A country drive - 'Tea and Niceties' High Tea Review

A boring working weekend has made me reminisce about the lovely time I had last weekend at Mount Tamborine, which is in the Gold Coast Hinterlands. From where we picked up my sister's friend, it took about an hour to get up there by car. My sister had booked for high tea a few weeks in advance, as bookings are essential at Tea and Niceties, so we were going to go, despite the cool weather and the fact that I had a hacking cough. Funnily enough, I hardly coughed while I was up there - must be the good, fresh mountain air. Let me take you on a visual trip there...

Tea and Niceties High Tea Review

The place:

Tea and Niceties is one of the loveliest tearooms I've ever been to. Indeed, I think it is the only proper tearoom I've been to, since most places that offer high tea these days are cafes, bistros, or hotels. From the outside, there are no particularly attractive features that make it stand out, and it's not fully visible from the street view, so most people who visit this place hear of it by word of mouth or from online foodie recommendations. My sister heard about it from a friend; I read about it ages ago on Urban Spoon. 

I was not expecting this when I walked through the door, where we were greeted by one of the friendly staff:

I felt like I was stepping back in time, into an era where traditional tearooms were common, and ladies would don on pretty tea dresses to take afternoon tea and partake in a healthy dose (or not) of daily gossip with their lady friends. For the first time, I felt like I was underdressed for high tea. Being a vintage-style clothing lover, I usually like wearing full skirts and cardies with floral or pearly trims, but had opted for a more casual outfit that day, as I appeared seemingly overdressed for previous high tea settings. This is the place where my wardrobe would totally fit in, but alas, I missed my opportunity!

The room was literally a modestly-sized room that was decorated with small chandeliers hanging off the ceiling, and simple picture frames and decor in coordinating gold, cream and pink colour tones. The tables were covered in clean white tablecloths overlaid with white lace, with faux pink rose centrepieces, and the chairs had cushion tops and their backs were trimmed with pink sashes. The place exudes an old-fashioned charm without being gaudy and pretentious. I do note that it's non-apologetically feminine and most probably targeted towards female tastes. And yes, all the customers and staff that day were female! At this point, I should also mention that the staff were all older ladies, who were very attentive, friendly, and helpful with the tea list - which we will get to. 

Finally a place with tables that are actually big enough to comfortably accommodate for more than 2 lots of cake tiers and all the tea things! 

At the back of the room, they have a bench selling random knick-knacks like old sugar spoons and glasses. The double door at the side leads into the kitchen.

The food:

Even the glasses of water, which were placed there in anticipation of our arrival, seemed that little bit more special with the slice of lemon and sprig of mint in them. 

One could choose to have the 'Traditional Tea' menu ($40pp) or the 'Elegant Tea' ($45pp). We chose the latter, which includes 2 pots of tea and a larger assortment of food. The tea list was quite long and had classic as well as more contemporary options, like the flower and fruit-infused teas. One of the staff suggested we choose 2 pots of tea at a time, so that we could try 4 different teas, as opposed to just getting one type each, which would probably get cold half way through our sitting. We ended up choosing the Stockholm (which ended up to be my favourite), the Japanese Lime (one whiff of it made me decide against even tasting it), Sydney Special (I don't remember this one.. I think it was okay), and Morning Flower (which I didn't like). Yep, I'm definitely a classic tea person. I know I should probably just choose English or Irish Breakfast at the out start, but there's a part of me that urges me to try to be more adventurous.

My Stockholm tea

And tell me these are not the prettiest sugar cubes you've ever seen! I really wanted to try using one of these to see if the icing flower would float or dissolve, but I've slowly become accustomed to taking my tea unsweetened and without milk. My sister did use one, but just pulled the icing flower off to eat!

Besides pretty sugar cubes, we also had the option of loose granulated pink sugar. How very pretty just to have it on the table to look at!

