Happy Birthday Miss Soft Crab Haiku Thursday! (PM)

Miss Soft Crab turns TWO!

Wisdom beyond her years

Beauty of her youth

Haha just kidding

If only Lady Crab could

Boast these great features

Happy Birthday Miss Soft Crab Haiku Thursday! (AM)

Today this becomes

A two year old chronicle 

Of this crabby life. 

Two years of thanks to

All you who bear witness to

Crab frivolity. 

Next blog revisited (PM)

The world is food crazy, that's for sure. And even though I hate the word blogosphere I guess I have to use it here to say the blogosphere is food crazy too. Ugh. Gross. Sorry you guys. Austin particularly so. But as Tony Soprano would say, what are you gonna do? Tony Soprano. Now there's a man who likes food.

But enough of that. It's MSC's weekly food day and I have a food question.

Does this chocolate cake look good to you guys?

Sometimes I miss the dense floury chocolate cakes of my childhood, as distinct from the dense fudgy chocolate cakes of my adulthood. This one looks like a proper floury chocolate cake, the kind that you might have found in your school lunch box as a playlunch snack if you were one of those kids who got cake in their lunch boxes.
That appeals to me. A lot.
But it looks pretty dry. Especially the 'crust', which I'm pretty sure cakes aren't even meant to have, are they? And the lack of butter concerns me.
But the other ingredients seem pleasing. Dark sugar. Maple syrup. Stout! Plus, I love the word Bundt. It's a no-nonsense word, but also somehow a little cute.
I think I'm going to make it tonight. 

Next blog revisited (AM)

Hahahahahahah. Oh, man, I wish you could be in my head right now. It's really funny up there. Actually it was funny earlier, now it's just weirded out. Because I started writing this post before my journey finished. And now I'm amending it now that the journey is finished. Whoa. I was just looking at Miss Soft Crab and thinking about food and I thought to myself, "I wonder what will happen if I press Next Blog. I wonder if it will be a food blog."

Now I see, having written the thought down it is not full of gravitas, but as I pressed the Next Blog icon it seemed to be. It seemed like a really important game of Russian Roulette. Not the real version but a lesser, yet somehow important version.

So, as I hit the icon I held my breath and then, this:

AHA! I thought. I'm on to something. What though? I hit the icon again and came across a blog about the Rains family's trip to Amsterdam. Then there was something I have to assume was an antiabortion website because I saw a picture of a foetus all glowing and shit. Although that could have just been a link to a Massive Attack film clip. Then, I swear to god, this:

Now I don't know how Next Blog works. Obviously Google are stalking every move I make so maybe they thought I wanted to see all those food blogs. Maybe that's why they kept coming at me. Or maybe Blogger just gets in a rut. I mean, Austin seemed to be disproportionately represented in the blogs I came across. But what do I know. Maybe Austin is the blog capital of the world. Maybe 8 out of every 10 blogs really does come out of Austin.

So what did I learn from all this? I learned that you sure as hell don't need me to write about food today.

Just a Tuesday post (PM)

Hey! That is so weird.Yesterday was the day that it really dawned on me that Tony Abbott will be the next Prime Minister. But because Miss Soft Crab is not a political blog all I will say on that point is: gross me the fuck out.

TV sucks. That is for sure. But last night in my brief TV watching period all I saw was Mad Men.Although I have watched a little Mad Men last night it really dawned on me how fucking great it is and how I should really watch it in earnest.

Don't mind if I do.

Just a Tuesday post (AM)

Last night, I was feeling a little off-colour so decided I would treat myself to a night in front of the television. I guess I don't really watch a lot of television these days, because I was expecting to have a wonderful time but I really did not.

Firstly, let me say, what happened to us in Hobart that we thought The Voice was a tolerable show? I remember us having a whale of a time watching The Voice in Hobart. After five minutes of watching it last night I wanted to cry.

Next, let me say that last night it kind of dawned on me that Tony Abbott is going to be the next Prime Minister and I do not feel good about that. Not at all. But Miss Soft Crab is not a political blog so that's all I have to say about it.

Actually, that's all I have to say about anything. Watching TV was so terrible, I feel like the MSC inspiration has been bled out of me.  So I am just going to admit defeat and leave you to get on with your days. But first I am going to show you this poster I saw on the street once and discovered a photo of when I started scrolling through pictures on my phone last night because I was so bored.

I find it so sweet that Winks "answers to the name of Winks".

Just a Monday post (PM)

I have to say, part of the way through watching that ad for the first time,  I felt happy that they used the word vagina. Finally! I thought. An ad that respects me enough to sell menstrual products by focusing on the relevant body part, not the need to feel 'confident' while playing sport. But then I realised that they only mentioned the word vagina to emphasise how dirty it is and to get me to spend my money on something that will make it more acceptable to go out in the world with one of those dirty things.

D-bags. Eff you guys. 

