I know… 2 posts in one day… virtually unheard of, but I’m so excited about this one.

You know I posted photos from our trip to Market on Main yesterday (on my photoblog)?  Well, check out what I saw in my Twitter stream just now…

There’s not much information on the Neighbourgoods Market website yet, but I’m sure they’ll update it soon.  If you can’t read the small font… the market will be opening on 10 September at 73 Juta Street in Braamfontein.

Now there’s a cool market for Saturdays as well as Sundays!! I just love the rejuvenation happening in Jozi!

It was my last day of leave today, and I left the boys in Lance’s care (he’s on leave for the whole week ), and met up with my mom (you have to visit her blog if you haven’t already) for a coffee date at Vovo Telo in Parkhurst.  It’s a bakery/cafe that’s recently opened it’s latest branch on 4th Ave.

First I need to say that I wish I could meet her for coffee more often.  When I was on maternity leave with both boys, I would meet her regularly for coffee in the mornings, and I miss it. She also likes browsing shops as much as I do, especially interesting little decor and clothing shops so it’s always nice to wander around with her.

And such awesome coffee too!! I just loved the decor and the way that they kept the pressed ceilings in the building.  As for the food, I’m going to have to go back there for a lunch because I loved the sound of the lamb burger as well as the black forest ham and strawberry pizza!  I’d already had breakfast, so opted for the pain au choc… which is the rolled pastry with chocolate and covered with toasted almonds in the photo above.  It was stunning because it wasn’t too sweet.

I simply love wandering around Parkhurst, so after the coffee we went window shopping… and I was so very tempted to buy a dress… in fact, I think I’m going to have to go back there… maybe on the way home from work one evening.

Hmm… I just love shopping!

(The photos… I only used my iPhone and the first one is edited using Instagram, and the others edited with Camera+ )

We went out for dinner tonight to John Dory and I ordered prawns.

They were yum but the kids were funny . We don’t often go to fish restaurants and Connor couldn’t remember me ever eating prawns before.

So when they arrived at the table Connor looked at them very skeptically. After a while he piped up…

“My granny had prawns in her garden”

Lol I had to explain that these came from the sea and weren’t quite the same as the parktown prawns (which are the ugliest scariest looking insects ever). He wasn’t impressed and eventually asked to switch places with Bradley because he didn’t like the smell or the looks of the feelers.

Then when I’d finished he looked at the shells on the plate strangely and said “why didn’t you eat the prawns?”

LOL I explained again that I set the meat inside the shell and you can’t eat the head, eyes, shell and tail.
Bradley rolls his eyes and retorts “That’s not a shell that’s an exoskeleton”

And when we got home, I googled photos of both to show them the difference because it turned out that he wasn’t happy with any of my explanations, and he was still convinced I’d eaten Parktown prawns for dinner.

My parents took Lance and I out for dinner last night in lieu of my birthday plans a few weeks ago (the lunch that had to be cancelled because Bradley was sick).  It was so nice to spend time with them like that… and we had an AWESOME meal.  Oh I do like the restaurant so much!

From the fabulous wine my dad chose, to the spectacular food and awesome service, it was such an awesome evening… and I didn’t even blog when I got home!! LOL! I was actually too tired by the time we got the kids home and sleeping.  The kids seemed to have had a ball at Madelein’s house too, although Pierre and Madelein looked rather tired when we got there at 10pm because my kids were still not sleeping!

Anyhoo, back to dinner.

For starters we all had gypsy spits which are button mushrooms wrapped in bacon.  Oh wow, how divine were they… especially cos they came with garlic sauce.

Then for main course, I had a fillet with potato wedges and veggies.  And OMW the meat was divine.  It was perfectly cooked to my liking with pink inside… and the taste was sublime.

