Jazz And Sinterklaas

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I’m listening to the Duke and Coleman Hawkins -Moody Indigo and Limbo Jazz- while working, and this thought just crossed my mind that I know two wonderful men who deepened my love for jazz. One was my dad who taught me about his connection with jazz while I was just a child. My mum never liked it and so my dad would end up sitting in his car parked in front of our home to listen to his favourite tunes. Just sitting in the car listening to jazz was a great adventure to me when I was that little girl so I would often ask him if I could come along and join him.

Having to ask him, slowly vanished over the years and twenty years later I would just sit there with him listening, each drawn into our own world, staring at what was going on around us. Not saying a word just enjoying that very moment. Not as often as in the past, since I moved out when I started my study in Amsterdam but still it was always our moment together. I wanted to pay him my last respects by playing some jazz at his funeral, ‘of course’ I wasn’t allowed to…

Yesterday I received a sweet eCard with a typical Sinterklaas scene from a friend, bless him for remembering half of my roots while they’re so different from his. Tomorrow is Sinterklaas evening so to all my Dutch friends: have a wonderful Sinterklaas. Last year I received a kilo bag of delicious Kruidnootjes covered in chocolate. This year I decided to bake them myself because I shouldn’t forget my roots and I’d like to celebrate just because I can *hehe*. I looked up the recipe and will bake a few batches to give to my Dutch friends here in London.

It’s been a typical wet English day with a sun peeking between the clouds every now and then, but I don’t mind, I have jazz to enjoy while in my head I’m dancing to ‘Limbo Jazz’ and I have a relaxing baking session to look forward to tomorrow or perhaps tonight.

For those Dutch out there who wish to do the same, the recipe is below.

My sky earlier today… while I tried to bask in the sunshine

Speculaaskruiden:

Grounded nutmeg [2 g], ginger [1 g], cardamom [0.5 g], white pepper [1 g], cloves [2 g], and cinnamon [15 g]

Kruidnootjes:

Flour 185 g

Baking powder 1 teaspoon

Brown sugar 85 g

Speculaaskruiden 15 g

Pinch of salt

Butter, refrigerated 125 g

Mix flour, brown sugar, speculaaskruiden, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Add the butter bit by bit and knead into a firm dough. Leave it to rest for half an hour. Heat oven: 150 C/310 F. Use baking paper or a greased baking tray. Form small balls of dough [+/- 1 cm Ø] and place them on the tray, not too close to each other. Bake for about 20 minutes then leave to cool. If you like you can dip them in melted chocolate…

Et voilà, there’s your homemade Kruidnootjes *hehe* Have a good weekend!

One Design Exception

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Normally I don’t do this because I don’t mix business and pleasure and I made the mistake in the past to trust people who contacted me through this blog about a design job which either ended up having to deal with cheapskates or someone who was more interested in the person than the skillset… Read: time wasters… So just for the record: I don’t accept assignments anymore through this blog.

For this reason I’ve set up a separate business blog where I’ll be posting client’s briefs, images of my designs and progress of my work [as in more images] and design related topics. I’m also extremely cautious with my clients information and would never do anything to jeopardise their personal details, all info will be published with their given consent. Except for the one example below, this person doesn’t have a clue… *kidding*

:P

But I realise that I have been posting a lot about things that keep me busy lately as in work. And over the weekend I have been rebuilding a website template which I thought was too big [size-wise and the images were too large in file size] and didn’t work cross-platform. After some tweaking it works on all browsers, last thing I’ll need to add is a Flash-built portfolio which will take me a few of hours and then it’s all done.

Later today I’ll be working on an email marketing newsletter, a grid which will be adjusted and sent twice a month. I’d planned to do this over the weekend but the rebuild of this template took me slightly longer than expected and since I’m a nitpicker -or some would say a perfectionist- I didn’t want to stop till the job was done, hence the late post *hehe*. The newsletter is fun and challenging: design and code-wise.

Then if I have some time left I will work on the eCommerce gloves website which is almost done; I finally got my last bits of content in last week. I’m also waiting for a sample package to drop in the letterbox from a printer who claims to print spot UV for amazingly cheap prices which is something I need for the same gloves people. I used spot UV in the business cards design that I finished for them last week.

So I’m off to bed now since I have an early start again and another busy day ahead of me…

The two images at the bottom is an animation, it loops about 12 images