Now we get to the most important part - the food! This is what was presented to us soon after receiving our first pots of tea:

And here's a closer look at the delicacies on each tier:

Bottom tier: Cookie-cutter shaped mini sandwiches with different fillings, e.g. egg; salmon, dill and mayo; cucumber; ham; etc; savoury mini muffins, and little savoury puff pastry squares.

Middle tier: Tiny plain and fruit scones dusted with icing sugar, served with jam and cream; and a little dish of pannacotta topped with slices of fruit and chocolate shapes. 

Top tier: Sweet puff pastry filled with chocolate and cream; chocolate caramel slice; chocolate mousse in a chocolate cup filled with a layer of smooth, runny caramel; a sandwich biscuit with coffee-flavoured buttercream; 2 mini layered sponge cakes - one with jam and the other with lemon curd - frosted with cream and covered in desiccated coconut.

There were tiny clawed tongs included to serve yourself, which were good for the small things like sandwiches, but were too narrow for the bigger items, which we had to either manually stretch the legs of the tongs out for or just use the tongs to push the food directly onto our plates. In the middle tier, they included tiny little spoons to use with the pannacotta, and at each place setting was included the tiniest and cutest knife I've ever seen for cutting the little scones and spreading the cream and jam with.

And, if the photos aren't enough to do the food justice, yes, I can tell you now that the food was scrumptious! I'll admit that I probably ate more here than at any other high teas because of the delightfully dainty bite sizes of each item on offer. I often get put off by large rectangles of sandwiches and huge scones, one look of which is almost enough to make you feel full. Because the high tea menus often comprise of 3 tiers of food, you would think the idea is to allow people to sample everything from each tier. So I was very glad to see that Tea and Niceties made the effort to make all the portions petite, without compromising on the selection and amount of food presented. The scones were needless to say quite yummy, and the pannacotta was the nicest tasting one I've tasted so far.

I ate my share of the everything on the middle and bottom tiers, except for one of the muffins, and I was the only person in our group of four to be able to eat any of the desserts on the top tier! The staff provided everyone with cardboard take-away boxes to take away the left-overs (I suppose most people can't finish their food then), so I will still be able to give you a review of these goodies. My favourite of the desserts would be the little cakes, which were nice and light, but flavoursome and moist. My second favourite would be the mousse. This little thing looks like it would be overly chocolatey and cloyingly sweet, but the mousse is actually quite light and I was delighted by the hidden layer of delicious flowing caramel in the crisp chocolate cup. I'm not a fan of the cookie or the caramel slice, nor did I really enjoy the puff pastry either, but I think in the scheme of things, the menu worked out to be pretty good. Oh, and we were given a chocolate dinner mint afterwards as well, along with a bookmark and a leaflet to remind us of our experience (and to come back obviously!). Just in case you are interested, I asked the lady if the menu changes, and she said that they change it whenever they get bored of making the same things, but even then, usually it is only the fillings that get altered.

I rate Tea and Niceties an 8/10. It lost points because they don't have an adjoined bathroom, so every time someone had to use the bathroom, they had to borrow the key to the public toilet, shared with other shops in the complex, AND walk all the way through the car park and around to the back of the complex, where they had to wait for their turn outside the restroom, because there's only one (unisex) toilet available. The toilet was clean and decorated (with florals! Must be used mainly by customers of the tearoom), but when you're busting to go to the toilet after drinking a lot of tea and lemon water, and there is someone taking their time inside the only toilet, it's hardly a saving grace. On top of that, keep in mind that on the day I went, the weather was wet and unforgivingly cold. Despite this, I will probably visit this tea room again in the future, when I have the time and inclination to go for a long drive. I do highly recommend this place for the service, the atmosphere and the delicious food. It is definitely the most authentic tea room experience I've had thus far.

After our afternoon tea (which was really our lunch), which lasted for about 2 hours, we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring some of the unique little shops in the area. Mount Tamborine - in it's location in the coast hinterlands and the look and style of the shops - reminds me a lot of Montville/Maleny, which are located in the Sunshine Coast hinterlands. In fact, they have a German Cuckoo Clock shop too - maybe it's a branch of the same shop? Here, I bought two manual music boxes that play pretty German melodies.

