Paris-sick

I am having a really good year so far.

I was going to start waxing lyrical about how beautiful Paris is and how my pictures don’t really do it justice when I stopped and thought, “Hang on, where have I heard that before?” and I realised that I’d said almost the same thing about Sardinia. And probably about Osaka too.

Paris holds a special place in my heart though, over and above other cities. I remember my first visit (actually my second, but my first proper visit, i.e. NOT with a nasty tour group) years ago back in the day when I wasn’t keen on photography nor anything else really, when I was just a disinterested traveller brought across for a weekend trip. I remember looking indifferently out of the taxi car window on the way to the 13th arrondissement and involuntarily blurting out “Wow, it’s really beautiful here”. And that’s when it started.

Throughout the years I fell deeper in love with the landscape of the city, the diverse sights and experiences the different areas hold, the romance of the language, the inimitable style of the Parisiens and of course, the food. Oh the food. But that’s for another post when I have more time to marvel and exclaim over all the tasty morsels I’ve had the good fortune of enjoying.

This post is for sharing some of the sights I encountered this trip. Like I said, my photos don’t do the city justice but perhaps you might be able to glimpse just a fraction of its beauty through them. The beauty that pierces my heart everytime and gives me heartache whenever I have to leave.

The beauty that makes me Paris-sick.

Oh boy

I still have to blog about my trip to Paris but have been too busy/ lazy to fix up my photos so you all have to wait a little longer. I will blog about it though because I had a lovely time, so much so that I was Paris-sick for a few days after getting back.

Anyway I feel like I haven’t been talking to all of you through this blog for a while and think it might be time for an update.

Or as much of an update as I can give through a meme. I like memes. Possibly because I enjoy talking about myself. Hahaha.

1. Last movie you saw in a cinema?

The Incredible Hulk. It would have been Wall-e which I was meant to go watch tonight but I fell violently ill at around half 3 this afternoon and had to come home. But I will definitely watch Wall-e very very soon. And also that new Batman movie which I think I am going to watch in an IMAX theatre.

2. What book are you reading?

Not reading anything at the moment. Was about to start on “The Harsh Cry of the Heron” in Paris but had no time due to being out till late everyday.

3. Favourite board game?

Pictionary.  But it could change to Cranium soon since I heard it’s really good and I finally bought it last year!  I haven’t played it yet but I will in December when I bring it home to play with my siblings.

4. Favourite magazine?

I don’t read magazines, all they do is advertise stuff and make one want to spend money.  But if I had to choose I’d say Non-no.

5. Favourite smells?

Baby smell, anything soapy or powdery and clean smelling, fresh laundry

6. Favourite sounds?

Music boxes, the sound of waves, falling rain outside the window, piano

7. Worst feeling in the world?

Having a sudden tummyache with no loos in sight.  Feeling nauseous on a train with no loos.  That was me btw, not the tummyache but the feeling nauseous part.  This afternoon I was photocopying something in another part of the office when all of a sudden I felt really queasy. I tried to brush it off thinking I was just being silly but I felt worse and worse, to the point where I had to cancel the print job and rush to the toilet to puke up.  Yikes.  I couldn’t stop feeling sick afterwards so I waited till 4pm and left work.  Unfortunately on the way home in the train I felt like I either had to throw up right there and then or die.  I managed to hold it in till I FINALLY reached my station, whereupon I chucked up into the bushes :(

I don’t know what happened but I think it was probably a mixture of it being too stuffy in the office, plus a couple of painkillers my colleague gave me which I’d never taken before.

Anyway I came home and ate some banana cake with hot chocolate and I feel so much better.  Incidentally I ate some lemon cake at the start of my train journey home (when I erroneously thought I was feeling better) and that was what I puked up into the bushes.  I’m glad it wasn’t banana cake because that would have tasted gross on the way up.

8. First thing you think of when you wake?

If it’s a work day – “Oh no is it time already………. five more minutes!”

