Inggitera goes to the fair

Full disclosure: inggitera ako. 

After hearing so much from friends and blogosphere about Art in the Park, to which I've never been, I went full-blown green-eyed monster last week and looked up the dates for the next Affordable Art Fair. I missed the one in Singapore last year because we were in Bantayan. The one in Amsterdam is scheduled for October, but lo and behold! The one in Brussels was just a week and a train ride away! 

I have to say I could get used to getting to another European country with zero hassle. I booked Benelux return train tickets online for less than a hundred Euros for both Marlon and myself (if we had booked a few days earlier, it would have been just €35! Cheaper than dinner out!). Then I emailed Uncle David to let him know we were coming. We just hopped on the train early Saturday morning, and two hours and forty five minutes later, we were in Brussels. The conductor didn't even check our tickets!

Uncle David and Michele picked us up from Brussels Centraal at 11 a.m. and brought us straight to Tour & Taxis on the Avenue du Port.

Tour & Taxis was formerly the Customs warehouse. When the European Union abolished internal customs duties (can you imagine?!?!? No customs?!?!?! What an alien concept to us Asians), it was converted into a retail, dining and exhibition space. Uncle David said that the last time he had been to Tour & Taxis was when it was still used as the Customs building; it was the 70s and he came to pay customs duties on his car, a Buick that he had imported from France.

The whole experience was amazing. Nakakalula sa dami ng art. There were galleries from all over Europe, plus some from the US, Singapore and China. But you can bet your pwet that I didn't come all the way to Europe to buy a painting from Asia.

We lost Michele and Uncle David (who we later learned made a beeline for the restaurant) and ended up wandering on our own. Marlon was attracted to sculpture and I was attracted to collage, but in general we were both really attracted to things that were way beyond our budget. (Isn't that always the way?) In the end, we fell in love with not just one, but two works that were priced just right for us.

While doing my research on the artists and galleries exhibiting at the fair ('cause I'm a geek like dat), I had already spotted the works of Belgian figurative artist Inge Dompas. A strong theme of motion, restlessness and transit runs through her work and that really resonated with me.

Everyone and everything is restless and constantly on the go. People walk past each other, literally and figuratively. Dompas' recurring topic is the mass being in motion, and the scarce and precious moments of genuine contact and intimacy in the turbulent sea of people. She says: "The road you traveled is more important than the goal itself. The tour supports the story of who you are, it is you."

When I saw Inge's works up close, they didn't disappoint. And because of the experiences we've shared, from our endless craving for travel to the sense of restlessness in Singapore that led us here, Marlon totally got it. We were both struck by this large work of hers called "On the way home." It seemed to sum up our life over the last few months: always on the move, rushing to a place unknown and unseen, pulled onward by the promise of home.

Naturally, it was leagues out of our budget. Let me tell you though, we seriously considered it for a very long moment... a moment that ended when I reminded Marlon that the price was nearly twice our monthly rent. I surprise myself sometimes.

But wait, there's a happy ending! We were able to walk away with one of Inge's works... the smallest one! This one is called "Running on Empty." 

Marlon and I agreed that we have felt these moments all too often. On the commute home from work sometimes, you stop seeing people's faces. Everything fades into a blur when you just want to get home. Or could it be that these people are not commuting home, but to work in the morning? Because there are mornings when you feel like you're running on empty, too.

We had enough left over to go back for one of the few artists that had first caught our attention: Latvia-based Russian artist Viktor Sheleg and his series of ink and acrylic drawings. 

Marlon liked how the artist brought out the tension of her pose (legs crossed, body twisted) with such concise strokes. I was drawn to the dynamic energy and graphic quality of his work. Black and white with a pop of bright orange—a definite yes. This is a woman with attitude. 

An info sheet from the Le Siants Gallery in Prague tells us the artist's work can be found in the collections of Princess Stephanie of Monaco, Jack Nicholson and (paging Drei!) Montserrat Caballe. A princess, the Joker and a diva? Sounds like we're in good company.

