour (better use 1/2kg of white and 1/2kg of whole grain flour)
20g of yeast
2 big spoons of olive oil
1 big spoon salt
300g of feta cheese (ok use any other type of cheese you prefer)
water (probably round 3 glasses of water)

Stir in flour, yeast and salt so they will mix together. Add the oil and start pouring water until the dough is detouched from your fingers. Keep adding water for a little more until the dough is soft and is about to become sticky again. Lay dough on a tray, cover with cheese and pinch edges together so as to make a little basket. Let dough rest somewhere warm for an hour and bake in 200C for about 45 minutes. Bread is ready when the crust is brown and the inside is not moisty.

MILK CHOCOLATE PROFITEROL
Puffs:
100ml milk
50ml water
3 big spoons flour
1 big spoon butter
2 eggs

Creme:
1 litre milk
250gr flour
150gr sugar
2 vanilles
1 big spoon fresh butter
300kg milk chocolate (less/more to taste)

For the puffs stir in milk, water and butter in a saucepan, medium heat, bring to boil and add the flour. Remove from heat and add the eggs one by one. The final mixture should be able to stand. Take small portions of th mixture and place them on a baking tray, leave space between them, and bake for about 15-20 minutes in 170C so they will rise.

Prepare the creme by adding all above ingredients except chocolate in a saucepan, medium heat, and once thickened remove the 1/6 of the mixture in order to fill the puffs. Add the chocolate to the remaining mixture and remove from heat.

Fill the puffs with the vanilla creme and place them in a bowl. Cover with the chocolate creme and put it in the fridge for more than 4 hours before consuption. Enjoy!

Google tips that come handy!

Don't you just luv Google? I don't know why I am so brand-friendly but I really love everything that goodle provides. Applications, search engines..everything. I just came through with some useful tips on using the search engine in more ways than just typing 'interesting blog' and getting thousands of links in return (not including my blog!).

The search engine can also be used as a calulator, currency converter, encyclopedia, shop, weather forecast, movie listings, telephone directory, map finder...and in many many more other ways.

Wanna know how (syntax etc)? Just click on this link and everything will be clarified.

(Will I get paid for this?)

Kitson: Celebrity Fashion Delivered To You

Here's a nice one. Ever wanted to find that particular pair of jean that Gwen Stefani was wearing on a video, or the T-Shirt that a famous act was wearing on that award show?

I just found out about Kitson, a fance webspot where you can find fashion lines from various celebrity people (for instance Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake) along with top fashion gear & accessories.

While browsing I came up with the funny tees that either support Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie and a painting that A. Jolie is portrayed as the tempting Eve who's seducing Adam aka B.Pitt.Take a look and enjoy.

It's official! I'm a Captain!!!

Well, sort of...

Yesterday I took the final writting exams to obtain a driving diploma (licence) for sailing ships under 40 legs. As you can imagine from the title, I succeeded!

Lessons, started one day after my birthday party in mid September. Every Saturday morning (tough cookie when you expect that you will be sleeping until late on weekends), me & X, had the practical lessons (8 in total) and every Monday evening the theoritical ones.

Practical lessong involved all procedures with the preparation of the ship and the sails in order to be able to travel, anchoring and manoeuvring within ports.

Theoritical lessons included topics on the history of sailing, parts of the ship, dealing with maps / routes / positions, anchoring, disaster cases, weather etc.

It's a been a wonderful two monts but yesterday, all learning pleasure came to an end with the final test. Now, planning excursions with our new friends is the next best thing.

Sailing: totally suggested!

Bored? Add colour to your life!

As today has proven to be a little bit uneventful, I tried to find a colourful image to cheer me up. I have changed my desktop to this new beutiful drawing of someone, somewhere, somehow. The funny thing is that I am still bored!