Eggshell Green

A Week Wiser

What have I learnt this week?

• Not having a functioning oven is an inconvenience. You can’t bake anything, including cupcakes!
• ArtPop popcorn is the most disgusting microwave popcorn I’ve ever had. It smells like cheese and literally made me feel a little sick just from the smell. Ick.
• I’ve really missed sushi. Even homemade involves a little more effort in heating up the prawns and surimi etc before I can be sure they’re safe.
• It’s still not a good idea to use umbrellas in Wellington. You think you’d be alright when there’s just a light breeze about, but then out of nowhere there’s a big gust and you risk breaking your umbrella or looking like a dorky out-of-towner who should’ve just stuck to a rain jacket.
• A baby’s descent into your pelvis is measured in fifths, as the average adult hand is roughly the width of a baby’s head. My current descent is 2/5, meaning the proportion of the baby’s head above my pelvis is equal to the width of two fingers, and 3/5 of its head is already buried inside. She’s preparing for delivery!
• I love cinnamon donuts.
• If you want monster pastries, the bakery in Hataitai Village can help with that. Look at the giant donut and apple croissant we got!

Big cinnamon donut - what value!

Big apple croissant which was much fun eating with all the icing sugar and flakiness going everywhere

Tags: bakery, baking

Cluster Fly Invasion

I came home today and noticed one of those weird flies on my shower curtain. One of those flies that seem to be really dumb – you can squish them and they don’t seem to even notice you coming.

I tried to swat it but didn’t know where it had gone so I had a bit of a search. Lo and behold, there was a swarm of them all over the window! EEK! Gross. So I sprayed the bathroom and fled the scene, but not before taking a photo.

It’s been a while, but do you recall the hooha from PETA about President Obama swatting that fly? PETA still thinks Obama needs to be more caring about flies. If we could send a swarm of cluster flies to PETA and see if they like having them around. They’re persistent things that will come back after sitting on dog poos unless you exterminate them.

According to the post Obama and the fly on the PETA Files (not such a great name as it sounds like some disturbed individuals obsessed with other little beings),  if you use a bug catcher you can be a bigger person (figuratively, as well as literally)! Yes, you read right. If you need to be a bigger person literally, just use a bug catcher!

I don’t need to get bigger literally as eating and being pregnant is doing that already. But thanks for the tip.

17 flies just in the corner

Restaurant Review: Café Pica

*Sigh!*

There was nothing about this café located in the Porirua MegaCentre that made me enjoy my first, and definitely my only, visit.

All the doors were left open and you could see the cold wintery breeze pushing dustballs across the icy floors. It was uncomfortable despite being a few feet from the fire place.

The food was just bad. It wasn’t even average.

The girls had pancakes with banana, bacon and a choice of maple syrup or “orange syrup”. I chose the orange syrup because it sounded interesting but what come on the plate looked and tasted like watery orange juice…

The pancakes weren’t even home made – WHAT!? Looked like they were layered with cheap bacon and banana and microwaved till the banana was a chewy grey. Tasteless. It didn’t help that we only got a wee amount of fresh cream and syrup. Ms Constantine asked for more maple syrup for the both of us and we both agreed the maple syrup was watered down and tasted a bit off.

The boys had a cooked breakfast – you know, the typical bacon, eggs, sausage, hashbrown, tomato and toast. How hard can that be? Just as hard as pancakes it turns out.

The “toast” was not toasted – WHAT!?  It was just a thick slice of plain cold bread. The poached eggs were overdone – eww! The half tomato was hard and uncooked. The bacon was again the cheap type, and looked like it was just heated rather than grilled. The “lemon hollandaise” as it says on the menu was nowhere to be seen.

The best thing apparently was the hashbrown, which Café Pica claimed was their own. Not even! It was one of those preshaped triangular things that you buy frozen in bulk. Thankfully it wasn’t home made as it might have tasted as bad as everything else.

If you can make a better breakfast at home on a Sunday morning, then something is  seriously wrong with the café. Pancakes and cooked breakfasts are not fancy pants food!

Not going back, ever.

(I just looked online and saw all the reviews for Café Pica on MenuMania were just as bad – so I added another one.)

Tags: cafe, restaurant, review

Wellington Wonders

If you run out of stuff to do in Wellington why not try the following?

• Attempt to roller blade down the suburban Wellington streets. Build your confidence up to try the streets of Mt Victoria (yeah, right!)
• Attempt to use an umbrella on Bowen Street on a windy day.
• Attempt to ride a bus standing up without holding on to anything the whole way.
• Get semi-warm KFC on Kent Terrace and see if they give you half-filled fries in your meal too.
• Go up to the “Excuse me…” guy in front of the TAB and impersonate him – let me watch.
• Try and legitimitely buy Codral from the Lambton Quay chemist from the woman with caked-on makeup. Good luck.
• Watch the Juggling Guy on Courtenay place play with his balls – oh, behave. He juggles tennis balls in his 90s-David-Bain sweater.
• Dare yourself to check if Blanket Man is abiding the law by wearing gruts.