The latest lunch-break invention: sweet and chunky chicken salad! 
What you need for composing the salad:
What you need for the dressing:
Mix and enjoy! And do not forget to check out Pearlspotting on Facebook, too.
Surely every tourist already knows this, but when you visit Paris (or any other French town), do not miss a food market! I go to the Bastille Market every Sunday and love it. For less than 10€ we buy seasonal fruits and vegetables that last entire week. 
Not only the Bastille market is very affordable, but the atmosphere is particular, too. Vendors shout at each other (and you) and everyone is from somewhere. A true melting pot of French regions. Fish comes from Brittany, cheese from Normandy, snails from Burgundy, beef from Limousin, etc. 
Even if we have our usual suppliers, every Sunday we meet new ones. Like this kind fishmonger from Brittany who took time to chat with us.
As you can see, visiting a market is fascinating, but it is also très sympa to walk home with several kilos of tomatoes, melons, onions, mint, lemons, carrots and salad. Not forgetting a bottle of Côtes de Provence rosé to celebrate the beginning of the summer! 
Bon appetit everyone! It is 6 o’clock and I will have Greek for a late lunch.
Last Thursday night I was invited to a soirée privée to celebrate the launch of the Conran Shop‘s spring/summer 2014 collection called “A Season in France”. 
It was a fantastic evening full of sinfully enjoyable Billecart-Salmon champagne, mouthwatering amuse-bouches and eccentric characters approaching us with more soirée privée invitations. Very Parisian indeed!
The collection was stylish and cheerful. It really seemed as if the objects had been chosen for the purpose of making gardening, cooking, playing, cleaning etc. an enjoyable moment!
Indeed, the colors and the presentation of the collection put me in such a good mood that I returned again yesterday afternoon to absorb more energy from this lovely, happy collection. 
What do you think, does it get any more French and Parisian than this?
PS During two more days, benefit from a 15% discount on selected items! Where? Here: http://www.conranshop.fr/ How? Use this promotional code: LOVEFRANCE
The first coffee of this spring enjoyed on the balcony. Need to turn this into a habit! 
PS For months now, my husband has been buying gluten-free chocolate biscuits made of rice flour from Bio c’Bon –healthy alternative to croissants…
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Note: Due to a problem on WordPress, you probably missed the last post Perfect Weather for Hamburgers.
Maybe it has something to do with yesterday’s Last Days of Summer film (who knows in what way), but tonight I went jogging, got home, looked out of the kitchen window and decided that it is certainly the most perfect weather for making hamburgers!
Don’t you just agree? 
While I bake my hamburger steaks, tell me something: how do clouds trigger craving for hamburgers?
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Six weeks of globetrotting is over and every place I saw during my travels was rewarding in its own way.
India was fantastic, as always, and so rich in everything: culture, history, people, food, religion, architecture etc. This was my fourth one-month-long trip to India and I enjoyed it as much as I have enjoyed my previous trips. Definitely The Place to be in for me –I am very attached to India and miss my dear friends terribly. Will be writing a lot more about India in the weeks to come (hope everyone enjoy reading about India??)!
Unfortunately I was a bit sick in Dubai so I could not do as much as I had planned, but I did manage to squeeze in enough shopping and pool time. And super delicious Iranian kebabs, but more about that in another post.
My last destination was Finland, my country of origin. The country returned to winter last week and I saw snow, sleet and hail. All this felt almost pleasantly exotic after the tropics but unfortunately I was not prepared clothes-wise for this weather shock (from 38C in Dubai to barely 8C in Finland…). So, the weather directed me toward indoor activities and I took advantage of visiting museums and doing a food tour of Helsinki, but more about all this a bit later.
Now back to Paris. What is it like to return after six weeks? What did I do upon arriving at home?
First, I put fish in the freezer. My father is a keen fisherman so I usually bring “home-caugh” pike-perch and burbot to Paris, just like my parents do when they visit us in Paris (Bringing a little bit of Finnish Christmas to Paris).
Second, I checked upon flowers and plants on the balcony. Prior to travelling, we had spent a lot of time (and money) planting pansies and other plants so it was important to find them in a good health. And judging by the photos, I think everyone agrees that they were doing well! 
Third, I installed a little bit of India at home. The nine-kilo marble Nandi statue that we purchased in Varanasi found its place on the balcony. It is now part of our small Hindu temple where Nandi gets showered by flower petals and candles. We have been searching for a beautiful Nandi for a long time and are happy to have finally found this elegant piece. Furthermore, to ease Nandi’s homesickness, we placed it toward the East, India.
Another object we have been looking for a while is a brass bowl (urli). After a lot of exploration we finally found a lovely one in a rather touristic shop in Bombay. Urli is placed on our bathroom sink and looking very good. Moreover, this is a great way to have fresh flowers in the bathroom! 
A lot of photos about flowers, but I guess it is a good sign: summer is almost here!!
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What are your thoughts on these Franco-Indian decoration ideas? Do you tend to bring design objects from your travels and does mixing styles always work? Would love to see links to your homes!! Until then, have a great week!
