My recent cooking attempts

In the past couple of days I have attempted to do some cooking.

On Sunday I was having some friends over for a picnic and I really wanted to show I was capable of cooking so I decided to bake a cake. Now, I have this recipe for the birthday cake my mum always made me every year so I thought I would give that a go. All seemed to go well at first - the mixture tasted right. But then...I put it in the oven. The recipe said medium oven for 35-40 minutes...and since I had no idea what temperature was medium I just selected around 150 degrees. The cake...did not rise. I used self raising flour by the way so it should have. And it seemed to take ages to bake. In the end my cake was 1 cm in height! It tasted great though and I ate 75% of the cake myself over 3 days!

As my boyfriend is in Antartica they don't have a lot of fresh produce, including yoghart. So they make their own yoghart using Easiyo. Since he liked the yoghart so much - and got really excited about it - he decided to buy me a easiyo youghart maker and lots of yoghart making supplies. SO finally on Monday night I made the yoghart. And so far it seems I have succedded. The yoghart tastes and looks like normal yoghart and last night I made some tzakiki dip using it. The dip is a bit stronger than I am used to but is tasty enough :)

So yay - I have kind of managed to succed in some cooking.

I hate my laptop!

My laptop has been having power problems again! I hate my laptop and its power problems. Have not been able to use it since last Tuesday (currently sneaking on to my mum's beautiful lap top). I will probably have to buy a whole new power supply thing - again! At the moment I am just trying to replace the faulty plug in my universal adaptor power thing but the stupid company is not getting back to me! Rant!

I will attempt to post tomorrow. I have so many posts stored up in my head - just need the energy and the motivation to do them!

For the past week I have been watching a hell of a lot of chick flicks but today I went in to uni as I am now bored of just resting! Yes - I am such a nerd - going to uni after I have handed in my honours thesis and asking for more!

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read
•Open to a random page
•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Mr Rosenblum's List by Natasha Solomons

Sadie had never thought of a house as a living thing before - it was a thing, which one filled with other things, like furniture and books. Yet the walls were painted with limewash so that the stone could breath and at night the house did feel almost alive, with its creaking and the sounds of the stream, trickling, trickling.

pg. 79



So far I am finding the book really sweet. It was recommened to be liked by those who enjoyed "The Guensey Potato Peel and Literary Society" and as I enjoyed that I thought I would give it a try. And again, it is easy to read and an interesting story.

For those who read last week's teaser from Requim for a Wren - I finished that book. I really liked it and the ending was both sad and moving.

It is finished!!!

Today I handed in my honours thesis. All four bound copies of it. Am so over it by this point - but hello my free time (well...until I get a job). Unfortunately my celebration plans have to had be curtailed as yesterday I came down with a horrible flu type thing. Only 3 hours of sleep last as I was so clogged up :(

Sigh.

But I did reward myself with an icecream (it was very hot) and an hours worth of book shopping!

My plans are
- get a massage
- borrow some dvds
- sleep
- catch up with friends and family
- buy some much needed clothes!!

The easter show, arrivals in the post and a book review

Since it is sooo noisy at the moment in my building at uni (noisy renovations) I thought I would write a quick post :)

The easter show

On Sunday afternoon me and a few friends went to the Sydney Royal Easter Show. We had so much fun. Firstly we went to the big food dome and spent an hour tasting free samples and looking at the regional food displays! I love the dawn of agriculture one and some of the vegetables were enormous. I ended up buying some feta stuffed olives and marinated feta stuffed peppers - so tasty. We also bought some oysters to eat there - freshly prepared as a special treat.

Then we moved on to the arts and crafts section and looked at all the sewing and food competition entries. I love the sugar art stuff! So amazing. I once tried to do some but failed dismally.

By this time it was after five!!! So some of us went to look at the animals (I wanted to see the woodchopping but it was over). so we looked at the goats (some enormous and a bit scary), the pigs (which my friends adore) and lots of cows (which I like). Then we watched the final of the polo (nsw lost) and ate dinner whilst listening to some live music in this little area before heading home. Overall lots of fun!

