Kitchen Cleanup and Organization

We do not have a very large kitchen and it is fairly out of date, so when my mom gave me my stand mixer for my birthday and I started baking a lot, I began to run out of rooms for all of my tools and attachments.  My ingredients were taking over the pantry, and the appliances were literally running amok around the condo with electrical cords trailing along behind them.  Every time I tried to bake I was running out of counter space.  I am constantly splashing water everywhere because the sink is very shallow and the water comes shooting out very fast and bounces everywhere.  If you have a stack of dishes in there and turn the water on, it will ricochet and fly across the room.  Also the floor is not ideal and the vacuum has a really hard time getting crumbs and stuff off of there, so we tend to sweep up and then mop.  Chris is a beast and broke the first mop we bought, so we had to invest in a heavy duty one for the Sasquatch.  We got a kitchen cart from Ikea to host the majority of my baking stuffs.  I started getting most of my baking supplies in bulk at Sam's Club to save money.  Whatever I can't find there, I usually have to go to Wegman's for, because it's specific enough that Walmart wouldn't have it either. 

Here is the kitchen before and after:

This is what happened after I went to the store with a list that included everything I would need to bake all of the like 50 recipes I had already set aside to test out for their potential sell-ability. 

Well more accurate would be that, this is what happened after I went to the store, put away everything perishable, and whatever I already had a spot for.  This shelf was up when we moved in with a little white desk and chair under it.  It's not really attached to the wall, so if you put too much weight on one side it falls of.  A great place for a blow torch.

Here is the pantry, complete with that huge bag of flour I got at the Sam's Club.

After a few hundred dollars spent on amazon and at bed, bath, and beyond with my stockpile of coupons, this is what we came up with.  I don't have any before pictures of the cabinets, which is a shame because they were quite epically stuffed with thing that I didn't even know we had.  Here is the after:

I labeled my containers with a washable sharpie.  The writing is still on them when they come out of the dish washer, but if you scrub it really lightly with a sponge, it comes right off and can be labeled something different.  So handy!

I'm very excited about finding those chocolate sticks online.  They're what you use when you want to make chocolate croissants, and those were one of my favorite things we made in class.  Cynthia said they were one of her favorite things to eat in France, so making croissant dough will have to be one of the next things on my list.

I had to go online to King Arthur flour to find some of the specialty flours i was looking for.  I was surprised that they didn't have pastry flour in the supermarket, they only had whole wheat pastry flour, which is cool, but not usually what I'm going for.  I got high gluten, semolina, and almond flour online.

Spices are stupidly expensive.  Thank you Alton Brown for teaching me how amazing freshly ground nutmeg is.  If you smell pre-ground nutmeg, and then freshly microplane one, the difference is truly remarkable.  You would think that since McCormick is literally so close that we can smell the spices in the air, that they would be cheaper at the store, but of course that is not the case.  Only one brand of spices (the crazy expensive kind) even carried whole nutmeg and any kind of cardamom. 

My collection of extracts, sprinkles, jimmies, and other random bits including my edible eyeballs.  (for making adorable edible cakes with faces obviously.  I don't just eat eyeballs for kicks, promise.)

The big jugs of oils, and 25 lb bag of AP flour.  The bottom of our pantry is always a mess because we leave the bag of onions on the floor and dry onion skin flies everywhere.

Also, we stupidly opened the rice by the bottom of the bag instead of by the resealable top (we do this all the time), so every time we picked the bag up, we would spill rice all over the floor.  So I put it in that big plastic container you see in the middle. 

The whole setup with my mixer and scale.  Garbage bags and soda on the floor, and my blue cake decorating toolkit with all of my food colorings, tips, and piping bags, etc.  We got two nice garbage cans from BB&B with the store credit we got from returning the wrong sized mixer attachments my mom got me for Christmas.  Thanks Mom!

 Now on to the cabinets:

We used these colorful cups for mis en placing in school.  They're from Ikea and only like a dollar.  I believe they're in the baby section with the tiny little spoons and such.  I got a couple packs of them.  They are great for setting ingredients aside and microwaving butter and such.  Those blue and yellow measuring cups on the top shelf are from my grandma.  They're very heavy and really pretty.  I'd like to use them as decoration some time when we get the chance to redo the kitchen.  Also, they're hiding a pile of old/stained aprons that my great-grandmother made.  Never giving those up.

We have three sets of nested mixing bowls, completely by accident, but it works out pretty well.  One set is plastic, with the largest, and sometimes seriously necessary bowl being that orange one we got for giving out Halloween candy, one ceramic set, and one metal set for double boiling things.  In the back you can see this badass red and white bowl that my grandma gave me, it's heavy but it's so cute with this little handle and spout.  I love it.

I have a collection of 3 springform pans, 4 9" cake pans, one tube pan, 4 8" cake pans, one 6" cake pan, several pyrex dishes, two loaf pans, a popover pan, 2 cupcake pans, 4 mini muffin pans, and an assortment of other mini pans like tiny loaves, tiny bunts, tiny hearts, and mini spring forms from my mom.  There's also 4 glass ramekins on the bottom shelf with our plates, and one 14 or 16" cake pan not pictured here, I forget how big it is really.

