Cake Boss and Cannoli.

On another food related note, one of my favourite shows at the moment is Cake Boss. The show follows the crew at Carlo's Bakery located in the heart of Hoboken, New Jersey. Let me just say, these guys are amazing. They make some pretty phenomenal looking cakes, to suit any requested theme. On the whole, the show not only showcases their amazing talents in the cake/baking department, but is generally entertaining following their (often hilarious) family dramas.

The bakery is apparently renowned for their cannoli, and so without fail every time I watch this show I think of cannoli and then crave cannoli. To satisfy my latest cannoli craving, my sister and dad kindly offered to drive out to one of my favourite little Italian patisseries to get me some of the best tasting cannoli in Sydney. The place is Pasticerria Papa and all their desserts are divine! In fact, they are famous throughout Sydney for their Ricotta Cake, which is indescribably delicious.

After 2 hours stuck in ridiculous amounts of traffic, they finally got there. My sister was worried that they might have run out of cannoli, as the place gets extremely busy on weekends (where the line is out the door) and by lunchtime most desserts are no longer available. Thankfully, they were able to get cannoli - both vanilla and chocolate - and some of slices of our favourite Pecan Pie.

Yum!

Mini Potatoes.

So a couple of weeks ago I started watching Nigella Lawson's new show Kitchen. It's no secret that I'm not a big fan and don't quite buy into this "Nigella - the Domestic Goddess" business. My sister on the other hand doesn't mind her and actually ordered her latest cookbook - aptly named Kitchen after the new series.

The main reason I'm not drawn to Nigella's brand of 'cooking' is that she has a tendency to use a lot of pre-prepared/out-of-the-packet food. I prefer to cook from scratch whenever I can (and therefore admire people like Ina Garten who encourage this way of cooking and show how easy it can be). Nigella also has a tendency to over narrate when showcasing her recipes, which I find irritating and mildly pretentious.

However, I must concede that on occasion, Nigella offers up some interesting and surprisingly decent recipes. For instance, I do enjoy her recipe for Chocolate Pear Pudding (available here). It lives up to her claim that it is quick, easy and delicious.

More recently from this new series Kitchen, Nigella promised us a quick, easy side dish of "mini potatoes". What are mini-potatoes I wondered? I had never seen such a product in grocery stores. And then she revealed that these mythical mini-potatoes were in fact a packet of store bought "potato gnocchi" fried in pan. My sister, fascinated by the whole thing, ended up at the store buying a packet of gnocchi to see if was any good.

Turns out this is a superbly delicious way to serve up and eat potato gnocchi (and they're pretty addictive... once you eat one it's kind of hard to stop). So, I must concede - despite the initial bizarreness behind this Nigella "recipe" it isn't half bad and is certainly a different way to present potato gnocchi as a side dish.

Surprising deliciousness aside, what does strike me as odd is that this counts as a recipe and gets a whole page in the cookbook. It may be a twist or a useful tip, but does placing gnocchi into a frying pan with some oil and salt really require a recipe? So here I am, back to being thoroughly unimpressed by Nigella's unique style of "cooking".

NB: On a slightly unrelated note, the post on my attempts at making a traditional Thanksgiving meal is on its way...soon! :)

Bon Appetit.

Today I received the latest issue of my Bon Appetit magazine subscription in the mail. It's the Thanksgiving special and despite having exams I'm excited that it came just in time for me to attempt my 3rd Thanksgiving meal, this coming Thursday.

It may seem unconventional to celebrate Thanksgiving in a country where many people wouldn't even know what it's all about, but I've always loved the idea of this North American holiday - and so a few years ago I decided that I'd like to make a Thanksgiving feast for my family.

Now, it hasn't always turned out the way I planned. Last year for instance I did not leave myself enough time to make all the usual accompaniments, such as cranberry sauce and stuffing - giving up after making a side of potatoes and gravy. I also had to substitute chicken (well, two whole chickens) in place of a turkey - as my mother forgot to source one for me. The other problem I find is that it is really hard to be in the kitchen for a long period of time when the weather this time of year is so warm! It makes me see the appeal of a cold, wintery North American Thanksgiving.

