West Coast Wandering

For my very first American Thanksgiving, I went on a road trip along the I-5 from Redding to San Diego armed with trail mix, Starbucks and good company.
It has been a dream of mine for ages to wander along the Southern California coastline, so I was in awe with my surroundings when we finally reached the palm-tree plentiful coast. 
During my stay in San Diego, I had an authentic thanksgiving meal with a fun and very charismatic family, and ate myself into food coma. Success. 
I got involved in the Black Friday action and went shopping at Fashion Valley which quickly made it onto my list of favorite shopping destinations. I also saw the beautiful ocean for the first time in 3 months and it felt just like seeing an old friend. While living in the country has it's benefits, I am still a beach baby at heart. You can take me away from the beach but you can't take the beach out of me. 
Then there was roadside cafe dining, boutique store browsing on Coronado island and quality time with friends. Thank you Orange County for showing me a good time and I hope to see you again very shortly. Stay classy San Diego. 

Fall Playlist

Pumpkin Flavored Fun

My amazing new friend Hannah and I decided to join forces on Halloween night and bake pies, carve pumpkins and drink obscene amounts of chai tea. Mission accomplished.

In between handing out candy to visiting trick-or-treaters, we whipped up two delish creations, and considering the fact that we were both pie-baking rookies, they turned out ridiculously well. Whilst they were still warm to the touch, we dolloped whipped cream onto our slices, and sat with our feet up sipping chai and watching Amélie and Bridget Jones. You know, just reveling in the glory of single life.

The first one to hit the oven was the pumpkin pie, and being from South Africa, I had only ever tasted this once before in my life, so I was most excited to actually bake my own from scratch. 

Pumpkin Pie:

We originally only intended to make one pie, but seeing as though we had an extra pastry dish, we scoured the fridge for anything that remotely resembled pie ingredients. In the end we conjured up an apple and mixed berry pie, which was ironically the more delicious of the two.
We added apples, mixed berries, raisins, sugar, cinnamon and then topped it with an oat, sugar and honey crumble. Mmmm mmmm.


Apple and Berry Pie:

While the pies were in the oven, we teamed up to carve our first ever pumpkin, and it's a lot more of a risky ordeal than I had imagined, but we managed to do it and leave fairly unscathed. 
I was impressed with how great our girly-looking pumpkin turned out, and once the tea light candles were placed inside, it made the perfect Halloween decoration for outside our front door. This was a truly American experience for me, and I wish my childhood had been filled with more pumpkin-carving!