~ Curious Charlie ~

The Best of 2014 - Part 2 @ Saturday, January 24, 2015

Heldos Jauja still does the best gelato, and I have 6 favourites :P.

Best food I ate at an event I worked at (generally you don't eat at work) was fancy yoghurt from Hamer & Tong, 'lavender yoghurt custard, strawberry & pineapple gel, berries, lychee w basil cress'. We went to T(arts) by LuxBite Launch Party, have yet to visit. I made lychee panacotta which failed but turned into jelly which was great too. Yarra Valley Chocolate was at an event in the city, the perfect opp to get my favourites: Cookies & Cream, Forest Berries.

Last year we came across asian supermarket that has lots of Japanese foods! Soon later they opened a Japanese division, 'Tokyo Hometown' I think it was called, it's behind RMIT near Melb Central and Roll'd. We have yet to buy the KitKats as we need to share them. :P Mini packs are great!

Cake! We had rainbow cake, which looks amazing but was all the same flavour... also we need to serve this with more cream or ice cream. October means pumpkin pie! I love pie! As much as I love cake :P The best cupcake I've ever had from from Cafe Claremont on Station Street, Malvern. At Purple Peanuts one day they had Yuzu Cheesecake, which was delicious! For $5 it's tiny, but fine when you consider the price of the mains.

I'm not so good at trying new things, but we had Greek for a second time and had a great experience at Spitiko, with a group buy deal. I love Greek food, though we need to add more salads. :P

Top left was our entrees at Spitiko. I love spring rolls, the authentic ones not so much carrot/cabbage frozen supermarket ones. At Pho 24 we had them served with pickled carrots wrapped in lettuce and it was awesome! Muck like peking duck pancakes, expensive though worth it. The best entrees we had in 2014 was at Shizuku (Modern Japanese) cheesy spring rolls with beans, and karaage aka deep fried chicken served with Kewpie Mayo, I wished I was closer to that side of the city.

Right after exams there's always the 'Taste of Melbourne' which is a series of expensive quality snacks. So yummy! This year we had three favourites: Mr Claws, the Buttermilk Lobster Roll.

Movida's Pinchitos Morunos which is Flinders Island lamb marinated in Moorish spices & cooked over charcoal and Gazi!

Gazi does Greek food and I had soft shelled crab with the whole thing just looking at me! I've had that crab before but it wasn't the whole thing, so it wasn't scary. The souvlakis were so good we came back for more the next night, at the restaurant.

Come Summer and there was the arrival of Starbuck's Christmas Range! Which I love, other than that I don't really drink coffee & co. much. Anything coconut I love and so these icy lollys (top right) were lovely, I wished we could make them at home, but sadly coconut isn't too good for you. At Rice Workshop where we first discovered Green Tea Soft Serves, they now have Black Sesame too! Which is even better, with a creamy nutty taste.

Another first was baking gingerbread this last year, I say baked before we didn't make the dough :P it was packaged and from Ikea. Pretty happy I didn't burn most though. :P

More summer delights, or rather things with a yellow theme there was Custard Pudding in Eggs from The Booth Dessert Express, Cannolis from T. Cavallaro & Sons in Footscray, and the best rosewater lemonade I have ever had! The secret is 50% sugar, and a sugar syrup. This one was served at a wedding open day.

2014 was a great year for winning lots of stuff, like 2013. I enter many competitions and tend to win every week or two. Here are my favourite wins of 2014, they mightn't be worth the most in money terms, but what I liked most.

I'm an arty crafty person and would love to have a craft room and hold workshops, though we're not at that stage yet. It's a hobby that I'd like to spend more time on in 2015, which won't be difficult with this set of twine from Whimsy Farm Twine, this is the cheapest place I've found twine ($8 for 100m 12ply), and you'll also be supporting a local-ish business.

Things I Won: Shoes, Bubbles for the Bath, Crafty Supplies, and Daiso Vouchers.

Giftcards - Bought a Guillotine from OW.

In events it's all about experiences, and to me if I had to pick one or the other I would pick experiences and memories over stuff, we had some great experiences in 2014 with tickets I won, to a comedy night, performances with Caroline Nin, the Callaway Sisters in particular were absolutely amazing. Anne's known for singing the theme for 'The Nanny' and Liz is singing Anastasia in the Fox film. We also won some tickets for mso concerts in 2015.

I love workshops and this year some of the best was a wedding planning workshop, all day arty crafty activities and a crafty high tea, where I ~~ate~~ sampled everything and felt sick...

The Best Pictures of 2014

In 2014 I took a photography class, sad to say that it didn't improve my skills or anything though... because it was more to encourage creativity rather than be skills based.

This is what we did in class. We didn't master the saturation there.

An photo goal was to try new things, like taking pictures of people.

I met a lovely couple and did a photoshoot with them for a magazine.

Also took pictures of a cheesecake, which looks better than it tastes...

One of the best views on the way to work, down by the waterfront.

There's something special about this marble on a cage.

I love this picture taken on a rare trip to the beach.

This was my best Christmas-themed picture that won a competition!

I've always wanted to travel through provincial France, and this picture is perfect.

When I die, can I be buried in this bed? Totally goes with my Sleeping Beauty thing. It's my favourite fairytale, which is funny because I have never actually seen the movie, or even read the book - I think. And yet there's just something about being the damsel in distress who gets rescued instead of being the dragon slayer, which is what I normally do. :P