Coffee Sweet and Burnt Earthy Smog

Coffee is sweet.
It is smooth and jazzy, frothy and warm and dry, yet so full of life.
Coffee reminds me of the 50's era; that sepia twang and shades of hazel and pecan in every skirt, couch and table.
The milky thickness like dripping butter, splashes of gold with every twinkle dangling from a little silver spoon, covered in that sticky brown sugar that sticks to it like an old tarnished bike left in the rain for too many years, as it sits their eagerly in all it's beaming-ness, in hope for another dunking into the cappuccino.
Plop goes in the sugar, and as you swirl around that sticky tarnished spoon, the hot foam and dutch chocolate tangos into an erotic swedish dance. Like a Spanish and a Swede making love in the white sands of Napoli. Raw sparks of sugar seducing the couple as they come together under roaring blinking stars and an eager mouth of a young Australian girl, ready to gulp the story down in one steaming sip.
And out breaths the morning coffee breath, the dehydrated, dry bitter scent that repels any good looking boy's lips.
Coffee is a jealous teenage hottie. You crave her and sip her up, down to her last drop and she loves it. She craves you as much as you crave her. She urges you for more, you lick her up all over. and you love it. But she hates the other girls in your life, she hates the potential cuties that might make you laugh, smile or potentially, passionately make out with you. So she grabs your tongue, and ties a knot in the far back of your throat. So rough and jagged that you can't bare to open your mouth and ask for help, for a kiss, for a laugh. So she has you, wrapped up in her coffee stench and haze of burnt earthy smog.
Coffee is like that; a love hate relationship, the addictive kind.

Upside-Down Toffee Banana Cake

You heard me. That's right, toffee and banana, in one glorious, smoodgy, sweet heaven.

Upside-Down Toffee Banana Cake.
adapted from Women's Weekly - Best Food Desserts 

You know when kisses are sooo good you just want to fall into them? Fall into sugary tenderness and eat the face off the person - but you don't, cause you're better than that. and nobody likes those kind of kisses - well FINALLY, I have found a cake that describes that feeling, and this time there is no excuse to NOT maul the face off of it. 

However, beware, if you have diabetes or consume sugar regularly.. don't even sniff this baby. DONT EVEN. He's too good for you. You won't be able to handle his blonde tuffs of banana and crackly toffee coating. Hell even I couldn't, now look at me.. *sigh* cooking and eating cake all my days.. we still talking about the cake? Sorry my bad. Anyway, in my opinion, toffee and banana is worth an extra half kg or two.

1 cup caster sugar
1 cup water
2.5 med bananas
2 eggs, lightly beaten 
2/3 cup olive oil
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
2/3 plain flour
1/3 wholemeal self-raising flour
2tsp mixed spice
1tsp bi-carb soda
1 cup mashed bananas (about 3.5 med very ripe bananas)

1.Preheat oven to 180ºC. Grease deep 22cm-round cake pan; line base with baking paper
2.stir caster sugar and water in medium saucepan over heat, without boiling, until sugar dissolves; bring to a boil. Boil, uncovered without stirring, about 10 minutes (med-high heat) or until caramel in colour. Pour toffee into prepared pan; top with sliced banana (I recommend long ways, circular pieces doesn't turn out as pretty as I thought)
3. Combine eggs, oil, brown sugar and extract in medium bowl. Stir in sifted(3x) dry ingredients, then mashed banana; pour mixture into prepared pan. Bake, uncovered, in moderate oven for about 36-40 minutes.
Wait a few minutes before turning onto wire rack, or turn upside down onto plate and slowly release pan case.
Serve warm, or room temperature for a crunchier toffee coating.

Trust, Life Keeps Happening.

Life keeps happening.

The little water droplets on blue hazy gum tree leaves, peddling themselves off the pointy edge, down through the air, basketing into a pool of brown mash under the huge floral and blanketed trunks, white and smooth, thick and strong, like a god's arms sprouting out to hold the millions of lives in his palms.

You gotta' let things ride, let them pass by, let them come and go and come back again. Nothing is ever for certain, and sometimes life doesn't turn out the way we thought or the way we want it to. But you have to keep strong; if it is your time to tumble off the little gum leaf away from your fellow rain droplets, cavaliering through a wind tunnel to finally meet your new stage of life in the earth and soil, then it is. And only the wind and gravity can control that. Only life.
Somehow or another, regardless of the extent we go to, to try and change our future, make things happen.. there is a voice in us that tells us it will all be okay, and there is no need for splatted discharge of emotions and complication, you just need to trust in life.