If it’s a weekend – “YAY!”

9. Favourite fast food place?

My favourite fast food is roadside burger.  But in England my favourite fast food place is KFC.

10. Future child’s name?

I don’t have a definite one yet but even if I did I wouldn’t tell, it’s a surprise!

11. Finish this statement – “If I had a lot of money…….”

First I’d buy myself and my loved ones everything our hearts desire.  After which I’d spend time nurturing myself, learning new things and seeing the world.

12. Do you drive fast?

I don’t drive but if I did I’m sure I’d drive very carefully because I’m paranoid.

13. Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?

Nope.

14. Storms – cool or scary?

Cool.

15. What was your first car?

Never had one.

16. Favourite drink?

Water, milkshake, hot chocolate, milk.

17. Finish this statement – “If I had the time, I would………”

Let’s add “resources” to the statement, making it “If I had the time and resources, I would……”:

travel the world, experiencing life in each country like its natives, learn lots of new things.

18. Do you eat the stems on broccoli?

Yes, I love the stems!

19. If you could dye your hair any colour what would it be?

If nobody cared at all, I’d probably do it pink and blonde.

20. Name all the different cities in which you have lived.

I’m not going to do that since the people who read this blog and know me already know where I’ve lived.

21. Favourite sport to watch?

Tennis, diving, ice skating, gymnastics.

22. One nice thing about the person who sent this to you.

I wasn’t tagged but the person I took this from has a nice blog which is a good read.

23. What’s under your bed?

On my side my two big drawers are filled with my wedding dresses (but not the main white dress, that’s in a special box) and my notepapers and birthday hats (from when I went to theme parks during my birthday).

24. Would you like to be born as yourself again?

Yes and no.  I’m pretty happy with myself and my life right now but I wouldn’t mind coming back as someone better looking and definitely a lot less lazy.

25. Morning person or night owl?

Night owl.  I have a hard time falling asleep at night because my brain is always working overtime and have a terrible time trying to get up in the mornings.

26. Over easy or sunny side up?

Sunny side up with runny yolk.

27. Favourite place to relax?

At home – the couch.

Otherwise – somewhere near a body of water, be it the beach, beside a river or near a pond.  With some foliage in the surroundings areas, or in the case of the beach, lots of clean sand.

28. Favourite ice-cream flavour?

It used to be rum and raisin.  I still like rum and raisin but not religiously like before.  Now I like yoghurt, lemon and anything else that is tangy and mostly fruity.

I tag Heriwanti, Joanne and Diana!

A Weekend Away

A few weekends ago GM and I went to a music festival. Actually it seems like ages ago since a lot has happened in between then and now, including a short trip abroad, but I looked on the calendar and it was literally three weekends ago.

Unlike other music festivals, this one was a one day affair so GM and I thought we’d go up to Milton Keynes which is about 2 hours drive from London on the Saturday, spend the night there and troop off to the festival on the Sunday, after which we’d spend another night and drive back down at our leisure on Monday. All in all a very relaxed trip.

So on Saturday we got up late as usual and took our time getting ready for our drive. I mean, it was only two hours so it wasn’t a big deal. It made for quite a different vibe from our normal trips though because usually we’re always rushing to catch a plane or train or other transportation but this time I felt so carefree and happy =) Perhaps going on holidays stresses me out more than I thought!

We arrived at our hotel just a half hour past the earliest check-in time so we went in, sorted out the parking, got our keys, put our luggage down and went back out again to find some lunch and watch a movie. GM and I had already decided before we set off that we would watch a movie that afternoon since we didn’t want to shop and there really wasn’t much to do nor see in MK.

The thing about parking in MK though is that it’s really cheap! Only 25p per hour, but if you wanted to park your car the whole day you can get a scratch card which was only £1.20! For the whole day! If only parking was so cheap in London……..

Anyway we walked to this shopping complex which name I forget. Our hotel was very conveniently located and in walking distance to all the shopping complexes.

