Last week..

Thursday it was Valentine's Day and our daughter made us the following pictures :-)

This week..

I am back from a week's vacation at La Villa, Bolzano. We had a wonderful week with sunny days, snowy mountains, good food and lots of relaxation.

I am reading The man who counted by Malba Tahan. Malba Tahan is the pseudo name used by the Brazilian mathematician and author Julio César de Mello e Souza. It is a collection of mathematical problems, puzzles and curiosities embedded in tales. I strongly recommend it to all lovers of mathematics and non, the ones who enjoy solving logical puzzles and stuff like sudoku. You can find more about the book in another blog post here. I intend to read other books of the same author afterwards and I would love to make my daughter read this book in a year or two.

I have to tidy my house and do a lot of ironing.

I noticed that spring is coming. The supermarket shelves are more colorful now with the first strawberries (God knows where they are imported from), and there are already the big bags of charcoal for the weekend BBQ. The first signs of spring for me, however, have always been the daisies in our garden and they are there since a couple of weeks now.

I am very excited about the job offer that I got, but I cannot fully believe it until I sign the contract :-)

Webkinz world

This is Pinga, my daughter's Webkinz pet. Have you heard of Webkinz? If you don't have children, most probably you haven't, or if you live outside of northern America, again, it is most probable that you don't know anything about this virtual world of kids. I didn't know anything about it until we went to Canada. Our friends had bought a Webkinz pet for our daughter and that is how we entered the Webkinz world.

Webkinz pets are little plush pets that come with a secret code. You go to the Webkinz website, enter your code (entering the code means adopting a virtual pet) and your plush pet becomes a virtual friend. Your virtual friend is given a virtual room that you should decorate using virtual money, Kinzcash, which you should earn in the Webkinz world. There are different ways of earning money. You can go to the employment center and get a job, or you can play different types of games and make money. With your money you can buy furniture, clothes, food and extra room, even a garden for your pet. You are responsible from his health and cleanliness, too. You should give him his fruit and milk everyday to have a healthy pet. You should let him play with some toys so that he is happy. You should also enroll him at the academy and let him take some courses to give him a good education.

That is not all. There is also an area where the Webkinz pet owners can meet and chat. It is a totally controlled chat environment where the kids can use only fixed phrases in their chats.

If you have bought a garden for your pet, you can also plant your own plants, take care of them everyday and harvest your produce when they are ready. You can give this produce raw to your pet or you can buy a grill and cook them!

The members have also a post system. If you know the user name of a fellow Webkinz pet-owner you can send him/her a post or even a gift.

As you see it is a virtual world for kids and my daughter is addicted to it now. The problem is, when she is at school it is me who has to give food to her pet, or take care of her garden, and even go to work or play games to earn some money! :-)

I like the fact that my daughter is using her English while playing in Webkinz world, but I am a bit scared that she is only 6 and already a net-addict. Not only her, the little boy also enjoys watching the pet and the games we play in Webkinz world...

Oh, well, we are a family of nerds.. Nothing to do about it...

Blinis

Some weeks ago on Sunday I didn't have bread for lunch and it was too late to sit down and bake one. Hence, I decided to make something different that could substitute the bread and I tried a recipe that I found in a magazine: blinis. The name reminded me of the blinis that an Israeli Jewish friend of mine used to make for us in Norway, but the recipe he used was totally different. He used to make thin pancakes, smeared them with mashed potatoes or spinach, rolled them into tubes, placed on an oven tray, sprinkled with freshly grated cheese and baked until the cheese melted. They were very delicious. While surfing the net now, I found out that the recipe I tried is most like the traditional Russian version. You can find many different recipes on the net for blinis. The one I will share with you right now is a fast, and yet, delicious one that saves your day.
The ingredients for about 26 coaster-sized blinis are: 4 eggs, 160 grams of flour (I used wheat flour, however any type of flour should be fine), fresh yeast (I used a package of active dry yeast and it worked fine), 12 tablespoons of milk, some butter and salt. Sprinkle the yeast in warm milk and let it dissolve. Add the egg yolks, salt and the flour. Mix well and let it swell for about 20 minutes. In the mean time whisk the egg whites. When the batter has expanded add the egg whites carefully to the batter. It should be a very light fluffy batter. Heat a large frying pan and when it is very warm melt a piece of butter in it. Drop small spoons of batter in the pan to make small pancakes. Fry the cakes a couple of minutes, turn the other side and fry one more minute.

Blinis thus prepared can be served in different ways. You can smear them with sour cream, top with smoked salmon slices and dill. Or you can smear them again with sour cream and some jam. We ate our blinis opening them in two, filling with cheese and ham.