jasminedesirees | loveliness. | Page 27

Author Archives: jasminedesirees
- flourless chocolate
  
  Posted at 9:16 pm by jasminedesirees, on April 8, 2014
  
  I’ve been lusting after this Tartine flourless chocolate cake since I first moved to California, almost 3 years ago. When I bought myself the Tartine cookbook for Christmas this year, the only reason I got it was so that I could make myself this cake for my birthday.
  
  Since I was traveling for almost 2 weeks around my birthday, I didn’t get the chance, but luckily I had four friends with birthdays in the same week and we had a huge joint party for them last weekend, so I was able to make it after all.
  
  It was definitely a bit of work, it’s a souffle cake so it took ages to beat all of the eggs, and I was basically camped out in front of the oven making sure it didn’t stay in too long since apparently over-baking for even one minute immediately renders it inedible, but it came out great, and it was moist and delicious.
  
  The cake itself is chocolatey and delightful, and then you cover it with a chocolate ganache to make it even more tantalizing. I also added some edible glitter since I still have a ton left over from my wedding cupcakes, and it’s so lovely.
  
  I pretty much put it on everything. If you’ve never made glittery fettucine alfredo you’re really missing an opportunity for wonderfulness and joy.
  
  Posted in chocolate, recipes, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged birthday, cake, chocolate, chocolate ganache, flourless chocolate cake, recipes, tartine
- papa
  
  Posted at 6:26 pm by jasminedesirees, on April 7, 2014
  
  Wishing a very happy birthday to my dad today. I’m pretty sure I have the best dad ever, he’s been a huge influence on me.
  
  I like to think I get my work ethic, my ability to party, and my what some people might call stubbornness, but I prefer to think of as determination, from him.
  
  I’m not quiteeee as much fun as he is (not many people are), and I don’t look nearly as good in a suit, but you can’t have everything in life.
  
  Posted in family | 0 Comments | Tagged birthdays, dad, family
- surreal
  
  Posted at 6:36 pm by jasminedesirees, on April 4, 2014
  
  We were lost in San Francisco yesterday, wandering on random streets, when we came across the coolest building ever.
  
  It was covered in beautiful graffiti, and had antique furniture hanging from the windows and the roof of the building.
  
  I know this place isn’t for everyone, but when I come across something like this I can’t help but feel lucky to have lived here, even if it was just for awhile.
  
  Posted in art, California, San Francisco, USA | 1 Comment | Tagged art, furniture, San Francisco, surreal
- waiting
  
  Posted at 3:27 pm by jasminedesirees, on April 3, 2014
  
  I am sitting at work waiting everrrr sooooo patientlyyyy for 5 o’ clock to get here. My sister is coming to spend the weekend with me and I’m so excited.
  
  She’s never really been here before, she came out to do the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer with me in September, but we were pretty much walking and suffering the entire time so it wasn’t an all around fun experience.
  
  I’m taking her to AsiaSF for supper tonight, I’ve been wanting to go there for ages but the boy is not keen on the idea, I can’t imagine why.
  
  We have lots of big plans, and the weather is supposed to be nice, plus I’m taking the day off to cavort around the bay with her tomorrow.
  
  I’m lucky because even though we live far apart I get to see her pretty often, but it’s usually with my whole family all together.
  
  I was thinking about it, and I’m pretty sure the last time we did something just the two of us was when I flew to Calgary to hang out with her for my 18th birthday, so this is long overdue.
  
  So now I just have to make it to 5 o’ clock. Did I mention I was waiting patiently?
  
  Posted in family, life, San Francisco | 0 Comments | Tagged Asia SF, avon walk for breast cancer, family, life, San Francisco, sisters, visit
- lord stanley
  
  Posted at 8:49 am by jasminedesirees, on April 2, 2014
  
  We weren’t in Toronto for long, and most of the time we had there was for wedding activities.
  
  Besides Niagara falls, and a feverish dash to a few different mini marts to stock up on my favourite Canadian snacks (mmmm Cheezies), we didn’t have time for much else, but I made sure we made time to check out the Hockey Hall of Fame.
  
  It’s located in downtown Toronto in a building filled with amazing stained glass windows. It has tons of memorabilia, facts about players and trophies, including the Stanley cup.
  
  I had my picture taken with the Stanley cup, and with some of Mario Lemieux’s jerseys. He was my first love, I remember watching a game with my dad when I was four or five and seeing him standing for the national anthem with his helmet off and thinking “That guy is beautiful”. He still is.
  
  Posted in Canada, travel | 1 Comment | Tagged Canada, hockey, hockey hall of fame, Mario Lemieux, Stanley cup, Toronto
- loveliness
  
  Posted at 5:27 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 28, 2014
  
  A few lovely things because it’s Friday, and because I said so.
  
  Posted in art, poetry, quotes | 0 Comments | Tagged art, champagne, hot air balloons, loveliness, poetry, quotes, travel
- niagara
  
  Posted at 6:50 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 26, 2014
  
  The first thing we did when we arrived in Toronto, after a feverish race for the nearest Tim Horton’s (they didn’t have Nanaimo bars there, and I was very sad) was rent a car and head for Niagara Falls. We had no idea where we were going, our phones didn’t work, but we were just hoping for the best.
  
  It was a freezing cold, extremely icy day, we’d had to sit on the runway for an hour after landing because it was too cold for the ground crews to come get us off the plane, and as we drove toward the Falls there were vehicles in the ditch left and right.
  