We thought we’d check out the film times first and get our tickets before having lunch so we walked around and managed to find an Odeon. And this is where it got interesting. We got there and there was this poster outside the building with some film names and times on it. Not a digital display, an actual big piece of paper with the information on it. I thought it was some kind of preliminary info so I said to GM, “I’m not wasting my time looking at this, let’s go in” but when we got in we were greeted by this counter of 3 or so cashiers and some popcorn machines! I was quite bewildered, looking left and right for the digital display cinemas normally have, and saying to GM, “Where do we get the tickets from then??” whereupon GM pointed to the “Box Office” sign above a popcorn machine. So we get tickets and popcorn all at the same place, and that poster outside was their film times!

I guess I’m a city girl because I was really flummoxed by all that and I didn’t trust the place (I thought perhaps they might usher us into a small room, pop a video in for us and call that “going to the cinema”) so we decided to go to Xscape.

Jo and Dar have been to Xscape before, it’s where we went for indoor snowboarding and skiing, remember?

The cinema in Xscape was more like the kind I’m used to so after consulting the times, we chose a movie that was convenient for us which was The Incredible Hulk.

After getting the tickets we set about getting some lunch since we were starving! We were contemplating either Nandos or pizza but went for Nandos in the end because we never have Nandos unless we’re forced to by the kids (Toto and Niki) or someone else. For some reason, we just never choose to have Nandos nor even think to have Nandos so having Nandos on this occasion just added to the foreign experience which was nice.

GM had half a chicken and I had a quarter. We tried the new flavour which was mango and lime or something along those lines, it tasted pretty much like the rest of the other seasonings, maybe just an extra hint of sweetness. Still pretty nice though.

For dessert we went across to McDonald’s and got the new Cornetto McFlurry. Actually only I had one since GM isn’t a big sweets person. I choose the strawberry cornetto over the mint and chocolate but it wasn’t good. This could be because the McFlurry machine was broken so it wasn’t mixed properly; instead the girl put my cornetto topping on and mixed it up by hand, swirling it round a couple of times. Hmm.

There were signs all over Xscape advertising the music festival we were to attend the next day :)

We got out of the movie at around 8-ish in the evening. The movie was okay, I was just kind of surprised that it wasn’t funny at all because most of these superhero movies have elements of comedy in them but instead this was really serious from beginning to end with just a couple of funny moments. I love Edward Norton and Liv Tyler so I enjoyed the movie but if I’m to be honest I have to say I have seen them in better roles.

Anyway, by the time we’d finished the movie everything was shut! We weren’t hungry after our big Nandos lunch so we thought we’d drop by the local Sainsbury’s for some snacks but it was closed. In the end we had to buy a kids’ meal from McDonald’s, just in case we got hungry later on.

We took a walk around the surrounding areas of the hotel just for fun because there were actually quite a lot of restaurants and cafes all around. There was even a Gloria Jeans Coffee! The only Gloria Jeans I’ve seen in the UK actually.

In the end we went back up to our room at around 9-ish and watched the sunset and tv all at the same time hahaha.

This was the right-side view from our room window. As you can see, it was still really bright!

The next morning we got up late again since the music festival started only at 12pm and we didn’t really care about getting there on time anyway because we weren’t bothered about seeing the starting acts. So we did a leisurely stroll down to the shopping complex again and had BK for breakfast, how healthy haha. We had a pack of 6 mini Angus burgers which were: 2 classics, 2 with cheese and 2 with bacon and cheese. They were actually surprisingly good. The classics were the best and the bacon ones were the worst; I don’t agree with putting bacon in burgers, do they add anything good to the flavour?

We then made our way to Milton Keynes National Bowl where the festival was held. After quite a long queue for the carpark, we finally parked up in this great empty patch of land next to a building which we thought was the Bowl. We were wrong. It was actually the stadium and the Bowl was miles away. We followed the crowd and walked. And walked. And walked. It must have taken us about 20 to 30 minutes on foot from where we parked the car to the venue! Luckily the weather was good so it was quite pleasant.

