Délicieux

"The Daring Bakers go retro this month! Thanks to one of our very talented non-­ blogging members, Sarah, the Daring Bakers were challenged to make Croissants using a recipe from the Queen of French Cooking, none other than Julia Child!"


 There was no playing games with this recipe - I followed the entire process to the T (not as my mom taught me which was a much more 'dash of this', 'splash of that', eat half the mixture before its cooked' kind of approach). It was worth every knead, every layer of butter, every long wait between rises, because they were darn delicious!


They were perfectly light and crispy on the outside, buttery and flaky on the inside and divine with some cheese and jam.


The proper camera was in Pretoria with Curtis so I had to make do with my extremely outdated little point and shoot, I think it actually has less megapixels than my phone (which is not of the smart phone variety either!) so the photos don't quite do them justice but here they are anyway... 

Exploring

I think it was the Getaway Photographer that I read a brilliant article in a while ago about urban photography and Curt and I have always thought trying out our urban photography skills would be fun... both being nature lovers (for lack of a better/less cliche phrase), up until now all our ''photo expeditions had been centered around the outdoors. So we decided to start small and spent a few hours one weekend exploring Wits, here is the result...

Wits is somewhere I spend my entire week but it somehow becomes completely new when you are not working up a sweat speed-walking up "the hill" (Witsies you'll know what Im talking about!) to get to an 8am lecture on time or some other very banal varsity past time.

Joburg Art Fair

Got any free time this weekend - if you answered yes then you should definitely check out the FNB Joburg Art Fair at the Sandton Convention centre!

The Art Fair is in its fourth year and the previous two that I have been to were beautiful, inspiring and of course, as with most large art collections, a little bit wacky - overall, it won't disappointment.

There are over 20 contributing galleries and it promises to be a a fantastic display of all types of talent.

PS. Its R100 for a day pass, but only R20 with a student card - yes please :)

What up G

This little guy was running around at Jazz on the Lake, a couple of weekends ago - adorable!

Thought it a nice way to start the week, you know, feel your inner gangster :)

Photo thanks to Curtis who is much better at taking photos of strangers than I am...

P.S. It was a brilliant day - Asa and 340ml performing = happy Becky!
Keep an eye/ear out for next year!

tadaaa...

Ok so, confession time: either I made my Pate de Fruits slightly incorrectly or I am just not the biggest fan - whichever way you look at it, although some of my family found them tasty, I was left with a rather large batch of very sweet strawberry flavored jam squares.

But alas, when cut into smaller squares and placed on top of a cupcake, it makes for a small burst of strawberry deliciousness!

Problem solved - now who wants a cupcake?

Night of 1000 Drawings 2011

Now if you looking for a different and much more entertaining way to be charitable other than eating KFC or buying cans*... look no further :) 

Night of 1000 Drawings is an awesome campaign that was started around 5 years ago to hopefully replace one stolen bakkie and has grown and grown since... It is a one night event where anyone from  "school children, homeless persons, designers, artists, art enthusiasts, to aspiring scribblers and the general public" submit a "doodle" which has to, under all circumstances, fit into the brief of "draw anything with anything on anything A5".


How rad?! Last year some friends and I got together, spent an evening having our own doodle party and then we submitted our A5 works of art - it was so much fun and it was also really exciting seeing your art pegged up on the evening along with everyone from a 5 year old kid to William Kentridge himself (ok not literally the man but his inspired art).


It is definitely worth participating in! And the evening is a bash too - DJs, bands,  live 'doodle-offs' and the chance to pick up some beautiful little art works for your house for only R100 regardless of who they were done by :) and all the money raised goes to a variety of NGO's including Paballo ya Batho...


Whats not to like!
This is Curtis and I at the last event:

*Please note that I am not in any way bashing any form of charitable cause whatsoever, only stating that I would rather do a doodle and then buy a few other doodles over eating take aways and drinking fizzies) 

Tsitsikamma National Park

Ok, ok... I know Im going on and on about this Plett business but firstly, I feel no shame in trying to remember a good holiday, especially when I am heading into the dreaded test season at varsity (which started this morning); a girl has got to stay sane somehow! Secondly I really enjoyed playing with the camera that holiday so there are a few creative happy moments in amongst these 'Plett Post' photos and thirdly, this is in fact my blog so I think I can talk about whatever I want to, until the cows come home :)

So, back to the topic at hand; The Tsitsikamma National Forest: home to the start of the Otter Trail and filled with endless trails (hiking and strolling) of astoundingly beautiful scenery and wildlife.

We did two short trails in the day, one of which had to be cut short as the tide was against us and caused a near trapping experience on the wrong side of a whole lot of precariously balanced boulders!

Daring Bakers - First Challenge

So after hearing of the elusive Daring Bakers for a while, I went a-searching the interwebs, found their site and after making sure I knew what I was getting myself into, signed up straight away...
It is worth a browse and is loads of fun if you're into baking (and/or cooking, there is a daring Cooks too!)

The blog check-in line for August:

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

I didn't give the chocolate tempering a try yet, but definitely going to give it a bah sometime, especially because I even bought myself a candy thermometer for the Pate de Fruits :) I was so excited, felt like such a granny!

So the first picture is my attempt at Strawberry Pate de Fruit :)

The second picture is of dark chocolate ganache truffles, one with a vanilla powder coating and the other with a white chocolate base and almonds.

 Mmmmm!