J'accuse, d-bags

Just a Monday post (AM)

I don't like to start the week off on a negative note usually. I mean, as if waking up on a Monday morning isn't bad enough, then you have to perform your ablutions, probably discover there is no breakfast and I guess on this particular Monday you have to catch public transport with a million other people which seems like 10 million after the quiet of school holidays. Perhaps it is these factors that meant I couldn't avoid the negos today. Sozzles.

But let me just get this out there. Have you seen an ad for some kind of women's sanitary product, I believe it is some kind of 'panty liner' with a naked woman talking about  mid-cycle discharge? (Oh, also, sozzles if you are sensitive to this talk.) So, it's an ad for an inherently offensive a product, a product that exists to make women feel that having undies on and then probably pants or at least a skirt is not enough to keep their disgusting vaginas away from the world. And it is advertised by a nude woman. And she is telling us that even though discharge is healthy and normal it can make a woman feel dirty, and that's fine. WHY THE EFF IS THAT WOMAN NUDE?!?! Why is she telling you to feel dirty?! I read somewhere that the ad received criticism. "Yeah, no shit!" I thought! But when I read on it was suggested that the ad had been criticised for using the word vagina and being too 'real'. WHAT? WHAT?! WHAT THE EFFFFF??!?!

Phew, sorry, before it becomes too late to turn the caps lock off, let's all jus relax and look at this adorable photo of some of the Queen's signets riding under the wing of their parent. 

Friday Favourites: Ugg Boots (PM)

Oh man! Ugg boots! I effing love my ugg boots so much! K actually gave me my first pair for a birthday many years ago. Eleven years ago in fact. I'm pretty sure it was because I was always going on about how jealous I was of hers. Those ugg boots are long gone, probably because they were made in China (assumption not fact). But that was me gone. A life without ugg is a life half lived.

After the death of that first pair I moved on to the real home-grown variety. At the moment I have a black pair. I bought them because once at an old job someone wore a pair of tall black uggs to work and they didn't look like uggs, they just looked like cosy black boots. I always imagined doing something like that, but I'm not crazy. Having black uggs does mean I can unashamedly go to the supermarket in them though, so that's something.

Me* in my ugg boots

Oh, how I love ugg. A Friday Favourite, an everyday favourite, UGG!

*As played by Kirsten Dunst.

Friday Favourites: Ugg Boots (AM)

Yesterday I talked about that lamb/sheep/mutton's wool jacket I tried on.  I hinted at how ridiculous it is that a jacket would cost $1000. What I didn't say is that it's possibly the softest and  warmest thing I've ever worn and I think about it all the time. You can bet I thought about it last night when I came home after dinner with Scampy and Neville to discover my house was really quite cold.

But I shouldn't complain because the lamb community has given me a great gift in the past, a gift that has been giving for two decades. These:

These are the ugg boots I've had since childhood. No joke. My Mum's friend had a business importing them from her native Germany, and so when we were little, Mum bought a pair for both of my brothers. She didn't buy any for me because the feet of a girl child do not need to be kept warm. 

Jokies!

I suspect it was because my feet were too small.

From the binding. 

Jokies!

I just think they didn't have my size.

Anyway, the joke's on those guys, because at some point I claimed them for my own and have worn them around the house all through winter since about 1993. 

And look at the condition they're in!

If you're wondering what that thing inside this ugg boot is,  it's just a teatowel I stuffed in there to make them stand upright. I will probably wash the teatowel before I use it again.  

Still so wooly! That's GDR era manufacturing for you. 

Anyway, they are the warmest and best ugg boots a person could want and i'm lucky to have them. 

They are a Friday Favourite.  

How to buy a winter coat (PM)

If my experience of finding greenie last year is anything to go by, you're doing everything right.
Soon, the coat of your dreams will come in to your life. Or probably just a really great one.

As for me, now that my coat needs have been met, I kind of want a jacket. For those days I don't want to wear a coat. I found the perfect one the other day.

Look at that collar. Soft as the embrace of a newborn lamb. Because it is made of newborn lamb! Or teenage lamb. Heck it could be mutton for all I know, in which case, why are people so down on mutton? It's very soft.
Anyway, I fell for this coat pretty hard but it cost $1000 which is not OK.
So even though it is perfect for me it will remain an impossible dream. It will never get out of my dreams and in to my car. So it goes.

I also quite like this one that I tried on at Country Road yesterday when I met J and Baby for lunch.

The buttons aren't as weird in real life.
But I don't know. Once you've worn mutton, everything else seems boring.

How to buy a winter coat (AM)

After an early summer disappointment involving the selling out of a Scanlon and Theodore dress that I had pinned all my summer hopes on, I basically gave up on summer fashions, wearing things already in my cupboard from seasons past. While this is excellent on a personal economic and global environmental level it was a little boring, though not regrettable. After the dress became unavailable I decided there was no point wasting my time with summer clothes and looked forward to my favourite fashion seasons, autumn, followed by winter. Lucky for me, The Sartorialist is a northern hemisphere blog so I spent a lot of summer checking out what people there were wearing northside. Sure, I could have been practising drawing or writing or something else productive. But instead I spent summer looking at winter fashions. I got me some good ideas but the thing I became truly fixated on was a winter coat.