After our long trek it was surprisingly easy to get into the venue, as in, when we reached the entrance we were practically in, in about 2 minutes! And this is what we were greeted by; loads of food and drinks stalls all lining the side of a path, with a huge row of cabins of women’s loos on the other side.

Talking about the loos…………… I had to go so I ducked into one of the first cabins and I checked the cubicles. They were all filthy. I was pretty much shocked because I couldn’t believe so many people had had stomachaches so early in the day but I wasn’t too fazed by the grossness because that’s what music festivals are like, it’s like 65,000 people using all the same loos, you have to expect they’d be dirty. In fact, I was just glad that there were loos to use at all and there wasn’t a huge queue.

The men had very little loo space compared to the women; theirs were all these little plastic urinals all stuck side-by-side and back-to-back. As GM described, “You could practically kiss the person weeing opposite you” hahaha. The area was fenced off by filmsy green netting so I could actually see people peeing as I stood opposite waiting for GM! That was a bit gross and embarrassing. The best part of it was, they didn’t get any sinks to wash their hands in, so they just didn’t wash hahaha!

When we were done with our business (ahem) we made our way into the actual Bowl itself and this was what we were greeted with at the top of the stairs. As you can see there was already a fair amount of people there.

The Bowl is called that because it’s shaped like one, with the sides all sloping upwards. All the hilly bits near the entrance were mostly already occupied so GM and I walked along the sides till we found an empty patch of grass that also gave us a good view and claimed it. It was actually a prime spot because we were closer to the stage than the people near the entrance, and it was very comfortable there. I know this because we later moved to another spot of grass not far away from our original spot but the earth there was really hard and my bum was numb after having sat there for only half an hour.

The thing about sitting on the grass though was that it was really damp! Some people had brought their picnic mats and I looked at them in envy and wished I had dug out my Shinkansen picnic mat that I’d bought in Singapore. However, I wasn’t entirely unprepared as I’d brought two big plastic bags exactly for the purpose of keeping our bums dry, so we sat on them and very useful they were.

That’s a view of all the hilly sides.

We had arrived in the middle of innerpartysystem’s set, after which we saw The Bravery, Enter Shikari, N*E*R*D and Pendulum. It was a good experience; there was a really relaxed party vibe going on and it was as much about having a good time with friends under the sun as it was about music.

Halfway through Pendulum’s set we went out to visit the loos and then get some food cos we were getting hungry. By this time it was already around 5-ish I think. We decided to have pizza. I think pizzas were £7 each, exorbitant! But these food stalls obviously knew they were on to a good thing seeing as how they had a monopoly on supplying food to 65,000 festival goers so they’d be stupid not to jack up their prices. We got a pepperoni pizza to share and we ate it whilst watching N*E*R*D. I don’t know if it’s the fresh air or what that affected me but that pizza was seriously yummy. GM thinks it’s cos they were underdone (they were churning them out really quick) which could well have been the case but the pizza was nicely crispy on the top and really soft and fluffy in the middle. I loved it.

More people must have arrived throughout the day because the venue looked decidedly more crowded than when we’d first arrived.

At around 6-ish (I’m not really sure of the times anymore, it did happen 3 weeks ago and I’m getting old) Jay-Z came out for his set! People were getting excited, partly because some of them were Jay-Z fans and the rest were all pissed drunk. It was actually really good fun watching all the pissed people dance and pour lager all over themselves. Not to mention all the little fights that were going on! In fact, there was a little fight next to us as some really hammered dude asked one of the ladies in the group next to us for a cigarette and she wouldn’t give him one which pissed him off so much that he threw a pint of lager all over their group. This obviously enraged the entire group and some of the members got up and started shoving him and screaming in his face. In the end security personnel were summoned and the drunk guy was led off. But it was exciting!

