Viognier with Vigor. Another of the many themed gatherings I’ve attended lately. Another one centered around booze. (hurrah!)

It was the first time I’d ever tried Viognier and I’m sad now that I’ve been missing out! We tried 5 or 6 last night and they were all quite different but lovely in their own ways. The bottle I found by Anchorage was very fruity smelling, like melons and apricots. An excellent cheap option, and vegan to boot.

The winners though were wines by Coopers Creek and Terrace Heights Estate (THE). And us, for giving ourselves the chance to try a whole range of this full bodied “white wine for red wine drinkers”. Extra points to Jo for the idea and hosting, and to Laura who bought her cranberry white chocolate ice cream along. SO GOOD.

Honestly. People who say they would get bored if they won lotto and quit their jobs? Get a hobby and/or some friends you losers.

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Shop

In shop news, orders need to be in by the weekend for shipping overseas by xmas time! After this weekend there will be a 2 week make time on custom jewellery until the new year while Super Laser Cutter Guy moves cities. As always email me (kim at cupcakesandmace dot com) or send me a convo on Etsy with any questions.

A month sober.
A month without cheese.
Almost two weeks with cake, or chocolate, or anything else good.

Here’s to eating and drinking so much this birthday weekend that I’ll need another detox next week to recover!

12 September – 23 September: 3 bottles of water a day; no cheese; no alcohol; maximum 1 caffeinated drink a day; maximum of 2 coffees a week; 2 days a week where sugary food is allowed.

Day 1:

It’s only midday but I’m already feeling virtuous for swapping the morning coffee for a bottle of water. Since returning from Asia the water drinking has been waaaay down. Less than a bottle a day usually, so a bottle is actually quite an achievement.

11am: I catch myself staring intently at the chocolates at the checkout.
The panic that has appeared over not being able to eat sugar is ridiculous (!) but proves the point that the time to get over this addiction is now.
I have a birthday celebration on Wednesday and I’m getting tattooed on Thursday, so I already know my sugar day allowances will have to wait till then.

2pm: Every mention of tea on twitter makes me want to drink it ALL. Apparently I follow a lot of tea lovers. Second bottle of water has been downed in protest.

4pm: Jason is home from work and enquiring whether I want anything from the dairy. “Don’t even tempt me.” “You’re probably saving lives in Colombia by not buying coke anyway.”

This coke or this coke Jason?

Day 2:

A BLT and smoothie for breakfast. When you’re doing the Best Detox Ever^TM you get to eat things like BLTs for breakfast. There’s no cheese so it’s fair game. Apparently the reason I love cheese so much is because I’m addicted to morphine. This is turning into the get Kim to rehab show.

12pm: The water isn’t going down as easily as yesterday. But I am determined to have my entire digestive system transmute into pure mother-of-pearl.

Day 3:

Thank god it’s a sugar day. These pieces of coconut rough are like sex in my mouth. Cannot stop fantasising about the man shaped cake I’m going to eat tonight.

Day 4:

Went a little crazy on the sugar last night. But must keep going today. It’s tattoo day and I need to keep the sugar up. Lest…something.

Day 5:

Ugggggghhhhhh. Two days of sugar and I feel like absolute crap. My throat is sore, I’m bloated, my arm feels like it’s had a million little needle pricks.

12pm: My burger without cheese or cheese sauce is not as good as my usual burger with cheese and cheese sauce. I hope it’s not because I’m still addicted to morphine.

4pm: Oh shit, I think I’ve caught Kate’s cold. I knew sitting in the sun at Park(ing) Day was too much stress on my pasty white skin.

Day 6:

Yep, definitely caught the cold. Thank goodness Brendan isn’t working today so he can be my slave. Am I the only person who wants to eat cake when they’re sick? Brendan refuses to try to make me a cake, his friends are over or something. Poor excuse.

Day 7:

Brendan is working today though, so I have to fend for myself. This cold seems to be one that kills you straight away and then retreats rather quickly, I’m at least able to walk today.

12pm: In my feeble state I failed at healthy supermarketing and have to designate today a sugar day. A 4 pack of muffins, mocha flavoured milk, mac and cheese in a box (doesn’t count as cheese cause it definitely doesn’t have any cheese in it), and some fruit & vegetable juice so I could trick myself into feeling virtuous.

