I have discovered the delights of high tea. One, that was home-made at a friends place and another, at one of the best high tea rooms in Sydney; The Tearoom in Queen Victoria Building.
My uni friend organised to have a mini high tea at her place for a last catch up during our holidays before everyone went to their respective areas to do work experience and disappeared till we started the second semester in July.
I was the first to arrive at her place (after taking just one, very minor wrong turn on the way). The spread on her table cannot be described be as 'mini', which was what my friend insisted it would be in her invite text message. She had cute pink cupcakes decorated with smarties and the tastiest chocolate chip cookies, which were home-made as well. The only thing she said she cheated on was the ice tea, which was store bought, but I couldn't care less after seeing the variety of dips, including hummus, french onion with capsicum and something that I had never heard of, which was made with yogurt and cucumbers.
She had two types of sandwiches, ham and egg sandwiches and the egg sandwiches were a massive hit. The bread was soft and the crispy lettuce in it complimented the creamy mayo in it. Yes, it was a simple egg sandwich, but mix it with a few friends from uni who had not seen each other for about a good two months. Then it becomes the perfect recipe for a lovely evening spent together.
Not even a week after this, I met up with another uni friend, who was also in due for a massive catch up, at the well-known Tearoom in the QVB. I had heard a lot of good things about this place and looked up a few photos of the place before I headed there. It did not disappoint.
I had to go through three outfit changes before I decided that what I was wearing would be appropriate to wear at a place as elegant as the Tearoom. Inside, The Tearoom had a high ceiling with a grand chandelier hanging in the middle. The china tea cups were tiny and there was a variety of different teas to choose from. I was adventurous and chose vanilla tea and had my first cup of tea without sugar in it. The smell of vanilla was wonderful and enjoyed using the small tea strainers over the cups. My friend decided to be playful, and because she wanted to use the sugar cubes, she chose Earl Grey.
At first when they brought out the little slices and sandwiches, we thought that it wasn't a lot, but as we tried everything The blueberry slice looked tiny, but the jelly on top of it was so soft and rich and the strawberry tarts with mascarpone cheese absolutely melted in my mouth.
Me and my friend had a lovely time talking about what we had been up to in the last few weeks and had many stories about our clinical placements and discussions about how good the Tearoom would be to have a engagement party or a 21st party. Expensive, but it would be very exclusive.
Procrastination at it's greatest
I am, just like any other university student, a massive procrastinator. I always need to clean my entire room before I can start studying, organise my lecture notes before I can start doing an assignment and bake some brownies before I think about starting to do my homework.
But my greatest weakness with procrastination lies when it comes to exercising. Having always been small in size, I never had a problem with weight. And generally enjoying salads and the massive healthy eating craves I get, and thinking of the 20 minute walk I do from my car to the lecture, and back again, during semester time keeps me from doing any actual activity that can be counted as exercise.
Nevertheless, having been pointed out that my insides won't really be working to the maximum without doing some sort of exercise, I got thinking about really motivating myself and start going for a run. But I did find a reason not to actually do that - I don't own any proper running shoes. And I still maintain that I will really go for regular jogs when I own such a pair of shoes.
For someone who loves shopping, I am definitely taking longer than usual to purchase these shoes. I blame it on procrastination again, where I keep telling myself that I will go and buy them when I get holidays from uni.
I will update on how I go on with starting an exercise routine and how much luck I have with maintaining it. I know that I probably am not nearly as fit as I can be and I always wonder about the fitness of characters in movies and books. They never seem to tire out of any amount of running away from the bad guys, rock climbing or dragging massive houses to waterfalls. And I always think that if I ever end up in that situation, I would be one of the first to die... and I definitely want to be one of the people who survive the zombie invasion.
But my greatest weakness with procrastination lies when it comes to exercising. Having always been small in size, I never had a problem with weight. And generally enjoying salads and the massive healthy eating craves I get, and thinking of the 20 minute walk I do from my car to the lecture, and back again, during semester time keeps me from doing any actual activity that can be counted as exercise.
Nevertheless, having been pointed out that my insides won't really be working to the maximum without doing some sort of exercise, I got thinking about really motivating myself and start going for a run. But I did find a reason not to actually do that - I don't own any proper running shoes. And I still maintain that I will really go for regular jogs when I own such a pair of shoes.
For someone who loves shopping, I am definitely taking longer than usual to purchase these shoes. I blame it on procrastination again, where I keep telling myself that I will go and buy them when I get holidays from uni.
I will update on how I go on with starting an exercise routine and how much luck I have with maintaining it. I know that I probably am not nearly as fit as I can be and I always wonder about the fitness of characters in movies and books. They never seem to tire out of any amount of running away from the bad guys, rock climbing or dragging massive houses to waterfalls. And I always think that if I ever end up in that situation, I would be one of the first to die... and I definitely want to be one of the people who survive the zombie invasion.
Baked delights and chocolate is what this Easter is about..
With having to work in the middle of a long weekend and my family's inability to eat bananas led me to explore the delights of baking again. It has been a while since I tried baking something from scratch, and the last batch of brownies I made was only half cooked and wasn't very successful.
My mom thankfully put the very brown bananas in the fridge this time, hoping I would make something out of it. I looked up a few recipes on my favourite recipe website, Taste.com.au, and chose a banana bread with an Easter twist; chocolate chip banana bread.
The addition of white and dark chocolate bits in worked very well. And especially those squishy brown bananas. Never thought i would get so excited about bananas that were so brown. But the browner the bananas are, the better it is for the banana bread and putting a few more bananas that was required made the bread very moist and spongy. The smell when I opened the oven was so good and this was by far the best banana bread I had made.
After almost burning my fingers and having banana bread for breakfast, I finally decided to make my first ever proper cupcakes. I had tried making cupcakes before, but I didn't put the paper cups in a muffin tin and put in way too much cupcake mixture in the cups, so they were all sloppy and out of shape. This time, I made cupcakes from scratch, using some of the most delightful ingredients ever; almond meal and vanilla extract.
I got the recipe for the Vanilla cupcakes with Lemon icing from Taste.com.au as well. The icing was a bit too tangy and sweet for me and my icing job is a bit sloppy, but it is the first ever cupcakes I have made and iced, starting from scratch, so I am hoping this inspires me to continue on making more cupcakes.
Cupcakes are definietly cute and fun!
Below are the two recipes I used. I highly recommend the banana bread one:
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/2714/vanilla+cupcakes+with+lemon+icing
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/12918/chocolate+chip+banana+bread
ME
