*BURP* *BELCH* excuse me...

ooooohhhhhh... my aching tummy... *burp*

If I never see another piece of chocolate or another scrap of food in my life I'll die a happy person. oooooohhhhhh... gack...

One of the many desserts I made was a chocolate log cabin. This was no ordinary chocolate log cabin, no siree. I had to make this sucker over a foot long. Used over 3 pounds of various chocolates, 2 litres of cream, at least 2 cups of cocoa powder, and made a big mess in the kitchen.

It tasted good.

r
e
a
l
l
y

r
e
a
l
l
y

GOOD!

I won't bore you with the details here, except to say that next year it'll be even bigger and better. Gretchen gave me some great ideas and tips which I was unfortunately not able to incorporate in this years design (my first, BTW), but you just wait till next year!

I'll be writing up the full procedure with photos in my other blog, but here's a teaser. This was taken before the snow was piled over the roof and around the cabin.





I'll try to keep this short as I've got some shredded chicken soaking in my special souvlaki seasoning and I still need to make the tabouli and the tzatziki. *burp*

I also promise not to talk about or write the pool or our beautiful, glorious, warm summer weather down here as I know that my hometown (Fairbanks, Alaska) is going through a bit of a cold patch right now.

Oh, wait a sec. I just heard there was a warm day or two (got up to -26 F in the valley) in the middle of the cold bit, so surely no one would mind if I put up a pool picture.





But it's not all fun and games, nope. Yesterday I had to scrub the pool walls cus we are going to have 5 or 6 days of bright sun and reasonably warm temps. It was only 90 in the shade and 115 in the sun. There was also a breeze blowing so that every time I stood up in the shallow end I froze (due to ablation, of course) and had to submerge back in the pool quickly before icycles formed on my goosebumps. We won't talk about how shriveled certain parts of my anatomy were in the cold water...

Afterwards, Wifey-Poo came out and asked if I wanted a beer. The answer was yes, duh. Here's a pic of me submerging in the water in an attempt to warm up:


Please, no blue ball jokes.




I got the most coolest present ever. A cleaver. Yes, I now have a fairly close to complete kitchen knife collection. This cleaver is very very very very sharp and perfectly balanced. In the last week it has become my ka-nifee of choice. Even WP has used it WITHOUT cutting off any of her fingers --and that's saying something!

How many blokes do you know that get excited about a cleaver as a present? How many sheilas do you know who trust their bloke enough to give them a cleaver?

Speaking of cleavers, here's some bird pics!


If you get that cleaver wet in the pool, then it'll rust! So bugga off, mate!



This lady has a very nice yellow hat. Perhaps she'll wear it at Oakbank this year?




How do I know she's female? Well, firstly us real men can tell. Secondly, just look at those eyes!

wink, wink



In case you didn't know, female sulfur-crested cockatoos have a dark burgundy rim around their irises (irix? iri? iroses?), whereas the eye of a bloke is black.

You'll have to excuse me now. I've got to not only make a great greek dinner, but I've got to continue playing with my other new toy. This other new toy is the one with the quad core processor.

I'll send some sun your way, no worries mates!