I really wanted to go check out the fairy shop (shown in the picture immediately below) but we had to hurry home and didn't get a chance to. Oh well, next time! If there is a next time, I'd also like to go on a tour through the winery/vineyard that's in the area too. I've included some random snaps of some of the shops below:

I was excited by "Devonshire Teas" on this signpost! Another thing to put on my 'to do/eat' list!

The hand-made glass pendants actually looked pretty cool, especially how the coloured glass seems to reflect the colour of your shirt, making each piece unique. Still, it is just glass, and I don't really want to pay money to wear a piece of glass around my neck. 

Mount Tamborine is quite a pretty place, which is why a lot of people choose to hold their wedding ceremonies here. If you do decide to go for a country drive here though, I would start the day off early, to ensure you have sufficient time to do everything that you want to do before it gets dark (same for Montville and Maleny). Do let me know about your experiences!

Home time: The winding road down the mountains

First homemade cake for 2012!

So it was my sister's birthday earlier in the week, and, not wanting another cake from The Cheesecake Shop, I decided I'd do the whole family a favour and just make her a cake. I mean, The Cheesecake Shop makes some nice-looking cakes and some of their cheesecakes are absolutely drool-worthy (my favourite being the Riverina Ripple continental cheesecake), but - let's face it - most of their celebration cakes aren't the lightest and tastiest. My dad made the mistake of buying me their "BB" honey cake a few weeks ago for my own birthday, and I was the only one who ate more than one slither - over the whole week the cake was sitting in the fridge for.  

This was to be my first cake for 2012, after not baking much more than just the very occasional batch of my favourite cookies (cranberry, pecan and chocolate oat cookies) for the past 5 months. It's not, of course, because I lost interest in baking - indeed, I don't think that could ever be - but because, to me, cooking/baking is about the celebration of life. If you've been reading my blog, you would know that there hasn't exactly been anything worth celebrating or being terribly happy over this year, thus far. But I think it's time to break out of that cycle and start baking again. As the gorgeous Miranda Kerr says, "Alter your thoughts, and you alter your world". And afterall - 

(Yes, I did get this free with The Cake Boss DVD set (which I haven't watched yet) :) )

The favourite type of birthday cake in my household is the layered sponge cake filled and frosted with whipped chantilly cream and fresh strawberries, with the sides covered in toasted flaked almonds. Despite the strawberry being a Spring fruit, clever farming practices has allowed it to become available almost all year round; however, as we all know, when it's not in its natural season, it never looks or tastes as good. So I was rather surprised when Mum brought this punnet of strawberries home from the supermarket: 

Pinata strawberries 

First of all, let me just say that I've never seen a punnet of strawberries with the berries arranged so orderly in a single layer like this. At $5ish/punnet though, I suppose this isn't really a good thing, cost-wise. There berries were gloriously glossy and red, the hulls were very green and fresh-looking, and most importantly, they're locally grown. I am quite surprised that strawberries that look this good can be found in Winter, without having to cross any state or country borders. They weren't all perfect though - most had a thick white bit at the hull end, which had to be cut off, and the strawberries themselves, though not sour or absolutely bland, did not have the beautiful sweetness we associate with Spring/Summer berries. Still, they were the best I was going to get, and sufficed for my purposes.

I made 2 separate batches of whipped cream: one with the vanilla seeds, for the filling and sides, and the other flavoured with vanilla extract for the top and decorations, which I wanted smooth and white. Part of the latter was separated into another bowl to be tinted green for the leaves. I sliced some of the strawberries to form a single layer between whipped chantilly cream, to form the filling:

I simply love the speckled look of the tiny vanilla seeds in the thick cloud of cream!