Our cobalt cocoon

A little over two weeks after Marlon and I first moved in, we've transformed our bedroom from this...

To this! Behold the fruit of our DIY labor!

I am in love with the color on our walls. Although the paint job is far from professional, the blue to me is completely swoonworthy. Jonel referred to the color, to my mild horror, as Ateneo blue. I joked to Marlon that we should start calling our bedroom The Blue Eagle Wing.

Then I saw that it was the same blue that both Blogger and Facebook use. I'm sure if I really put my mind to it, I can come up with a dozen companies or brands that use this color. But why would I want to do that when I am already so perfectly happy with it?

The bedroom is about 75% done. The floor lamp and bedside table are temporary—the latter was actually bought for the balcony. I already ordered bedside tables from Gewoon Chic, a great Dutch home webstore that I just discovered, which will be delivered today. Then all we need are bedside lamps, plus a chest of drawers for Marlon's clothes (since I've pretty much taken up most of the closet space).

Oh and speaking of closets... check out Marlon's pride and joy! He is over the moon seeing the results of his assembly job, and so am I.

Having decided on a palette of cobalt blue and white with metallic accents, I made the bed with this white cutwork bedspread from Jaipur, one of the stops on our honeymoon in Rajasthan. It used to be on our daybed in the living room.

We bought half a dozen freaking bedspreads from this one salesman who dazzled us with the whole Bollywood song and dance. He described his wares as "sho shoft, sho fabuloush" sho often that it shtuck—Marlon and I now refer to the bedspreads as fabuloush, as in "We need to wash the fabuloush." I think we were mired in credit card debt for the better part of a year, but we sure had a blast. And now that we have a home worthy of the fabuloush, they've turned out to be some of my most treasured purchases.

At night, with yellow light, the blue loses some of its cobalt zing, but still remains lovely and rich and enveloping.

I thought about repainting my dresser in the same glossy white as the bed, but that would make everything too matchy-matchy. I totally got the matchy-matchy gene from my mother, but I'm doing my best to suppress it. So it will remain a soft matte ivory.

Marlon is as in love with the blue as I am, but says it's made it harder for him to wake up in the mornings. I have no such problem. In fact, since we moved back into the newly repainted bedroom, I've been waking up every morning at 7.30 a.m. to have breakfast with him before he goes off to work. And if you know me, you'll know how abnormal that is for me. Maybe it's the effect of having a home that inspires and excites me... a home that I can't wait to wake up in every day!

Do it yourself

Today's post is brought to you by the letters D-I-Y!

It's no accident that the word tipidity contains those letters, lol. Marlon and I were forewarned by Europe-based friends that we would have to get very handy around the house very fast if we wanted to save money, and it's true. Nothing makes you realize how spoiled we Asians are like furnishing a European house on a, well, Asian budget. 

There was no way we were carting these Ikea Pax closet elements home with us on the train (taxi? what taxi? We're in Europe, remember?), so we splurged on delivery for less than €50. But when we were told that hiring someone to assemble them would cost at least €250, Marlon decided to take things into his own hands... literally.

He bought his first power drill and spent the better part of a Sunday assembling our closets. We had door-less closets for about a week and a half, because attaching the doors would require the three closets to be screwed together into one large unit. And that would make it hard for us to move the closet around when we painted the bedroom.

Assembling the closets brought out Marlon's inner handyman. He would do simple things before like change bulbs and hang frames, but often left anything more complicated to hired help—which is no longer an option here. He's gotten a lot more confident using power tools and gets really enthusiastic about my ideas for DIY projects.

What a revelation this whole process has been. Suddenly it's like all of life's questions can be resolved with a power drill. Now we can look at a piece of furniture or fixture that we like and go, "Madali lang yan! Kailangan lang natin mag-drill." Which is how two ladders and a few wooden planks almost became a bookshelf... almost. But that's another story.

