december

December is here!!

I spent a lot of September being sick and enjoying the after-effects of food poisoning. I remember two things about October: Thanksgiving cottage and apple picking. I have no real recollection of how November could've gone by so fast, but it did. Someone out there is cheating us time!!

The happy thing is, I finally got around to organizing the advent calendar this weekend. This is my advent calendar this year:

It's a reindeer, who has a giant headache right now (har, har).

The reindeer is from Pottery Barn, and the numbers are all sugar cookies! I didn't get a bigger reindeer, thinking this was big enough. It is, for the most part, but we learned rather quickly that the reindeer's parts are quite fragile (broken legs, broken antlers, etc. are all possibilities) so I had to distribute the weight a little more, hence the stars on the actual torso.

Time to get into the holiday spirit even more! I can't wait <3

mini brownie parcels, v. 2

this is what i've been working on:

after attempting bakerella's" cupcake pops last time when i had a long weekend, i tried again last weekend with some more store-bought cupcakes as a small sample. they turned out slightly better as i got a bit more experience with dipping the little bites, but overall still not up to my standards. however, i threw those pictures out there anyway and convinced tina at work that she wanted them for her holiday party this weekend...and so off i went on my third try.

i baked my "holy mother chocolate cake" this time, which by the way is the best chocolate cake recipe ever. it is the perfectly moist basic chocolate cake for any type of project, except maybe cupcakes because they're that moist that they don't hold their shape as well as a typical cupcake. i made a delicious chocolate buttercream icing from melted dark chocolate, and added my own twist to it with reducing some icing sugar in the recipe and substituting in some cocoa powder for an even richer chocolate flavour. yum!

blended altogether, i froze them first as they were shaped into balls, and then took them out from the freezer a couple of hours later to shape into squares. i found it was much easier to shape them into decent looking squares that way because they're not as pliable and melty when they're half frozen. then back in the freezer so the dipping process will be easier and faster.
dipping turned out to be rather smooth (ha, no pun intended) for the first 4 or 5 i did, then the cake started flaking off whenever it felt like it, and i had to change the white chocolate and start over, and then the chocolate was all lumpy and wouldn't melt nicely...ughhh! by this time it was about midnight and i was ready to call it quits and pretend the whole thing never happened. i was also ranting on and on about how people should stick to what they know. i like my chocolate chip cookies (all versions), my cupcakes (all versions), and my sugar cookies. i think that's a good enough repetoire for an average person. anyway...i stuck it out and made some more horrendous looking brownie parcels that were clearly sub-par but at this point i just wanted to get it over with.

then this morning i got up early and finished off with the red ribbons in fondant. would have loved to do actual bows on top but the ambition just wasn't in me at 6 in the morning...so here they are, finished product!

the little brownie parcels dipped in white chocolate

and finished off with red fondant ribbons

all packaged up as party favours!

are you kidding me?

I have problems with people who can't spell definitely.
- it's a word we see daily and you can't be arsed to remember how the letters line up next to each other in the correct order??

I have problems with people who think their creative license allows them to "bypass" grammar rules.
- then what's the point of the little brown handbook that is neither little nor brown? it doesn't matter who you are, you sound less educated when you think you can start sentences with "and" just because it sounds better/more clever.

I have major problems with people who overhype the twilight series
- i bought the first book so i could see what the hype is all about, and i would know what i'm watching when i go see the movie with sexy cedric (from harry potter, thank you very much). the writing made me cringe. it was so elementary. maybe she did an overly good job of personifying a teenage girl but it just lacked depth and i can't believe i am going to say this, "thought leadership". it was all so superficial that yeah, you feel like you're there, but you're there in a two dimensional picture! ughh. you could also tell that there was some awkward thesaurus use. remember when you were in grade 8 and you had to write a paper and you thought it would be really clever to go and find a thesaurus so you can replace words in your paper with "big words"? yeah, that's what the author did here. some words just don't make sense. it's like instead of me saying i'm a little sad today, all of a sudden i'm "poignant". say what? i am not exaggerating when i say i flipped through most of the book, getting the jist (which i do have to admit is interesting), but not reading the horrendous piece of non-literature.

To be fair, I'll let you be the judge. Here's an excerpt.

