last friday, international opec day, i looked out the window and it was raining. ten minutes later, the sun was out… until the rain kicked in again. and so it continued through the morning, until it was time to go meet deborah. we packed our picnic rug just in case, and small forks, a flask of hot tea, and some pretty teacups, because we had a spring picnic in mind.

it’s good to have a plan, isn’t it? we already knew that one of the things we’d be eating was adriano zumbo’s chorizo and olive baguette. the other, as-yet-unkown entity was to be any lovely thing (or things — we had not planned to be restrained if the situation allowed) on the new season’s menu.

we met across the road from zumbo, and hurtled across darling street to the happiest place on earth. but, where o where were the delicate morsels of pink and green and yellow? everything in the cake display was chocolate!

(i know i say it like it’s a bad thing, and it’s not. just, the plan in our heads was in colours other than brown.)

so we pressed up against the wall as other people came and went, and eventually we worked out a suitably diverse collection of cakery for our morning tea. it had stopped raining by the time we emerged from the shop, and emboldened, we strode with purpose to the park. amidst other optimistic picnickers, we spread out our blanket. it had barely touched the ground when we felt the drizzle on our heads. after deborah pointed out a low ceiling of blackness blowing in from down the hill, we folded up the blanket and raced the raindrops home.

the kid, for whom the picnic torch burns bright, spread our faux burberry across the balcony floor, and then the parade of baked goods, and the pouring of tea. deborah unpacked a tidy box of cucumber sandwiches and a brand-spankin’-new ikea catalog. i was immensely pleased with both: the sandwiches had been made with soft white bread, and butter that the clever girl had salted herself, with pink flakes from the murray river; the ikea catalog holds the promise of things to come. we tried the chicken, mushroom and almond sausage roll, which tasted salty and peppery above all else, and, alas, doesn’t quite hit the heights of the lamb and harissa at bourke street bakery. and you already know the chorizo and olive baguette: lovely, chewy bread filled with a choice selection of salty things.

but we could hardly wait for the sweet things: deborah’s maxiadz was a great brown wheel on a stick — two bits of chocolatey dacquoise sandwiching luscious chocolate mousse and divine raspberry brulee. the whole contraption was coated in chocolate and then sprinkled with cocoa and rolled in chopped hazelnuts, and even between the three of us, chocolate freaks all, we could not quite finish it. (ok, i finished that last crumb of dacquoise later that night.)

and this, the one i’d been hanging out to try for aaaaaages. sugar lips: a brioche donut filled with lemon creme. look how it sparkles with sugar and cinnamon! see how pillowy soft it is when you slice it! just watch that glorious pale yellow ooze forth! if the man would just bottle his lemon creme, i would buy it and grow fat on it alone.

we poured the last cup of muji spicy orange and pepper tea, and then brewed a new pot of T2 monk pear. a splendid time was had by all.