Though I may think the internet is ruining some things, I definitely appreciate that I can look at the wrong season fashions on international websites. I have decided that my dream coat is navy, of the pea style, wool, just past my hips, high collared. Basically it’s this guy’s coat.

But where can I find that guy’s coat?!

Yesterday I tried on this coat at Trenery. I liked it quite a lot, but wished the buttons went higher and the coat went lower.

Then last night I got an email from Trenery telling me I had could get 25% off.  But should I buy a coat based only on its price?

I  like this coat a lot:

But its expensive and on the internet. Can I drop heaps of dollars on a coat I haven’t tried on?


There is another one I like. But it’s from Gorman and expensive and has no collar. But I like it a lot.

I told LB about my woes and he asked me if I wanted him to buy me a coat for my birthday. No! I protested. But maybe that is the answer.

How to buy a winter coat. It's a question, not an instruction.

Cinnamon Game Changers (PM)

Chocolate swirl buns I made one time

I have to say that those days when K worked at a prominent bakery franchise were some of my best. She used to close the shop on Mondays* and I would pick her up and take her home even though we no longer lived in the same street, in fact we lived in opposite directions, but she would give me a box of leftovers, you see. Bam, my regular bread, cheese bread, banana bread and donut needs were taken care of for the week. It pretty much ruled. But I never wanted or received scrolls in that bountiful box. No, who would buy a chain bakery scroll?! Not me! The scrolls of St. Cinnamon, however, were a whole different story. They were doughy and delicious and sticky and caramelly and Libbets and I sometimes would catch a train from Elsternwick to the city just to get one. We would get off at Melbourne Central go up the elevator for a scroll then turn around and go home. They were warm and gooey and I could go on about those bad boys all day! I guess what I am saying is that my game did not need changing. My heart is well and truly open to the scroll.

I've made scrolls before, usually they are great straight out of the oven but they suffer later. They tend to be too bready, not eggy and buttery enough - a good scroll needs to be somewhere in between a cake and a bread, that's what I think. Without question the chocolate swirl buns from Smitten Kitchen are the best I've ever made. But my heart belongs to cinnamon and those babies Miguel made for Northern Delights, well, they were something special. When K told me she made them on the weekend I was jealous. And when she dropped it again in yesterday's post my mind was made up! I was going to make them! I have a recipe for a thing called Swedish Cinnamon Butterhorns. Although they are shaped more like a croissant they have the same Swedish names as the other buns, kanelbullar. Plus who wouldn't want to eat a thing called a butterhorn!! But then I realised I had no eggs and I didn't want to go to the shops and well, now I don't have any scrolls. But don't worry guys, the shops are open and I have a whole day ahead of me. Those cinnamon buns will be mine!!!!!!

*Or possibly a different day. It was a long time ago.

Cinnamon Game Changers (AM)

I used to work at a prominent bakery franchise when I was younger. Back when bread was bread, which is to say it was white and square and sliced for either toast or sandwiches. This place also sold morning tea type treats like jam tarts, vanilla slice and of course a shitload of coffee scrolls. I don't know why people bought them. They were always so dry looking, and kind of big and overblown and not like the kind of delicious morsel you might really look forward to at morning tea time.

Anyway, spending time amongst so many unappealing coffee scrolls kind of turned me off the scroll completely. Occasionally I would see one in a recipe book and it would leave me feeling cold and uninspired. As more and more Scandinavian cookbooks came in to my life, so too did more and more scroll recipes. But it was always the same. I felt no interest. 

But then, Miguel brought Scandinavian style cinnamon scrolls to our Northern Delights dinner and everything changed. You should have tasted those babies. Bready in all the right places. Buttery in all the right places. Sugary and cinnamony in places I didn't even know about. Oh brother were they something else. I've thought about them ever since, and when Miguel sent the recipe, I knew it was just a matter of time before I made them mine. And last Sunday, when the weather was just right for proving dough, I made them. 

It was a piece of cake. 

First, you make a dough. 

Twas a very sticky dough. Then, you cover it with a tea towel and leave it in a warm place... 

...til it doubles in size. Then you roll it out flat  to about 80 centimetres. 

Next, you cover that baby with butter, cinnamon and sugar. 

You roll it up...

You turn that roll in to a bunch of scrolls which you let prove again. 

And you bake them until they look golden beauties oozing caramelised sugar and cinnamon. 

Such a piece of cake, right? 

But even if they weren't the taste would justify whatever labour they required. These babies are out of this world delicious. And a real game changer for me, making me think that scrolls are something I want in my life all the time. I hate it when recipes go on about how great your kitchen will smell when you cook something but seriously, these buns make your kitchen smell like heaven's oven, and it's part of what makes them so great. Just make them you guys. See if I'm wrong!