One of his mini-projects was installing a bar with S-hooks (again, thank you Ikea) for our kitchen utensils, right beside the stove. I love this because it frees up so much drawer space and makes everything easy to grab. 

Our biggest DIY project to date has been the repainting of the bedroom. Both of us had decided early on that we were done with living in white boxes, a fate that most renters are doomed to endure. Luckily, our landlord agreed to let us paint the walls, provided that we return them to white if he should so decide at the end of our lease.

At €45 per hour for a professional painter, for a job that would take at least eight hours, it was easy for Marlon and I to decide to go DIY. He did some research on painting equipment and techniques online, then bought everything we needed at Gamma, Holland's version of Home Depot.

Having saved on labor, we then decided we could splurge on paint. Well, I decided. My obsessive online research had led me to Farrow & Ball paints, and somewhere between their poetic product names and and rich hues, I fell in love. I've always, always wanted an intense color on my bedroom walls, so I was immediately drawn to Drawing Room Blue. Marlon was totally on board with it; I think he was just glad I didn't want anything too girly.

At €119 per 5L can (one would cover our 30 sqm walls), plus another €109 for the recommended primer and undercoat, we could definitely have gotten something a lot cheaper, but you can't fight love.

The actual painting took up an entire weekend, starting with an hour on Thursday evening to move out all the furniture and mask the ceiling, floor and windows with tape. Friday night was spent slathering on the primer, which took about three hours.

Teka, puro si Marlon pala ang nasa pictures. Baka isipin ninyo na sitting pretty lang ako. Ako kasi ang taga-document at tagaluto. Pero nagtatrabaho ako, promise.

Using the rollers was super fun and made our job easier than expected. We got shaggy lambswool rollers for €2 each; if not for the Interwebz, we probably would have gotten cheapo foam rollers na parang pangkulot, lol.

We left the primer to dry all of Saturday and returned to do the first and second coats of paint on Sunday morning. Halfway through the first coat, Marlon and I found ourselves thoroughly pleased with our choice of paint. The best thing about Farrow & Ball paints are that they are water-based. No thinner, no awful fumes, and so easy to clean up paint splatters! Just a damp rag and a little elbow grease, perfect for DIY newbies like us.

And the color... the color!!! Deeply pigmented, with a soft sheen... *colorgasm* I suggested diluting the second coat slightly, which made it even faster to paint on. The second coat totally smoothed out the slight imperfections and uneven-ness of our first coat. 

By the time we were done on Sunday night, Marlon and I were grinning like idiots. We had spent a total of 12 hours, shelled out €263 (for the primer, paint and delivery), and saved €540 on labor for a paint job that was on track to make our bedroom look and feel like a million bucks. And we had just gotten our first taste of the DIY euphoria that money just can't buy.

Next up: the new and improved bedroom... revealed!

Dutch treat

Today was the first market day that I wasn't terribly excited to go to the market. A temperature of -6℃ can kill your enthusiasm for damn near anything, lol. I took a mid-morning nap and woke up to a slightly balmier -3℃, which I figured was as warm as it was going to get the whole day. 

In fairness, when I did step out I didn't really feel the cold, thanks to my 75% Uniqlo outfit (Heattech turtleneck, light merino wool cardigan, Heattech socks and down jacket—the trousers were Zara and the boots Timberland). Now if only they made Heattech moisturizer for my face...

At the end of my market run, I spotted a small, touristy-ish stall (you can tell from the overly "traditional Dutch" decor) surrounded by families with small kids. They were gathered around an iron grill, from which emanated a nose-tickling aroma and delicious warmth. 

Sungkaan for the 21st century

And so it was that I came face to face with a real Dutch treat: poffertjes!

Poffertjes (puffer-chez... salitang bading pala siya lol!) are flattened balls of dough that are fried and served with butter and powdered sugar. At €2 for 10 peso-sized puffs of love, I simply could not resist. 

