My Spring Garden

MY GARDEN

What a joy to finally be able to be outside and enjoy the sun in my garden!

I have spent the weekend planting the last buganvilles, while I searched for the new flowers and surprised my eyes with beauty.

My friends offered me orange trees that we then planted on blue outside pots , it tooks us a while to figure out the best way to plant them but it as worthwhile as it looks wonderful.

I saw for the first time in my garden the flower of the banana tree here below, glowing on a silver purple dress looking like the queen of the garden.

Crazy little thing called love

After millions of definitions for the word Love we still question ourselves – what is exactly the best way to define love?
Well, although it is such an old fashion subject I still want to write about it.
Love it’s too complex to define and every person in the universe will always have a different definition because you can only describe it the way you feel it.
Love walks many roads and shows some mysterious ways.
Is love the same across the world? Do people react and love the same way?



Is love in India the same as in Sweden or in Portugal?
Yes, love is the same, it is the way you expose and show it ,that is different.

For me it is like a father that does not want to hug his child – will this father loves less? No, it is the way people react that is different.
Will an old person love their pet, a singer loves their music, a cook loves their food, a husband loves their wife or a mother loves their child the same way?
Yes, the difference is how much you give of yourself.

Love will only reveal if you are you, real and exposed, fearless, sad or happy.
Love is when a smile becomes your reason to live, a reason to be grateful.
Love is when you can’t imagine life without that person.
Love is baking a cake with my mom on rainy Saturday’s.
Love is my baby brother saying «you are beautiful»
Love is butterflies on your stomach
Love is in the small details, the strong hand shake, the hug you give.
Love is partnership, union and complicity.
Love is friendship.
Love is my grandmother giving herself to all of us.
Love is my friends, our laughing moments, our sad moments, our fights.
Love is a battlefield.
Love is believing.
Love is how happy you can get for making someone happy.
Love is holding hands on Christmas Eve.
Love is singing out loud my joy for living
Love is attention
Love happens to soul mates – friends, boyfriends, family
You cannot search for love, it just happens, you just feel it, you just can’t stop thinking about it.

Why do people sometimes say “This crazy thing called Love”?
Just because love makes you change, makes you wanna dive in an ocean of happiness and peace, makes you do things that sound and look crazy to others but to you they make all the sense .
Love is never quite what you think.

Rio de Janeiro - City of Arts (April 2009)

As usually, I always make sure to take time for some cultural treats as Rio is a fascinating city in what concerns art, music, theatre.

From what I saw, I would like to recommend:

• The exhibition of Os Gemeos at the CCBB



• The theater A Gloriosa
  

The CCBB is in the heart of the city and is showing works of the duo Os Gêmeos (Portuguese for The Twins) which are graffiti artist identical twin brothers (born 1974) from São Paulo , Brazil, whose real names are Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo.

They started painting graffiti in 1987 and gradually became a main influence in the local scene, helping to define Brazil's own style.

Their work often features yellow-skinned characters - taken from the yellow tinge both of the twins have in their dreams - but is otherwise diverse and ranges from tags to complicated murals.

Subjects range from family portraits to commentary on São Paulo's social and political circumstances, as well as Brazilian folklore. Their graffiti style was influenced by both traditional hip hop style and the Brazilian graffiti movement.

THEATER «A GLORIOSA» at the Fashion Mall theater.

The theater was also a great experience as Marilia Pera is one of the greatest brazilian artists and she performs magnificiently the role of Florence Foster Jenkins in A GLORIOSA.

It tells the true story of a rich american girl that after her father death , decided to invest all her money on a carreer as singer but she never had talent and despite that she ended up singing at the famous Carnegie Hall in NYC.

NOBU Matsuhisa - The best of Japan abroad?

The international celebrity chef Nobu is known for his fusion cuisine which blends traditional Japanese dishes with Peru and Argentine ingredients.

Who amongst the passionate for Japanese food, don’t know NOBU?

Nobu Matsuhisa is a visionary who dared to challenge the deep roots of the gastronomic traditions of his home country while facing a lot of controversy and reactions from colleagues.

He changed some of the most traditional recipes and before he opened his first restaurant in NYC , he presented his ideas to chefs and opinion leaders but the comments where quite disappointing - «will give you no more than 6 months to close down…» - chefs in Japan are very conservative.

He is the founder of the new Japanese cuisine.
He brought to the traditional world of sushi , the flavours and spices of countries like Peru where he lived.

It has been difficult to somehow consolidate restaurants such as NOBU in very competitive cities such as NYC or London, as you need to have constant new offers.

Off course that in this case , it also helps to have a great team of celebrity supports that include Bill Clinton, Tony Blair , etc in addition to a celebrity partner – Robert de Niro.
Today, NOBU is a total of 22 restaurants across the 9 countries and it is only down to the already famous obsessive training to his staff, that the quality of food and service is guaranteed – everyone has o follow the NOBU philosophy which does not accept:

- Cooks without ambition
- Dish without soul
- Manager with bad face

The staff is trained to make the visit to the restaurant an experience out of the ordinary. If this happens , the customer will return.
It is curious that Tokyo is the city in the world that gathers the biggest number of restaurants featuring Michelin stars , however so traditional , conservative and closed culture.

I believe that in this business the secret is to be humble and always open new ideas, gastronomy is a parallel world in which people can spend hours debating on a mushroom.

I also belong to this tribe.