I used white sugar daisies that I bought from Latorta at Majura Park Shopping Centre in Canberra to decorate the cake, in an attempt to pass them off as strawberry flowers. I would make my own, except it would take too long for the icing flowers to harden...and I'll admit there is also the lazy factor.

The finished cake!

Time to sing!

For my birthday, Dad had accidentally bought 'special' candles from the cake shop. I blew and blew, but the flame on the candle would stubbornly stay alight, or blow out just to relight again by itself. I almost gave into superstition, thinking that it may be an omen that my wishes won't come true. But then I looked at the candle packaging, and it all made sense!

My honey birthday cake from The Cheesecake Shop and the creepy, abnormal candle

Phew! Was getting a bit freaked out there!

I thought the candle looked a bit weird! Thank goodness we only used ONE candle!

So we thought it would be funny to use one of these candles for my sister's birthday cake - she wasn't aware of this relighting candle business, because she wasn't there for the song-singing/candle-blowing part of my birthday. While I took maybe three goes in all to blow out the flame, she took much, much longer, and after the umpteenth attempt, sending spittle across the cake, we started to think that maybe this joke wasn't such a good idea after all.

E6000 Glue

I'm sure a lot of jewellery-making enthuasiasts out there would have come across the E6000 glue before. But how many of you have actually read the warnings at the back of the product before using it?

I ordered this glue about 2 weeks ago from a website called artbeads.com for my jewellery-making purposes. I needed a good jewellery glue, this one seemed to be in popular use, and the reviews generally highly recommended it. This is the product description the website provided:

Material: Adhesive
Place of Origin: USA

Overall Rating

4.8

11of12(92%)customers would recommend this product to a friend.

Read all reviews

Write a review

E6000 Glue 3.7 Fluid Ounces

E-6000 is a unique adhesive formulated to meet high-performance industrial requirements. It adheres to more surfaces than virtually any other adhesive. E-6000 has exceptional adhesion to wood, metal, glass, fiberglass, ceramics, masonry and concrete. Not for use on Styrofoam. It also adheres strongly to leather, rubber, vinyl and many plastics. Because it is abrasion-resistant E-6000 may be used on high-wear surfaces. E-6000 maintains its flexible bond in cold temperatures and may be used to bond items subject to vibration. The clear E-6000 is not formulated for exposure to sunlight. For these applications, paint over E-6000 after it has cured.

Sounds good, right? I thought so, too. So I went ahead and paid US$5.50 for a tube of it plus about US$17 shipping to get it (along with some other little tidbits) shipped from the US to Australia. Two weeks later, yesterday, I received my parcel. This is what I saw upon reading the back of the tube:

"CAUTION: Contains perchloroethane. Intentional misuse by deliberately concentrating and inhaling the contents may be harmful. WARNING: This product contains a chemical known in the state of California to cause cancer. Harmful if inhaled or swallowed. May cause dizziness, headaches or nausea. Can cause skin and eye irritation. Exposure may cause damage to the kidneys or liver. Cancer agent based on experimental data...."




I was quite gobsmacked when I read this, as none of these warnings were disclosed in the product description on the website. I am very surprised and shocked that it's not compulsory for retailers to disclose these sorts of health hazards to customers (at least it's my guess that it's not compulsory, or else the warnings would have been there). Heck, I'm surprised they're even ALLOWED to commercially sell products containing carcinogenic compounds in the first place to the public. Now, before you jump all over me and tell me paint strippers, industrial solvents, and some dry cleaning agents may contain a similar ingredient that carry the same potential health risks, I just want to point out that people who use those products use self-protective, safety equipment, as is probably required by their OH&S work procedures, and they were probably at least told about the potential hazards. They will probably also be covered by workers compensation and insurance if anything adverse should happen to them - not that either would be any good to the person if cancer was the end result. Here's a link to the product safety data for E6000 that someone posted on an online forum (she was actually referring to it to point out the relatively low health risks of the glue, but I don't think it supports her case): http://www.tapplastics.com/uploads/pdf/MSDS%20E-6000.pdf 


Some people may argue that "most products that exist can cause cancer; we can't avoid everything", which is true, but I think deliberately exposing yourself to this sort of risk after being made aware of them is plain stupidity, especially if there are non-hazardous alternatives out there. I think what people should be asking themselves is not "What are the chances that I'll get cancer if I use this, if I am being extremely careful?" but "Would I die if I don't use this?". If the answer is no, then I think it's high time to move on. Cancer is not a common affliction for no reason.