They came fresh off the grill and right into my gaping maw. Let me tell you, that first mouthful of hot, sugary softness in the winter chill was absolute heaven. I wheeled my grocery bag to a bench on a nearby street corner so my precious poffertjes and I could have our moment.

It's only too easy to treat myself to these every time I go to the market. Then I'd be in some serious sugary trouble!

Dinner for -ers

Because we're sick of living in a white box and because professional painters in Amsterdam charge €45 per bloody hour, nagpaka-er kami ni Marlon this weekend. We spent Friday to Sunday painting the bedroom a gorgeous rich cobalt blue from Farrow & Ball, more on which later.

Painting is hard work! (Apparently, it burns 200 calories an hour.) So my weekend menu was heavy on the carbs: sticky lemon chicken and lots of Thai jasmine rice (no more Surinamese rice! Yay!) for lunch yesterday, and pasta with roasted cherry tomatoes, capers, olives and basil for dinner tonight. After making the latter, I found it so ridiculously easy and so insanely yummy that I just had to blog about it.

The recipe is from America's Test Kitchen's Cooking for Two cookbook, a super thoughtful thank-you gift from Erika whom we hosted at Palazzo Plazo last year.

You'll need:

2 tbsp olive oil
500g/ 2.5 cups cherry tomatoes, halved (got mine for €3/500g! Paging Gutsy!)
500g/ 2.5 cups penne or fusilli
2 tbsp capers, drained and rinsed
2 tbsp pitted kalamata olives
3 garlic cloves, sliced thin
1.5 tsp balsamic vinegar
3/4 tsp sugar
Salt n' pepa (shoop, shoop-e-roop)
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes (I probably used a full teaspoon, I like the warmth)
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil (naduling pala ako and this was from another recipe lol!)
2 tbsp pine nuts (my splurge of the week at €3.95!)
Grated Pecorino or Parmesan for serving (didn't have any, it was fine without this)
Optional: splash of red wine

Makes two servings each for two hungry -ers!

Preheat the oven to 175℃. Gently toss the tomatoes, capers, olive oil, garlic, sugar, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes together.

Spread the tomatoes in a single layer (I was OC and made all the halves face up, haha) in a baking dish and pop it in the oven, without stirring, for 30 minutes. The tomato skins should be slightly shriveled, but the tomatoes should retain their shape. Remove from the oven after roasting and let cool slightly.

Cook the pasta and drain, reserving half a cup of the pasta cooking water. Return the pasta to the pot. Scrape the tomato mixture on top of the pasta and add the olives. The recipe also calls for 1 tbsp minced fresh oregano at this point, but I didn't have any.

There were nice crunchy garlic bits and assorted caramelized goodness stuck to the baking pan, so I splashed it with red wine and heated it over a low flame to deglaze. After pouring the deglazed yumminess into the pasta, I also took some pasta and rubbed it around on the pan (a.k.a. simot) before putting it back into the pot.

Toss the pasta and tomato mixture together, adjusting the consistency of the sauce with your pasta water. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with chopped basil, the grated cheese if you have it, and pine nuts. We also had the rest of the Pinot Noir that I used for deglazing.

Nagpaka-er man kami, at least sosyal pa rin sa huli. Buon appetito! 

Lamp lust

My latest all-consuming obsession is fixing up the new house. Marlon and I spend hours talking about it. Our creative taps have been turned, and now we are gushing ideas, plans and budgets. The sheer number of options available in this incredible art- and design-mad city simply feeds the obsession.

What really helped me get started is the Dutch shelter magazine VTWonen. I'd heard of it even before I moved here, from Europe-based design blogs like Emma's, Design Shimmer and Vosges Paris. When I was in the hospital and bored out of my mind, I hobbled to the hospital bookshop and got a copy. Even if it was entirely in Dutch, I was enchanted. Everything was beautifully styled and photographed, and it was really easy to match the prices and shops to the photos. 