Oh another funny thing that we witnessed was this half-naked young man in shorts who was walking past us, presumably on the way to the toilets, and he had this really funny look on his face and kind of skipped as he walked so he really resembled a comical gazelle. Anyway as he walked past a couple his mobile phone fell out of his back pocket so the man of the couple got up to give it back to him but everytime the man approached the gazelle guy he would run away! This happened a couple of times as the funny gazelle man walked past us more than once and everytime the man would try to return his mobile but he’d run away in a skippy hoppy manner. It was hilarious!

Jay-Z finished his set at around 7 to 8-ish and we sat watching the sunset whilst waiting for Linkin Park’s crew to finish setting up their equipment for them.

They finally started at around 8-ish! We were in the middle of the mass crowd, but even then this is how big Chester was from where we were.

So I kind of mostly watched the screen instead, especially as a lot of people in front of me were taller than me.

It was good though and Jay-Z came out again to do a couple of songs with Linkin Park towards the end.

All in all it was a good experience but I think I definitely prefer small venues because the sound is a lot better. A festival is definitely a fantastic way of having fun with friends though so if my friends are up for attending one then I wouldn’t mind going again but I don’t think GM and I will do it again otherwise.

Luckily the trek back to the carpark didn’t seem quite as long as the trek from the carpark so we were in our car and heading back to the hotel around 11-ish. We decided to stop in at KFC cos we were starving but when we got there it was 15 minutes to closing time and they wouldn’t let us in and instead told us to stand outside and wait for 5 minutes. Very bizarre. It turned out that they had very limited supplies of food left and they had to serve the customers that were actually in the store first before letting us in. That’s understandable but they should have told us and the rest of the people waiting outside though. GM and I were lucky, however, because we managed to buy 2 of the last 3 burgers on offer hahaha. There was absolutely no chicken left!

So we went back to the hotel and ate our burgers whilst watching tv. It was a fun weekend, I felt like I’d been away to somewhere further than 2 hours away by car! =)

If At First You Don’t Succeed~ Bake, Bake Again

I’ve been on a massive baking drive lately. I actually like it; all the mess, all the cleaning up, all the failures…….

Well I don’t like the failures so much but you know I’ll eat anything and I haven’t had to throw any of my baking away yet! Too ugly for other people? Fine for me! Underdone, overdone? For me, still edible!

So as far as I’m concerned, it’s all good =)

But seriously, I’ve been feeling this incomprehensible urge to bake. I used to only ever bake for the end result, as in, I only went through and tolerated the whole tedious baking process because I wanted to eat the CAKE. Mmmm. However, lately my hands have been itching to sift, mix, beat, clank pans around….. I’m actually enjoying it and I feel eager to get into the kitchen and cause a godawful mess.

Yikes, I’m turning domesticated! Oh dear, hahaha.

Anyway the other day I made a really ugly cake. I came round to doing this because one night as we were sitting in bed I turned to GM and asked, “So! What cake would you like me to do next?” and he said, “Hmm… something different….. what do I like………….. how about an olive cake?” And being one not to admit defeat straight off, I searched the net for an olive cake recipe (not really thinking there was such a thing out there) and what do you know, olive cakes really do exist!

So I made this olive cake. (I must say I was very economical and rather enterprising because the recipe asked for vegetable oil but rather than use that, I used the oil the olives were soaking in instead. Another few pennies saved!  Hehe.)

The thing is, I like to bake but I’m a really crap baker. I have to have recipes spell everything out for me otherwise I’ll get it wrong. Like this recipe said, “Beat the eggs” and I thought, “Yes but to what degree?” I just don’t get how everyone ends up with all these good cakes all the time when most recipes just assume you know things. Oh, maybe it’s because everyone else does know things. Hahaha.

I guess it’s no surprise that the cake kind of came out wrong. As in, it didn’t rise at all. When I looked in on the oven after doing the mountain of washing up in the sink it looked like a pancake. Kind of like a fried bread in fact, like roti prata without the curry. I was a bit pissed off but I’m really (misguidedly) optimistic when it comes to my own baking so I was thinking, “Perhaps it’s meant to look like that!” and cut myself a bit to try. And it tasted so good! Failed, but good. Savoury olive cake is really very moreish.

