Saturday, April 26, 2008

Fabrico Próprio: The Design of Portuguese Semi-Industrial Confectionery

By Rita João, Pedro Ferreira e Frederico Duarte


"Fabrico Próprio" means "Own Production", an expression used by most Portuguese cafés and patisseries in their shop signs, windows and packaging. It is a warrant of freshness and quality, but also of uniqueness and prestige of the baked goods they sell – most of them sweet, one-portion cakes.
"Fabrico Próprio - The Design of Semi-Industrial Confectionery" is a 292-page, hardcover book dedicated to Portuguese confectionery and its relation to design. Reflecting the importance of this universe in our culture and society, it is primordially an encyclopaedic record of several specimens of Portuguese daily confectionery cakes photographed and shown close to real scale. This compilation – the first consistent record ever conducted in our country on this kind of food products – is joined by introductory texts, historic notes and also a confectionery glossary. The book also includes perspectives from 23 Portuguese and foreign professionals, which can be found along its pages in the form of three essays and several sections. Photographers, illustrators, architecture and food critics, a chef and an art curator take Portuguese semi-industrial confectionery as a source of inspiration, offering unexpected approaches to this surprising world.
"Fabrico Próprio" is a multidisciplinary project dedicated to Portuguese semi-industrial confectionery and its relation to design, authored by Pedrita (Rita João, Pedro Ferreira) and Frederico Duarte. It is composed of this book, a workshop, the fabricoproprio.net website and a series of launches in Portugal and abroad. This project is financed by the Direcção Geral das Artes do Ministério da Cultura and has Tourism Portugal as its institutional sponsor, ARESP and CFPSA as its strategic partners and Delta Cafés as its private sponsor.





Price: 34,90€ Buy here





Thursday, April 10, 2008

Piri Piri Star Fish: Portugal Found by Tessa Kiros


Tessa Kiros believes that food is the essence of any country's people - a quilt that is patchworked together with their language, culture and songs. When she takes her family to live and travel in Portugal, she is captivated by the country and charmed by the old-fashioned way of doing things. Portugal has everything she loves - the markets, the sea, the beautiful old pousadas - but she would have gone for the pastéis de nata alone. In "Piri Piri Starfish", Tessa embroiders the recipes, traditions and Portuguese way of living together with her own unique colours and threads. Some of the present day wonder of this small country can be attibuted to its great history during the Age of Discovery: when the world beyond nearby lands and seas was little more than a mysterious dream to most Europeans, this land of bay leaves, bacalhau and piri piri stretched out her roots over the globe.
Price: 31,50€ click here to buy

Monday, April 07, 2008

Currently Reading...



The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory


Dazzled by the golden prince, Mary's joy is cut short when she discovers that she is a pawn in the dynastic plots of her family. When the capricious king's interest wanes, Mary is ordered to pass on her knowledge of how to please him to her friend and rival: her sister, Anne.

Anne soon becomes irresistible to Henry, and Mary can do nothing to achieve her own ambition. From now on, Mary will be no more than the other Boleyn girl. But beyond the court is a man who dares to challenge the power of her family to offer Mary a life of freedom and passion. If only she has the courage to break away - before the Boleyn enemies turn on the Boleyn girls...