It was impossible, being in this house, not to realize that Charlie had never gotten over my mom. It made me uncomfortable.

I didn't want to be too early to school, but I couldn't stay in the house anymore. I donned my jacket - which had the feel of a biohazard suit - and headed out into the rain.

My favourite word in this excerpt is definitely "don" as a verb.

"How old are you?"
"Seventeen" he answered promptly.
"And how long have you been seventeen?"
His lips twitched as he stared at the road, "A while", he admitted at last.
"Okay", I smiled, pleased that he was still being honest with me. He stared down at me with watchful eyes, much as he had before when he'd been worried that I would go into shock. I smiled wider in encouragment, and he frowned.
"Don't laugh but how can you come out during the daytime?"
He laughed anyway, "Myth"
"Burned by the sun?"
"Myth"
"Sleeping in coffins"
"Myth", he hesitated for a moment, and a peculiar tone entered his voice. "I can't sleep."
It took me a moment to absorb that, "At all?"
"Never", he said, his voice nearly inaudible. He turned to look at me with a wistful expression. His golden eyes held mine and I lost my train of thought. I stared at him until he looked away.
"You haven't asked me the most important question yet." His voice was hard now and when he looked at me his eyes were cold. "
I blinked, still dazed, "Which one is that?"
"You aren't concerned about my diet?" he asked sarcastically.
"Oh", I murmered, "that"
"Yes that", His voice was bleak, "Don't you want to know if I drink blood?"

Okay, wow, how many adverbs did you need after each "he said" or "she said"s?

Why am I so irked about all this? See picture below. All I have to say is, BAH.

First of all, freaking idiot headline writers, give your facts context!! The last Harry Potter was released in 2007, and it sold 8.3 million copies in the first 24 hours in the US. THE US ALONE! I suspect the data provided is Chapters/Indigo data only, and sorry to break it to you Onex/Indigo jerks, but nobody cares about the sales at your company and your company alone for these books. In 2007, there was only one Harry Potter released, and the previous release was TWO WHOLE YEARS AGO that obviously by 2007 people would've purchased all the books they needed in the series. So Indigo has compared the sales of one book to a whole freaking series of books. ARRRGGGHHH.

the first snowfall

i have to admit, it looks pretty exaggerated here.
blame the long(er) exposure.

someone wrote x-mas (with their shoes i guess)?
put a smile on my face.

ha, not so lounge-y now, are we...

i can't believe it's already here!!

so far it's been pretty tame (i.e. the snow hasn't reallllly coated the ground). perfect day to get some baking started though - i need to get some pictures out there for my holiday "business". today's cookies and this weekend i'm hoping to make more cupcake bites so that by next week i should have a pretty full portfolio of goodies to showcase.

things on my mind:

a) google party tomorrow night. it conflicts with the class i'm taking in the evenings and my class is only four sessions, so missing one is kind of a big deal. i'm still debating how i will approach the conflict because i love everything google (c'mon, who doesn't), and i already missed the yahoo! party last thursday due to class so i feel like i've been good enough to deserve a break.

b) i should go to class though. it's a beginner's cake decorating class and since i failed miserably at making roses last week, i should really go so i don't become the worst student in the class. i'm supposed to be good at this shizzie! i tried practising tonight but my royal icing is too runny to practice real piping, esp. flowers, and i don't have a strong enough blender to make real royal icing. bahhhh.

finally, a picture sample of my hard work tonight.

nigella's chocolate pudding

we made this for our anniversary dinner on saturday night. it's so easy to make once you get the ingredients together, and so delicious! the most amazing thing about it is definitely the "wow" factor - you expect to get desserts like this in fancy restaurants.

from Nigella Express (mine's signed with love from Nigella. Just sayin'.)

Glitzy Chocolate Puddings

25g 70% cacao dark chocolate
25g unsalted butter, softened
50g white sugar
1 egg
10g all purpose flour
pinch of baking soda
small pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Break up the dark chocolate and melt in microwave with the butter. I melted it in 10-15 second intervals because burnt chocolate smells absolutely horrendous and lingers forever. Once melted, set aside to cool a bit.

Using a mixer, beat the eggs and sugar until thick, pale, and mousse-like. This took about 3 minutes for me on a medium setting on my handheld KitchenAid mixer.

