brixton village vs chili & cornbread home cooking challenge

Appreciating how lucky we are to call this great city our home for some time,
there are still places we haven't explored yet, so we made a list to make sure we will
visit most of them. Being tourists in our own city to see more.
It's easy to fall into your daily routines and sticking around your own neighborhood,
especially when you are working a lot and lived in a city a couple of years.
It's important to see everything with fresh eyes from time to time and to step out.

We explored the Brixton Village where you can find  the best pizza in the whole of London at Franco Manca.
It's all organic sour dough pizza, you have to try! We loved the atmosphere in the night markets,
and beside tasting the most delicious pizza ever, we saw so many places around there, that we would like to try.
We found an not spectacular looking gelato place for desert, which had the best ice cream I have had in London. Laboratoria Artigianale del Buon Gelato, or LAB G , where Giovanni Giovinazzo makes best ice creams outside of Italy.
We will be back. 

At home we have been cooking with friends, a way too big vegetarian chili with homemade cornbread.
A papaya salad, fresh salsa and guacamole and tortilla chips as side and a lime/kiwi cheesecake for desert.
I am still stuffed, days later!
Our friend Sadie, doesn't like cooking but somehow managed this challenge and served us this most amazing dinner. The cornbread turned into floor-bread when she dropped the burned loaf but the taste was incredible. Thanks Sadie.
Oh yes, we will miss our friends and this house!

Dave just took off for a weeks business trip to Sydney taking an extra suitcase of things already down there. A very lucky coincidence.
I guess I am subconsciously more stressed about the move than I would like to admit , cause I have had real trouble sleeping this week, which made every day a bit of a struggle.  
Some yoga and no coffee this week will fix me hopefully.

markets, stuff & dreaming of bikes

Summer hit London last minute. While everyone is getting in Autumn mood, the sun made a surprise visit. Dave has been strolling around markets, while I have been working the whole weekend.
I caught the sun for an hour at lunch break at least. And while I had some amazing creative makeup jobs this week, he bought plenty of fresh fruit and was preparing a picnic in the park, for me after work. What would I do without this man?
Dave took all these colourful photos as well, around our neighborhood.
Isn't that yellow bike just perfection? We are dreaming about bike rides in Sydney over here,
already checking out routes and gear that we are planning to get.
We haven't been riding bikes in London but we really want to start it down in Sydney.
I  am so excited. Do you ride a bike?

fresh flowers, great portraits + good pizza

   

This Sunday we had a little vacation from all the planning lately.
We went to the beautiful flower market at Columbia Road.
If you ever spent a weekend in London, this is a great place to go.
I love it every time.  Besides all the fresh flowers, the road is full of little artsy boutiques and studios.
Dave grabbed some Calamari for 1.50 and spent some time smelling wonderful fragrances in Angela Flanders old and magical perfumes shop.
The afternoon, we spent in the National Portrait Gallery, where we saw the BP Portrait Award.
Which showcases the very best in contemporary portrait painting from around the world.
It was very inspiring! One of the best exhibitions I have seen in some time.
Photography is not allowed within the gallery : ( so no pics to share.
Sunday night Pizzas have somehow become a new little routine lately, and we had a fabulous one for dinner.

Serious comfort food recipe and happy planning

Two months in London before we are going to move to the other end of the world!
Confusion moved into our house, while we are preparing to move out.
We organized shipping to get our belongings all the way to our future home.
We did a spontaneous ikea shop, after we figured out the prices in Australia are 2.5(!!)higher than here.
We got our plane tickets. One way. We are nervous. We have got butterflies in our bellies.
Looking at real estate apps on the phone before bed, has become a mild addiction.
Where will we live?
We have been loosing sleep over updating our work portfolios and preparing applications.
Decluttering is the next step. We keep to our routine for now.
Daily Porridge & coffees in bed for breakfast do their part.

We need hugs and some serious comfort food!

Livs+Dave's Easy Peasy Comfort food:
It's basically a pasta with cream sauce dish, that we made up. 
It takes only 10min and is super easy:

You will need for 2 portions:
250g Pasta of choice: (Spaghetti, Linguine, Penne all work fine)
1 big red onion
2 cloves of garlic
2-3 vegetarian sausages (our fav here in the UK are Cauldron)
150g mushrooms
1-2 small zucchini
1 pot of soya cream
nutmeg, vegetable stock & pepper to taste
olive oil


1.Boil your favorite pasta, according to the instructions, al dente.
 while it's cooking prepare the sauce:
2. Chop a red onion and 2 cloves of garlic
3. Heat a medium size pan with a tablespoon of olive oil
4. Fry onion and garlic, for a few minutes then add slices of sausages,
mushrooms (optional) and zucchini (or spinach) fry for about 5 min on medium heat.
5. Lower the heat and add, a tablespoon of organic vegetable stock, a little nutmeg and black pepper
6. Add the soy cream, stir.
Guten Appetit! Enjoy! 

Do you have a favorite comfort food? What makes you feel good, when you need it the most?

Home is where ever I am with you

This is what made our week:

1. Sunshine, sunshine & sunshine.
2. Multiple BBQ's in the park
3. Roasting marshmellows for desert on the bbq.
4. Writing our London tour guide as guest post for Simply Us: here.
5. While writing this, appreciating the great city we live in and seeing it with new eyes.
6.Dave became an uncle! Welcome, little Marcus Lee into this world (we can't wait to meet him soon)
7. Getting our one way tickets to Sydney. It starts to feel real and butterflies arrived in my belly.
8. Hanging out together after David has been sent overseas for several business trips.
9. Listening to Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros. (We love their song Home)
10. The idea that we can feel home anywhere together.

You can tell it's summer, when all the windows of our building are WIDE open.
It feels good.

What made your week?