Sounds good to me! I’d love to get together — somehow, someway! It will happen. I’m sure of it.

xo

Re: my comments, I’m trying my other ID I’ve created to avoid this issue … let’s see if it works.

Hugsss,
Shirley

As is often the case, I almost choked on my organic, Bolivian coffee while reading your comments early this morning. I laughed out loud at your discovery of Jamie Durie (and am still laughing as I look back over your comments). There’s actually a town called Manly? Inhabited by manly men? Fascinating.

If nothing else, we’re creating quite a fine list of potential full-sized cardboard cutouts to sell in our gift shop. Shall we call it the Plates and Dates Boutique? The place to get all your dining accessories.

Giggling again thinking of the hot tub and swing.

…. hold on to the handlebars of that trainer woman…. Jamie Durie is the missing link in our already packed list of traveling plates. How did we ever manage without him? He’s got his own website and would you believe it, he’s from a place called Manly I certainly couldn’t agree more and are there any other Manly men we should know about?

Amazon sell his books but alas no cardboard cutouts… I checked

Cid

p.s. I’ve got a fairly new patio but that’s not to say it couldn’t do with a little update. I’ll enlighten him as to our plans after he’s installed the swing and hot tub

I’ve seen green Matcha tea added to macaron dry so I suppose you could add it to quick bread recipes. Not sure whether this type of tea is higher in caffeine than other green teas though, but it is rather expensive so we’ll have to use it sparingly.

As for the lusty muffins (and ours will be world famous as the lustiest of all ) I fear we risk upsetting one of the boys so reluctantly we may have to hire both for the good of the campaign.

Cid

p.s. not sure I could manage to stay focused on my mountain bike trainer while watching Jamie or Patrick…. (as in the background ‘Wheels on Fire’ quietly plays )

I’m off to research Australian Jamie and and his outdoor spaces….

Please pass the muffins. On second thought, I’m foregoing muffins, cakes and cookies until I drop these few pounds that came to visit (hopefully they are just visiting) during the holidays. Once I get back on track, I’ll bake and eat goodies with a little less exuberance!

I must say though, your creation sounds wonderful and yes, a bit lusty with the hemp seeds and pecans. I’ve been thinking for some time to try a quick bread with an herbal tea as the liquid. I’ve been making the most wonderful smoothies lately with green tea.

I have to tell you, Cid, I have a new target for our “lusty muffin” advertising campaign. His name is Jamie something and he’s a gardening guru from Australia. I’ve been riding my mountain bike trainer (a contraption so I can ride my bike indoors without going anywhere) and watching the House & Garden network on TV. Just a little something to bide the time while I burn off the muffins. I recently discover Jamie’s new show on converting outdoor spaces. Well, lets just say he gives Patrick Rafter, et al, a run for the money. And he’s on the House & Garden Channel! Seriously, what more could you ask for?

P.S. I haven’t had any rice cereal lately. Thanks for the reminder. I’ve been stuck on steel cut oats (guaranteed gluten-free of course) and teff porridge. I’m still waiting for a clue to where I can send a thank-you to that friend of yours who sent me the bookmark.

Handstands on the beach at 80 can be done! Well, I’ve got a ways to go, but I hope to be doing something of the sort. I figure, if I can do it today, I can do it tomorrow. And on I’ll go.

Thanks, again. Nice to hear from you again. Best in 2010 to you and your family!

I’ve just made a batch of banana/hemp seed muffins. The recipe actually called for bran to be added to conventional flour but I didn’t have any so I added chopped pecans instead. For the vegetable oil I used half hemp seed oil, half sunflower. The bananas were really so ripe they were on the verge of fermentation but I got there just in time. The recipe calls for an icing made from freshly squeezed orange and icing sugar which if you’re not following a strict calorie controlled diet, sounds like a nice topping…. could use lemon juice. Aren’t muffins great, quick to make and often much nicer than a normal sponge mix. I love the fact that you can throw in seeds and natural flavourings…. perhaps matcha green tea? Quick breakfasts or healthy snacks for the kids, you can’t go wrong.

We’re back to your subject of ‘can a muffin be lusty’….well ours will be because there’ll be about a tablespoon of lust in every muffin… and organic too. I’ll send a box to Patrick Rafter to see if he’ll be the advertising ‘face’ of the Soup Sirens Lusty Muffins

Cid

p.s. I’m still enjoying your toasted brown rice porridge recipe, excellent on these freezing cold winter days.

It’s good to be missed and I look forward to your posts and to contributing more in 2010. “less room for error” is so true. Here’s to reigniting that metabolism and keeping healthy. I would also like to be on that beach doing handstands in my 80′s!

Cheers,
Peter