An Australian, far from home, living in Japan, finds herself one day learning about… American culture?

Have you ever been to a Cookie Decorating party? An event devoted to the embellishment trays of freshly baked cookies, round and yellow, with bowls of fluorescent icing; tiny, gleaming, silver balls; the sprinkly goodness of 100s and 1000s; chocolate, peanuts, and strange, fruity, gummy, things.

A delicious spread.

It was my first time – as far as I know Cookie Decorating parties aren’t done in Australia. The Americans however all seemed pretty practiced at wielding the icing pens and designing their creations into something recognisable and cute. Though I tried my best the results were a lot more random, but no less delicious.

While the pros carefully craft their cookies into Pikachu, I compensated with sprinkles (bottom left).

Cookie decorating parties. Maybe this is something, like Halloween parties, that Aussies should adopt as our own. I mean, there are many worse ways to spend an afternoon than with a group of people, high on sugar and tunes pumping from an Iphone speaker, bowls of pink, and a snack to go with the sweet sense of achievement at the end of all that hard work.

Yum~