Being one who prefers to stay on the safe side, and not wanting to risk problems to myself, to others in my household, or to my potential customers,  I am going to do the smart thing and chuck the glue out. Actually, if you read the safety data sheet, to dispose of it properly, you actually have to get it incinerated.. So I will probably have to take it to a pharmacy so that they can get that sorted out. Don't want carcinogenic waste in our garbage depot causing mutant/endangered species, do we now?

Catching up on blog content!

I realise I have a bad habit of starting blog posts about certain knitting projects and not following up on them. One such project is the Great Gatsby Dress by Mari Lynn Patrick, which I have been going on about for quite a few posts. I have, in fact, finished it - in December last year, according to my barely-more-updated Ravelry account. Here are some pictures of the finished product:

Front (left) and Back (right) of dress

These images are of the dress prior to blocking the neck edge. The picot edging here has a tendency to curl outwards!

...same with the back

Wet blocking the neck edge

A much better behaved edging!

At the annual Jane Austen Festival in Canberra, on the 14th April, 2012. 

I wore it for the first time ever to the Jane Austen Festival, back in April. It was quite cold there, so a knit dress was perfect - providing you had a coat handy! The pianist, who played live music for us to practice traditional old English dances to, noticed it straight away when she saw it, gave her compliments, and asked if I had made it myself. Ah, my very first knitted dress! Of course I was proud of it.

As you can see from the above photo though, due to the weight of the yarn - Rowan RYC Silk Wool DK (50% wool, 50% silk) - the dress tended to drag downwards as I wore it. Yanking a dress up is never a good look; I wore a tank top underneath so that the dress could sag however which way it wanted. It doesn't look very flattering when it is not sitting right, but what can you do. Still, I love the dress to bits regardless, and the thick knitted fabric feels nice and smooth against the skin. Would I knit it again? Yes! But it will take a bit of fidgeting around with knitting maths if I wanted to try knitting it in a different, lighter yarn, and I'm not extremely good with that. Being knitted flat, it's also a bit annoying to have to sew up the side seams of the dress at the end, but I think the seams are probably necessary to give it more structure. My guess is that it will give in to gravity a lot more easily if it was knit in the round.

The Jane Austen Ball itself was very fun, as was eating my way through Canberra. I have to remind myself to post my pictures and restaurant reviews here!

Meanwhile, I think I should invest in a yarn winder...

My current ball-winding apparatus 

This is the yarn I'm using to knit the Knot-sleeve blouse by Olga Buraya-Kefelian - Blue Sky Alpaca Royal in Seaglass

Regarding the Yuja-cha, I did end up meeting up with my Korean friend to get some tips on how to choose the best bottled yu-ja to make the tea. I share her tips with you here:

According to her mum, one should choose yuja-cha that:

• has a yuja content of > 30%;
• has a sugar content of < 15 g per kg
• is made in Korea (I guess to ensure quality? I'm not sure. But I suppose since it's a traditional Korean tea, best to just stick with produce from that country)
• has a bit of honey - not essential, but is better for you, since you'll probably be using it for colds 

