A plateful of cookies

First things first. I made this bag right at the beginning of the year.
( I use it every day now, pretty much. )

Did you notice the buttons? No? Well, I got a whole bunch of neat ones. That I will show you.
( I hope you don't have koumpounophobia. )


I promised photos of Tanpopo's cage progress. It's gotten a bit further than this, but it's pretty much permanently stalled at the moment...
( I have not witty cut text for this. Really. )

And now for something completely different.
I have a DS lite. It was getting scratched up in my handbag (as seen above) so I made a case for it.
( This is vaguely a step-by-step... )


The next project I did was because the bags we get given (for free) at course are ugly and everyone knows what type of course you're doing because they have the school emblazoned on the front.
( Cut, because they really are ugly. As is the carpet. )

Cake. Sponge. Cream. Jam. Pink Lemonade. I haven't really taken any more pictures of things I've made. (That are on my laptop.)
( Those photos are a lie, but not this cake! )

86%
And I am finished!
Well, except for work experience and exams.


We got the pastry tutor as our assessor rather randomly. It was vaguely alarming in the way that you think they're sizing you up.
HOWEVER, despite marks off for slightly undercooked rissotto that needed more seasoning and more garnish needed, he quite liked my dessert. Even though it did need more height.

(I shall post a phone pic of it sometime later. It is muchly pretty.)

The thing about the New Zealand news being obsessed with RTDs, or Ready-to-drink alcoholic beverages, is that my mind AUTOMATICALLY translates that into Russel T Davies. So I end up wondering for a moment why they want to ban an UK screenwriter, who probably does have an Agenda (notably the gay and the green it seems) but is otherwise harmless, until my brain catches up and realises they're talking about alcohol. (Alcohol being the glue that seems to hold together kiwi social interactions (because no one has heard of having fun and getting along apparently), which kind of sucks when you are a person who sees no appeal in that tingly alcoholic taste.)

Thank you fandom.


In more serious news, I have to come up with a dessert for my final assessment. I have narrowed it down to a few options, but I'm being horribly wishy washy about it, so if you could please take the following poll:

[Poll #1541931]

I ask this now because I will need to give my tutor an equipment list within the next week.

So, today in course we learnt about game meat.
And we learnt that, in order to be tender(er) and tasty, game needs to be hung/aged for a few days up to several weeks.

This made me frown.

Because in sword and sorcery fantasy, everyone knows that rabbit is tough and STRINGY but still edible if you've just killed it.
This does NOT make sense.
Yes, it will be tough (but oh so tasty) because it is wild (which could be mitigated by long, slow cooking) but it will be EVEN TOUGHER if you don't allow the carcass to relax out of rigor mortis.

This fact will now annoy me whenever I read that situation in a story.


( And randomness, mostly about what is on TV )

So, since we had Monday off as a regional holiday, my assessment this week is on Friday/today.
However, my group has an afternoon session, so we start at 11 in theory and go into the kitchen at 12:30.

We're doing pasta (and accompanying sauces) so at least the results will be tasty.

Wish me luck~

30 out of 35. :D
Although I'm not sure if the final score was 35 as there were some things that were on the marking schedule that weren't actually marked. So the out of may be slightly less.

Apparently need to work on my piping though, which yeah, I can understand, but this is pretty much the first week we've done any pastry piping...

So, happy for this week's assessment. Next week is fish, and the assessment seems easy. (Two items, although there is NOT two items on the marking schedule. It's more like four.)


Fun stuff shall have to be later.

In the meantime, I've settled on what pairing/person 'Bloody Game' is best suited for. Doctor/Master.
Yes, in that order and bonus points if it's genderswap for the Master.

I've also found that 'The Time it Takes' is the Doctor, and that even though the lyrics don't match up, 'Just be Friends' is GwenIanto.

COMPLETELY OFFTOPIC, but the sight of David Tennant in a red velvet jacket is hilarious. And makes me want that jacket.

So... twenty minutes away from a new year over here.

A little bit nervous, because OH MY GOD, TIME IS MARCHING EVER ON, but really hopeful it will be better than this one, at least in terms of academic success. (Although I could do without the work experience and I still don't know if I want to wake up at five in the morning for five months. And nineteen feels so old when you're looking at yourself and realising you're an adult and should be doing stuff like making money and meeting people.)

So yeah. 2010 had better be a brilliant year, otherwise I'll be tempted to bandsaw off its balls or something else appealingly alliterated.

Happy New Years from New Zealand everyone!

Assessment in... THREE hours.

Oh god I hope the brioche will turn out all right.
Least I don't feel sick or headachy though.

Wish me luck guys, I'm going to need/knead it.

Lace trimmed scarves

Ruffly umbrella
I want to do this. When I get an umbrella that isn't plastic. Isn't it the cutest?

Button brooches
Yay, something to do with the buttons in the button tin. Even though I don't have any really pretty shank buttons. (Unless kitties count.)

Not a specific tutorial link, but a blog's tag for 'dolls' and awesomely cheap ways to make clothing and accessories for dolls. (The dolls the posts are written for are American Girl style dolls, but dolls are dolls, right?)

And that is it.

ETA: Except this is a rather fascinating photo. You can see a fake tooth!
Also, 'x-ray kissing' sounds like the name of a band.

My feet are still recovering from this last week in the bistro at course. Spending four days in which 6-7 hours were spent on my feet has convinced me that I really do not want to do restaurant work.