

Suddenly August
Thursday August 7, 2014
I was up in Auckland last weekend for May and Norman's wedding. Awesome to catch up with my KCC crew and even more exciting to see these two be married and to celebrate with them over a fantastic meal at the Cube on Swanson St in the city.
I got to see my two nephews - the older one is as giggly as ever, and extremely excitable, the younger one we call fei jai because of his cute chubby cheeks! They really do grow up so fast and I really wish I could see them more often. I also took my parents to this amazing restaurant called Chikos on Lincoln Road. The chef there is Filipino but trained in French cuisine and his food combines contemporary flavours of Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Japan to produce some truly delightful and inspired dishes. I was blown away by the immaculate presentation of each dish, as well as the freshness of the ingredients and the exciting, unique taste of the meal. Definitely one to visit again in the future, and for $30 per main, a very reasonably priced one at that.
This week has been pretty busy too. I went for yoga again on Monday but felt so horrible afterwards that I'm probably just going to skip the last two classes - I ended up having some shooting pains down my leg and it was so hot and humid that I felt like I was going to pass out. I've just come back from Luke's birthday celebration at the Lighthouse Cinema where we ate an Adventure Time cake and saw Princess Mononoke.
One more week until Wellington on a Plate! Organising people together for this is worse than herding cats, but I'm sure the negativity will melt away once I get some burgers in my mouth. This week's baking challenge was a vegetable cake - a cake with a vegetable as the primary ingredient. Our bakers pulled together with pumpkin, beetroot, zucchini, mushroom (ugh!), onion (ugh!!), potato and rhubarb; huge congratulations to Jules and Tim for their contributions to the challenge - next week's is pie!
