Bake Sale

Rodney's school held a bake sale recently. Every class, society and club was required to set up a stall.

Rodney and his classmates baked emoji sugar cookies. He asked me to give their stall a boost with my decorated cookies. As it was a last minute request, I could only come up with 9 pieces. Can you spot my teddy cookies on the cupcake stand? They were sold out pretty fast!

The Science and Math Club

The  Art Club

The Japanese Language Club. Their stall raised the most money.

Rodney clowning around as he peddles the cookies

All proceeds from the sale went to their school's building fund.

This week's cookies for Mother's Day.

Forever Friends Bears

Deng Deng

Hankering for paratha (Indian flatbread), the hubs and I hopped into a restaurant called The Paratha Kitchen. Funnily, there was no paratha on the menu!  A man who was seated next to our table complained loudly, "It's like going to a cafe named The Apple Pie that doesn't serve apple pies". Yup, I couldn't agree more.

Anyway, I ordered something unfamiliar called Beef Deng Deng.

Beef Deng Deng

Turned out, the beef was scrummy. The meat had a melt-in-the-mouth texture with just the right hint of spices in it. I learned from the waiter that Beef Deng Deng Balado is an Indonesian dish from Padang, West Sumatra.

According to Wikipedia:
Dendeng refers to thinly sliced dried meat in Indonesian cuisine. It is preserved through a mixture of sugar and spices, sun-dried, then deep-fried and simmered in a spicy sauce. It is similar to jerky. Dendeng was originally founded by the Minangkabau people. At first they made Dendeng from beef, drying it so it could be eaten for days and bringing it with them when they traveled. Balado is the sambal, a sauce made from  a mixture of cooked large bananas, red chili peppers and shallots and seasoned with salt.

Deng deng!  I thought it rang a bell !

This week's cookies

I Love-hate The Internet

I was just reading an article about the author's love-hate feelings about the internet. I share her ambivalence.
I love that the internet has connected me to so many wonderful people all over the world especially bloggy pallies and fellow cookiers. Without it, our paths would never have crossed! Used to be, "friends" were people we actually knew and saw  face-to-face and people, had, at most, a few dozen.
While I love my online friends, I kinda miss my 'real' friends who have morphed into virtual buddies. The internet has turned them into recluses.

Back in my days, "news" was something you found out about the day after it had happened, in a newspaper. When I wanted to check a fact, I had to hop into a library and hopefully find a book that might have the answer. If I wanted to research a country I was visiting, I had to buy a guidebook. If I wanted the lyrics to a song, I had to rewind the tape and play the song over and over again. Remember the song "Love in the first degree" by Bananarama? I  used to think the words were "guilty, guilty as a bumble bee" when the actual lyrics are "guilty as a girl could be"! LOL!

Like everything else in life, the internet has a dark side. I hate that it has turned people into voyeurs, exhibitionists and narcissists. It has unleashed unlimited freedom and power for haters, trolls, bullies, bigots, extremists ...  who delight in spewing evil, venom and hate as these cowards find it easier to say things like that behind the anonymity of a computer.

Had it not been for youtube and cookie forums, I could NEVER, EVER have been able to make these cookies.

Stained Glass Cookies

I wanted the stained glass effect but these turned out more like mosaic.
As fellow cookier Laegwen kindly puts it - An artist does everything on purpose!