World Pastry Cup

I was watching a programme on French tv yesterday about this and I couldn't believe my eyes.

There is a world championship for pastries every 2 years in Lyon, France, and it's just astounding the pastries the participants create there.

It makes sense that this championship should be based in France, after all, France is world-recognized for its gastronomy. In 2005, the French team won the championship, and the world champion "patissier", Christophe Michalak, now works in a big hotel in Paris where the bar showcases the pastries as if they are jewels and people around the globe go to the bar especially for the pastries. I must admit the desserts do look appetizing and very very classy and if you were to take the word of people eating there, they are just a taste of heaven.

Those big-shot hotels in Paris have found a new way to attract fashion victims into their restaurants/bar/patisseries now. As designers do it every year, the hotels' bars offer pastries that changes every season. Hence, they have the winter-autumn collection, the spring-summer collection, etc. A new trend is also emerging where designers are asked to draw a dessert which would then be created/prepared/baked by the hotel's patissier. The results? Very intricate and classy desserts.

Now, me being a big fan of pastries, especially chocolatey ones, watching that show was almost too much to bear. I had to look more into it and I've found some pics of the world cup competition:




And that is just a sample. You can find more pictures here:
http://www.fmainardphoto.com/sirha/cmp.htm

This year's world cup winner was the Japanese team.

From Nose to Mouth

Did you eat boogers as a kid?
For those who don't know, "booger" refers to dried nasal mucus. Yes, you read it right, the dried remains in your nose, that's what a booger is and yes, the question is, did you eat those when you were a kid? (or do you still eat them?)

I used to eat boogers as a kid and I'm not ashamed to say it. I have a smaller cousin who used to eat boogers as a kid and he outgrew it too, so I thought it wasn't unusual for kids to do that and I never even thought that some people don't know about that as a habit. I got a doubt yesterday though, while having a conversation about bad habits as kids, so I thought I'd check, maybe booger-eating only runs in MY family and we are a freak show without knowing!

But no, if you do a search on the internet, quite a few websites mention nose-picking and eating the harvest of that. Phew, that was scary. Imagine I had to go find my cousin and tell him that we are the only 2 people who had that bad habit!

Consequently to checking that it wasn't just me and my cousin, I also found out that eating boogers is quite harmless, it might even boost your immune system according to some experts. (Check it out here) However nose-picking involves risks that I am only aware of now, (and then it's just gross) so I'm glad I outgrew that habit!

Now, some people actually eat earwax...
I don't want to be pointing the finger or anything (I'm the one who used to eat boogers) but as comparisons go, I don't know which is worse: from ear to mouth or from nose to mouth, and that's one experiment I am not too keen on.