THE GREAT FINDS OF FLORENCE

I’m thinking about re-naming my apartment ‘Hotel Marieke’, as I already had two friends over in one week. It’s so much fun! I love to share my life and favorite places in the city with them and it is so nice to talk to each other without the daily stress and deadlines we have at home. This week me and my second visitor and one of my best friends – Laura – walked around the city centre a lot and found some great stores, restaurants and bars. I’m starting to find my way in this beautiful city.

I always love the stores and restaurants you find without looking for them, because they turn out to be a great find often. One of those places, in my opinion is a vintage store called ‘I Chiodo’. This store doesn’t only sell amazing pieces, they customize whatever you would like to have customized. Shoes, denim shorts, bags, accessories, the owners of this little store make every piece even more special using studs, dying techniques and other nice details. I found Levi’s denim shorts there, which now have a nice dye dip look - done in 10 minutes -. The thing I like most about this store is the fact that the owners 'build' the store together, using their passion, creativity, motivation, sense of style and skills.

Italians are known for their love for food. Meat is an important part of their meals, especially dinner. I became a vegetarian a while ago and eating healthy without meat is challenging here. Fortunately, I found this great vegan/vegatarian restaurant in the city centre of Florence, called Brac. This is not just a restaurant, but a bookstore, courtyard, restaurant and library all in one. The interior is minimalistic, modern and alternative, which is rare in Florence. Furthermore, there are a thousand books, to buy or to read while eating. Not only the interior and concept is great in my opinion, the food is even better. Delicious pasta’s, salads, panini’s, desserts and coffee, everything is worth trying.
For those who find it hard to choose, Brac has the perfect solution, called ‘piatto unico’. A plate with smaller portions of different dishes, which you can put together yourself. All the dishes are without meat, some without dairy, egg’s or fish as well. A great place to visit if you're in Florence and it's not expensive at all. 

Here are some pictures of both places, hope you like them! 

I Chiodo Vintage store
Via dell'Anguillara 39/R

La Libreria Brac

via de Vagellai 18

INTRODUCING THE BLOND COOK

One of the reasons I started this blog, is because I am a big fan of food, styling and especially the combo. The thing I have to tell you will be a little weird after reading the first sentence. I don’t like to cook. Correction, I don’t like to cook dinner.

Two things I do love to prepare are breakfasts & baking-goods. Breakfast for mother’s day, a cake for a celebration or muffins on a rainy Sunday morning. There is always a reason for the two B’s (breakfast and baking) if you ask me!

During my styling course at Artemis Styling Academy, I couldn’t find any time to practice my styling and photography skills, because I was so busy with the regular assignments. After two difficult and stressful years, I graduated last week. What a relief! A logical thing to do would be to lie on the couch watching movies all day, but I decided I want to go back to Italy, where I’ve lived two years ago. The main reason to trade my hometown for two months is to learn the language. I think Italian is the most beautiful language there is, and my wish and goal is to learn this language and to get to know the culture and people. Furthermore, I came up with the idea to combine my passion for styling with cooking food using an Italian cookbook. In this way, I will learn Italian words and improve my styling skills. Talking about multi tasking ;).

From July on, I will post an Italian recipe as often as possible.

In Holland we have the saying ‘a good start is half the work’, so I started with the first Italian recipe while I’m still in the Netherlands. There is a saying: “Non si vive di solo pane.” “One does not live by bread alone”, and I think they are totally right. A good ‘excuse’ to prepare an Italian delight. A classical Tiramisu, 'my way'.

egg yolks - sugar - vanilla sugar -  mascarpone -  espresso - lady fingers - cacao