I went to see District 9 at Kabuki Cinema yesterday.

Everyone always talks about this theater because of the whole allure that comes with ‘boozing at the movies’. So, naturally I was stoked when I found out the film my brother and I wanted to see would be showing in this part of the cineplex.

The living-room-theaters I’ve been to (all in Portland) have been brilliant (esp. the Kennedy School one)—plush love-seat sofas, gourmet movie nibbles and a full bar. Kabuki is not like this—no comfy sofas and no side-tables to put your bevis on. Just a regular auditorium experience that makes you wish you’d snuck in those red-vines after all. (UPDATE: Apparently, there IS one auditorium with ONE balcony and ONE couch…well, yay.)

As for the movie itself, wow—weird. I get the theme’s relevance to real life immigration issues as well as it’s relevance to redefining the human condition to include those of all living creatures, i.e. aliens. (I was totally pro-Prawn by film’s end.) But why so violent? What was Peter Jackson thinking? People were actually laughing in the theater when aliens and humans would get literally blown to smithereens. My reaction was more along the lines of covering my face with my hands, cringing and waiting for the shooting to end. (>.<”)

I feel traumatized by all the blood and blowing people to bits stuff. And I’ve decided the best way for me to cope is through cake. A nice, homey, afternoon-tea cake with chocolate and nuts.

Again, TipTopf provided me with exactly what I was looking—a recipe for ‘Tirolercake’, which is basically a sponge cake with ground hazelnuts or almonds and nibs of dark chocolate.

A no-fuss cake that makes all the images of Prawn exploitation and human indecency disappear. All is right with the world again. \(^o^)/

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Tirolercake (recipe from TipTopf)

Makes one 22-25cm cake

INGREDIENTS

125g unsalted butter, at room temp.

3 eggs

125g super-fine sugar

a pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla sugar (I didn’t have any, so I used vanilla extract)

150ml milk

250g all purpose flour

1 tbsp baking powder

80g ground hazelnuts or almonds (You can replace some of this with roughly chopped nuts for texture.)

80g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

a handful of almond flakes

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg. C. Grease and line with parchment paper a 22-25 cm cake form.
2. In a stand-mixer or by hand, beat the butter until little peaks form.
3. Add in the eggs, sugar and salt. Mix until the mixture takes on a light yellow color.
4. Stir in the vanilla and milk.
5. Combine the flour and baking powder. With a sieve, add both into the batter. Stir.
6. Add in the ground nuts and chocolate. Mix to combine.
7. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake form. Bake for 40-45 min.