Suze & Noods wedding, and North Coast relaxing

Latter February was so busy and non-stop !

I was given the honour of making Suze and Noods wedding cake which I was totally stoked about. (Congrats Suze & Noods). Knowing Suze, it's gotta be quirky, which was exciting for me as I hadnt ventured into that style before. She had a great idea for the design, and I was very curious about the 4inch gummi bears she told me about .
Here's the outcome.

So sad, the one of the bows got crushed in transit somewhere during the course of the afternoon where I had several people assisting. But I'm glad it at least stayed intact. And it was the first time that I had tried out the choc mud recipe too, which was a bit risky, but I was very happy with it and will definitely use it again. (more cake photos further down post)

The wedding itself was fantastic too. So well organised and flowed well. And the food! Held at an Asian restaurant, there were 13 dishes which came out through the night and of course you have to try each and everyone of them. But the end of the night I was sooo stuffed. Snapshots:

Hands on lobster. What an effort!

Fishy. What a pity Lauren missed the chance to suck out the eyeball :P

What a superly fantastic idea for a bomboniere, self serve lollies!

Such a fantastic night. The following day I meet up with another friend for lunch at Liana's in Parra. Still feeling full from the night and knowing that I didnt really need to eat for the rest of the week I thought I would get something small....

Small I had thought, small it was not. The serving of brushetta was not only huge but tasty. Mmm mm I'm a sucker for smoked salmon and avocado. I did manage to get through the bulk of it, finishing off all the toppings of course.
Other dishes on offer, also for the hungry.

The week prior to the wedding I went away to Foster for the first time. It's such a lovely peaceful and relaxing place! We went fishing (I cast my first line!), canoeing, beaching, lots of walking, spotted a dolphin and lots of enjoyable eating. And where of the pictures of the weeks frivolities you wonder? I left my camera behind at home :( Much sadness. Being desperate to capture the moment, went old school and purchased a disposable with limited 27 shots. How different it was to actually stop, frame the shot and count to three. No food photos were taken!
The weekend prior to Foster I hung out with friends at Terrigal to begin the relax beach mode. How luxurious to have a holiday house with the beach as your backyard, and every morning waking up to this sight

Loved it. Thanks for your hospitality Mia and Elissa.

Additional photos / notes of the cake in progress:
Step 1: Bake cake

Step 2: Ganache cake. (Again the first time I have tried this method properly. Note the whole bowl of icing!)

Step 3: Covering and decorating the cake

Step 4: Assembling the cake

Step 5: Transport the cake (whilst trying not to stress too much about it staying intact)

Coincidentally it was another friends birthday during this preparation time and I managed to squeeze in a bonus mini cake with simple decorations. (giant 2 and 5 candles were to be assembled on top) Happy Birthday Saby!

Breakfast,salad & market happies

Hello computer.

I was so excited about this breakfast. I remember sitting so contently on my own thinking "This is tops, having time to cook a yummo breakfast and take my time to enjoy it" It's nothin special really but leisure time is definitely appreciated.

Attempted (not quite a) poached egg on toast with tomato mix and a dash of balsamic vinegar. Yummo.

My boss made a super dooper giant pavlova for a work lunch since one of the team were leaving for a few month to have a baby. She put pink Persian fairy floss on top of the cartons of cream and strawberries. Mmm creamy.

We had a feast of delights. QA know how to put on a spread and make surrounding fellow-lunchers drool.

Authentic paella, alternative nachos, various quichettes, cheese puffs, homemade sausage rolls, yummo thai curry puffs, real tabouli and a spicy beef curry (Ithink that's what it was).

Happy engagement Mitch and Val. I had a great time, people-wise and food-wise. They had an array of salads and 2 trays of meat. Oooh so much greenery makes me happy.

And I finally caught Suze at one of her markets - Rouse Hill. Good collection of stalls there. We picked up some duck, fetta and kumquats. The shops themselves were good. Mum quite liked the food market near Coles, they had a huge selection of cheeeese. I had fun browsing the other gourmet-ish goods.

Cool marshymellows

Phoarr! Look at the nuts on that bread. Oooh yeah.

(Think clean ppl!)

Fish, Ribs, Sea

Off to the Fish Markets for the first time to hang out with uni ppl. Surprisingly it didnt smell overwhelmingly fishy. Thanks for sharing Nat, Joke & Audz but I'm pretty certain now that I'm not a fan of oysters.

Salmon & Prawn kebab

Ribs & Rumps at Gordon for other John's b'day. It wasnt as far to drive to as I had thought. Thanks for excellent directing Suze. While everyone was getting there kilo-loads of meat, I got....

and Side of Mixed Vegetables. I wasnt hungry! They were coated in butter anyway, so they werent as wholesome as they look. I liked how people's meat came on a chopping board as a plate though. Nice wooden seated toilets too.