30% Yuja/7% Korean Pear

I went to a few Korean grocers with her in the city, but we couldn't find one that seemed to match her criteria perfectly; most seemed to be saturated with sugar. I did end up buying other bits and pieces, while picking her brain about other Korean foods :) I found, at a later date, a bottled preserved Pear and Yuja blend at one of the Korean grocers I some times visit to stock up on (a lot of) snacks and ice-cream mochi balls, which they call..something else. The lady at the counter, maybe in her 50s, had not tried it before, so it's obviously not in popular use, but she said that pear is good for the skin. I called my friend to get her opinion, and she said that she also had not tried that combination, but that it sounds like it would taste quite nice. I bought it, and this is what the tea looks like once brewed:

You do have to use a strainer, unless you don't mind drinking bits of lemon rind

You can have yuja-cha cold or hot. I like it ice cold, but a lot of Koreans like it hot, which is probably the traditional way of having it. The yuja and pear combo is ok, but I prefer the plain yuja one I had at the restaurant. It does put into perspective, though, how much of a overhead they charge on this drink at restaurants. I think the bottle I bought must have been about AU$12 or so? You only need about 1 tsp per cup (or was it 1tbsp? I forget. Just add according to taste.), so you're going to get a lot of uses out of a single bottle. 

I think I've covered most of the things I've been meaning to. Oh, and here's a picture of my teacup and saucer (with spoon!) ring by Jessica T that I got from We Live Like This. I wore it to high tea just the other week, and thought it nicely matched the setting. Come on, you know you'd take this photo too ;)

All about the night that was..

As promised, here is a picture of the outfit I wore to the charity ball on Saturday night:

Dress: Holly Dress (Review); Shoes: Halt, patent black (Wittner); Bag: Tuxedo clutch, patent black (Mimco);
Earrings: Bird branch (emoceans)

I know it's not really 'black tie', but the sateen-ish finish of the fabric makes it dressy enough (says my Review stylist) and I knew I was going to buy this dress anyway, so why not hit two birds with one stone, right? I am going through a (rather long) polka-dot phase at the moment, so this dress adds nicely to my collection of spotty skirts!

The theme:


As mentioned in my last post, the theme this year was African culture. I was surprised with the amount of effort that was put into this event; it seemed much grander than the annual ball held by a different hospital, which I also attend. I must have missed quite a bit of entertainment during the pre-event drinks, because I arrived late, but when I walked into the venue, there were big black cat like things slinking around on the carpet.. On tentatively closing in on the distance between us, I realised they were people dressed up as cougars, or whatever you call those big black felines. I didn't get to take a photo with them, but apparently they were stalking people and freaking them out a bit, haha. During the night, there were also some people dressed as hunters, roaming around the ballroom. There were really big solid fake African animals scattered outside and inside the ballroom, which was a nice touch, and they made the event seem all the more authentic by having actual African 'guards', dressed in traditional wear, at the doors. That was very unexpected. I wonder if they're all sponsored/volunteered too? Surely the hospital wouldn't use money to employ that many people just for entertainment purposes?

The whole plaza ballroom was transformed to match the theme, with lots of greenery, banners of animals, bright colourful lights, a red carpet leading down to the dance floor at the very end of the room, and African-inspired table decor.

The ballroom

Plastic rhinos!

Twin candles on the turntables with bold leopard prints

Mercedes-Benz was obviously one of the sponsors of the event

Some of the silent auction items

The entertainment:


There were performances by African choirs and drummers, a fire performance, 'The Accidents' (nopes, I don't know who they are either; I think they're just event singers), raffles, a live auction...

The African choir

Fire performances by the Phoenix Fire Tribe

The dance floor and 'The Accidents'

The food:

The food was definitely the highlight of the night for me. It was my first time trying African cuisine and I didn't know what to expect.

The entrees were all cold, no thanks to the fact that they were all already on the table on arrival. I'm not sure if it's because the food was supposed to be served cold, or if they just had a case of bad food-serving management. Nonetheless, my entree was quite pleasant-tasting.

