I haven’t been back to Italy since I left in 2006, then with a heavy heart and began a new chapter in life in Beijing. I forgot how much I miss the food, the fresh coffee and the beautiful produce and friendly wildly gesturing people. We ate wild caught sustainable seafood daily, and it was […]

I was never big on celebrations or birthdays, and have been mindfully working on celebrating the little joys every day with gratitude. There’s a great book “Joy on Demand” by training the conscious mind to recognise these little moments. I don’t want to make a whole song and dance about the whole thing, so I’ve […]

I haven’ t been big on the festive celebrations where everyone seem to go all out to party like there’s no tomorrow. Since going through cancer treatment and the gift that won’t stop giving – the reverberating side effects of chronic pain – my body feels broken from the inside out, I have been trying […]

Photo credit: Yan Palmer Erica is an amazing photographer now living in Shanghai with her two beautiful children and chef husband.   1. Well, could you tell us a little about yourself? I’m a photographer, a nomad, a mother, a wife. I’m originally from Canada, but life has taken me around the world, through Asian […]

I’ve shifted gears the last couple of weeks, put in a fair amount of time into doing more of what I love and learning lots of new skills from figuring out coding to fix bugs on this blog to sewing and finally baking a kick ass pizza and flourless chocolate cake that the Michelin starred […]

I am so grateful that the husband got last minute resale tickets to Madonna’s Rebel Heart Tour a couple of hours before Sunday’s performance in Studio City Macau  (intimate arena with great acoustics) at a quarter of the price. There were many people trying to sell off their tickets at the last minute and we suspect […]

It’s one of the busiest days of the year for a chef – along with Christmas and New Year’s eve and people never stop asking what everyone’s plans are. We never really celebrated Valentine’s Day so it isn’t a big deal for me and I used to chastised chef for buying flowers on the most […]

I randomly picked The Perfume Collector: A Novel by Kathleen Tessaro off the shelf at the library and ended up staying up all night to finish it because I could not bear to put it aside while the plot was speeding through. The narrative is told in a way where every chapter alternates between present and […]

The year and today has ran away from me with so much to do and so little time. But I am going to live a little and finish up today’s blog post which has been on my agenda! Well Top 15 wasn’t easy because there were so many great moments, here are 15 that come […]

Just your neighbourhood boulangerie and where locals go to for breakfast. The husband spent many a breakfast here with his mum in the 16eme where she used to work. While the humble Bechu doesn’t get the same type of hoo-aha like Du Pain et des Idées or Poliane that makes it to everyone’s boulangerie eat list, it […]