I ate up all my bad olive cake and I was actually craving more of it. So I made another one today. I found a cheap source for olives anyway, and don’t forget the saving on the oil hahaha.

This time I made sure I did everything I could to help the cake rise and it did! See the difference? This one is a lot taller and the top actually looks quite cakey rather than the parched barren desert look the first cake had. I’m very pleased with it seeing as how I whipped it up after dinner in minutes – I was that desperate for more olive cake. In fact, I have to restrain myself from going into the kitchen right now and eating the rest of it up, it honestly is very moreish but if you don’t like olives then you’re going to hate it obviously hahaha.

As this post is for me to share my baking trails with you, I’m just going to show you the rest of the stuff I have been baking.

These were some marbled green tea cupcakes I made. My tastebuds were telling me that they wanted some green tea flavoured stuff so I did these. They turned out really good except for the fact that all the cupcakes “erupted” along the top. I don’t seem to be able to get round domes and if anyone has any idea why, please let me know thanks.

I made matcha buttercream frosting for the top and since the cakes were quite pretty I broke out my new cake stand. Isn’t it nice? It took me ages and several visits to the store before I could get my hands on this specific one (which I coveted because it was not only pretty but CHEAP) so I am very proud of it!

Here’s a photo with a clearer view of my cake stand so you all can admire it properly.

And here’s one with the cover on. I love this cake stand, but I think I only love it so much because it took so much effort to purchase. Anyway now that I’ve got it I’m going to force everyone to admire it as much as I can hahaha.

See how nice my cake was this time, it had the desired marble effect on top of looking (and tasting!) like real cake!

More craters! Like I said, it happens to almost all my cakes. This time I made coffee cupcakes. I wasn’t really feeling like coffee cupcakes but when I consulted GM he said those were what he wanted and I need him to help me eat the little things so I always try to accommodate his preferences. Me, I’ll eat any flavour of cake, I mean, it’s cake right?

Another thing about me and baking is that I am really bad at following recipes. As in, I can read and follow instructions, but I just don’t feel like it. I always put in lots less sugar because I am not fond of very sweet things and if I am making flavoured cakes I always worry that it won’t taste of what it’s meant to taste of, so I always overcompensate.

In this case, I overcompensated on the strength of the coffee and the cupcakes turned out very coffee-y. Definitely too coffee-y for me because after eating one I actually got that really weird spacey feeling, like I was a bit empty and light-headed, almost like I was jet lagged.

I was going to frost it with a stupid cream cheese topping, similiar to the mascarpone bit in tiramisu. However, I think I might have been overly ambitious on that one because I tried twice and used up a whole tub of cream cheese but failed both times. I was so annoyed. In the end I frosted it with whipped cream and dusted some cocoa powder on top.

I didn’t like this cupcake and it’s not because I was bitter over the failed cheese topping. I just don’t like strong coffee flavoured stuff and it made me feel a bit sick. However, my neighbour loved it! She loved it so much, apparently, that after she ate the couple I gave her she actually contemplated asking me for more. Wow. In the end she asked me for the recipe which I have since given her. I hope she doesn’t give me any of the ones she bakes because they’re bound to be really strongly flavoured (she loves coffee) and I’ll be inclined to chuck them and what a waste of her efforts that’ll be!

Finally I made some cakes that weren’t cracked along the top! Actually some of them did crack, but only very slightly so I think I might be improving. What I did was turn the oven down rather than use the exact temperature the recipe asked for and it kind of worked. These are lemon cupcakes.

I made a lemon sugar glaze to go on top, as well as some candied lemon slices. I had no idea candied slices were so easy to make!

