For Karen

Special request on photographs for Karen

Winter, websites and good intentions

We've been busy little bees these last weeks, David has started a Cygneture Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cygneture-Chocolates/318099721599927 

and we have been working on our website. Hopefully we'll finish the draft this week and send it off to our trusty friend, Richard Mitchell from Jump Shots, to update for us.

Salty Sea

The past two weeks have been taken up with making salted caramels for the Bruny Island Cheese Club offer. Nikki excelled and David lovingly folded boxes. Thank you, you two.

The delivery will take place tomorrow, while on our way to Cradle Mountain for a few days. Good Fun to be had by us. We'll be heading up with friends, to meet more friends, my kind of holiday. We have packed plenty of goodies collected at Cygnet Market today, Ed & Jeanette's pork pie, Cathy's almond shortbread and Cam's date & hazelnut loaf. No Sunday bubbles for us tonight, we're having an AFD, saving up for tomorrow night. 

My Thoughtful Spot

Our garden is looking lovely at the moment, thanks to a long warm summer & autumn, and to Alex Sini who has been helping us to reclaim our plants and flowers. It is again a lovely place to be. Our house faces east so the sun comes up over our pretty front porch, where we sit and have endless cups of tea in the morning.

In the afternoons and evenings we retire to the back of the house and change our beverage selection to bubbles, beer, wine or cider, depending on who is visiting at the time. Lately we've been having a few mini bonfires to welcome in the cooler evenings while we listen to the footy teams training down the road and the cattle lowing up the hill. Tomorrow night we will be listening for possums and wombats. I hope. Now to the kitchen, dinner is needed for two over-excited little cherubs.

Mmmm...my resolve is weak....

And so we realise that I have little or no will power, but really it is over-rated, isn't it...

Eggstremely good fun

Magic Mini Mouse at MoMa

After an eggstremely egghausting Easter, we come to the end of another eggstraordinary eggsperience, that being MoMa. it was a pleasure being involved with this one.
From the delightful staff, the amazing produce of the stall holders and the crazy Mini Mouse tents with matching beanbags, how can you go wrong in such a place.

Mark W Eather's Chirashizushi

Rhu Bru

Thanks to the market we are now playing around with Rhu Bru concentrate in caramels and have started making Frogmore Creek Ruby Port Origin Bars for Meadowbank Winery in the Coal Valley, with some pinot skin experimentation happening as we speak. Stay tuned for updates on success versus failure... in fairness we never really fail, we just change our minds to suit the result.

Fun in the Sun at MoMa

Special Easter Request

Photo 1: Mushroom Glade, these come in a little box with large and small mushroom & mini eggs

Photo 2: Comes in a variety of sizes, according to the jars.

Photo 3: Comes in alcoholic & non-alcoholic

Photo 4: Large with 2 fried eggs, small comes with 1 fried egg

To the lovely people I met at MoMa last week, here are the photos, I should have taken your details, sorry! These are all available at shop & MoMa this weekend. Please call on 0408970440 if you would like to reserve any.

Thing Two

Box by Eirlysa Lawrence

And so. And so...We have our lovely new boxes, originally desinged by Richard Mitchell at Jumpshots in Hobart and sketched by Eirlysa Lawrence from Cobweb Designs in Cygnet. Printed by Flying Colours in Launceston. We have managed to keep it Tasmanian and rid ourselves of the burden of plastic inserts and gloss finishes. Now when you're finished enjoying our chocolates, you can use the box to light your next winter fire or take out the insert and give it to your 7-year-old, if you are lucky enough to have one, so he can store his Pokemon cards in it. Perfect sizes and everyone is happy.

As such, our boxes now come in sizes 6, 10 & 18.

Exciting new things for our Shop

Thing One

The chocolate stork is bringing two exciting new things

We like these two things, Thing One & Thing Two

The first is Zokoko which will arrive this week

The second, our boxes all sparkly and new

I went to Zokoko in Emu Plains in Sydney last October with the hope of stocking their chocolate bars and other products in Cygneture. We made a decision to get past summer, to avoid the heat. I would have had it delivered last week but thought better of chancing delivery before our hot weekend and oooh, I think Zokoko (the goddess of chocolate) was on my side with 38 degrees each day!

A little bit of Zokoko:

Zokoko makes chocolate from cacao bean to chocolate bar. They work directly with growers to import the finest quality beans and use vintage, artisan equipment and traditional methods to roast, mix and mould the chocolates in small batches.

A little bit from me:

YUM! Worth waiting for and worth coming back for, again and again and again and again and.....

As for Thing Two, that's coming!

Are you glad you came?

January, an interesting time of year for me.
It all started back in 1975, January 31st. I was born.
I arrived in Sydney 20 years ago today. A week later was my first day in an Australian school. I caught my first wave on a boogie board that afternoon and three years later, I started dating my husband (late January). I started my last job in Sydney, that I really enjoyed, in January & left in January, 5 years later. I left because I moved to Cygnet, yes, again, in January, on the 18th. I took over the lease of our shop in January last year. So here I find myself, 20 years after stepping off the plane, with two beautiful children, a lovely man on my arm & happy as can be.
Every year my mother asks me, 'are you glad you came?' This morning in my driveway, I messaged my sister with , 'are you glad you came?' From the time it took me to drive from my house to the post office, I got a message from hubby saying, "Kitty (mum) just rang to ask, 'are you glad you came?'" & in between I'd rung her to ask the same question & she told me how she had just rung my sister to ask her the same question & her reply was, "I was just thinking about that. 'Twas a momentous occasion. We left Ireland in -2 degrees and arrived in Sydney to 36 degrees. Am I glad I came?
Oh yes.