By then I was full, but my dad ordered creme brulee for dessert…. and I could not resist.  And I’m so very very glad that I did order after all, because it’s one of the best creme brulees I’ve ever tasted! It was just perfect

As for the photos… taken with my iPhone even though I was carrying my DSLR

Half the conversations at Friday night’s dinner at my house were about how old we all were… hence the title.  LOL!! Remember I told you that I was going to make curries and the chocolate brownies?  Well, I ended up being a little heavy handed with the chilli but the curries were divine, and the brownies were just sublime, and thankfully there were loads left over

It was awesome seeing our friends again.  Fanie and Mynhardt were at school with Lance, and they’ve kept in touch all these years. We don’t see Fanie and his family all that often, and  Mynhardt moved to Australia years ago.  Mynhardt is in South Africa on holiday with his wife and their 2 year old son, and I know we’re going to get grief with this blog post because it wasn’t a bigger group of friends that met for dinner, but they were only available on that night… and I can’t entertain more people on a Friday… 11 is quite enough

Anyhoo, on with a few photos… I just loved how the kids interacted actually… considering the language barriers.  Our boys only speak English, Fanie’s older son speaks English and Afrikaans, but the younger son only speaks Afrikaans, and then Mynhardt’s 2 year old is more fluent in Russian than he is in either English or Afrikaans!  Oh and notice… 5 boys!! It was one noisy evening!

OMW I have a busy weekend coming up… starting today.

I’m going to be:

1.  Having a dinner party at our house for 11 people tonight… I’m going to be cooking 2 curries… Sandi‘s awesome Butter Chicken recipe, a beef Bombay curry recipe from the most awesome curry cookbook from Woolies that now out of print, and then for dessert it’ll be Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Chocolate Brownies (Lance is shopping so I can just cook when I get home)

2.  Delivering 2 photoshoots

3. Taking the kids to Pretoria at sparrows fart tomorrow to watch Cars2 at a special screening, because I’m taking photos of the decor etc.

4.  I’m going to do my level best to get to the Tranquil Body Treats 1st year celebration tomorrow

5.  I’m taking photos at a kids birthday party tomorrow

6.  A maternity shoot on Sunday

And between all that I need to fnd time to take the dogs for a walk, they’re destroying my garden again

What are you up to?

I’ve seen the Wonderbag being used before… in fact, last year my mom blogged about how she used one to cook my birthday dinner because the power went out on the day we celebrated my birthday at her house… so, I was intrigued when I got invited to Microsoft for today’s launch.  But the launch ended up not being about the bag… but about how the company intends distributing it to communities.

Oh and we got to eat lunch that was cooked in the bag!!

Before I start, it probably makes sense to explain what it is.  It’s a bag that looks almost like a duvet with a cushion that you tie around the top.  The way you use it, is to boil your food in a pot, and once the cooking process has started, you take the pot off the stove and put it in the bag, seal it, and leave it.  And the bag’s insulation acts like a slow cooker and cooks the contents of the pot.

So, as you may think, this save electicity or fuel or whatever it is that you cook with, and is good for the environment… and effectively saves you money if you use it regularly.

What’s interesting about this product though, is the way in which it’s being “sold”.

Natural Balance has now reached agreement with some municipalities to distribute/sell the bags to the residents to reduce the power consumption as well as household costs.  The mayor of Newcastle spoke at the launch today and told us how 22000 of these bags will be distributed to the residents of the town who are on the ingident register (those households registered as only earning < R1900 income per month.  And then other residents will get bags if they prove that they pay their electricity bills for 3 consecutive months… as an incentive to paying for electricity.  They’re hoping to encourage the use of the bags to reduce power bills… and effectively giving the residents more disposable income to spend on other things.

Interesting hey?

I really hope that the community project is successful, because I think it’ll really help those that are struggling to pay for electricity… and to keep their consumption under the minimum “free” limit. In fact, there was a guy from the Ekhuruleni municipality at the launch trying to understand how he could get the concept working in his area… good sign!!