One of the resources was a canvas printing service which also does lamps. Perfect for our living room! Pictureprint's nifty site lets you try photos out on a sample lamp, an activity which is as addictive as virtual makeovers (remember those?). After a sleepless night, I came up with a few lead options, but still can't decide. 

Now picture dove-gray walls, light wood furniture, huge windows and and let me know which is your fave!

1) A painting from Fernando Zobel from the Ateneo Art Gallery. This holds sentimental significance, as I have fond memories of my Philo 101 teacher introducing us to these paintings. Zobel has an entire series where he used syringes to apply paint.

2) A painting by Jose Joya, also from the Ateneo Art Gallery. The entire collection traveled to Singapore last year, which is where I took these photos.

3) One of my recent favorite photos of Amsterdam, sun flares somewhere in the Old Centre.

4) An odd choice that works surprisingly well: closeup of the penny tiles in the hot tub on top of Marina Bay Sands. I love the colors but not sure how I feel about polka dots.

5) The classic Boracay sunset. This was taken during our third anniversary getaway.

6) A sunset that actually works ten times better, but it's from Pulau Tioman in Malaysia. I would have preferred to have a Philippine sunset.

7) Detail shot of amethysts from the Hall of Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

8) My favorite painting from the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco: Strut by Marilyn Minter, a huge enamel-on-metal still life of diamond-studded, lilac Dior stilettos. I'm wild about this, but it was immediately and vehemently vetoed by Marlon: "Marry a girl kung gusto mo talaga."

Decisions, decisions! Which would you pick?

Around the Zuid

Yesterday was such a gorgeous day, full of sunshine and bright blue skies, which made it so much fun to do my errands. I put on a pair of hot pink socks and matching hot pink lipstick to go to the market, haha.

I did my market shopping last Monday and nearly half the stalls on Albert Cuyp were closed. Wednesday seems to be a much better day; the market was really bustling. I counted at least three more flower stalls which seems like a wonderful sign that spring is on the way.

One thing I love about this city is how the neighborhoods are so distinct. We apparently got a bargain on our flat, which is in a ritzy neighborhood (locals I've spoken to have used the words "ooh la la" and "chic"). When you cross the boundary of De Pijp, you know you're in our area when you start seeing the real housewives of Amsterdam Zuid.

Taray ng lola mo!

After lunch I went to ABN Amro at the World Trade Center, which is a 10-minute walk from my house. It's one of my favorite walks, especially crossing the river at Stadionkade behind my house. It looks like this on a normal gray day, but yesterday it was sunny so people were sitting out on the bridge chatting and reading.

Along the river I came across another fabulous old dame out for a walk in an ankle-length fur coat, leopard hat and giant pearl earrings. Taray! She caught me by surprise, else I would have taken her photo. 

The WTC is a big business area, all shiny and new. The metro station (which takes you further out of Amsterdam, as opposed to the tram system that runs within the city) is there as well, which is turning out to be really convenient for us. 

There are also buses direct to and from Schiphol airport.

As per usual, gorgeous design is everywhere. 

On the way there and back, my walk takes me through gorgeous Minervalaan. I can only imagine how stunning it will be in full bloom when spring comes. And the pollen these trees are sure to generate! I will need my asthma inhaler with me for sure.

The fact that it's lined with actual houses, not apartments, with at least two cars per driveway (even spotted a few sports cars and vintage cars) tells me that this is Millionaire's Row. At dito lang ako nakakakita ng mga Asian yayas pushing prams with European babies. Having full-time help here costs a bomb, and it's not something I've seen in other neighborhoods. And yet the houses are so understated; there's nary a cherub-topped fountain or Corinthian column in sight. 

Maybe I'll take a walk again today :) 

So happy I could burst

I'm looking at my calendar for the next few months and naiiyak ako sa tuwa. Literally.

