Last week I was in another country, and this may be out of place in a foodblog, but I always think the measure of a country is best judged by the state of its public loos. *Ahem*  Every single public loo I was in last week was absolutely pristine and each commode had a multi function bidet attached! Without exception. In one mall washroom, there was an attendant who entered every cublicle the second it was vacated and spruced it up lightning quick before inviting the next person in line to en...

I am a cake fiend. I can't go two days without baking something and lately, my husband's been grumbling about a thickening middle (his of course) and the amount of sweet treats the children have been scarfing down owing to my baking mania. I thought of how to cut down both the butter and sugar in a cake recipe, as well as reduce cholesterol, for my mum's benefit, without sacrificing taste to the point that it's no longer worth eating. I've never liked prunes - their very name inspires depress...

I woke up this morning still thinking about a friend, and her sour cherry cake. She is you see,a frightful brainiac, but, by her own admission, almost completely out of her element in the kitchen. My blog, so she told me, had induced her into actually using her "cake frame" - her term of endearment for her cake tin, to make the said cherry cake, yesterday, for tea. Brava bella! So here, inspired by her newly gained kitchen gumption (she did it, in minutes, with a spoon, little else and no dir...