What was also interesting was that a product design agency Frog has built a mobile USSD application for field agents to capture basic information about the people that use the bags (and the data is then sent real-time to a cloud based database and system provided by Microsoft) in order for the company to monitor the use of the bags… and then enabling them to claim carbon credits.  Carbon credits are tradeable in Euros and will essentially mean that that money  received from the sale of the credits will be plugged back into the project enabling more bags to be produced and distributed.

Some facts about the bags which I found quite fascinating:
- The Wonderbag saves approximately 0.5 tonnes of carbon per year if it is used 2 or 3 times a week.
- With regular use, the Wonderbag can save at least 15kWh of electricity and 1.6 litres of paraffin a week, and as much as 50% of the energy needed of cooking.

Oh and it’s pretty!
I think it’s a really worthwhile project they’re embarking on… I think I want to get one for my domestic worker… I’m sure it’ll save her some money.

However, even though it’s so cool, I’m not sure how often I would use it… other than what my mom did… use it when the power goes out and you want to cook something for a long time.  We don’t really eat a lot of stewy stuff.  But if we did… this would make a huge amount of sense

PS. Some of the images taken with iPhone and Instagram and the others with my DSLR

So Easter has already come and gone, and the kids were overloaded with chocolate as per usual.  One thing that surprised me completely was Bradley’s belief in the Easter Bunny.  I thought that he was definitely going to be wise about this whole lark this year, because he can read.  But no… it’s just as magical as ever.

He did chirp at some stage though that ALL the eggs were from Woolworths! LOL! The Easter Bunny bought all of them at the same place! That’s one lazy Easter Bunny!

I love the magic that kids bring into our lives

I went to collect a few photobooks at QPhoto in Design Quarter, and on my way to the shop I stopped at the Lindt chocolate studio to get a few chocolates for the QPhoto ladies cos they had really truly gone the extra mile for me this week.

And wow!! I’d been in the shop before, but quickly, and this time I looked around properly and I bought some hand rolled chocolate for the first time.  Yummos!!

But what they do have there, and what I really really want to do… is go on one of their chocolate courses.  They were busy setting up for a course that was being run last night, and it looked just like something I’d like to do!

I asked the sales person behind the counter how much the courses were… and apparently they range from R150 to… wait for it… R2500!! Woah!!

Anyhoo, the details are on their site (and I see there’s a Cape Town branch too)… now I think this would make an awesome gift!

Oooh they also sell cappuccinos and hot chocolate… yummos!!

I just LOVE that line… it’s from Yuppiechef… and it just spoke to me when I got my box of goodies today, taped up with tape covered in that saying,  that I ordered from them on Tuesday.

A while ago there was a Twitter auction run by @nosh4noah raising funds for Noah. Noah is 3 years old and lives in Cape Town and his mom needs funds to get him the therapy he needs… he’s on the autism spectrum.  So of course I helped… and won !!  My prize was a R250 voucher for Yuppiechef which I’ve been very slack in using!!

Anyhoo, I decided that this week I would get my butt into gear and start buying Christmas gifts… but first I needed to use my voucher. I bought myself the new Jamie Oliver cookbook.  Yeah, I know, I have a few of them… but hey, this one is about quick meals and I so need some inspiration on that front!

So, I bought myself the book, and a gift for someone which is why I’m not showing you everything that was in the box.  And then I actually went back to the site on Wednesday and bought more… for someone else too!

My box arrived today, at the office.  Not bad timing hey?  I just LOVED the way it was packaged… down to a personal little card an’all.

It was a fab experience shopping from them.  In fact, while I was buying another gift from @Home this afternoon, there was a lady behind me in the queue who found the tiniest tagine dishes.  I commented about the size and she mentioned she was actually looking for the big one, and she hadn’t been able to find them anywhere… I told her to try Yuppiechef.  LOL!! I will be shopping there again, that’s for sure!

Really glad that I could help a little boy get some therapy at the same time as quenching my shopping need!