For my birthday, I was lucky to receive amazing presents from some incredible friends. I’ve singled out two semi-food-related ones that deserve a bit of spotlight glow.

The pic above shows this mind-stunningly intricate installation of paper butterflies, crafted by Tabitha and Nathan. Each paper cut features one of my favourite things – such as The Red Balloon, France, Will, sweets and eating out. (If you’re a blog nerd, you may notice that the image lasered onto the bottom-left butterfly is from the chocolate tasting party I put on a while back.)

The frame even has a plaque announcing the Latin species name for the butterflies: Lamidoptera Leetranium (who doesn’t like a nerdy scientific in-joke??)

Also awesome was the “Lee Tran Jam” that Beth and Jeff made for me (in their breadmaker, of all places!). The flavour is Peach and Cardamom and I love how the label has a cute visual pun on it, too.

Turning older has a silver lining.