I tried all the dishes on offer in the table buffet for mains, and was quite pleasantly surprised by the strong flavours, similar to what we find in Middle-Eastern food. Someone who works with me, who is of African background, mentioned to me before, in our talk about African food, that a lot of cooking techniques used by other cultural cuisines, such as the Portugese chicken-cooking method (like what we get at Nandos, I suppose), are borrowed from Africa. Perhaps this explains the similarities in flavours? My favourite dish was the beef stew, because I adored the heady aromas of the strong spices used. My friend, on the other hand, didn't eat a great deal of what was on her plate, because she apparently had a dislike for such strong flavours. I liked the meat dishes better than the vegetarian ones, just because I found them a bit on the dry side; although, the ball of mashed swede was quite palatable. Interestingly, swedes are not an African vegetable, but originates from Sweden (hence it's name, I suppose?) and is quite popular in colder European countries, according to Google.

My tofu dessert was quite an interesting taste experience. I was a bit scared to try it, even though I've had tofu in both savoury and sweet dishes before (in Chinese desserts). It turned out to be a fantastic little dessert that I savoured to the last spoonful. Okay, so maybe I get a little over-excited when I taste new food, but just trust me that it doesn't taste as horrible as it sounds. As you can see in the pictures below, it's a parfait-like dessert comprised of alternating layers of tofu, caramelised crushed peanuts, and a chocolate mousse/chocolate fudge sauce (can't really tell if it's mousse or just the chocolate sauce plus tofu taste), with a base of biscuit crumbs. The tofu didn't really have a taste and I don't think they actually sweetened it; not like it was necessary anyway. It acts as a nice little buffer to balance the sweetness of the other elements in the dish. My only complaint would be that perhaps they should have used actual bits of cookies at the bottom as opposed to a loose, fine powdery crumb, which has the risk of being aspirated, and made me cough a bit. My friend had the pudding, which she found was overly sweet.

Entree: Chermoula Spiced Fish with melegueta pepper, okra, capsicum and West African dressing (Ghana)

Entree: (alternate drop) Ethiopian Berber Beef Fillet with raisins, saffron and tomato salad with papaya dressing (Ethiopia)

Mains: Table buffet consisting of Beninese Beef Stew (a beef curry with African spices (Benin)), Ashanti Chicken (fillets of chicken with sweet potatoes (West Africa)), Dahomey Fish Stew (fried fish with palm oil, tomatoes and chillies (West Africa)), Ghana Jolly Rice (Basmati rice with onions (Ghana)), Akkra Funfun (vegetarian dish of boiled white beans, inions and pepper (Nigeria)), Fufu (mashed swede (Central Africa))

Dessert: Tofu Peanut Butter Mousse (South Africa)

Dessert: (alternate drop) Malva Pudding (a sweet pudding with apricot jam (South Africa))

Tea served with chocolates

The event left me with an appreciation of African cuisine and has encouraged me to be more open-minded about trying out different foods, even if they may not be visually appealing. I believe that food, especially good food, can break down all sorts of language and cultural barriers and tie people together.  It is also a good medium through which to start learning about a culture. Don't you agree that sometimes food speaks better than words do?

Then there is, of course, the whole purpose of the event - to fundraise for important equipment and medical research at the hospital, which has the largest neonatal intensive care unit and cancer care service in the state. I'm not sure if I heard right, but I think they announced that about half a million was raised from the event, which is quite a remarkable effort. Of course we know that there will never be 'enough' funds for ongoing medical research and public hospital support, so here's to more fun and food-filled charity events in the future! I hope that this post has encouraged you, too, to consider attending one of these good-cause events organised by your local hospital foundation :)

Winter blues

I can't believe it is the weekend, the day of the hospital charity gala ball, and I'm stuck at home sick, in my pyjamas. I've been keeping well this past year, health-wise, but staying up late on cold winter nights always manages to throw me into the arms of illness. Working in a health care setting certainly doesn't help either. I've decided to skip French class today and give up Sunday-rate work tomorrow, as I'm sure the people around me would not appreciate me sharing my germs. I'm still deciding whether or not to go to high tea with my sister tomorrow for the same reason. I have been hoping that my cold will not progress to the stage where my throat hurts to swallow and my nose blocks out my sense of smell and taste, at least until after the ball - African-themed this year, with African food, entertainment and music - and high tea, which is at a popular hightea parlour, highly rated on Urban Spoon.

