sporadic ramblings

It has been a rather chill-out weekend. I spent it doing the laundry, going fishing, and baking. Sometimes that's all you need to do for a great weekend. It's good for both the pocket and the soul. I made a chiffon cake yesterday. It was my mum's recipe, and here it is:

Pandan Chiffon Cake

Ingredients:
7 egg yolks
9 egg whites
5 oz plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
8 oz sugar
8 oz coconut cream
1 oz vegetable oil
1 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
2 tsp pandan essence

Method:
1. Beat egg yolks with sugar until sugar melts. Add coconut cream and pandan essence. Add in flour and baking powder slowly. Then add oil into the mixture and mix well.
2. Beat egg whites with cream of tartar until very stiff and immediately fold into mixture of egg yolk & flour. Pour resulting mixture into ungreased tube tin.
3. Bake in preheated oven at 180c for 1 hour. Remove & invert immediately. Allow cake to hang in tin and remove from tin when cooled.

It was absolutely yummy if I do say so myself. Teehee. Because the tin has to be ungreased, it's a little bit of a pain trying to remove it from the tin. My baking ineptitude has caused chunks of cake to come off when i tried to remove it, but hey, who cares what it looks like if it tastes good, right? (Not really. I was a little disappointed.)

P.S. I lost the pictures of this culinary masterpiece =(

Fishing does wonderful things to the soul. Well, sometimes - when the wind isn't blowing you off your feet and smacking you in the face so you can't keep your eyes open. It's a wonderful activity for some "me time", where you can sit there watching the breathtaking sunset, contemplating life and random nostalgic moments. Until, of course, a poor fish gets hooked and jerks your thoughts right out of your head.

We went fishing last weekend at Woodman Point. I did lots of thinking...LOTS. And when I say lots, I really mean it, since I caught nothing. Zero. No fish to interrupt my thoughts and admiration of the sunset. And I was freezing.

Anyway the boys decided to give it another go the next day.

Look! Weee, fishies! Nice shiny silvery fishies.



Alas, I had to eat them. There's nothing quite like fresh fish.

It was the boy's birthday today. I took him to The Globe Wine Bar & Restaurant after work and thought we'd have a quiet one. The place was nice, being part of the Parmelia Hilton hotel and all, everything smelled like a hotel should, but somehow it didn't seem as posh as I expected it to be.

This is a nice picture of it though:



Anyway, I thought the Blackened Barramundi sounded nice. It had sweet potato and spinach and macadamia nuts and sounded rather interesting. The boy had an Olive Lamb Loin, and it looked rather interesting too, although the lentils that came with his lamb weren't really my cup of tea.

As you do, we ordered a side dish of what sounded rather interesting - "Belgian Fries". The boy asked the waitress what Belgian Fries were. To which she replied, "It's thicker than French Fries, but slightly thinner than wedges." Hmmmm, one word comes to mind - C.H.I.P.S. Anyway we ordered it.

And shock horror, you have it:



I don't know which is more horrific. The fact that they ARE just CHIPS, or the fact that they cost ten bucks.
And we didn't even finish it.

It was my boss's big 30th birthday last Friday. As you do for the big 30, Julia and I had planned to decorate his office on Thursday night with balloons and banners and what-not, and watch him rock up to work the next morning with a stunned look on his face. Unfortunately, some clients were coming into the office on the morning of his birthday for a meeting and knowing the boss, he would be in the office before everyone else preparing for this meeting, which, really, defeats the purpose of decorating his office the night before, seeing as no one was going to be there to see his reaction first thing in the morning. So, what do you do?

You pack up the balloons and banners in big bags and hide them. Yes, that is what you do. And when the boss is in the meeting, you get busy and decorate it all WHILE he is in the meeting. Perfect, just perfect.

Until of course, 10 minutes before the meeting, the boss tells you he wants you ALL to be in the meeting. How wonderful. There goes that idea.

Lucky we had the other boss handy, who wasn't going to be in that meeting.

And this is what you get:



We couldn't have done a better job ourselves. Good one, John! ;)

Here's the boss with his funky mug and phantom balloons that seem to be able to float in mid-air.



We got him these nifty little things below from thinkgeek.com.



If you're not thinking "Hey, cool pressies!" with a grin on your face, then........don't ask. Really.

You sort of have to be geeky to understand.