I visited Ghirardelli Square the before week Australia's Darrell Lea went into administration.
It was standing room only in the chocolate shop and ice-creamery where the line for a table went out the door and into the square and a gorgeous summer Saturday.
The locals are proud of their homegrown chocolate brand. Ghirardelli's employs a small army to keep the traffic flowing through the shop. And tourists walk away with any number of gimmick chocolate boxes from milk pails to the famous San Francisco trams or a red, white and blue canister in the shape of a star.
I did think of Darrell Lea standing there in that chocolate shop but it was a bitter-sweet moment. I haven't bought Darrell Lea for a few years now because the quality fell. The rocky road was full of coconut and no jelly (only at Christmas time, for some reason).
Their famous nougart Easter eggs are unrecognizable. I did feel sad when they went under but it made me think of how clever Ghirardelli Chocolates are.
Here's a quick video I edited together:
I thought of this again last week when I made chocolate cake for dinner ;)
This recipe keeps for three days - yummier on the third day, if it lasts that long. I haven't made it for 12 months. After quadrupling the recipe to make my mother's birthday cake last year was a tricky business that was enough to put me off chocolate cake for a year.
Recipe for Chocolate Cake
Simple Chocolate Almond Cake - from Robert Linxe's La Maison Du Chocolat
(My favourite cook book)
1/2 vanilla bean (though I use a whole one)
200g chocolate (proper: half ordinary, half cuana)
5 eggs
1 stick + 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 2/3 cup confectioner's sugar (castor sugar)
pinch salt
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar (castor ok)
3/4 cup plain flour
3/4 cup ground almonds
Method:
1. Split vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out seeds with knife. Put bean and seeds into double boiler with chocolate (break into pieces). Melt over low heat.
2. Separate eggs. Whites in large bowl. Yolks in small bowl.
3. Add butter into melted chocolate and stir in sugar and egg yolks. Remove from heat.
4. Add flour and mix. Set aside.
5. Pre-heat oven 180º (400º) & grease 10 inch pan - line with greaseproof paper.
6. Add pinch salt to egg whites, beat, adding in granulated sugar.
7. Fold egg whites into chocolate mix.
8. Pour batter into pan. Bake 20 minutes.
This 1956 bronze, penny looks like it was lost decades ago. I picked it up thinking it was a 20 cent piece. You could just make out the word Penny through the encrusted dirt.
The inscription reads:
Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, Queen, Defender of the Faith.
They collected all of these up in 1964 when Australia adopted the Decimal Currency.
WordPress is not a magic lamp
Have you set up your organic server (your brain) to parse English? Then this post may pass mustard - I mean muster ;)
I am going to assign a few values by creating a series of expressions - by jingo in English!
Control structures and syntax of the English language are many and useful also.
It seems like the WP Codex (manual) is full of parallel lines that branch off and it's not clear when they merge to form a complete picture! You say syntax and I say grammar.
No curly syntax here. // *N.B. Curly Syntax involves curly brackets { }* //
"Me Golem. You Mister."
OMG! Shared meaning.
Pause. Deep breathe. Ok.
The only "loop" that a lost, weary traveler finds in a desperate search for points of reference in WP Codex is a continuous retracing of steps over and over and over the same pages to spot the double entendre - the meaning hidden in code on the page.
A simple and direct introductory statement would be nice. There's a few missing statements, a few values that aren't properly assigned.
Ima gonna give ya some examples:
Number 1. You call it "The Loop" and you talk about "The Index" but I can't find where you say that this super power called "The Loop" is in "The Index". Ah, my precious!
Number 2. Nothing works unless to tell it what to do in the "Functions" file. So this was made clear at a Brisbane WordPress Meet-Up this week. Ho-ho-ho! Merry Christmas!
I'm in the Codex creche.
So finally I gave up on copying and pasting code and getting by on a little of the lingo.
How hard can PHP be?
Well, after repeating the manual chapters out loud several times pieces fall into place.
I just want to know the difference between single and double quotes and why on this planet do the tags work sometimes but not always.
Patience my pretty.
Put on your galoshes. Head through the forest, down into the wolf's lair, push the rock aside at the back of the dark tunnel and ... wait for a response from your forum question. Another day passes.
Hitler does live on - as a server. I've been shot down so many times that I feel like Sebastian.
You know that meaning doesn't exist unless it's assigned a value - so much for objectivity.
I was so proud of my first pair of high heels. Today they are called "court shoes".
The lovlies I bought at 17 look quite sensible by "stripper heel" standards. Stripper heel ladies of today walk tall - if you call it walking. Am I jealous? Sometimes.
Mum bought me a pair of shoes last week. Cuties. Comfortable. Like a second skin. And they reminded me of another old pair of shoes...
Boots (ankle, lace-ups, hiking, long), a tonne of runners, a fortune in dance shoes, many sandles but, alas, no stripper heels. Walk tall.
When I was kid my father put up a scroll in the kitchen that read: I had no shoes and I complained until I met a man who had no feet.
I always thought it meant appreciate what you have. But now I see a different meaning. Before you judge, walk a mile in their shoes. I don't believe I can walk a mile in stripper heels.
Do you still have your first pair of heels?
