Written for the Sydney Morning Herald, originally published here. Unfortunately, because it was inserted into Diary I didn’t get a byline, but it ain’t about the fame, it’s about how much fun meeting Handi was, he’s the sweetest guy!

The man who made a zebra birthday cake for singer Rihanna has been named Australia’s cake decorator of the year.

Operating from a studio in Kingsford, Handi Mulyana has also decorated a cake for Oprah Winfrey, a 10-tier wedding cake with lights for his brother and a football-shaped chocolate cake for the Balmain Tigers’ centenary that required six footballers to lift it.

However, his winning cakes were much less glamorous. The award, by the National Baking Institute of Australia, was more about technique.

“It’s much harder to do a plain cake. If it’s plain, it shows your skills because you can’t hide anything,” he said. Indeed, it was the simplicity of his designs that set him apart.

Taking a break from designing cakes for contests or celebrities, Mulyana told this week’s Good Living he liked to use piping, filigree and hand painting sparingly with figurines and flowers. Born into a fourth generation family of cake decorators in Indonesia, Mulyana, 36, migrated to Australia in 1994.

He began cake decorating at 13, has appeared on MasterChef and would love to have his own TV show. Meanwhile he is focusing on his made-to-order business and cake decorating classes.

“I’m kind of a little nervous carrying that title. I mean, it’s a big thing, being cake decorator of the year. But I’m honoured and happy,” he said

Originally published in the Sydney Morning Herald, November 7, 2007 

Music these days .. OK, so I love Justin Timberlake. I’ve never even met the guy and yet I feel the strange desire to marry him. Why? Hmm, let me think, could it be because he’s not only hot and an incredibly good dancer, but he also has musical integrity and somehow seamlessly integrates emotion into pop? That’s skill, man.

I’m your typical generation Y-kid. If it has a hot beat and a pleasant melody/chord structure, I will turn it up and pump it obnoxiously through my car. I’ll listen to Top 40 and groove to it shamelessly in my private karaoke-bar-meets-nightclub while other drivers around me shake their heads and worry about what the world is coming to. I’ll embrace cheesy pop and say, “Yes, it’s not what I’d call brilliant music, but who cares? It’s fun!”

But I have a limit. I may even be joining those people shaking their heads around me. Because I’m sorry, but I don’t think it counts as love/affection if you strip and your partner is willing to pay you no matter what, all because they can handle you the way you are. Oops, sorry, the way I’m are. Must stop using correct grammar.

I’m not stupid, no matter what I act like. And I know others aren’t, either. Most people won’t take the song mentioned above seriously. But what worries me is that singers are running out of things to sing about so quickly, that they have to sing about the need to take their clothes off. They have to sing about themselves. Surely, as influential artists, one could be doing a little better than spelling out one’s name and adding ‘licious at the end? Or how about lyrics? “La, la, la, la, la, la, la.” I can’t believe a band I respect and like, who shall henceforth be known as the Band Who Shall Not Be Named, used that as a line. Like whoa, don’t exhaust your vocabulary there or anything.

But seriously. Does anyone else feel like they’re emotionally unfulfilled when they listen to music on the Top 40? I know Top 40 is mostly crowd-pleasers but what happened to pop music that was pleasant and fun, yet full of emotion, interesting and intelligent, too? Just because you’re in the genre doesn’t give you the licence to act like you have a brain the size of a peanut and the emotional intelligence of a marshmallow.

A good beat does not disguise all your sins. It probably only highlights it, as more people are likely to listen to your song and hence the lyrics. Which, on average, are about a fulfilling as staring at a wall.

So shape up, please. I want to party, everyone else wants to party. But please don’t tell us love is about stripping.

Original article here