Attending regular charity events is a great way of supporting our local hospitals, as the funds go towards raising money for medical equipment and important research. The gathering of people from the community in support for these worthy causes also contributes to social solidarity, which I believe is very important to keep human progress up with technology. A lot of people complain about not having the time and the money to go, but no matter how busy you are, you've still got to allocate time to eat, right? As for the ticket price, well, if it was cheap, wouldn't it defeat the purpose of the event, which is to fundraise (and I'd like to point out that one is not obliged to participate in the silent and live auctions - I certainly don't have that kind of money)? Having said that, I accept and totally understand that people may prefer to do charity work in a non-monetary way; something I also do, in the form of charity knitting. It also never ceases to amaze me when people say things like, "Well, what's in it for me?" or "Only if you can promise I'll meet a good-looking doctor there"; perfect examples of exactly WHY we, as a developed country, still have the need to work towards social solidarity. I fail to understand why people are willing to spend thousands of dollars on designer wear and the latest and greatest electronic gizmos (regardless of financial state), but are full of hesitation and resistance when it comes to spending only a small fraction of their dispensable income on the very occasional, selfless cause. If you need another reason to go, well, it's good for your karma and it's a great excuse to dress up and catch up with (charitable) friends as well (sadly, I usually just go with one friend who fits that description), so it's a win-win situation that I recommend to everyone who is working and not knee-deep in financial debt. End of serious rant. (sorry, being sick makes me a bit grouchy)

This particular charity gala is based around different cultures every year, with last year's celebrating British culture. I was worried that we have to dress to the theme, because I've no idea about African fashion, but I was prepared to go all out in bright colourful scarves if need be. Thankfully I called up to check the dress code - it's black tie. Now I'm not exactly the type to buy long formal dresses for a single event, that I am unlikely to have many future wears out of, so for the past black tie charity balls I've been to, I've worn cocktail length dresses. This time was going to be no exception.

My favourite fashion labels are Review and Alannah Hill - both Australian labels, with most of the Review pieces being made in Australia also. Being Australian labels aside (being Australian, I am a proud supporter of Australian brands and products), the reason I love these brands is because their styles, mish-mashed together, very much reflects my own sense of dress; that is, vintage style adapted to modern fabrics, colours and cuts; very feminine and unique. Think frills and knee-length full skirts, floral pencil skirts and bows. I want everything in the store for most collections; too bad price point doesn't allow for that! So naturally when it came to buying a dress for the charity ball, I knew exactly where to go. With the help of the lovely sales assistants at Review - always friendly, honest and helpful - I picked out the Holly dress, which is a limited edition design, available only at 4 stores in the state, a black polka dot overall pattern on bronze sateen, in the classic Review shape of fitted waist with full skirt (a very '50s Audrey Hepburn-esque style). It comes with a thin black belt, but I will wear a satin bow belt to dress it up a bit, and wear a satiny elbow-length cropped black jacket over the dress, which was also picked out at Review to match the dress. I bought 9cm patent leather black pumps from Wittner (another Aussie brand) to wear with it, in my a favourite style (has a 2cm platform at the front, so you can gain the extra height without an uncomfortable, unnatural arch in the foot (compared to other 9cm heels)). To accessorise, I will be wearing a pretty headband from AH, and gorgeous but simple handmade earrings that I bought from We Live Like This (a lovely little shop that sells products made by local designers). Photos to come!

As the dress can be dressed up or down, I can see myself wearing it to other informal events, such as afternoon teas and dinners, as well as to weddings. Meanwhile, you can check out the current pretty Review collection at www.review-australia.com. Try not to drool all over your keyboard ;) Enjoy!