And last weekend we went off to Bondi - Tamarama for Sculpture by the Sea. These were fantastic!

A Snow Pea Tree! Yeah!!

Lemon Tree. Hehe posersVoluptuous Lady

Ant attack

Heh heh, he's taking a dump

Cool fishy

That spoon can fit in a mighty lot of ice-cream

We had lunch ate a quaint looking cafe that we had passed by last time we were in Bondi with all the yummy looking cakes and pastries in the shop window. But boy was it busy. Ordering wasnt too bad but they must have lost out the order, it took over ~45mins. Ah well, these things happen, the lady was nice enough about it and I'd still go back again. By the time we had got our food we were pretty hungry, so much so that there as no time for photos. It was a straight *gobble gobble gobble*

I got really excited at work on Thursday. REALLY excited. Why you ask? Cos I got to decorate not only one birthday cake, but 3! So others were testing cocoa powder and it also happened to be one of their birthday's, so I was enlisted to help. It wasnt really anything fancy, just strawberries and cream, but it was sooo good to use a piping bag again and do something of the caking sort. It's beeen ages. I admit did look a bit obsessive.

Nepalese, Bondi to Bronte

I had a nice little catch up with school friends at The Nepalese Kitchen in Surry Hills on Crown St, on Friday. We'd passed this place a few years ago and the menu had sounded good but we didnt end up trying it out. This time it was our set destination and not only did the menu sound good but the food tasted good too.

I like the sharing and banquetish way of having dinner, there's much more community and atmosphere, especially when we were squished into a small corner under the stairs of the very small crowded restuarant. Not that it was uncomfortable, just nice and cosy.

We tried goat in curry, lamb, chickpea salad, another goat dish and a chicken something. Saby felt at home, saying that it similar to Indian cooking. All the dises were flavoursome and meat tender. I'd never tried goat before, tasty. Tasted like...no not chicken...well it wasnt very strong flavoured...I dunno, but I'd eat it again. Golly the chickpea salad was spicy though, managable but still hot.

Hooray for weekends. I spent my last absolutely free Saturday before starting FULL-TIME WORK relaxing with John, ah lovely, it really topped off my week. Yes! I have a job, finally! Ahh. Scary.

Taking advantage of the beautiful sunny day we went to Bondi Beach and walked along the coast, taking in the scenic ocean view, to Bronte Beach. The water has a fantastic blue-green colour and I was surprised that it can actually be quite entertaining watching surfers.

Our yummy take-away lunch was purchased at Bronte at the nearby shops. It not exactly what you'd commonly get as a take-away, but what would you prefer, a clear view of the beach or a road? The food came out so quick too.

BBQ tuna steak with nicoise salad

BBQ octopus with greek salad. Mm fetta

Loveliness day

What a Super Dooper Saturday!

A whole day of relaxing and happiness. It was grrreat.

First off we were greeted by a happy sunshine, always a good start. I strolled up to John's and helped him shop for his first ever proper tie. I think we did a good job. The sort of Tim Rogers-look worked for him as he posed with his guitar. Haha.

Later I managed to make sushi in record time (for my standards) for lunch. Oh how I love sushi. I was a bit sad though we didnt have any cucumber but we did have avocado which did help my happiness.

Then off to the planned highlight of the day, Mike and Louise's wedding! Oh weddings are such happy times. Aside from the sticky heat in church it all went straight-forward. John and Alicia did a super job singing and both looked great ;)

Afterwards, the unplanned highlight of my day, off to the beach! Golly I didnt know it'd take an ~hr to get to Dee Why beach but it was definitely worth it to end the day. And what do you do at the beach? Have fish and chips from the local corner store of course. Followed by lazing about, to ease digestion, and a stroll along the beach and dipping of feet. And dont forget the ice-cream. This is all done with wonderful company by your side of course.

In other news: After 11yrs of dreaming about it, my brother has officially moved out of home to live with friends in the city. He's still got half his junk here, but I can imagine the fight for his ex-room may soon begin.

After 6 and 2/3yrs of work, my efforts have finally paid off. I have been recognised as being the fastest checkout operator at our store...well at least for the past month. Hooray for me....not. My supervisor is supposedly starting up a new thing of rewarding the person with the fastest scanning rate each week, and I was the first. I was told that I had in fact been it for about 4 weeks in a row. And so hooray for me, I'm off to the movies with a person of choice, with my 2 free tickets. Grreat.