This year I'm determined for it all to turn out differently. At this stage I still need to buy a turkey (which sadly, may or may not happen in time) and all the other bits and pieces necessary to make a pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce and traditional stuffing. I'll be chronicling the result here on Thursday. Fingers crossed it doesn't end in disaster!!

I wonder...

The past couple of weeks of my life can only be summed up as being absolutely chaotic. When my life gets as crazy and chaotic as it has been (this past week in particular) there are two ways I react. I either get mildly hysterical and anxious about everything or I adopt this weird, eerily calm demeanor. At the moment I'm in that place of calm, but what usually happens during this weird period of calmness, is that I get incredibly contemplative and ponder the really strange and insignificant things in life.

This past week as I travelled along the M2 (for those of you unfamiliar with this road, it's a major motorway that travels through the north/north-western suburbs of Sydney). I've travelled this motorway almost everyday for 4 years and there's one thing that I've often wondered about. In morning peak hour when you get onto the M2, heading towards the City, you are lucky to be able to travel 5km/hr. Most of the time the traffic is at a stand-still. And then you reach the Epping tunnel and BAM! Everyone is suddenly able to speed up and drive on the max. speed of 100km/hr.

I don't get it. How can everyone be inching along at 5km/hr for kilometres and kilometres, and then two-seconds later (as you exit the tunnel) everyone is able to drive at 100km/hr. Where does all the traffic go? Does some Fringe-like occurrence happen whereby half the cars are sucked into a parallel universe, therefore freeing up space on the motorway so that the traffic can resume normal speeds?

It's pretty random, but I've thought about this on occasion the past 4 years, but in my contemplative state this week it really got me thinking. I'm sure there's a logical explanation. I just wonder what it is.

NB: For those of you unfamiliar with Fringe, I'm referring to this.

Too busy or just plain lazy?

I'm sitting here thinking about the failure of the exercise regime that I started last month (here). I went cycling about 2 or 3 times and then it just fell apart. I've been blaming it on my busy schedule - between exams and work I just do not have the time. But today as I got thinking about it I realised I am like the thousands of other people out there who constantly vow to get fit and then always make excuses to avoid actually doing it (in other words, it would seem I am just plain lazy).

I'm still determined to get fit and healthy, and I keep telling myself that come the 29th of November I'll be free to pursue this goal of getting healthier. However, I'm slowly starting to feel as sense of despair and lack of faith in myself as I sit here analysing all my previous failed attempts.

A couple of years ago I joined a gym. It cost me around $250 and I told myself that the fact that I had forked out money in pursuit of fitness would encourage and motivate me to drag myself to the gym every day. For a while I went kind-of regularly (by regularly I mean once a week, or sometimes once a fortnight). I took a couple of personal training sessions, and I even went to a yoga class (once)...and then began the reasons why I couldn't go. There was studying and work to be done. I'll go tomorrow I would tell myself, but then I would tell myself the same thing the next day and the next - until it had been several months since I had gone to the gym. Part of me felt bad. As a uni student money is a scarce and valuable commodity, and $250 was a lot of money to pay for something that I was no longer using. Eventually I gave my gym membership to my sister, who must have inherited the patience, motivation and determination that I seem to lack when it comes to exercising and leading a healthier lifestyle.

Reflecting upon my past attempts to institute an exercise regime into my life, it's clear that my excuses of simply being too busy are just that, excuses. I am simply lazy. The challenge for me now is to figure out a way to overcome this laziness - because one day I WILL succeed in sticking it through an exercise regime...if of course my schedule allows it :P

Elixir.

So in attempts to further procrastinate and avoid studying for exams I began (and finished) reading Hilary Duff's book Elixir earlier this week.

