These miniature series of food and little people ON food caught my keen eyes as I was browsing through my newsfeed the other day.
Each image was a thumb-stopper. I was so intrigued by the creation of food art and its style of photography that I had spent more than a mere thirty seconds admiring the work of art created by Pierre Javelle and Akiko Ida. Using fruits, vegetables, nuts and delicacies to name a few food groups, they create life-like landscapes that blow the mind! I’ll never look at food the same way again.
Here’s the first of a three-part compilation of crazy, creative food series that have brought a few chuckles and many smiles to my face. I hope they do that to you too!
When Spud requested for a pink birthday cake for her birthday, she put a thought in my head to fulfill her wish.
I think I’m becoming my mom. With her, if you as much open up your mouth for a small request to make something for you, be warned: she would make it happen. She would, in whatever capacity she has, give her utmost to fulfill your request – even if she is already dead tired and dying from sheer exhaustion.
That was me two weeks ago. I could not get it out of my head that my daughter had requested for a pink birthday cake and I was determined to make it for her. So off I went to Mr. Google searching for a simple birthday cake recipe and made up my mind to make a layered pink and red velvet birthday cake when I stumbled upon this pretty looking thing called the Sky High Pink and Red Velvet Cake by Sugar Hero.
I have never made a birthday cake from scratch before, especially one with frosting, and so was already skeptical if I would be able to make a deliciously light and fluffy birthday cake with that perfect frosting. Sugar Hero made it look so easy and even I thought that the recipe was very doable. If there was any chance I would screw it up, I imagined it would be the frosting!
Funnily enough, the frosting was PERFECT! It was the cake that sucked, And I have no idea where I have gone wrong. The cake didn’t rise like it should and felt quite heavy. After it was finally sliced, I discovered that the cake was too dense and although the taste was there, the texture was nothing to be desired.
The cake was epic fail. It was a disappointment. I am still bummed that the cake did not turn out well the first time round like it always should.
The prep work began…See how dense that was? I’m not even sure it is cooked!
But whatever was lacking in the cake, the pretty and delicious frosting as well as giving Spud the opportunity to decorate the cake as to how she wanted it, more than made up for everything. The cake itself may have sucked, yet nothing, and I mean NOTHING! beats the satisfaction of being able to do the decoration with Spud and bonding over it.
To see Spud being happy and bossing me around based on what she envisioned the decor to be was priceless! We had such an enjoyable time decorating the cake together and Spud was only too happy to do the rest of the decorations to her heart’s content. She was really proud of her pink cake!
Spud concentrating hard!Squeeze!Spud’s creation. She bossed, I comply!
When the cake was finally sliced up, however, Spud did not hide her disappointment. To my surprise, she somehow was expecting to see a rainbow cake and was pretty bummed to see a layered pink and red instead. She did not even care to try it because “it is not rainbow, Mama!”
Talk about being grateful, eh!
The cake ended up in the bin soon after. There is still quite a bit of frosting left, and I’m thinking I just might attempt another cake recipe that would give me an excuse to frost yet another cake again.
Now that THAT seed of thought has been planted, it will now just be a matter of when. Oh! Bless me.
Spud celebrated her 4th birthday last week at home. Twice.
Trice , if we include the little birthday surprise she had in Singapore. She should be so lucky!
The first one at home being on the actual day itself where we put up a simple decoration in our bid to surprise her and presented her with one of the best cupcakes in town – to which she commented, “That’s not a birthday cake!” after her breakfast and before we left for work.
It was short and fuss-free celebration where she got to blow out the candles and promptly burnt her hair before I had a chance to caution her about her flailing hair while trying to blow them out! Luckily I managed to reach out in time and pat away the burning hair quite quickly. She freaked out, whined about the burnt smell, almost refusing to go anywhere near the flames and then decided to stand 1 meter away from the cakes as she attempted to blow her candles again.
Cakes, decor, presents and burnt hair!
She wasted no time in opening her presents and was totally thrilled with her spoils consisting of a V-tech Laptop, a set of Play Mobil and 2 princess-like dresses. She was quite disappointed that she did not have any friends coming by to play with her that day and that her parents weren’t going to be home on a weekday. I was pretty bummed too, especially when I was not able to get home early in the evening that day as I had to go for a last minute business dinner with my Global Big Boss who happened to be in town that day. Of all days.
Luckily for Spud, she only had to wait for 2 more days for a birthday proper with her friends to celebrate her birthday with her. With Spud’s birthday occurring on a term break, most of her friends were mostly out of town; which means that her birthday tend to be a smaller celebration when compared to her brother’s. As it was, Spud was already a little disappointed knowing that 2 of her closest friends would not be able to come to her birthday party as they have left the country. I was actually even fearing the worst – that there would be no one to invite for her little fuss-free, birthday party, as they all may just not be around. I couldn’t bear disappointing a small child.
Thankfully, 2 of her girlfriends from when they all were still in their Pilates-Mom wombs’ then were able to make it to her party. These girls are only 5 days apart and apart from a few irregular play dates, we have been celebrating their birthdays for 4 years in a row now. I managed to sieve through some pictures when these girls were still little babies and it is amazing to see how much they all have grown over the last four years.
They played really well together and one of the moms even had the foresight to bring along several fancy costumes so they girls could play dress-up while watching Frozen! I heaved a sigh of relieve when each girls seem to have preference for the different dresses and did not fight over the same costume. Phew!
From when the girls were babies…More cakes, playing dress-ups and playing “adults with laptop”
It was really awesome to watch them play and now that they all can talk in proper sentences, they all yak away with one another like there was no tomorrow.
The highlight of Spud’s day was being able to Skype with her best friend from school who has recently moved to Jordan. Apparently, his mom informed me several days earlier that her son wanted to skype with Spud to wish her a happy birthday and so wanted to arrange for a Skype call over the weekend. It was one of the most endearing thing I have heard! During the call, the boy even showed her the birthday card he made for Spud. How super cute is that!
Skyping with BFF
But, 4-year olds, being 4 years old, both could not sit still during the call. The boy was fiddling around with the head set and Spud got herself busy with trying to find her drawings to show her best friend and so went off the camera view. The call lasted no more than 10 minutes with her best friend leaving the call when he felt that he had to go and hung up. Spud, meantime did not want to end the call and got very upset when she did not get to say bye and good night to her friend.
It was instant meltdown. She would have none of it and pleaded and pleaded and pleaded to get her friend back on Skype. She pretty much screamed the house down when we were not able to comply because her friend had already gone offline and her meltdown lasted for half an hour before we were able to calm her down.
It was one of the worst meltdown I have ever seen so far. I put it down to purely over-stimulation and her high consumption of sugar during the day.
In the end, she still has to go to bed at her designated bedtime.
It was a good day that unfortunately did not end as well as we had hoped for. Oh well!
“I’m a princess!”**
** To which I say: “A princess does not talk so much, sits still all the time, does not bounce about like a monkey and don’t throw temper tantrums! :p”