Friday afternoon we flew SpiceJet from Trivandrum to Bombay, so it hasn’t even been 48 hours in this charming city and already we have done so much!
Straight from the airport, still carrying sand from the Indian Ocean in our shoes, we were taken to meet an art collector. Afterwards we were treated to amazing homemade parsi food (google parsis if you have never heard about them!). On Saturday we went on a shopping spree: Anokhi and FabIndia, and afterwards tasted super delicious Gujarati thali at Golden Star. In the evening drinks at one of the most exclusive private clubs of Bombay and a fabulous, mouthwatering kebab dinner at Neel, enjoyed with excellent Indian sparkling rosé Chandon and most perfect company… I don’t think even Louis Vuitton City Guide could do better!!
Let’s see what today brings to us!
GOLDEN START THALI: http://www.goldenstarthali.com/
NEEL AT TOTE ON THE TURF: http://travel.cnn.com/mumbai/eat/neel-tote
CHANDON: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5HOEXFNpyU (launched by Moët Hennessy)
ANOKHI: http://www.anokhi.com/
FABINDIA: http://www.fabindia.com/
I have never seen a country where a simple breakfast varies as much as it does in India. Generally speaking North Indian breakfast that tourists most commonly come across with is about masala omelette or puri (bread made of wheat) served with curry stew, whereas South Indian breakfast is more about eating things cooked with rice flower and coconut.
I have now had two breakfasts at Somatheeram Ayurveda Resort and it has been a great pleasure to sample typical Kerala delicacies while watching the enormous Indian Ocean in front of me. Yesterday I had herbal tea, banana lassi and coffee as drinks. To eat I had curry leaf idly (the round thing in the photo) with sambar, rice puttu (rice flour dough layered with grated coconut) with kadala curry and sweet rice ada (Kerala delicacy cooked in banana leaf).
This morning there were some variations so I had green pea curry, tattu dosa (again, made of rice flour) with sambar and chutneys, and steamed banana. Rice ada was the same as yesterday.
I am neither a big wheat eater nor a great fan of eggs, so I am very happy eating idlies and dosas for breakfast. In fact I like South Indian breakfast so much that I could eat them for breakfast even in Paris –all I would need is a live in South Indian cook!
Note: As Somatheeram Ayurveda Resort welcomes guests that are serious about feeling better by eating well and by following special treatments, there are specific diets available for all sorts of people and illnesses. For example, when I told my Ayurveda doctor during the initial consultation that I don’t stand wheat and eggs very well he directed me towards a gluten-free diet (he printed out a list of items that are good for me to eat!).
Somatheeram Ayurveda Resort: http://somatheeram.in/
The first morning in Kerala. It was nice to sleep windows open, without AC. It is humid and hot, but only around 33C (not 40C as it was in Rajasthan and Varanasi). The only sounds entering our cottage are coming from strong waves that crash on the shore of the Indian Ocean, insects (yes, this is tropics) and birds. Lovely.
We are staying at Somatheeram Ayurveda Resort, the highly-awarded first Ayurveda resort in the world where we spent a few night in 2010. This time we wanted to return because the treatments had been very efficient and the location on a cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean is absolutely stunning, not forgetting the chef’s sublime Kerala food. 
So, here I am, resting my body, but also my ears and eyes. Southern drivers don’t seem to use the horn as much as they do in the north. Roads are quieter. Kerala is very lush and green –no wonder it is called God’s Own Country. There are palm and banana trees all over and in addition, there is the vast sea in front of one’s eyes. Pampering and rejuvenation can begin!
Somatheeram Ayurveda Resort: http://somatheeram.in/
Yesterday morning we said good bye to Varanasi by placing a floating candle in the Ganges, rode a taxi to the airport and checked into a flight to Calcutta. There had been two options regarding flying to the south –via Delhi or via Calcutta– and since we have never been to Calcutta, we chose the latter option. The second reason was that we were really eager to taste Bengali food.
Our time in Calcutta was limited to fourteen hours but it was enough to fall in love with this former capital of India. It seemed very colorful, lively and culturally vivid, and yes, the food was out of this world. At 4.30 in the morning when we got into a taxi, the city was preparing itself for a new day. Market vendors were getting thousands of chicken out to the street and the yellow cabs were moving fast as ants. It was indeed a very memorable departure from Calcutta, and we will without any doubt return to experience more as soon as we can!
From Calcultta we flew to Bombay, changed into a different Jet Airways plane, flew over the house of our Bombay friends that we are going to see in one week, and some two hours later landed in Trivandrum, Kerala.
Almost every time I move from one place to another in India I fall in love with the new place. The Indian continent is extremely diversified and I absolutely love the fact the every new destination reveals something new to me, be it textiles, clothes, style, food, art, culture, religion or architecture.
Moreover, thinking about being in Varanasi, the holy Hindu city, yesterday morning, spending the night in the British-influenced Calcutta and writing this post from my bed in Kerala where I am surrounded by coconut trees, Ayurveda doctors and the Indian Ocean is mind blowing. Apart from incredible India, in which other country one can in less than 48 hours so easily travel between such culturally diversified places?
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