Naked trees and dinners and tartes - oh my.

After an eventful week I had a less than eventful weekend, which made me feel a bit sad. There few fun bits and pieces and being the overly chirpy person that I am (irony I hear you knocking), I shall share those now...

The highlight Saturday was me being in a Woolies queue sans make up and a really cute guy still kept on looking over. He had a little boy with him and I will just keep on telling myself that he is in fact a single dad (the amount of Danishes in his basket could mean either) and not a married guy, checking out girls at the groceries while he is just supposed to fetch breakfast and take the little one so mummy can sleep in for a change. That would just add a load to my general disillusionment about men.

In an attempt to modernize the ‘missed connection’ from Craigslist or Gumtree:

Dear cute guy from the line at Woolies,

I saw you there on Saturday morning at around 10am and you saw me too. In fact you - scruffy dark hair, khaki (as in army green, just so you know) shirt, cool boating shoes with a little blond kid who looked like trouble – looked at me – plaid shirt, skinny jeans, no make-up, but cool sunglasses – a few times and even smiled at me with the left corner of your mouth.

If you are in fact single as in above mentioned described scenario, then you know where to find me.

Sincerely,

Any

P.S. I won’t mind your kid, even though I said he looked like trouble. I tend to like trouble.

If you may know the guy in question, please send him along.

The other highlight of my day already started on Friday over dinner at La Mouette/
I ♥ CHEESEBALLS. Thekla had organized a big table to indulge in their 6 course fall menu. As usual in situations like this I feel very grown-up. Even though I know I have technically been grown-up for a while already, there is just something quite adult about sitting at a round table at a fancy restaurant, ordering bottles of champagne and “Yes, sparkling water for the table, please.” It makes me feel grown-up in a very good way (probably always the case when there is alcohol involved).

So at some point over desert this friend was telling me that there is such a thing as naked yoga and it’s not sex in awkward positions. Don’t ask how we got there, I’m not sure I want to remember. As the funny coincidence wanted it another friend then send me a picture on Saturday evening of a guy doing naked Tree Pose. Wow. It left me so speechless that even the teacher in me was quiet, didn’t correct the posture in her mind, but just starred and drooled a little. What a treat.

Treats continued on Sunday with pretty pre-yoga breakfast. I realized then and there while taking this picture I do have a slight obsession with glasses. I mean the breakfast wasn’t have as exciting as the glasses I served it in. Why would I want to eat a single fig if it wasn’t for the fact that it fitted perfectly in this little retro shot glass?

I love buying glasses. I even drove to Bredasdorp to buy my Champagne glasses. After reading this story about fighting behavior from Paige,  I now got the perfect excuse. Ever been in a fight and you wanted to throw something? Well, if you ever dated an Into-Stone-Turner like me, you probably wanted and may even have done it. Nothing drives a hot blooded person crazier than someone who just turns around and literally shows you the cold shoulder mid-argument. I think there were few instances when I was about to grab the nearest object and hurl it at him. Each time I stopped for the simple reason that it was one of my Champagne glasses I grabbed and realized he wasn’t worth trashing it and having to drive 2 hours to replace it. Therefore I declare glasses the official peacemaker in my household and they need to have a budget accordingly. Another perfect excuse for spending money right here.

After yoga I wanted to be true to my word and make the weekend SmittenKitchen weekend as promised, because I love her and I could not resist the idea of my very own berry macaroon tarte amongst other delights. In my very own fashion I never have trouble to play around with a recipe and in this case using slightly salted butter by mistake worked to my advantage as I think the base would have been way too sweet otherwise. I also hate blackberries with a passion so I was quite happy that I couldn’t find any and substituted with my favourite: raspberries.

So no, I am definitely no food photographer as you can tell and the picture doesn’t do it justice – my little tarte was/is absolutely delicious. (So delicious I wasn’t even sad that I left my white KitKat weekend treat at the store). I do think I overate by a slice though, so now I need volunteers to finish it. My very own version of a blog competition therefore: Write to me why you would deserve a slice of my tarte and I shall deliver in person!

