We have finally got our internet at the apartment connected, still waiting on the phone which should be connected next week. The weather has been a bit cold, but today it was beautiful - sunny and over 0 degrees C. Nice. So I ventured out for the afternoon for a bit of shopping.
Blue skies over Arlington Heights
I had an interesting shopping experience today! I went one train stop to Mt Prospect and wandered up to the Randhurst Shopping Center. A place with no space for pedestrians! I felt very out of place having walked from the train station... There didn't appear to be any pedestrian crossings at the intersections so I had to rely on my look left, look right, look left, look right, look left and, incase i got the direction wrong, look right again, technique before crossing the road.
The place was filled with massive stores and helpful sales assistants - what would have been helpful was if someone had explained to me that you had to be a member to shop in the Costco Warehouse store! But it was fun while it lasted seeing the shelves and shelves of bulk stock. Wow. Home Depot and Bed, Bath and Beyond were equally impressive. Think Bunnings on steroids.
This week I decided to bake a cake in my new oven. It was slightly scary to smell the plasticy fumes coming from the hot oven, and the cake did end up a little un-even, owing i think to the shelves not being level... but on the whole I was very pleased with my efforts. I only had the idea of taking a photo of my handiwork after half of it had gone, but I think it looks good anyway!!
My chocolate cake
I got the recipe from searching on the net for chocolate cakes made with oil. I couldn't make the 'frosting' cos i didn't have the ingredients. I think it could do with some icing, but its not too bad without.
MOIST CHOCOLATE CAKE
2 c. flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 c. cocoa
1 cup oil
1 cup hot coffee
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
FROSTING:
1 pkg. cream cheese
1 tbsp. milk
1 1/2 c. powdered sugar
Combine all ingredients except black hot coffee. Mix. Add hot coffee. Batter will be thin. Pour into 9x13 (inch) pan. Bake 30 minutes at 375 degrees (fahrenheit).
When cooled, combine cream cheese, milk and powdered sugar. Frost then serve.
The other piece of exciting news was that I discovered a cool feature of our kitchen faucet (tap). You can pull the tap out - just like we used to have at home!!!
Pull out the tap!
Press for spray!
4 comments:
That's a pretty cool tap feature indeed! I could use one of those in the bathroom - then I could wash my hair in the bath and rinse it effectively. I bet it would decrese kitchen dish washing splatters too! Good to hear America has got the uber-Bunnings style shop right - that place always annoys me because despite their size they never have what I want. Glad to hear you're still adventuring!
Hurro!
We missed you at the wedding of the century, but you had chocolate cake so I guess that makes up for it.
Heath is making some weird suggestions about what I should say to you, but he's in the other room eating seafood laksa so he doesn't have that much say.
We miss you and hope you are keeping up with all the interesting TV shows that they have in America (ie Heroes...).
See youse soon!
M&H
BAM ! O-('.'Q)
<3 heath
I just wanted to add that I thought your post was informative, and enjoyable.
However, I (and Im sure a lot of other regular readers) enjoyed the pictures of the handsome man from Saturday's issue.
Will he make another appearance? :D
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