Women's Lifestyle Expo & making Cinnabons (30th August 2009)

Caught up with Hew at 9.30am for breakfast this morning at Enigma Cafe on Courtenay Place. Hmm, looked and felt like the old Espressoholic Cafe that used to be here for years until they recently moved down to Cuba St. Other than a slight change in the design on the walls, everything is pretty much the same, even the menu. Had a yummy big breakfast of toast, eggs, bacon and hash browns with a flat white - so bad for health but so good on a Sunday :P

Hew wanted to check out the Women's Lifestyle Expo that was held at TSB Arena this weekend and I had agreed to go with her. Honestly, I wouldn't pay $10 to the expo since I'm not much of a girlie girl and going to a place that has stalls about women products and pampering stuff doesn't appeal to me. Lucky for us, I won 2 free passes to the expo so we didn't have to fork out a cent!

The Women's Lifestyle Expo is held annually across 9 cities around the country showcasing more than 160 exhibitors featuring everything from jewellery to health products to crafts, fitness and beauty products, food and wine sampling, home wares etc. Us girls went around collecting samples given by the exhibitors, sampling chocolates, stopped by to chat with Lance who was there serving alcoholic mixers, tried making a small gift card (that was hard work!) and just talked to several of the exhibitors about the products they were promoting.

Given that this was an expo about women, I was quite surprised to see the lack of actual women-related exhibitors. Where were the folks from Loreal or Cover Girl? There weren't any exhibitors that taught women how to dress or even do their make-up or hair. To me, it was just a central location of an assortment of people getting together to promote their businesses/products. Fancy cosmetic surgery? There wa a company there that puts surgery and travel into one package. Want to lose weight? Plenty of stalls promoting the different sure-win ways to lose kilos. Hew and I ended up at a stall promoting this magnetic wristband that is said to balance the ions in your body. Hmm, I'm not convinced even though wearing it, I was able to hold my balance when the male promoter tried very hard to pull on my arm.

Several exhibitors that I personally do not think they should even be there are like banks and the folks promoting The Avatar course. How do they even fit in all this?? Ok, if the banks were teaching women how to be financially fit for life, sure, but trying to talk you into changing banks? Puh-lease. I didn't end up buying anything, and Hew went home with 2 coloured hair attachments she purchased from the people selling wigs. My conclusion, don't bother going - it's not worth the 10 bucks.

Said my goodbye to my girlfriend Hew and went to pick up a DVD then headed over to Scott's for the evening. Sharon has been posting photos of her and Mark in Melbourne making yummy cinnamon buns from Cinnabon, an American cinnamon roll franchise, and Scott's got a copy of the recipe and keen to make some this afternoon. I want to come help!

Got to Scott's about 4pm and he had all the ingredients set up to make the rolls. Alright, team NZ (me and Scott), time to beat the Aussies (Sharon and Mark) in Cinnabon-making! Haha, I had a fun time taking photos of the process while helping Scott out. No, Scott, you can knead the dough - I don't want to get my hands dirty and eeky... :P Several unorthodox ways of baking including measuring unmelted butter in cups (that is SO wrong!), measuring the rolled out dough with a tape measure and putting the dough next to the heater to get it to rise (not even sure that works). But who cares, so long as they turned out yummy! Photos of our baking session: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8070917@N05/sets/72157622062867999/detail/

Hmm, I'm getting hungry...Scott better make his beef stroganoff for dinner fast - I can't stop putting my finger into the icing bowl and licking the sugar. Yum...Scott's been meaning to have me over for dinner for a long time but we social butterflies always have something on. He talks about his passion for cooking often and I've yet to sample any of his cooking! Ladies, my buddy Scott's a great catch (and he's single...hint, hint...) - who wouldn't want a man who can cook? ;) Two thumbs up for his lite version of beef stroganoff. Absolutely YUM!

Rest of the evening was spent watching the rented DVD, having our dinner and wine, followed by 2 Cinnabon each for dessert. Not going to think about the gazillion calories in them when the recipe is full of sugar and butter - they are good! Scott's going to bring a batch to share with his work colleagues tomorrow though I reckon he'll end up keeping them for himself hehe...Thanks Scott for the great meal and evening - we need to do more of this before you leave in November!