Gently fold in the flour, baking soda, and salt into the egg and sugar mixture. Then fold in the chocolate mixture and mix until just blended. Pour into two ramekins and put in the oven.

Bake for about 20-25 minutes - it'll puff up significantly higher and the top will look just about done. The best thing is if you take it out early, it'll be a little gooey inside, which doesn't really hurt anyone either ;)

While the puddings are baking...

Melt another 40g dark chocolate with 15g soft butter. Stir with a spoon - it should look smooth and glossy. Break up a Crunchie bar or just plain honeycomb if you have some.

Drizzle the top of the puddings with the chocolate glaze and top with the honeycomb. Voila, simple and absolutely delectable.

random photos from the past week

since i've been so AWOL so far in november, i thought i'd use some pictures to describe what i've been up to in the last week. i'm not going to make any excuses: i've been pretty useless since that drunken debacle and my stomach is still paying for the recklessness.

one of my finds at the william ashley sale - such a cute little casserole
beats the boring old corningware stuff

champagne for the special occasion...brought it all the way from paris to nerja to barcelona to toronto, in one piece! too bad we can't say the same about the artwork we bought in montmartre...

calligraphing the invites...
i was feeling particularly DIY/martha-y this year

right now my contractor is doing the kitchen backsplash. yes, it is 10:37pm on a monday night, but he's dedicated. so i'm blogging to be polite even though it's 37 minutes past my bedtime.

stay tuned for complete kitchen pics! we're almost done our whole place, just waiting to get photos into the frames and the chandelier up in the dining room!! we've come a looooong way!!

so this one time...

i had two days off in a row, after a weekend.  

in the four days, i accomplished a trip to buffalo with the crew, a catch-up session at crepes-a-gogo and the ROM with julie, painting alllllll the trims in my condo (it really takes a long time!), and patching up paint where necessary (i.e. where the contractor cracked open the wall).  i also managed to hit up the william ashley sale and spend $200 there (the total is always $200, no matter what you're buying that day).  i tested out the cupcake bites as per bakerella.  i invited terence and avi over for dinner as a goodbye dinner to avi (he's leaving for india for two weeks).

we had gorgeous lamb with mint-feta-pistachio pesto, roasted potatoes and carrots, and the cupcake bites.  we drank two bottles of wine between three of us (alex had a glass, so that didn't really count him as a fourth person sharing the wine).  we moved on to vodka tonics (had to make a pit-stop downstairs to buy tonic first).  terence stumbled home.  then i somehow managed to walk avi through some coursework that i teach before he stumbled home.  he also took that time to point out to me that flying via belgium to india is much, much faster than flying through taipei.  he google map'd it and all.  i was pwned.  but seriously, my surrey brown friends claimed to have stopped in taipei on the way to delhi.  i digress.  i closed the door on avi.  then i have no memory of what happened.  the next thing i remember is me curled up in a fetal position on the bathroom floor after throwing up my entire dinner and then some.  then i remember being dragged off to bed by alex because i could barely stand, let alone walk.  then i remember waking up to a very violent alarm on my blackberry, followed by standing up wayyyy to quickly and remembering that i felt very delicate.

oops. 

i made it through work okay though.  

i still feel slightly queasy today.  ah, i am getting old.

yes, i realize i was hammered beyond belief on my sixth year anniversary with alex.  i already feel really terrible, so if you can please refrain from commenting that would be greatly appreciated.  thanks.

witnessing history

it makes me proud for the americans: they were able to see past prejudices and differences to make a decision that will change everyones' world.  oh thank god.

i am really thrilled to have been a part of this history in the making, starting from 7:30pm at lori's in front of cnn all the way till dashing upstairs into terence's apartment at 10:59pm to catch the announcement for "333" electoral colleges - cnn projection.  

the energy at grant park looked incredible, and i only wish i was physically there to cheer and celebrate!!

this morning, the newspaper bins along the streets looked so happy with their respective headlines about obama, and call me crazy but i felt this energetic vibe in the air and i swear i could see it on people's faces.  it's what i imagine how people reacted after voldemort was defeated as per j k rowling's description in one of the books.  

i can't wait to see the change he'll bring, the differences he'll inspire.