Taken on 12/2006

Meeting up with the good people of NSW Tourism board this weekend … hopefully the next few weeks will be extremely interesting around here, and with any luck – me and one of you reading this right now would be heading towards Sydney before the end of the year! At the moment all is still hush-hush, but hopefully I’ll be involved in some very exciting ‘Hidden Sydney’ activicty with them from next week!

So exciteddd!!

Woo!

Glastonbury is reknowned for its eclectic mix of performers, musicans and seriously any type of entertainment that you can think of. Most people don’t see the different facets of the festival, usually preferring to stick to well known bands ect like Kings of Leon & Blur. I must admit that I had been guilty of doing the same – the farm is so huge it takes ages walking from one stage/field to the next, it is just more relaxing to just plop yourself down on the grass and just spend the whole day being entertained. This year was different – I decided I was going to get the REAL glastonbury experience.

I started off the morning with some funny acts…like this comedy magic/fireeating/knife throwing act. They really made me laugh and set the tone for the day.

After wandering around watching other random acts, I wanted to do some crafting at Bella’s field. It’s a self-potrait project, we were each given a ball of clay to mould into a ’self portrait’, which they will then fire it and then display it in some sort of exhibition. You can also bring it back and fire it yourself to harden the clay up.

It’s just typical of me to make a cupcake…

Whilst bacon started off with a cat, which turned into a rabbit, then guniea pig and then a momma & baby lamb. Hmm.

Don’t you just love the cat with grass for whiskers!!

After we finished our works of art, I wandered over to the Circus field, hoping to catch some other funny acts. Instead, I keep bumping to a variety of random groups of people, being totally random, weird but hilariously funny:

This bunch of women were just walking around talking about their toilet routine

Disinfecting the mud

Walking coconut tree on stilts

Very strange. This bunch of people were cornering groups of people and giving them a personal singing performance. Strange.

Mobile tea lady. She’s not actually serving any tea at all…just smoking all the way.

Full-fledged brass band

Not exactly…can you see the tiny whistles in their mouths? They were whistling to popular songs like Britney and Beyonce tunes. Tres cool, very in tune as well…

The headless woman

Japanese pom pom men

Whilst bacon headed towards the comedy tent for some comedians, I headed for a spot of ‘culture’ at the local museum

Hehe…for those that have brought their ladybug along for a walk..hehe.

I joined the kids for another spot of crafting – mixed media self portrait

All in all, it was such an excellent way to spend the afternoon. After the initial downpour in the morning, I was pleasantly surprised by the weather which calmed down at around 12. I love the cabaret field and bella’s field the best…such random characters live there!! I love randomness, and no where else on earth can you find such a wide variety of randomness.

Coming up – yes, yes, MUSIC at last !! If you can’t wait, please click here, I was a featured twitterer on the Guardian Newspaper – I saw more acts that weekend than the whole music reporters put together!!!

Just a quick check – are any of you out there Sydneysiders (like zona) or would like a chance to win two pairs of tickets to Sydney? I have been approached with a very interesting proposition for me & my team (you, in other words) to win flights, accommodation and admission to some of Sydney’s most iconic attractions.

The downside is that we have to work (yes, me and you!) very closely for a full 6 weeks (gasp!) to stand a chance for a free pair of tickets to Sydney. From what I understand it is a virtual ‘treasure hunt’ excercise…with winners winning two pairs of tickets to Australia, one for you, one for me. I guess if you’re located in Australia this would be tickets for your mates or family?

Let me know – if there is not much interest I might just let another blogger blag this chance for a free trip to Sydney.

This is starting to get scary, but I managed another recipe out of the book…this time the ham & mushroom muffins

They are so damn good. Its like cheesesticks with ham and mushrooms, and absolutely rocks! Could do with full-fat milk instead of the skinny milk that I had..definately not one for the faint-hearted dieter. Bet it’ll taste lovely as well with some dried herbs sprinkled into it, will try that next time. These muffins are great as I can bring them to work in my lunchbasket…not something that I can do with frosted cupcakes! I don’t believe that the recipes in the book really works – very impressed!

Cons? Instead of the 12 muffins that this was supposed to make, yield was 30. Probably in a large part due to me using normal cupcake cases instead of a large muffin case. Now I just gotta eat it all for my lunch..

I am the queen of failed baking. I have had so many shit batches of cupcakes that have gone straight to the bin it’s outrageous. Of course, most of my recipes are off the internet, off recipes of people who usually ‘think’ they can bake, and publish their recipes. When I was still feeling flush last week, I decided it’s time for me to splurge out on a proper recipe book on baking. After weeks of flipping through piles of recipe books, including a two-hour trip to Borders, I decided on the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. Seeing that London is not really on my doorsteps, this is the next best thing to having access to the actual bakery.

I’ve been looking forward all week to try out one of the beautiful recipe from my lovely book…and decided on the black bottom cupcakes. Made of a duper chocolatey base of devil food’s cake, this dark, decadent base is topped with a light and fluffly topping of cheesecake mixture.

Don’t you just love the contrast? It looks so dramatic! I decided to holding off the frosting this time around, waiting to see how it taste like without frosting first. It was such a perfect mix of sweetness that I decided to just leave the frosting out.

The cheesecake top goes beautifully with the dark chocolate base, don’t you think?