Time for Treats!

When is a good time for treats? Anytime is a good time for treats I say! Particularly when you need a little pick-me-up... Nothing can better your mood aswell as a little sweet sum-sum. I'm a big sucker for treats, I've something sweet almost everyday. To scratch that sugary itch, ya know.

Surprisingly enough I haven't gone shopping at all in Sydney yet. Firstly because I haven't really seen anything I liked and secondly because I'm secretly thinking that I'm probably gonna find A LOT of gorgeous things I will want in London. That's for sure.

Therefore and because there's just so many delicious edibles waiting at each corner I've basically been spending most of my ca$h on food. If that isn't well spent money than I don't know what is!

Just this Wednesday ( half-time! ) I lived on treats alone. I knoooow it's not the healthiest but it was what I wanted and my mood needed. We had a housewarming party the night before and didn't get much sleep, you see. It was good fun and the massive pot of chili con carne without the chili (we didn't have any!) was completely devoured, easily more than 2kg! People do appreciate a bit of grub in their bellies to soak up drinks after all. Well anyway, although I don't drink I still felt the aftereffects the next day after being woken up by those stupid constrution workers at 6a.m.! What is wrong with them?!

Caro and I yawned our way to Newtown and certainly had looked better some other time. My mood improved significantly when I found Cold Rock, the Australian equivalent of the American Cold Stone Creamery. Yay! I had an extremely hard time deciding on one kind of ice-cream and "unfortunately" had to try several ones ( cake batter, donut, cookie dough, cheesecake, caramel etc ) before settling on peanut butter. It was just too darn yummy to resist; the other ones did sound better but failed to impress.

I decided on cookie dough, fudge brownie and a chocolate-covered peanut butter ball as mix-ins. The ice-cream melted quite quickly, unfortunately, because it meant that i had to eat faster and couldn't take my time savouring each spoon-full... Hmm, it was so good I could have eaten a whole bucket of it! I can't really say that I was able to taste each mix-in separately but the mixture of everything was simply scrumptious. Shall I go again?

On our way back to the CBD after having strolled around Glebe and the Sydney Uni Campus we walked around Darling Harbour where Caro wanted to show me a fudge shop. While I wasn't impressed by it my wandering eye fell onto a cookie stand I had to buy some little nibbles from.

 Macadamia white chocolate-chip, Caramel Chew, Choc chip

My choice fell on some miniature cookies because you've to try them before you go overboard and I could always come back and get more. It was a good decision not to go all out on them as they totally disappointed. Some lousy cookieman that is! The mass-produced cookies from the supermarket I had tried a few days earlier were much better!

The Lindt Café, also in Darling Harbour, on the other hand is pretty much safe bet when it comes to delivering good taste. I bought 2 lovely French macarons or "Délices" as they call them there and you all know about my weakness for them. They had been sold out the first time I'd gone there and I wanted to get to try all 4 flavours that had appealed to me: Peach with a sweet peach & white chocolate cream filling, a classic one with a champagne & white chocolate filling, Passion fruit dusted with cocoa powder with a zesty passion fruit & milk chocolate ream filling, Rose with a French rose, ginger & white chocolate cream filling.

This time it was the latter two and I've had the first two during my first week here. Peach and Passion fruit were my favourites and I especially liked the ever so slight tartness of the passion fruit combined with the sweetness of the chocolate cream filling. Not that you could actually taste chocolate in any of the macarons, they just add to the creaminess of the fillings. Besides the fact that a little bit of chocolate never hurts, right? The rose one could have been rosier though.

Yesterday after lunch at the amazing fish market I was supposed to get a mani-pedi at the beauty school I had already gone to for my very first experience of waxing on Tuesday. The waxing went okay pain-wise but the poor Asian girl with massive geek glasses was completely overwhelmed by working on an actual person for the first time in her training... It's safe to say that albeit being waxed and tweezed for over an hour or two I left with as much hair as I had gone there. That certainly can't be the purpose of it but at least it was for free.

The manicure went even worse... It never even came to the pedicure and the girl who was doing my nails must have never done her own nails because any little girl could have done a better job at putting nailpolish on! After 1 1/2 hours I was so fed-up with her getting more and more frustrated, hectic and hence sloppy that I asked for nailpolish remover, did my nails myself and left. You will understand that I needed some chocolates to make up for that! I didn't even mean to buy any, honestly, but they looked so nice when I walked past them in the shopping-centre that I couldn't resiste even if they were a bit pricey. They had such lovely descriptions and names at BonBon but I can't remember them exactly.

As far as I know theres supposed to be cinnamon and something in the dark chocolate heart, a passion fruit infused latin American caramel in the white chocolate one, peaches and cream in the orange heart and something or other in the dark one, must be something caramel-y again. It tasted rich and decadent and is probably my favourite right before the peaches and cream heart.

Then there is also the yummy caramel slice I couldn't resist buying at the fish market. Caramel and fish sounds weird, I know. It's good though, I still have some in the fridge. The thicker the caramel layer the better and the one on this is pretty decent. Not quite caramel-y but rather like the sweetened condensed milk stuff but still good. Buttery and decadent, a real mouthful.

Back at home I like to eat ice-cream every day. There's always room for some ice-cream, no matter how full you are after dinner because it melts into all the little gaps in your tummy. Amazing really. Quite differently to what you might expect in a warm country like Australia there aren't many good ice-cream shops around. Emphasis on good. Which is a real shame because there's nothing I crave more than a bit of cold ice-cream to refresh me when it's hot. Fortunately enough I bought package on special offer in the supermarket, not actually knowing how good it was gonna be.

 The brand is called Connoisseur and it was gourmet Brownie ice-cream with chunky brownie pieces and pecans, what a heavenly combination! This is some seriously good ice-cream I dare say! Just the right size and amount of chunky brownie and pecans in a delicious chocolatey ice-cream with a mousse-like texture. Not that I was able to enjoy the moussy texture from the beginning because the tiny freezer compartmet in the fridge is missing its door and therefore the ice-cream was more like a milk shake and I ate pretty much half of it as a liquidy sauce. It was still delicious though and I'm kicking myself for not having bought more of it when it was on special offer because it's apparently a quite pricey brand. The door's fixed now, yay!

Tomorrow I'm going surfing for the very first time and I'll be getting a lesson by a typical Bondi Beach surfer boy. Wish me luck, I'm sure I'll need it! Not just so I don't get whacked in the head by my board or swallow half the sea but also because I don't want to flash each-goers if my bikini gets swept away, uugghh! Surviving all of it is an occassion calling for that deep-fried Mars bar delight I've decided. I'll let you know how it goes!