Retro Stuff: Little Owl Teapot

Oh dear it's been a while since my last post! All blame must go to the impending due dates of some evil university assignments. Anyways, I managed to pick up this awesome little teapot from the local antique store and I just had to share it:

It's a little Japanese tower made up of an owl teapot and two little cups. Really, how could I ever resist a teapot that has a little winking owl on top? Plus it was only $23! What a cute little bargain. And a total hoot. (I'm sorry I just couldn't help myself).

Retro Baking With AWW Recipe Cards

Ahh, Sunday baking. Is there any better way to end the week then with a massive dose of sugar and sprinkles?

The awesome Pip over at Meet Me At Mikes had the sweet idea to start cooking recipes from those old school recipe cards made by the Australian Women's Weekly and luckily I told my Mum about about it and 'lo and behold, she whipped out her own little WW box of recipe cards that were hiding in the top kitchen cupboard!

While it isn't the complete collection of cards, there are still about 226 of them which isn't too bad! Thankfully, (in my sweet-toothed personal opinion) we have the best sections which are: Favourite Cakes, Popular Biscuits & Slices and Light 'n' Lovely Cool Desserts. However I particularly love the name of the section called The Important First Course. Like if you don't get the first course at a dinner party right you'll be doomed to be known as a sub-par hostess for all eternity or something.

I thought i'd have a go at baking the butter cake from Favourite Cakes section and it turned out pretty great. The batter is really thick but it turns into a lovely soft and crumbly texture once it's baked. I doubled the recipe and ended up with a massive square cake and a smaller loaf cake. I think the loaf cake will have to be frozen given the general hugeness of the square one!

I only ended up with one burnt finger in the process too (yes, contrary to personal belief I sadly do not have asbestos fingers).

All in all it turned out to be a successful retro baking afternoon with the Australian Women's Weekly! I only ended up with one burnt finger in the process too (yes, contrary to personal belief I sadly do not have asbestos fingers). Personally i'd love it if they brought out recipe cards like this again because the recipes tend to be pretty simple and uncomplicated, plus I just love the whole recipe-cards-in-a-box thing. It's how our Mothers and Grandmother's and Great-Grandmothers kept their recipes and I just think it's really awesome.

Movie Stuff: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

First blog post! Yay! In honour of this momentous occasion I thought I would do a movie review because I love movies so very, very much!

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is hands down one of the best, most original movies to come out in ages. Really, how could you resist going to see a movie whose tagline is "An epic of epic epicness?" (Much kudos to the genius who thought of said tagline).

The movie is based on the super-popular Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O'Malley. The series consists of six novels in total and the cute, manga style black-and-white drawing style is simple yet wonderfully effective. They would make an awesome addition to any self respecting book nerd's library.

The plot of the movie is pretty simple: somewhat geeky, bass-playing Scott Pilgrim (geek pin-up boy Michael Cera) falls in love with the quirky-cool Ramona Flowers. Unfortunately she has some major baggage in the form of seven evil exes whom Scott must fight to the death if he wants to keep dating her. Bring on the witty banter, rad music and completely, utterly awesome fight scenes.

By far the best thing about this movie is that it is just like a video game. Evil foes burst into a spray of coins upon death, points are scored for every baddie that is defeated and bonus points and free lives are up for grabs. If you ever loved playing Sega, Nintendo or vintage arcade games then you will go nuts over this movie. Gamer nerds will wet themselves with excitement when they see this, I guarantee it.

What I love about Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is that it doesn't try to distance itself from its comic book roots. Instead director Edgar Wright (who also directed the hilarious zombie rom-com Shaun of the Dead- seriously, if you haven't seen it then rent it now!) goes to town and the result is a hyper-energized, somewhat insane comic book/video game brought to life on the big screen. If you are in any way a nerd it would be a betrayal of your kind if you didn't see this movie. Seriously!

If you're in the mood for some other (rather more questionable) video game adaptations check out these other movies:

- Super Mario Bros. (1993) Super bad. Really super bad.

- Resident Evil Series (2002-onwards) Dodgy, yet somehow watchable because of that fact. Milla Jovovich in tight outfits doesn't hurt either.

- Streetfighter (1994) It stars Jean-Claude Van Damme. So yeah, it's pretty bad. Yet also unintentionally hilarious.

-BloodRayne (2005) So bad it's just well....BAD. Worse than all the dodgy video game adaptations put together, which is saying something. YouTube it to see for yourself! I dare you.