The story is about a girl named Clea who is a photo journalist and has spent a great deal of her life in the spotlight, what with her mother being a famous politician and all. Her father (a well-known surgeon) disappears whilst on a humanitarian trip, and Clea begins to notice shadowy images of a mysterious man in all of her photos. Whilst on an assignment, Clea is brought together with this mystery man by some underlying powerful connection. Together they work together to unravel the mystery of their past, and attempt to find her father.

The story for the most part was well written, and is typical of the style adopted by most books in the current, and popular genre of young adult paranormal/romance fiction. I must admit I was skeptical to read it - as much as I adore Hilary Duff I didn't know what to expect of her foray into the world of authorship. The book, while containing paranormal elements that reminded me other books, such as Lauren Kate's Fallen, it was surprisingly interesting and refreshing - in the sense that it did not contain vampires, werewolves or fallen angels. Instead there are magical forces at work, but it centres around the age-old tale of an "elixir of life" and the idea of past lives/reincarnation.

As I was reading the book I noticed I was fast approaching the end and there was so much yet to be resolved - something that really annoys me when I watch a movie or read a book. It makes me wonder if they are going to rush some sort of resolve and bring the story to a crashing end. Well, it turns out Ms. Hilary Duff is working on a sequel, which explains the cliff-hanger-like ending where some answers are given to readers but not all.

All in all, not a bad read.

LA

Since I'm super stressed out at the moment with exams, all I can think about is how much I want to be overseas asap! So I thought I'd procrastinate and take a trip down memory lane in the process...the destination - LA!

First stop of our trip to the USA earlier this year was the lovely city of Los Angeles.

However, unlike NYC I feel it necessary to add, that I do not love LA...I kind of like it. As my sister would agree, our time in LA did not start out on the right note. It consisted of a pretty nerve-wrecking journey on the LA suburban metro system. Now I'm not saying that the trains are all bad, but travelling from the airport on them may not have been the best of ideas, as it takes you on a journey which consists of 3 train changes and many stops through slightly unsavoury parts of town.

By the time we had reached Hollywood and Vine I was close to tears (I may or may not have broken out into sobs...maybe) and my sister looked like she wanted to murder me for ever having suggested catching the train into Hollywood - especially when the concierge had even warned us against it. The journey had seen us come across a slightly, crazy ranting guy who looked like he could (and would) kill you if you so much as made eye contact with him. Then there was "bug man" who was a homeless guy that was asking for money to get medicine for the bugs that he had (I think he meant knits) and all the locals on that particular train starting freaking out...so I did too! It didn't help that, from the the perplexed looks on our faces to the Qantas Frequent Flyer member tag hanging off our bags, we screamed TOURIST!

So we arrived at Hollywood and were stumped as to what our next move should be...we were at the beginning of the Hollywood Walk of Fame but by beginning I mean nowhere near the tourist-y parts of town like the Kodak Theatre or Grauman's Chinese Theatre...we were literally at the brink between Hollywood and the notorious Downtown LA area (where I'm told even locals don't go unless they have to). We stumbled into one of those tourist tour bus type places (and normally I avoid these tour groups as they tend to rip you off). However, the owner was so sympathetic towards us - what with me having been in tears and my sister in a thunderous mood - so he let us on the tour for a really low price. I think we may have paid just $20! And it sure was the best $20 we spent. The tour guide took us to all the famous places (and even historical, yet not typical tourist places) including -

Kodak Theatre

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Paramount Pictures Studios

We saw and did a fair bit during our time in LA but my favourite place, by far, was The Grove "Shopping and Entertainment Resort" which is located at the famous Farmer's Market.

This place is THE ULTIMATE for shopping and has fantastic places to eat (not to mention a great-looking cinema if you have time to check out a movie). You can easily spend a day at this place and not even notice!

Overall, LA is a pretty cool place to visit (even if I do not love it as much as NYC), and it's not a bad place if you like to celeb-spot :P I would definitely go back but maybe just for a stopover kind-of holiday.