Stubbe Truffles

How can any Holiday festivities be complete without chocolate? 

 

This gorgeous box of chocolate truffles was a gift to B and since he doesn't have the same passion for chocolate like I do, he generously shared it with me.  

 

Stubbe is a local chocolatier that I have never heard of until now, but I have to say, some of the truffles are even more scrumptious than the ones from Godiva - especially after their recent menu revamp. (I mean, come on!! Discontinuing the cognac truffle was a big mistake, and now they've done away with the sugar-crusted raspberry truffle too??)

 

This is one of my favorites - buckwheat honey truffle - a milk chocolate outer shell with a dark ganache center.  The other was the blood orange truffle.  Delicious!

Merry Christmas!

Cake Pops: Success!

Inspired by the über-adorable creations by Bakerella, I was determined to treat my colleagues to some cake pops for the Christmas potluck - and I think I've achieved at least some success with these:

Shooting and Shopping Fun

This past weekend was the last weekend to shop before Christmas but rather than spending the whole day shopping in the States we made a trip to the shooting range first.


We shot one of these...

source: weheartit.com

and something that looked like this:

and a magnum (revolver) and another .9 mm.  Those big ones are so much fun!  Too bad we couldn't get more pictures though because we were worried about cross-contamination and we heard lead poisoning could make one more stupid than he already is.

Our itinerary got delayed quite a bit though because our reservation was given away to another group that was mistaken to be us, so we ended up not having enough time to travel to the outlet mall that we originally intended to visit.  Military mall, or Fashion Outlets of Niagara Falls as other knows it, had been the outlet mall my ex-coworkers and I used to make a trip to in the summer.  The deals were definitely not as good though, maybe because retailers know that this is the time of year where shoppers who are desperate to find last-minute gifts would probably be willing to buy regardless of the price.  We didn't find much except in the most unlikely place - the Eddie Bauer store - where B got a nice down jacket for under $150.

Christmas Spirit

My New Toy!!

Got my early birthday present but didn't wanna risk putting a scratch on it... (my precious!)  So now that we finally got around to dressing it up - we can start using FaceTime :)

a manly scarf?

Saw this waffle stitch and thought it would make a nice manly scarf:

I really liked it and thought it was a nice simple pattern that gave an interesting texture.  However, Mom insisted that the individual squares in the "waffle" needed to be bigger to look better.  So I tried a couple of rows of the larger waffle squares, and they came out horrible.  In frustration, I undid the whole thing and am now looking for a new stitch to try.  Chances are slim that he will see the scarf before the end of this winter season.

Gingerbread House(s) 2010 + 1st batch of Xmas Cookies?

This year, instead of getting a house each, Mish and I decided to just help Alan with his and we'd work on these adorable tiny houses that would make up a gingerbread village. 

The kit even came complete with icing mix, color and candies.

 
The "Red Red" food coloring wasn't red though - instead, it made hot pink icing, which wasn't very christmasy and so we decided to use that as the binding glue:

I was confident that these houses would turn out just as nicely as what we picked up from Bulk Barn last year, being the Wilton brand and all - but to be honest, if we were to keep gingerbread building as a christmas tradition of ours, I will definitely stick with Bulk Barn next time.  These little gingerbread houses came as one piece - so we had to chop up the individual pieces, which isn't as easy as it seems - most of the edges were uneven and some pieces even broke while we tried to separate the roofs from the walls.  We tried, but I don't think these tiny houses would ever be able to stand up straight...

On the side, we made oatmeal raisin cookies that had a nice crnchy outside and a soft chewy center... yum!!

MUJI cotton candy

a little piece of heaven - it's light, it's fluffy, it melts in your mouth!!  I wish they had a MUJI store here in Toronto!

Bring on the Bling Bling!!

Ever since I picked up some of these pretties for Michelle I had been eyeing the other color palettes offered by NYX - and since I had gotten my hands on them I had found any and every excuse to make it an occasion to wear them...

... these were quite waxy in texture but the little sponge applicators provided picked them up and pat them down with perfect ease.  I had no trouble with the glitters not staying put, which was one of the main complaints in the online reviews.  A little goes a long way though - and really, a tiny little dab on the outer crease of the eyes had the best effects.  I hope Michelle is enjoying her palettes also!

what is wrong with you??

Working in retail pharmacies really opened up my eyes - but some customers really gets on my nerves.  Like a certain pakistani customer I had today.  First he barged in demanding to be serviced first even though we were clearly busy with another customer's orders.  We let it go - he only had one item on his prescription while the one we were wrapping up had a couple more items.  All the while he was yapping away on his bluetooth headset as if he was the only one in the room.

Then when he was ready to pay, he handed me his credit card.  When I had inserted his card into the chip reader, he gave me a dubious look and said, "this is not a debit card."  Duh!  Of course I knew it wasn't a debit card.  It clearly said "VISA" on it.  I guess he hadn't noticed that his credit card has been updated to the state-of-the-art payment technology of chip and PIN. So I pointed that out to him - and guess what he said?  "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??"  That's what he said. "I don't know of any PINs, there's no PIN for credit cards."

I swear, if he wasn't a customer, I would have asked him the same thing for not knowing his credit card with a chip has a PIN and for not know his PIN - and also for putting the blame of his ignorance on other people.  What is wrong with you??

hot pot tonight

And this is what you missed...

warming up to the settlers of catan

almost skipped our games night due to the horrible rain, but I'm so glad I made it!  Instead of the planned Carcassonne, we ended up playing The Settlers of Catan again - this time with the real version (as opposed to the traveller's version that we've been playing with).  The game play is actually a little more varied than Carcassonne where the roll of the dice and strategic trading of resources could really influence the result and interactions among players are more important than luck in drawing the tiles.  I'm starting to like it :)