Day 8:

What a waste of a sugar day. I decided to finish of the half a muffin I had left and then realised that totally counted. Laaaaame. Is this the normal amount of sugar people eat in a day? How do they even enjoy life?

I’m really really craving a glass of wine tonight. Only a couple of weeks till I can have one. Ahh!

Day 9:

3am: Insomnia fuck yeah. It’s times like these it sucks to be in a couple. No watching bad tv in bed for me.

8am: I’m surprisingly functional considering I spent about 5 hours in bed either staring into darkness or at my little phone screen.

7pm: Eggs have crossed the line from tolerable texture, to omg am I eating slime texture. In an attempt to try new ways to eat them I made this super easy avolegmeno, it’s like fancy sour chicken soup. SO so good. Like eating cream without the horrible side effects eating cream gives me.

Day 10:

3am: Finally going to sleep after spending the last 4 hours trying to clean up malware I found on the site. It wasn’t infecting anyone else and wasn’t even visible if you came straight here, but search engine results made me looks like I was peddling Viagra. Fuck you you fucking fucks.

Still craving sugar but I’ve noticed how my stomach looks when I don’t eat it. Flat!

9pm: I made up for the lack of alcohol at tonight’s pub quiz by eating a second dinner.

Day 11:

11 am: How do you eat french toast without sugar? Is it even possible? I couldn’t so I sneaked a sachet of equal. Only one though, and that shit totally doesn’t even count as sugar.

Halloween must be approaching because I just saw a photo of candy corn on twitter. My friend in high school would go to America sometimes and bring me back candy corn, that shit is sweet sweet nectar, I doubt my teeth could even handle it now. Twitter friend was nice enough to link me to the devil website where I could get some for myself though.

Day 12:

I just realised I’m not complaining about cravings as much. Maybe this detox is actually working? My strategy has been to get so stuffed on savoury food that there’s no room to think about sugar.
My life revolves around food so I’m happy with my decision to give up pescetarianism, because it means I get to eat the new pulled pork burger at Monterey. Pulled pork is where the meat lover was rereleased last year.

7pm: I missed out on all the cheese with dinner at Brend’s sisters place, but the cheery pie and pretzel chocolate chip cookies at Jo’s were too much to pass up. Technically that means I’ve used up next weeks sugar day allowance a day early. Technically that means no sugar treats for the next two weeks! I hope I don’t hurt myself when I fall off the wagon.

I love rum. It’s my favourite alcoholic beverage. So when Jo put out the feelers for someone to accompany her to a Monday afternoon rum cocktail championship at Bettys my hand went up immediately.

10 of the top bartenders from around New Zealand competed for a chance to be flown to Cuba and represent NZ in the Havana Club final next year. I expected to see lots of interesting ingredients and fancy tricks and I wasn’t disappointed.

Arriving at 1 when the event was supposed to start meant we were unfashionably on time, but it also meant we got in on the free drinks (!) from the first round. Ginger beer, lime, and dark rum to start with. Yum.

Nearly all of the contenders were as good at entertaining as they were at bartending. With 10 minutes to create 3 drinks they still found plenty of time to make crude jokes and banter with the presenter. With cocktail names like butter my nuts, and one of the contestants claims that his pina colada will make 18 year olds putty in his hands, it didn’t take much more encouragement for Jo, Laura, and I to giggle loudly things like “give it a wet shake” and “it’s all about shaking the flesh”. More free cocktails probably helped. Jo’s twitter hashtag for the event was proving more and more accurate – #cockchamp.

Christchurch competitor Charles injected a kiwi flavour into his drinks and his humour. His first cocktail being a brojito which contained watercress and L&P and came with a side of fry bread in the shape of a pig face.

My award for most entertaining went to the final competitor of the day who was running very late due to being held up in customs. He arrived in a red bow tie and butchers apron claiming he was late because he was 3 cigars and a bottle of rum over his limit and had to “dispose” of them before he could get on the plane. He ended up going 4 minutes over his time allowance and said he’d have to share his photos of Cuba with the winner because there was no chance he’d get to go again.

In the end it was the sole female entrant – Claire Harlick of Matterhorn – that won. Girls just do it better.

Most entertaining trick – Pouring flaming liquid between jugs
Coolest looking drink – Pina colada in an old fashioned milk bottle
Tastiest cocktail (from the few samples we got)- A chocolatey porter beer concoction from Johnny of Hawthorne Lounge
Most impressed by – How many ingredients these perfectionists make from scratch!