sieze the day

Keith Home Made Cakes - Doing their bit for flood fund rasing

I am just sitting here in amazement at a realisation that has just struck me ...and that is, in the time that I have been writing my weblog, I have not written about KEITH HOME MADE CAKES in Church Street BRIGHTON - Melbourne Victoria. It is one of my VERY favourite food destinations on a Saturday and going there on a Saturday has been almost a ritual for me since about 2003! Nearly 8 years. It is absolutely a Brighton ICON and the proprietor Oi Lan and her family including the front-of-house manager (lovely) Linda, are some of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet (on either side of a shop counter).

Here is a shot of Jodie - the new casual staffer and some of the cup-cake produce on offer

 

Keith Home Made Cakes in Brighton make the absolute best pies IMHO (pies of many varieties - my favourite are the potato pies). As well as a big range of pies, you have a  choice of meat or vegie pasties, sausage rolls, party pies and pasties, spinach and ricotta pastries and lots of family size pies of all types to take home (cold) and heat up later to feed the family. Fresh, great quality fillings, BEAUTIFUL tasting, PERFECT PASTRY - simply the BEST!

And if the talent that is evident in the beautiful pastries, cakes and cake decorating are not enough to enchant you, just have a look at the web-site - http://www.keithcakes.com.au - this is a web-site that any multi-national patisserie chain would be VERY proud to call their own - and again - this web-site has been designed and built by Linda and her web-site development business.

When I walked in to Keith Cakes today I was immediately struck by the FLOOD RELIEF fund raising initiative that Oi Lan had introduced to raise money for the recent flood victims.

Oi Lan decided that she wanted her business to raise money for the flood relief appeal so she decided to make special cup-cakes and sell them for $10 per pack and donate ALL the proceeds to the flood appeal - what a great and generous and caring initiative. Well done Oi Lan and staff at Keiths - you are a great role model of community contribution.

Every week, (for the entire month of FEbruary), Oi-Lan will total up the sales of cup-cakes for the week and update the fund-raising barometer - and, so far, Keith Cakes have raised a huge $2,618.80 (I wondered about the odd amount - must be due to GST?? - maybe the accountants amongst us (wake up!) could enlighten us on that one!)

Anyroad, I couldn't resist buying a couple of cup-cake packs and before I could photograph them, "somebody" (Kylie?) had already decided that the cup-cakes needed eating so apologies for the "odd cup-cake out" in the photo.

 

I replaced the hastily eaten highly decorated cup-cake with one of the "plainer" variety - see if you can spot the odd one?

There will be a special mention for the contestant (who responds by comment below) who picks the "odd cup-cake out".

Finally - here are the staff who were on duty today (from L to R - Kelly, Oi Lan and the latest addition to the casual team - Jodie)

Thank you Keiths - Oi Lan and staff for making such great pies, pasties and cakes - I love your food and I encourage readers who want to have a "little bit of Brighton" on a Saturday morning to go down, buy some tucker and sit outside in the warm sun and enjoy the food, the ambience and the passing parade!

Kris Sayce - A financial opinion - "Melbourne's Costly Hobby" -

I subscribed to this free newsletter some weeks back and I must admit I find the propositions and positions expounded by Kris and his colleagues to be interesting and at the same time challenging and to a degree confronting. HAve you seen any of Kris' other articles - what are your thoughts on this article and the ideas, propositions and arguments put forward - would love to hear some agreements and/or disagreements and rationale for same - think it makes incredibly interesting mental excercise - Please feel free to leave your comments

Melbourne’s Costly Hobby
Friday, 4th February 2011
Melbourne, Australia
By Kris Sayce
Melbourne’s Costly Hobby

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“If the property value goes up every seven or eight years and it doubles, which I understand, I agree – how many years do you have to hold the property for the property to make enough cashflow… to cover your mortgage, your rates, your water and all your outgoings?  Ladies and gentleman it’s sixteen years.  So the property can double in seven years, it can double in eight years but for you to walk away from your job it takes sixteen years… before it makes enough money for you to stop going to your job to support it… so what happens is we find people go ‘I’m worth a fortune’, and they are.  But they still have to go to the job every day at 6.30 in the morning because they’ve still got to put money into the fortune!”

That’s probably the most sense we’ve heard from a property “guru” in years.

Money Morning reader Pat brought it to our attention.  The words come from property financing whizz Rick Otton.

The fact is, most property investors are in the same financial position as the doddery old English Lords of the manor… asset rich, cash poor, and debt heavy.  The Lords have to sell off the family silver to stay liquid.

...MORE (Entire Article)

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BE AWARE - The following few sentences are the VALUE PROPOSITION for you to subscribe to the NEsletter

From August 4th to October 27th 2010, shares in Aussie mining heavyweight Rio Tinto rose 13%. Not bad. But in that time you could have made 130% from another Aussie miner your broker would never tell you about...
Between August 27th 2009 & March 23rd 2010, Australia’s biggest airline Qantas gained 7%. Meanwhile you could have doubled your money investing in an airline your broker would have told you to stay away from...
To find out the names of these ‘shunned’ stocks – and 3 more like them for 2011 – CLICK HERE

 

A Beautiful Exotic Dish - and some Chinese lemon Tea Dumplings!

It's the first week-end of Chinese New Year - the year of the Wabbit - and Melbourne turned on an amazing sunny Sunday afternoon for the riverside (Yarra) Hawker festival to celebrate the ringing in of the New Year.

And that is where I found the lovely Vivienne (wife of Kelvin) slaving over a pot of hot pork lemon tea spectacular!

For those who know me very well, you will understand that I could not bring myself to have any of the temtations on offer but I did enjoy speaking with Vivienne, her husband Kelvin and I really appreciated the chance to take a couple of snaps of their kitchen creation - a labour of love and passion without a doubt!

I wish them all success in their culinary endeavours - who knows, I might walk into a beautiful Chinese restaurant one day and find Kelvin and Vivienne there as the proud owners. That will be a great day!