on Thursday 16 April 2009
(I’m totally avoiding doing work right now. I feel semi-bad. If you decide to make this cake and it makes you happy, please let me know – so I can take comfort in knowing that my shirking creates some good.)
When Spends2Much and I sunk our plastic forks into the yellow cake with chocolate icing at Amy’s Bread in Chelsea Market (see slideshow here), we fell in love with the wholesome goodness of yellow cake all over again. As she put it – it’s what birthday cake from your childhood is supposed to taste like.
After much-o Googling and checking out The Sweeter Side of Amy’s Bread, here’s the recipe adjusted to weights. I do this so I can feel precise. I also do this so I don’t need measuring cups – I just get one scoop and pile the ingredients onto my scale using the one scoop (and a trusty paper towel in between ingredients).
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on Wednesday 15 April 2009
I wake up and shower. Then I make & pack our lunches. If I have time, I eat breakfast at home, too. I’m out the door at 8, and I get to work. I go through the piles of stuff waiting for me at work, with many breaks in between to check up on my Google Reader, my Gmail, and sometimes the news, too. Somewhere along there, my iTouch dies and I have to listen to crappy music I downloaded in 2002 for free. I get a surge of energy to work through more stuff at about 5pm when the office starts getting quiet. At 6pm my stomach protests enough that I go home, with the intention to continue working from home.
I get home at 7pm, and I eat dinner, watch some TV. Then I’m stuck in front of my computer checking Facebook and I lose the momentum I had to continue working. I drag my butt to bed.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
It’s not very fun these days as I’m working up towards a 3-week vacay – I have earmarked a couple more recipes to test for Cookie of the Fortnight, but have not gotten to them yet. So far the one I tested on the weekend is a maybe, with quite a few tweaks. I promise I’ll get to the recipes before I go on vacation!!
I’m going to Taiwan next week – will be blogging from the homeland, no worries! I can actually devote time to blogging, I think/hope. I’ll be gone for a total of 3 whopping weeks from work, and I’m quite nervous about it (as is the rest of my team as they eye the piles on my desk warily). I’ll be in Taiwan for two weeks, and then one week in Vancouver before returning. Let’s meet up if you’re reading this from the West Coast!!
It has also come to my attention that my Mac is so beautifully set up that my pictures actually look a bit funky (colour-wise) on other computers. I’ll fix that eventually. Meanwhile, no, I didn’t think I was going crazy editing my photos in Aperture. Until now.
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Since we got Alex a bike last year for his birthday, he’s been bugging me to buy one. (I should’ve seen that one coming before suggesting a bike for him.) Since Julia was in the market for a bike, too, we went to Chinatown on Friday after brunch for some serious (stolen) bike shopping.
Seriously, I wondered constantly if these bikes were part of the huge ring of stolen bikes last year.
My shiny new red bike
So on Saturday, of course we had to test it out. It didn’t matter if it was sunny but super cold and windy by the lake. We proceeded to put on our toques, then our helmets, and rode away with gloves and mittens on our hands.
And you wonder why Toronto and I have a love-hate relationship.
We tested out the Leslie Street Spit from our place. On Google Maps, it’s showing that our roundtrip was about 20 kilometres. Even though we stopped at Canadian Tire to get a gel pad for my seat, I’m telling you now, my butt will never be the same again after riding for that long.
The park itself was like an urban dumping ground for construction rubble, but set against the vast & blue Lake Ontario, it was strikingly interesting.
Everything was a different shade of blue
Without the shattered bricks, it was actually a pretty picture
Of course, the obligatory Toronto skyline
Note all the red bushes in the park – they were oddly beautiful in their bare-branch-ways
I got home and felt the burn in my legs for the next 24 hours. Any mention of another bike ride will have to wait until my butt forgives and forgets this experience.
Happy Easter Monday!
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