I really liked the lemon sugar glaze but mine was a bit runny because I refused to put in the right amount of sugar and yet upped the lemon juice. I like sour things so I really enjoyed the tartness of it and even licked the spoon afterwards. Mmm.

So there you have my baking adventures of recent days. These little projects have been good in that I’ve really enjoyed making stuff from scratch and challenging myself. But they’re also bad in that my baking skills don’t seem to be improving which is a little bit annoying and much worse, I have a wedding to attend tomorrow and a huge party next week and I’ve been eating all this cake!!

Ichi • Ni • Sando!

In my previous post I said I’d finished talking about my Japan trip. Well this post is kind of related to my Japan trip in that I’m going to show you some nifty things I bought from there! =D

The top one is called “Ichi Ni Sando!” which is a pun on “One two three” as san = number 3, and SANdo = sandwich in Japanese. And yup, it’s a wicked name because guess what it is……… a sandwich press! Well I like the name anyway, good and lame hehehe. I bought it for little cousin Niki as a souvenir because I thought it was cute and she’d like it (and I also kind of wanted to try it out hehe).

The bottom box is called “Konepan” and it’s a breadmaker and has a stencil and everything for making bread into lovely animal shapes! I bought it for me! =D (I need souvenirs too…………!)

I invited Niki over a few Saturdays ago because I knew that if I didn’t teach her how to work her sandwich press she’d likely never use it. And of course I wanted to play too! I was going to break my Konepan in the same day but fool that I was, I thought I had yeast in the house when I didn’t. So sadly we had to leave that project aside for later. I was a bit disappointed about that.

These are all the little bits from the sandwich press laid out after I washed them clean to use. Exciting!

Okay so we started off by cutting a slice of bread to the right dimensions and laying that on the press machine.

Then we attached our cutter of choice on the inside of the white cover of the press machine, put that over the orange base with the bread on and pressed the little white and orange flower on the top to cut.

Voila! See how our cutter cut the bread and pressed it into the base?

We repeated the steps above with our ingredients which were ham and cucumber and another slice of bread. Once our sandwich was complete, we pressed the white pedal at the bottom of the orange base and out it popped! Ta-dahh!

We made a heart-shaped one.

And did a flower-shaped one with toast. It looked nice but toast was a bit fiddly cos all the toasty crumbs got everywhere and Niki was a bit alarmed by the mess so we stopped making toast ones.

It was a lot of fun but it actually took us quite a while to make, believe it or not.

It was also not very economical nor the most efficient use of food resources as you can see from this big heap of sides.

Our loaf of bread was depleting fast so I thought it’d be smart to switch to cake. I’d bought a madeira cake loaf solely for testing out the sandwich press and I whipped up some cream there and then and soaked a couple of strawberries in sugar syrup.

I think the shaped cake turned out really good, only the cream kind of got everywhere.

When we had a plateful we put on some finishing touches.

Btw, you may or may not have noticed that all the hands in the pictures happen to be mine…… but I assure you that I let Niki have a turn on the thing too! Hahaha.

Our finished products! Toto (Niki’s little brother) said they looked very yummy which we were pleased about seeing as we’d been slaving over the sandwich press the whole afternoon whilst he was having fun times on the Wii haha.

The kids set about demolishing the works of art as I like to call them and they were gone within minutes as Toto was famished after so much exercise. But he remembered to save his favourite cousin (GM, not me!) a couple. How sweet =) I actually even had to make him a proper normal-sized sandwich afterwards, he was that hungry, bless.

I let them eat up the madeira cake sides too! So much wastage otherwise……..

My verdict on the Ichi Ni Sando sandwich press:

It’s lots of fun as an activity with a kid (or even on your own if you feel like it haha) and is a creative and enjoyable way of initiating a young child into food preparation. However, the finished products are quite small and probably won’t satisfy anyone, not even a 5 year old. Perhaps the Japanese just have smaller appetites? Anyway, make sure you have other food handy for hungry mouths! Also, only use it if you have lots of ingredients to spare!