So, I guess putting it in a written nutshell my weekend wasn’t too bad: feeling grown-up in the best bubbly way possible, successful baking, a naked man doing yoga, and a long Skype conversation with Rapunzel. I shall only count the cute guy from Woolies once I have confirmed that he is single.

P.S. I admit the title of this post makes no sense whatsoever and is in fact quite lame. Sorry, promise to be better next time.

Queen of Tarts.

Just needed to share this picture from my birthday:



I was 'forced' to put my pink cake bow in my hair and chose a little bow in bow style. Nikki said I looked like a tart. I felt a bit insulted as I do not consider myself a very tarty person at all and was wondering what alternative hair styles there are with a pink ribbon involved. Nikki suggested to put it around my forhead to which I replied that I am neither a Native American nor a Hippie. She looks at me, looks at my bow and says: "No, you are not a hippie, you are a tart!" And laughs. Happy Birthday to me!

Let me eat cake.

Sorry for the cliché headline. There is just no other word for yesterday. It seemed like the birthday Gods wanted to make up for 31 years of celebrating without a cake. My family is not big on cakes. They are big on cooking, but I have not seen either of them to ever bake a cake (my mother will debate this fact vehemently, but for the sake of the story: my family does not bake).

When I was a child we had a housekeeper, who I lovingly called ‘Frau Waldi’, from a tiny village outside my home town. Whenever they had birthday celebrations there, apparently the whole village gathered and baked cakes for the birthday girl/boy. Each baked one. So on any given Monday morning Frau Waldi may appear at our house with a big container of left over cakes. What a feast for a little cake deprived child like me!

Even for my birthdays I would not get cake. I got sweets instead. Don’t get me wrong – I loved it. My Mum would put a huge tray with all my favourite sweets together and we would sing and gather around Haribo, Kinder Schokolade, and Mikado chocolate sticks. One year she even put lychees on the tray, a rare treat for a girl in the middle of nowhere Germany. I loved lychees. One for me and each child invited. I lucked out, because most of my friends had never seen a lychee before and refused to eat theirs. More for me – hurray!

What a surprise it was that upon moving to Cape Town I realized that the South African side of my family also doesn’t do birthday cakes, but trays. The only difference is that they add biltong on top. Apparently the kids would refuse all the other sweets without it. I think biltong on my trays would have made for another lychee-esque experience amongst my friends.

Getting to the point here...yesterday things were different. The birthday Gods became cake Gods and they were smiling. Thekla who cooked me birthday dinner had already told me she was making me cake. Quite a big thing coming from her as she is usually not big on cakes. Excitement starting already pre-birthday...

Next thing I know it was 9am birthday morning and I was starving. My stomach didn’t like the fact that it had not been fed any pizza the night before and was growling (more on why I am officially addicted to pizza these days later...). Man to the rescue – I got a call asking me to come downstairs. There he is with the most amazing piece of raspberry deliciousness from Cassis and a pink candle...because I’m a still a little pink loving girl at heart (not that he knows that there was a time when my entire wardrobe was Barbie pink). Breakfast delivery in the most perfect way.



I devoured it, so sorry only the candle
was left by the time I got to picture taking.

An hour later I spot my boss walking in with another little purple box. More excitement for me in form of a little Cassis chocolate bomb. Or whatever the French, probably more elegant sounding, equivalent would be called.



My hands slightly shakey in excitement..



And a pink ribbon too!

Then things started to get really exciting. I was  on the phone with my Dad when aforementioned friend Callie from Cakebread walked in with a job recon. He was waiting by my desk for me to finish and a cheeky question of ‘Where is my birthday cheesecake?’ was on the tip of my tongue. He beat me to it: “Happy birthday! Your cheesecake is in the oven and I will deliver it later.”

Aaaaaaawwwwh. I was in official cake heaven. Thank you cake Gods, you rock my world!