It's all about the cheese!

I am not a great wrap for my own birthday. I am MUCH happier giving than receiving. Furry and I rarely, if ever celebrated our wedding anniversary and my strong feelings on Valentine's Day are known here.

I'd much rather be up decorating YOUR cake until midnight, that celebrating my day. However, I think I missed my calling as an events planner, and LOVE planning the most minute detail of a do... but more about the pleasure of my guests than my own.

So I recently was treated to an AWESOMELY cheesey birthday bash, in which I had no input. I am such a control freak, that I actually found it quite difficult to have no input into the event.

The theme was "Indulgence", which as my nearest and dearest know, usually means something to do with food!

So, without further ado, here are the pics of my cheesy, indulgent birthday bash (complete with private chef flambe-ing, and rose petal-sprinkled private spa). The photos on my birthday dinner are here.

Il Bacaro Cucina e Bar

168-170 Lt Collins St Melbourne VIC 3000 Phone 03 9654 6778

entree bruscetta of pesto with Sardinian anchovies.

Orecchiette with slow cooked elk ragout, raisins and fetta.

souse vide lamb with broad beans and Tallegio.

roast pork belly with whole roasted apple and parsnip rilette.

Cup Cake Crazy!

Trends. I don't like them. I've never been one to jump on the bandwagon... despite what my SOLE detractors say. **insert evil grin icon**. This has always served me well. The dolphin tattoo I so desperately wanted on my shoulder blade, at 16 is a good example. And yes, I know.. tatts on chicks are all de rigeur these days, but I remind you of my age. An Eastern Suburbs private school "gel" did NOT have tatts of dolphins, or anything else, back in 1981. And I will be eternally grateful to Smear, or Pronger, or whatever the kindly middle-aged ex biker tattooist that I approached that Summer, for telling me "don't ever get no tatts on ya bod that ya can't imaging being 98 and in a old people's home with."

Notwithstanding his advice, I DID get a slave chain tattooed over my hip whilst working for a feminist collective, in my 20's. The irony did not escape me.

So, to trends. I do not own any faux label handbags, designer cookware, and have never been to Kuta Beach. I have never skied (although I feel I'd do the apres bit very well), never been to a tanning salon or had a facial.

And I am rather chuffed about that in a middle-aged, aging lefty, hippy pagan kind of way.

Oh, and I was pagan LONG before "Charmed" and Fiona Horne, too.

So, to cup cakes.

They are everything I loathe about food. Trendy, American, fake, overhyped, overdecorated, overdone, overblown, sugary, girly and POPULAR.

Bah.

The Grumpy Old Woman in me gets all "reach for the automatic weapon and find the nearest clock tower" whenever I hear about Crabapple Cup Cake Queen, or read yet another nauseating ode to cup cakes on Chowhound. If I never seen another cup cake on Tastespotting, I will die a happy, albeit it still grumpy, old woman.

EXCEPT.... 2 of my favourite people recently converged along the cup cake ley line. My Mum and my online mum.

It was Mater Beige's 70th birthday this past weekend. And I wanted to make this first big mile stone birthday without our beloved Hobbit, something REALLY special. And cup cakes are RIGHT up Mater Beige's alley.... for pretty much all the reasons I hate them.

And my darling online Mum, Vida, from Class Cup Cakes makes them!

So with righteous Nag Champa-scented lefty chakra Universal Dharma, I ordered the cheesiest, showiest cup cakes I could get my hands on, from Vida, for Mater Beiges birthday.


And here's the thing......

THEY"RE WONDEFUL!!!

Seriously WonderFull!! Forget the stale Betty Croker mix with icing made from "icing sugar mix" and water.. these things are HEAVENLY.... I suspect that it's bacuse Vida makes them with such love and passion, but these little morsels are PERFECT!!

And what makes them so glorious is THE RATIO!!!... The ratio of icing to cake to mouthful is SPOT ON!!. No more too-much-cake-in-too-big-a-piece-with-not-enough-cream-cheese.

These cup cakes are DA BOMB! 2 perfect bites, each one with the Golden Mean, 1:1.618, the veritable Fibonacci sequence of icing and cake.

I am not so far gone, as to call it frosting yet, but I fear I have started on a slippery slope of trendosity, that may soon see me sporting a faux Chanel handbag and sipping a soy latte in Maling Road. But I fear, if Vida's cupcakes involved, I might gladly sell my soul, get a butterfly tattooed on my ankle and start having my eyebrows waxed.

Happy First Birthday to me!

Today at 14.44 this day, one year ago, I pressed "publish" on my first blog post. Weirdly, the very first word, I ever typed as a blogger was "Furry"! It was originally designed to document the building on My Big Fat Greek Oven, as there was nothing like it that I had been able to find on the 'Net.

Since then, I've posted 165 times, documented my soul-mates tranformation from bogan boi to kitchen whizz, given my entire family of origin (highly unsatisfactory!) "internet names", changed the layout of this place three times, attended a Bloggers Banquet, hosted a Bloggers banquet, been part on an Internet meme, promoted causes that are dear to me and met some of the most amazing, opiniated, loud, funny, brilliant food obsessed people in Australia.

I've written about sex with vegetables, reviewed restaurants, and been interviewed by manistram media twice.

I've become an advocate of SOLE in the suburbs, and discovered obscure Chilean bakeries.

I've made $30 from Google and had 31,487 page views.

Personally I'd like to shout out to Sticky and Grocer, my two SOLE sistas, Possumchops for her help with vegetable sex, Vida for becoming my on-line mother, Gobbler for his inspirational writing style, Cindy and Michael for overcoming Furry's revulsion of tofu, Thanh for the laughs, Ed for NOT publishing my quote about the Mull-O-Matic, Duncan for the single most memorable food experience of my life, and far too many other people to mention.

All as a result of this funny little corner of cyber space.

Thank you dear reader, for keeping me going.. for commenting and finding me funny/annoying/inspirational/an idiot.

The next year will bring who knows what, but I promise more irreverance, more bad typos, more suburban SOLE, more than $30 on Google clicks(hopefully), more frivolity.

Basically just more P.G!

Thanks for dropping by!