February 25-28 - Brussels, for the Affordable Art Fair (wala kasing Art in the Park dito, ayan naghanap ako ng kapalit!)
March 7-10 - Paris, to visit Mimi while Marlon flies to China for work CANCELLED!
April 8-11 - Geneva and St. Bernard in the Swiss Alps, for Eena's 30th birthday party
April 13-20 - My sister will be in town! Yay!
April 21-26 - Easter holidays in either Bucharest, Romania or Istanbul, Turkey
May 13-16 - Oslo, to visit my sister and watch Cecilia Bartoli in concert
May 26-31 - Paris again, to help Mimi out with the Ateneo College Glee Club visit
Mid-July - My funny, insane, gorgeous, wonderful friends are flying in for Mimi and Pete's wedding and I get to host them for three days in our home! Yaaaay happy house!
July 29-31 - Nimes in the South of France, for the Duhamels' church wedding

So mukhang sa June ako magpapahinga at mag-iipon lol.

What's amazing is that of these seven trips, we're only spending for accommodations for two: the Easter trip (if we opt for Bucharest, we get to stay with friends) and the Duhamels' wedding.

Is this really my life? Thank you God. I'm so blessed and that's an understatement.

Love & a bunch of nylon string

Marlon and I just don't do Valentine's Day. When we were still dating long-distance, it was rare for us to be in the same country on the 14th of February. Then when we were married, we celebrated our first day of hearts as husband and wife by waltzing into the Singapore Valentine trap: an overpriced set dinner. All the nice-ish restaurants do this, so you have very little choice in the matter.

Singapore seems to have only one major flower supplier, so everyone and her mother carries the exact same bouquet of roses wrapped in pastel tissue. Marlon ingeniously found something that wasn't a cloned bouquet and got me a single gerbera. Carrying it around and seeing all the identically dressed girls with their identical dates and identical bouquets, I felt both horrified and extremely lucky.

Because of the mind-numbing sameness that surrounded us that first Valentine's, Marlon and I gave up on the whole idea entirely. I don't remember what we did last year, or the year before.

But since this year, everything has changed, we decided to give Valentine's Day the old college try. We toyed briefly with the idea of a canal cruise, but opted to stay in. Marlon volunteered to be our chef for the evening and plan a special menu.

As for me, I had a doctor's appointment in the morning, dilly-dallied until 2pm then got my butt racing. Inspired by the heart garlands from this awesome Valentine fort on Design*Sponge, I dug into the moving boxes still scattered around the house and turned up some red art paper, magazine pages, double-sided tape and A4 typing paper. I found nylon string in my sewing kit, selected 75 photos of Marlon and me, and set up the printer in the bedroom.

Four hours, five paper jams and countless snarls of nylon string (the.worst.idea.ever!) later, I managed to transform our kitchen into a romantic restaurant for two.

I mixed paper hearts with photos of us. I had to cut the photos really oddly to make sure I got our faces in. Every single one of them has a congenital heart defect, lol.

At 6.30pm Marlon called me from the supermarket to ask if we had red wine vinegar at home. Thank goodness for the transport union strike today that kept him from coming home early! I even had time to paint him a 5-minute Valentine, which I blow-dried and stuck on the kitchen door.

 Pardon the cheese!

At 7pm Marlon came home with the ingredients for dinner and flowers for me! 

When I finally brought him into the kitchen, to see his joy and wonder made the four hours of desperate nylon-untangling and frenzied paper-cutting so worth it. Then I left the happy chef to get started on our Valentine's Day dinner. 

We started with a surf and turf salad of prawns, spiced sausage, parsley and rocket...

Mediterranean-inspired cod and couscous for our mains...

And for dessert, a sinful, oven-warmed apple and almond tart from Le Fournil, the excellent French bakery on the corner.

By the end of the meal, both my stomach and heart were full to bursting with contentment. 

And the best thing was, I knew my Valentine felt the exact same way.