soul bistro

I found this place at http://www.yourrestaurants.com.au/guide/soul_bistro/ and walking in, didn't expect too much.

WIN (as they say)

Here's their website. Do yourself a favour, Brisbanites, head over there sometime soon. Great service, delicious food (bread, not on the menu, OMG) (and apple crumble sundae, [gf] sounds weird I know but is anything but)!!!! The decor is not amazing and to use the toilet you have to get the key and go over elsewhere, but you win some, you lose some, this is excellent value. And they have a $28 three-course meal.

If you're too lazy to click on the link, it's BYO, it's at 5/16 Baroona Rd Milton.

couple of good things

So I've just finished a coursework masters... in linguistics, which I love.

Just wanted to share a couple of great things:

A friend's music

Friend of a friend's writing from what seems like another planet, but also not

Interactive version of my life for the last couple of years (though more writing in English recently)

It's Ride to Work Day on the 12th of October

Makings of pear and almond flan from Consuming Passions.

I'm nuts about nuts, as you probably know. And I really have been after an almond and orange cake recently. Fingers crossed I'll be getting some today. Did you know that practically every recipe for flourless orange cake is the same one? It's in Claudia Roden's Middle Eastern Cookery book. I can just about remember it - 2 whole oranges, boiled for 2 hours, then cooled and mushed up in the food processor.. 250g caster sugar, 250g almonds, 1 tsp baking powder, 4 eggs or is it 6?. Pow!
Cooks for about an hour. That's how many times I've found this recipe.

Oh and one more thing. I stumbled on Frisky Goat Espresso yesterday after marvelling at my workmate's Frisky Goat paper cups for the last few months.
Coffee was nice, but I'm not a real snob. I enjoyed it all the more because of the attractive three manning the (kind of empty) deck... they, and the place, reminded me of home, though it was definitely Brisbane prices. They seemed to know what they were talking about, and they didn't laugh at me for soy, but instead chose a complementary coffee bean to match the flavour of the bean, as it were. AND they spelt my name right on the bottom of the cup. In arty handwriting.
All this being said, if you don't handle your caffeine well (and I thought I had increased my tolerance), go for small.

Procrastibaking

And I haven't even got any photos. But any reader of this blog would probably smile to know that in the last 5 days or so I have made 2 cakes and I smile to know that they are both eaten (except for the pieces that we took to a certain grandmother's house, that will probably be on top of the fridge next week, growing mouldier by the day).

And I have been wanting to make a pecan pie for AGES. seriously months. And we've got all the ingredients. But that seems too heavy and needs an occasion. Yes it would be fine for it to BE the occasion, but cakes are quicker when you're trying to cull 3000 words from a study AND add a conclusion and limitations/further research section.

It's not even really procrasti- anything. (Saw [title of show] a couple of nights ago which inspired the title for this post.) (Though blogging is a bit of a procrastinatory tool, as you know.) It's more just stress relief - it's nice to be able to chuck something together and then have wonderful smells in the house and people telling me things are delicious and making me tea to go with them. (WHERE IS MY TEA? haven't had any today.) But at the moment I don't really feel like cake. Or floury/bready things, actually.

Is it truly Monday? Feels like Sunday.

Yeah, this post doesn't really go anywhere. But tell you what, I have nearly finished a Master of Arts.