  I was pretty nervous and wasn’t sure if we were being stupid to try to get down there, there is something to be said for seizing the moment and taking advantage of your situation when traveling, but there is probably an argument to be made for not being unnecessarily reckless, which is one I’m still not usually able to win with myself. If I want to do something, I’m usually doing it, regardless of consequences or changes in circumstance, but we made it there without incident.
  
  I had to be back later that night for the bachelorette party, but we had a solid few hours to spend creeping around and checking out the Falls. I imagined us strolling around the walkway and taking in the view from all angles.
  
  Those plans evaporated almost immediately once we set foot outside the vehicle, even though it had been a few hours since our plane landed, and it was very sunny outside, it was still bitterly cold. We raced down to the overlook, took some pictures and enjoyed the gorgeous view for as long as we possibly could, which was all of 10 minutes.
  
  Still it was amazing to see Niagara Falls in person, it was especially neat to see parts of it frozen. I would have been sad if we’d been so close and wouldn’t have made the short journey, even if it was a bit treacherous.
  
  Posted in Canada, exploring, travel | 1 Comment | Tagged adventures, Canada, frozen, Niagara falls, traveling, waterfall, winter
- favourites
  
  Posted at 5:54 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 25, 2014
  
  A few things that are making me happy right now:
  
  This list of countries that Canadians are eligible to work and live in via working holidays visas. There are so many amazing places in the world, I want to live everywhere. And if you want something bad enough, you’ll figure out a way to do it. There are a lot of opportunities out there if you are interested enough to seek them out, and brave enough to take advantage of them.
  
  The fact that it is officially spring, flowers are starting to bloom and I can wear dresses and sandals without freezing to death.
  
  Cherry blossoms on my neighbour’s tree on a beautiful California day
  
  I came across The Dictionary of Obscure sorrows when I was creeping around the web one day. It is a dictionary of made up words that aim to define feelings or occurrences that have no real definition.
  
  This amazing Eyeko eyeliner is life changing. I couldn’t use liquid eyeliner before because it took so long to get the tiny, wispy little strokes even, and I usually ended up looking like Derek had punched me in the eye. Eyeko has a nice, thick tip so it’s like drawing on your eyeliner with a Sharpie. It is way easier to get a consistent line, and it stays on all day.
  
  Sometimes I get free samples from Sephora, and it reminds me that the world is a lovely place full of wonderful people
  
  Posted in exploring, favourites, travel, Uncategorized | 1 Comment | Tagged canadian, dictionary of obscure sorrows, eyeko, eyeliner, favourites, sephora, work visa
- 911
  
  Posted at 6:34 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 24, 2014
  
  Most of the things we did in New York were pretty surreal, I’ve wanted to go there all my life, and it was neat standing in front of places that I’ve seen millions of times in photos and movies.
  
  The most surreal thing was the 9/11 memorial. It’s such a beautiful, peaceful spot now with the water flowing and spraying in the wind, and people gathered silently around looking at the memorials and taking pictures. It’s very hard to picture it as the site of such a horrible thing.
  
  I really tried to just stand there quietly and take it all in, and tried to imagine how it must have felt to be there that day, going from feeling safe and secure, in a familiar place you go to every single day, to horrible pain, terror and uncertainty in a split second.
  
  I’m sure you can’t fully appreciate what it was truly like if you weren’t there, but I’m glad I was finally able to visit the site and see all of the names. Watching so much coverage of the attacks on the news, it almost felt like watching a movie, even though I knew it was actually happening. Being there in person reminds you that those were real people who died that day, somebody’s family, somebody’s friends. It could have been any of us.
  
  And seeing the pools in the shadow of the new World Trade Center 1 tower reminds you that people are resilient, and that even if they’ll never forget, they will always rebuild.
  
  Posted in life, New York, travel, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged 9/11, life, memorial, New York, rebuild, world trade center
- lady liberty
  
  Posted at 8:19 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 21, 2014
  
  On a bitterly cold morning in NYC, at the crack of dawn basically which seemed like a good plan when I was planning our trip, but didn’t take into account the drinking into the wee hours of the night before, we loaded onto a boat to go see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
  
  We stood up at the very front of the boat, outside, to get the best view, but we were completely alone. Everyone else was inside the cabin, warm and toasty and looking at us like we were nuts. My mother pointed out that she lives in Canada and it’s way colder there. I reminded her that I’ve been living in Hawaii and California for the last seven years, and helpfully offered to push her in the water so she could remember what it felt like to be freezing.
  
  Once we got to Liberty Island, we climbed up about 250 stairs to the top of the platform. The Statue of Liberty is definitely smaller than I thought it was going to be, it looks absolutely enormous in all of the movies and shows I’ve ever seen, but it was still really neat to see it in person.
  
  I was also surprised and a little worried that I was the only person I could see to have posted an upskirt shot on Instagram. You learn new things about yourself everyday, apparently, like the fact that you are a kind of a pervert.`
  
  As we were leaving Liberty Island, we noticed an empty tour boat heading to New Jersey that nobody was on. We asked the guy where we would get tickets, thinking we might go over and have lunch in New Jersey, and he gave us the strangest look and said “New Jersey? You don’t need tickets for New Jersey. Who would pay to go to New Jersey?”. He was not wrong.
  
  Posted in exploring, New York, travel | 3 Comments | Tagged exploring, New York, statue of liberty, tourists
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