21 days til...

I am on one of these things

Spending my days here, looking out onto Copacabana Beach

IKEA

Sadly, I do not visit Ikea as often as I would like.  I took a friend there on Sunday as she is moving from a furnished apartment to an unfurnished apartment and needed to stock up on almost everything.  Obviously I took the opportunity to pick up some things since I was there anyway.  I also took the opportunity to gorge on Sewdish meatballs and almond cakes.  I also bookmarked some things I need to purchase when we have a bigger apartment/house.

NEED a sewing machine.  Maybe not this one - it looks like a toy

Pull out shelving with clear jars!!

I need this bin!  Not to be a bin but to be a toilet paper holder (I buy TP in bulk because I'm lazy but then have nowhere to put spare rolls)

 Lunch time!  I resisted the urge to get a 75c cinnamon scroll because I had already loaded my plate with Swedish meatballs, salt and pepper squid, and an almond cake with chocolate butterscotch!

Was VERY restrained and only purchased the following (we NEEDED everything except the thermos).

Been slack with outfit posts

In between work, headaches, work and sleep I haven't had much time to plan outfits, nor take photos of said outfits.  In the past 3 weeks I've only managed x 'decent' outfits (as I'm usually otherwise sporting a work uniform of jeans+tee or jeans+jumper).  And sadly, half of the photos below have been from various weekends when I have a second or two to think about what I'm slopping on!

L: Channelling a French chic
R: More stripes

L: Tommy Hilfiger scarf I picked up in NYC last year - love argyle print
R: WHITE JEANS eek.  For many many years I thought I was too curvy to wear white jeans but I've figured as long as I wear a long-ish top, I can make it work

 L: I love my unicorn blouse!  One of my faves!!
R: Also loving black and grey polka dots after I missed out on the Sass&Bide version and the Country Road version is too big.

FINALLY got my butt to Grounds of Alexandria

While 80,000 people were running the City2Surf last weekend, I was stuffing my face with delicious coffee and food (nothing new).

So I finally got around to visiting the Grounds of Alexandria on Sunday.  Let me warn you - there are lines for EVERYTHING.  There's a line to get a buzzer which entitles you to join an even bigger line to get a table.  And while you're waiting to be seated, they have a takeaway coffee cart outside which you also have to line up for, and once you have placed your takeaway coffee order, they put you in the line for your coffee to be made.  30 other takeaway coffees later they call your name to collect your coffee.

You can tell I hate waiting.  This guy on the other hand.... all smiles...

But they've set up the Grounds to keep you occupied whilst you wait for a table.  There are lemonade carts, flower carts, cured meats and cheese carts, pastry tarts, freshly baked bread carts, and pet roosters and a pig (Hi Kevin!).  Staff walk around with samples of sourdough bread and their amazing jam.  There are jumping castles and kids play areas if you have little ones.

They had estimated an hour and a half wait (yes 90 minutes) but our buzzer went off after an hour and we were promptly seated.  Can I just say the service here is impeccable.  Wait staff were friendly and attentive without being overbearing.  I ordered the Breakfast Board and Tom ordered the Breakfast Burger.  Oh em gee.  I'm not fond of tomatoes but I couldn't stop eating the tomato salsa.

Everything was just so fresh.  The tomatoes tasted like they had just been picked from the garden as I placed my order.  The pesto was super tasty and the feta was to die for.  Both eggs were beautifully poached and the sourdough bread was divine.  Coffee was delicious as was the pear, apple and mint juice!

We were heading to my parents' for dinner so grabbed some of their delicious-looking pastries to take to my parents'.  It was SO hard to pick just 6 of these pastries but I managed (yes I am proud of myself).

Spot the one that overheated and fell over in the car...

Baking bread - you are my Everest

I mentioned on Monday that I'll happily spend $50 on baked goods.  Reason being I have never been able to successfully bake decent bread myself.  I haven't worked out why but bread is my Everest.  Most other things I am capable of baking.  I think it's the yeast that trips me up.  Or the proofing.  I have no patience for proofing.

Well yesterday work sent me home after 2 hours (something about spreading my germs around cough cough).  I've been sick for almost a week and not improving at all.  Anyway I digress....

I'd like to announce that I successfully made a cinnamon pull-apart loaf yesterday!  You can find the recipe here so I won't copy and paste it, but I highly recommend listening to her tips, mainly these 2:

1. Reduce the sugar in the filling part of the recipe to 3/4 cup. I had so much extra sugar left over, I sprinkled all of it over the top creating a toothaching sweet outer crust.
2. Don't add too much flour to the sticky dough, it's meant to be sticky. My loaf turned out a lot denser than it should have been since I continually added flour to prevent it from sticky while I was kneading it.

Anyway, this is how mine looked along the way...

The calm before the storm

Sticky... really sticky

Try to use as little flour as possible - just enough to roll it out without having it stick to the bench

I've made a right hot mess

Melted butter brushed onto dough

The best bit - cinnamon sugar layer!!

Chop chop chop

Laid into a loaf tray

After it's proofed for a further 30 mins

 And 30 minutes in the oven gives you...

Oh it's so damn good.  I cut the amount of sugar from 1 cup to 3/4 but next time I'll cut it further to 2/3.  The bread is so light and fluffy - a vast improvement from my previous attempts.  I think the trick was not to over-flour as I was rolling it out (something I was guilty of doing previously).  Maybe next time I'll also substitute half the flour for wholemeal flour?

"Stalk My Weekend"

This post is dedicated to Ling who has made 'Stalk My Weekend' posts famous (and was the lovely sender of a care package I received last week):

The Eat Art Truck was near my office on Friday so I went down and ordered 2 lunches.  Why not?

Friday night I went back to Uni for the first time in years to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of my degree (it's a small degree with only about 30 people each year).  Got the shock of my life when I walked in and saw my HUGE ASS FACE!

Saturday I took myself to the hairdresser for a much-needed cut and colour.  I got my hair dyed back to its natural colour (black) which prompted my boyfriend to tell me I looked like a goth.  Thanks.  Also hacked off half my hair because the ends were starting to split and I hate unhealthy hair.  The hairdresser told me I'll need to stay black for at least the next 2 years so I guess black is here to stay.

Also managed to go watch my boyfriend's soccer game that arvo and then head out to Bondi as his band was doing a gig out there on Sat night.  My boyfriend played bass because the normal bass player is overseas at the moment and I was very impressed.

On Sunday I went to Crows Nest to catch up with my lovely friend S.  On her recommendation we went to St Malo Bakery.  Oh em gee.  That place is just amazing.  I ended up buying $50 worth of bread and pastries for my afternoon snack.

That raspberry and ricotta brioche was amazing, as was the hazelnut snail.  The mini foccacia was a bit too mustard-y for my liking.  And yes that's me doing work on a weekend in front of the telly.  At least I had a yummy snack which made up for it.