Appreciating Chocolate

I’ve been a busy bee of late and I’ve much to blog about

But first up, my ‘Chocolate Connoisseurs Appreciation Course’





Let me tell you, this is a very good way to go off chocolate

Why? 2.5hrs of chocolate ‘connoisseuring’ can make even the most loyal of chocolate lovers feel abit…ill?

Particularly if you spend the majority of your time “appreciating” dark dark chocolate like this 99% one:



Now I may sound like I didn’t enjoy myself, believe me I did

The speaker, Matt was very nice and even made us each a hot chocolate when we arrived




Later we tried our hand at making our own hot chocolates, the ‘proper’ way – mine looked alright, but turned out to be kind of yuck…. Much to my delight, Danny’s was worse






Unfortunately the only pictures I have of me are ones of the back of my head – I’ve found this to be a recurring theme actually and attribute it to our humble beginnings and him falling in love with, yes, the back of my head. WEIRDO! Haha but I digress….

So anyway, being an after work thing I went in and out of consciousness but all in all found the course quite educational. We learnt so much about the origins of chocolate and how chocolate in its edible form came about, you know, trivia you can talk about when placed in awkward situations where you have to make conversation

Ms T's at Bondi Icebergs

beccs food rating: 4.5/5

we had the pleasure of sharing Ms T's birthday this year at the acclaimed Bondi Icebergs



Ms T and D



Being located at one of sydney's most famous beaches, it took us about 45 minutes to find parking, but it was all worth it because the food was absolutely devine! i'm still hankering for it now!

I couldn't decide between the spaghetti with clams or the trout rissotto - so i ordered both



Spaghetti with clams



Trout rissotto

and i dont for a minute regret it!!

D ordered the rib-eye steak



D's rib eye

D said that it was one of the best steaks he has ever had - and he loves him his steaks... Ms T ordered the same thing (dont underestimate her eating capacity by the looks of her size - she could eat almost anyone under the table!)and also said it was the best steak she has ever had... and thats a big call coming from them!

I tried some and i must admit, it was cooked to perfection, when it first came out i said it looked like charcoal and expected it to be dry and gamy...how wrong was i, it was the most succulent melt in your mouth steak ever! so YUMMY!!!

and for dessert, ofcourse we had to have the panna cotta, i LOVE panna cotta mMmMmm



Panna Cotta mMmMm

and then for our second dessert, we headed back to Ms T's to watch the Australia vs Ghana game and had Lindt chocolate cake! I LOVE LINDT!!

me and my ixus!

ok. a few weeks ago danny and i were fortunate enough to be invited to the BMW 5 series launch... it being a swanky cocktail affair with a 4 course meal catered by doltone house and a jazz band, we felt it inappropriate to lug the ginormous DSLR to the occasion. that night i wished that i had a camera small enough and sharp enough to capture our dally into an enchanting and luxurious world we probably wont experience very often in our lifetime...

forward a few weeks, in come the canon ixus 130 and my wish came true (i swear i am not being paid for this! that's wish 2 haha)

i don't profess to know much about cameras at all, ive always gone with looks and have always prefrred the vintage camera look akin to the canon G9, G10, G11 or the Olympus Pen until this little pocket rocket walked into my life!



image taken from http://www.cnet.com.au

Small enough to be discreet, it has novelty functions that I absolutely LOVE that most be probably wont really care about..

miniature function:



didn't really turn out here because i wasn't far away enough, great for scenery pics to make things look like toys... LOVE!!

nostalgic:



fisheye:



colour accent:



There are heaps more functions but these were the reasons why we ended up choosing this camera over all the other super cool ones, that and because it was a mad bargain!