Arrivals in the post

In the past week I have recieved two book parcels in the post! Yay! Both of these were birthday gifts from my brother

* Elegance of the hedgehog - i really want to read this book



* Shades of grey - after reading a teaser tuesday of this I thought I would give it a go.



I love the feel of new books - so much excitement and anticipation

Book review of The True Story of Butterfish by Nick Earls


I said I would let everyone know how I found this book so now I am! I said at first that it was hard to get into but it did improve slightly - though not too much. The book went somewhere completely different then where I expected it to go from the blurb and first part of it. And I found it didn't really go too far anywhere - like I got close to the end and I was suprised that I was near the end as it felt like nothing much had happened. Aside from this, the prose of the book was easy to read and not overly descriptive. I am not sure if I would recommened this to other people or try another book by the author but will consider further.

Anyone read anything great recently?

Teaser tuesday 100413

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read
•Open to a random page
•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Requim for a wren by Nevil Shute

There were no civilian boats or yachts afloat upon the south coast at that tume, but the river was full of landing craft, box-like, grey, painted things of steel with ramps to let down at the bow, with diesel engines thumping away inside them to charge batteries as they lay moored bow and stern to the buoys, with white ensigns drooping at the stern, with bored ratings fishing over the side and staring at us as we threaded our way past.

pg 69-70



I love how that sentence paints a picture so nicely. At first I struggled to get into this book but now I am really enjoying it. I have read "A town like Alice" by this author previously and really liked so I thought I would give another one of his a try. It is not the most "exciting" book but it is has a nice flow to it and it is interesting - showing a very different time realistically (or so I believe).

My absence

Sorry I havn't been round much this week! I have been busy writing up my honours thesis which is due on the 20th of April so am pretty worn out from so much typing, stress and lack of sleep. WIll try and post more tomorrow :)

Teaser Tuesday - 100406

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read
•Open to a random page
•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The True Story of Butterfish by Nick Earls

Kate Winter, custodian of the house of slamming doors and duelling stereos, ex-partner of the piano-owning man who was Annaliese's father.

I wanted my privacy.

pg. 31.



I finished reading The time traveller's wife for the second time (which i love!!!) this morning so I have only just started this book. So far it is ok - hopefully it will grow on me a bit more :)

My beautiful easter hamper

My boyfriend organised to have a box of easter treats sent to me for easter :) Very exciting. So instead of the normal foil wrapped eggs and bunnies I got these artisitc looking chocolate eggs. Aren't they beautiful. :)Also included - though you can't really see them are gold painted charamel filled easter eggs - I ate some of them today and they are delicious :)

Hot Cross Buns and Easter

Hot Cross Buns have to be my favourite part of easter. I can eat a pack a day they are so tasty. I also like the chocolate ones (the ones with chocolate chips instead of sultanas) but the normal one are still my favourite. Yesterday my mum made some fresh ones and I ate all eight of hem over the course of the evening!!! They were my dinner!

I love the smell
I love the hotness
I love peeling the cross off


http://z.about.com/d/britishfood/1/0/A/-/-/-/hotxbuns.jpg

What is your favourite thing about easter?

Yesterday I finished reading Too much happiness - which I really enjoyed as it made me think - and the last short story in it (it was not that short though - 60 pages) was really great. It was centred around a women mathematician and novel writer from the late 19th Century. As in - a real person.

But now on to something a bit more light hearted! I am finally round to reading The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger again! Yay!

I really enjoyed this book the first time I read it. Actually the first first time I read it (or part of it) was when I was handed one of those sampler books of the first chapter or so of it...and I thought "this sounds good" but I didn't read it for years later!!



It is so easy to read and a beautiful and very sweet story. Anyway - if you havn't read it I really recommend it :) (And i think it is better than her current book "Her fearful symmetry).