CuteKittyPunk

I have participated in a few Sugar High Fridays so I thought by now that I was kind of a professional and could pull anything off. Not so my friends. In Sugar High Friday #73 the challenge is a challenge indeed. Zoe of Z's Cup of Tea challenges all to make a "grain-free" dessert. Side note: Jennifer of The Domestic Goddess started Sugar High Friday - a blogging extravaganza - an excuse to bake your favorite dessert around a certain theme. It's also fun to participate each time because you meet other foodies and get to read new blogs you might not have known about. Z's Cup of Tea is new to me. But I've been following her blog since the SHF #72 - trifles. And I find it very interesting that she makes so many foods grain free, sugar free, and so forth. So back to the challenge - make a "grain-free" dessert. Naturally, I thought, oh that's easy - just make ice cream or something like that. But I figure, since she provided a list of suggesti...

Surprise Avond Well, it is tradition in the Netherlands to have a Surprise Evening with friends. This is always right around December 5th - it coincides with Sinterklaas - He's like the Dutch Santa Claus - but like he's a saint and he comes from Spain (traditionally) but perhaps he really came from Turkey. And he comes in a steamboat with "Zwarte Piet" - aka black pete... (There are like hundreds of black petes, not just one but they all have the same name) and a horse named Amerigo. And when it's time for him to come the children put their shoes out and they put a carrot in the shoe for Amerigo - the horse, and then Sinterklaas leaves them a gift, like candy or a mandarine fruit (he's from Spain afterall). But the older kids and adults know that Sinterklaas is fictitious, so they do something different so they can still have fun and get presents. Here is what they do. Before, the Surprise evening, friends take turns drawing a name and then they prepare a gift...