Beatriz Muller

If you live in Ontario and enjoy reading the LCBO publication Food and Drink, you might have picked up this holiday season issue.

There are so many wonderful articles, entertaining ideas and attention-getting recipes (who can say 'no' to eggplant bacon for heaven's sake!) that it would be worth your while to find one of these at your local outlet if possible.

On page 36 there's a 2-page spread about Beatriz Muller's amazing gingerbread creations (CakesbyBeatriz.com) Beatriz lives and works in Innisfil, Ontario and creates traditional European cakes using only best quality ingredients. Because she is somewhat of a perfectionist, I will give you her info directly off her website:

Beatriz Muller is an award-winning Certified Master Sugar Artist and Gingerbread Architect who has been decorating and designing custom cakes professionally for over 15 years. Known internationally for her cake art and gingerbread masterpieces, you can find her work in magazines around the world and see her compete on network television.

She has achieved many outstanding awards for her gingerbread creations, including first prize at the 2016 National Gingerbread House competition held annually at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina and second place just a couple weeks ago as well as the 2018 Grand Prize Winner on Food Network's "Holiday Gingerbread Showdown".

Food Network 2018

These houses are a far cry from the Christmas houses the kids and I used to put together every year using graham crackers and candies with molten sugar (!) and royal icing. I remember how much fun and work were involved in building those tiny houses and also the immense satisfaction we had with the final products.

Dream House 2016 Grand Prize Winner Asheville, NC

Getting photos of Beatriz Muller's gingerbread houses onto a blog post is so tricky - there aren't many photos out there and then you understand that you really need to be there to walk all around peer into the windows and crannies to see the incredible detail.

The structures require intensive planning and scale drawings, then pieces of gingerbread are trimmed to the millimetre after coming out of the oven. Beatriz' daughter helps her and I believe there are other members of the team as well. Can you imagine the effort involved in transporting it to the venue?

Here's a video of one of Beatriz Muller's most recent creations, Perspective House, which came second in the 2019 National Gingerbread House Competition in Asheville. Here's what she says about it:

"The way we choose to see the world creates the world we see" Barry Kaufman

Perspective was inspired by Escher's Relativity and Cinta Vidals Gravitas surreal paintings. It is a multidimensional piece and it shows a world where people are living among each other but on different planes of existence, with different worldviews, and the illusion of separation without realizing that they are all connected, sharing the same hopes and dreams for a better future. Surreal architecture calls into question the concept of stillness and movement, rigidity and constant flux, the concrete and the abstract, and buried within the dream is reality.

I don't want to close this blog post leaving readers with the impression that Beatriz Muller is only about fantastical gingerbread houses. She also creates wedding cakes, birthday cakes, Yule Logs and cookies and even gingerbread boxes filled with cookies. Her creations all look very impressive and if you live in the area north of Toronto it might be well worth your while to seek her out if you have a special occasion in the future. 

Check these out!

  

  

  

Chocolate Chiffon or Genoise Sponge Cake

Filling Options: Dulce de Leche/Nutella/Strawberries and Cream/Raspberries and Cream/Mocha (Kahlua inside)

Vanilla Chiffon or Genoise Cake

Filling Options: Peaches and Cream/Lemon Raspberry/Strawberries and Cream/French Vanilla/Vanilla and Chocolate Milk Mousse

Follow Beatriz Muller on 
Instagram: Cakes_By_Beatriz
Facebook: @CakesByBeatriz

and visit her Website:

CakesbyBeatriz.com

Ribbon Chapel

If you're looking for reasons to visit Japan, here's another one.

The Ribbon Chapel is a purpose-built wedding chapel situated on the grounds of a resort in Hiroshima Prefecture. 

It consists of two spirals, opening as stairways at ground level and coming together at the top. The form reminds me and probably others, given its name, of those ribbons that rhythmic gymnasts use in their routines. 

There is seating for 80 guests who may have a hard time paying attention to the ceremony, given the spectacular coastal views.

Saving Birds

Researchers are trying to refine ways of saving birds smashing into city windows.

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Here's a BBC film about saving birds in Toronto by rethinking our urban architecture. 

If you have birds hitting your windows you could try this tip:

Bridge Building Machine

Ingenious and everyone with specific tasks.

Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso is a west-African landlocked country of about 274,000 square kilometers and a population of a whopping 17 million plus. French is its official language. You might recognize its former name, Republic of Upper Volta and remember that it won independence from France in 1960.

Since then, it has been an area of political instability, with more than one coup d'état and just recently, on Jan. 16, 2016, in the capital city of Ouagadougou, there was a jihadist attack at a luxury hotel, with many deaths and injuries. 

I would have to say that this tiny country of Burkina Faso is just about the end of the earth for me. I will probably never travel there. So when an amazing photo of painted walls in Burkina Faso arrived in my Twitter feed, I wanted to share it. I almost wish I could visit Burkina Faso, just to have an excuse to say Ouagadougou in everyday conversation. 

Let's hope that this tiny country can hang on to its valuable cultural assets and traditions through any future upheavals. 

Impressions of Chicago

City mouse or country mouse? I'll always choose country, but...

                                                                               ... I love exploring new places and that includes cities.

Recently I was lucky to spend a few hot but awesome sunny July days in Chicago with my granddaughter. With input from friends and websites, 11-year old Kate and I saw and experienced city in the summer - architecture, art, sights, food, informative guides and other tourists from around the world. Also, a few line-ups (be warned: buy tickets ahead of time online if at all possible)

Both of our iPhone cameras were put to excellent use.

La Grand Jatte-1884, Georges Seurat

Woman, Joan Miró, 1934

The Old Guitarist, Pablo Picasso
from his Blue Period, 1903-4

Naum Gabo, Linear Constructions 1950's

Walking Man II, Alberto Giacometti, 1960

Jackson Pollock

Georgia O'Keefe

Our last day was spent at the Chicago Botanic Garden, an extensive property with many types of gardens and plants and a butterfly conservatory. Kate took all these awesome photos.