Had the pleasure of a guest from this forum to my house today. Lycheeluva and I did an extensive walk thru the yard checking for new developments.....especially on the lychee front. It looks like the rest of the mangoes that have not bloomed, are almost all beginning to push their annual buds. Yes, even the miraculous Chou Anon is going to now bloom. There's no point in deliniating any further between the next to bloom. The late varieties such as Keitt, Neelum, Kent and even Valencia Pride haven't begun pushing bloom as of yet, but they will be shortly. I am also awaiting bloom on a couple of mango seedlings that I have never had fruit from. Mangoes survived the freeze very well here and we should have a very heavy crop (barring any more ridiculous Arctic oscillations). As trees set their crops I'll post pictures.

I made two birthday cakes for Christmas. One was the one Chase posted on the best chocolate frosting thread (for my mom's 30th sobriety birthday) and the other was Barbara Wheeler's Fresh Coconut cake (for my younger sister's "first" 39th (belly button) birthday). I really liked the coconut cake, I'd give it an 8, but to make it a 9-10, next time, I'd poke some holes in it and add Coco Lopez. Or add it to the mix. Or both. It was an afterthought so I didn't do it this time. It's really good, but I could see it be off the charts good with the addition of more coconut. Barbara Wheeler's Fresh Coconut Cake 4 egg yolks 2 whole eggs 1 1/2 cups sugar 1/2 cup butter or margarine - cut up 1 cup hot milk 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 tbsp baking powder 1 tsp vanilla 1/2 cup chopped black walnuts, toasted walnuts or pecans FROSTING 1 3/4 cups sugar 1/2 cup water 3 egg whites 1/2 tsp cream of tartar 1 tsp vanilla 2 cups shredded fresh coconut 1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour three 9-inch round cake pans. 2 To make the cake; In a large mixing bowl, beat egg yolks, whole eggs and sugar with an electric mixer for at least 5 minutes or until light and fluffy. Stir the butter or margarine pieces into the hot milk until the butter has melted. Combine the flour with baking powder. Add 1/2 cup of the flour mixture into egg mixture, beating slowly. Add half the hot milk mixture, 1 cup of the flour mixture, then remaining hot milk, beating after each addition. Add the remaining mixture and vanilla. Beat well. Fold in the nuts. Pour the batter into the prepared pans. 3 Bake the layers in the 350 oven for 12 to 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes in the pans. Remove and cool completely on wire racks. 4 To make the frosting: In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar with the water. Bring mixture to boiling and boil 2 minutes or until it is syrupy and the sugar is dissolved. (Undissolved sugar will make the frosting grainy.) Make sure to scrape down the sides of the saucepan and stir in a figure-eight motion. 5 In a large mixing bowl, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar with an electric mixer until foamy. Slowly pour the hot sugar syrup into the egg whites, beating constantly at the highest speed for 4 to 6 minutes or until the frosting is stiff enough to spread. Beat in the vanilla. The finished frosting should be smooth and fluffy, yet hold stiff pecks. 6 Place a cake layer on a cake plate; spread with about 1 cup frosting and sprinkle with about 1/3 cup coconut. Repeat with the remaining layers. Frost the sides of the cake and sprinkle with the remaining coconut. RECIPE NOTES: Store the cake in the refrigerator up to 24 hours.Garnish this lovely cake with fresh coconut pieces, kiwi fruit, fresh pineapple and pineapple leaves. My notes: More frosting than was necessary. Froze well ahead of time, unfrosted. Add coconut in lieu/in addition to milk? Add coconut after poking holes?

My problem with choosing a tile color that's trendy is that it locks you in to an era and specific accessorizing framework. The close-up of the granite reads much darker than your kitchen shot so I don't know which is closer to reality. Your floor seems to have the effect of a warm travertine. The BS selection ideally would harmonize with the two though working with the granite takes priority. I love Bee's kitchen and agree that tiles are great for bouncing light and livening up the space, but think grey is very trendy. Her selection of a white neutral is perfect because it introduces personality through the Arabesque shape. I'd need to find a color that wouldn't make it hard when I wanted to repaint and take the overall feel in a different direction, so like Bee I would try to introduce personality through shape or use of accent tiles or listello. If you'd consider something other than tile, how about plate glass that can be back painted, etched, or have wall paper inserts that could be changed? Super easy to maintain and no grout to deal with. If you stick with tile, I'd choose one that could be set with very thin grout lines as yucky grout is the pits. You can get gorgeous shell accent tiles, beautiful hand thrown accent tiles, listello, etc running the gamut from feminine, masculine or neutral, very contemporary or traditional. That's why, not knowing you, I say paint, relax and take your time in picking a BS. And it is perfectly fine to not have a BS at all if that's what you'd prefer.

Thanks all for your very helpful input - I too am very interested in the responses. We're doing a complete rebuild of our kitchen. The contractor is now able to start 2 months early so we're ramping up rapidly! We were just in the appliance store and looking at the following: - AEG induction cooktop - Fisher & Paykel counter-depth french door fridge - Fisher & Paykel wall oven - Bosch dishwasher - model with the top cutlery rack - Panasonic microwave - pull-out vent hood I didn't write down all the model numbers, too confused after a while, so just waiting for the estimate to come in. We have a $10K CAD budget and I know we're getting a good discount as the Bosch was listed at around $1500 and she said we'd be getting it for around $1000. We picked the FP fridge mostly because we loved the handle profile and stainless look and colour. We're waffling on the FP wall oven as it's very black (cabinets will be white slab, perimeter and island counters likely Vicostone sparkling grey) plus getting conflicting reports on if FP wall ovens are good or not - plus review of FP fridge not being cold enough. However some of the other wall ovens were quite a bit more expensive so not sure we can afford them. The store (Midland Appliances in Vancouver) is getting an AEG wall oven in a week so we're going back to see it when it's in. We want the Bosch dishwasher as it's very, very quiet. We've had 2 Bosch DW in the past. Unfortunately the first died after 3 years - apparently we used too much liquid soap, our water is very soft and it corroded? through the plastic line out, we burnt out the motor running it full of water?? But we liked the quietness and operation so much we still bought another Bosch last year. The new one with the top cutlery rack doesn't actually wash as well as our 2010 model but we're still getting it again because of the quietness. Loved the Miele speed oven with convention and microwave but way too expensive. We thought we could combine the microwave and toaster oven in one appliance but for the price, we could buy 10 of each so that was a non-starter. Just going with a big Panasonic MW that we will put under the island counter hopefully. If anyone has experience with any of our current choices, especially with FP, would very much appreciate it.