Bottom drawer has a pile of washcloths that I got at Ikea.  I've been using them as side towels.  There are those heart shaped cutters I just got, and my set of fondant/gumpaste tools. 

I have since run out of saran wrap and got a bigass roll of it at Sam's Club.  It's seriously huge.  We have a billion more ziplocks currently stockpiled in the laundry room.

An assortment of my baking tools.  My bread knife doesn't have a place in the knife block so I hide it in here.  My siplat hasn't gotten enough love lately, I'll need to break that out soon.  And the always important calculator, thermometers, cookie scoops, assorted cutters, and toothpicks.

The more frequently used kitchen tools are hiding out in the top drawer with our silverware.  I also have a collection of pens, markers, and scissors in here, along with the frequently used corkscrew, bottle opener, and pizza wheel.

We finally got our coffee maker back from Cuisinart.  We made maybe 10 cups of coffee in the thing before it broke.  We had no idea what was wrong with it until like 6 months later we finally got around to calling them and found out that the model was recalled.  They sent us a replacement.  We haven't really gotten any k cups for it, we decided to try to make our own coffee in the little filter thing that comes with it.  We have yet to make a decent cup of coffee in it.  But the thing boils water like a motherfucker.  I drink tea.  We retired the grandma thing that used to hold our spoons in college for a large metal flower pot thing that I found at target which holds our very frequently used tongs, spoons, spatulas, and whisks.

Our beautiful dirty broom next to our garbage and recycling bin.

The crooked shelves that my adorable but not very handy fiance so lovingly put on the wall for me.  Apparently the studs in our outer walls are metal and further apart than usual because the other side is brick.  I think that may just be an excuse because Chris doesn't know how to measure or use a drill properly, but whatever.  I'll let him try to be manly in whatever way he likes until things get so dire that I come over and grab the drill out of his hands.  Here we have my big cake pan, grill, waffle maker, cupcake tower, and other odds and ends.

That blow torch really makes its way around the house.  I'm in love with an ADD kid who likes to pick up random things, specifically semi dangerous things like matches, lighters, blow torches, knives, corkscrews, etc., and then play with them, fling them around, spin them, chew on them, carry them around the house and then leave them in some unknown location that is usually very far from their home. 

This cabinet used to be a mess.  I'm so glad I got a handle on it.

The mixer/liquor cabinet is currently also holding our beer mug and pitcher set, and my hand mixer.

My extra tip set and cake turner are living on top of the refrigerator at present.

Wine and margarita glasses are above the stove.  We break wine glasses like there's no tomorrow.  We had a set of 4 that we bought at the ghetto palace, we also have a plastic one in case someone is very jittery or drunk already.  Then Hannah gave us 4 for our engagement party.  We broke at least two of each of set.  Cynthia dropped and broke one of the second set, and felt bad, so she bought us a third set of 4 glasses.  Now as you can see, there are about 3 left, maybe one was in the wash or something, so 4 or 5 tops.  Probably none of them are matching.  We like our red wine.

This concludes the tour of Chris and Julie's kitchen.  It is on the list of things to remodel, you know, after the wedding, and honeymoon, and a new car loan, and paying off student loans.  We would really like to, probably in this order; rip up the carpet and put down hard wood from the front door all the way to the bedroom doors, put down tile or something in the kitchen, repaint the walls and trim, get a new sink, new cabinets, new counter tops, and eventually new appliances.  I would really love to expand the kitchen into the office/sun room area and have a high counter with bar stools somewhere, but that will not be for a very long time.  After that I'm sure some of our furniture or appliances would need replacing and some of the process would start all over again.  We are very lucky to own our home, these are grandiose desires that will some day, with hard work, come to fruition.  Oh yeah, and I forgot the bathrooms, but, that's mostly just the lights above the sink and a mirror that could be done in a weekend if we were ever really motivated. 

We will probably not get the chance to do nearly half of that before we have a baby or two and need to fix a few things up to sell the condo and buy a real house.  Unless we had a down payment and were able to rent out the condo for profit, but that is even less likely really.  Whew, the day is almost over, and it's time for a mani/pedi courtesy of the in-laws Christmas gift.  So exciting!

Julibean <3

The PERFECT Brownie!

Hey all!  I have been testing all of my recipes and trying to perfect things.  I am reading a billion baking blogs and taking down their recipes to try them out and see how they compare to my own.  Now I have about 100 pages of recipes printed out waiting for me to try them.  I try to make or at least prep something every day, but I also met with my personal trainer for my "welcome to the gym" meeting or whatever yesterday, and I'm going to try to stick to my workout schedule first, and then see what I have time to bake afterward.  Health is more important than cookies, although I wish it weren't so. 

Through my travels I have tried many a brownie recipe, but none of them were quite right.  Most did not rise as much as I would have liked, and one in particular, the Martha Stewart recipe was so cakey and dry that I was most displeased.  Until I found this recipe.  My search is now over.  I have found the perfect brownie and I am never going back.  It is dense and fudgey and perfect.  So rich and delicious, moist, and incredibly chocolatey.  Now that I have made you crave brownies, here are some delightful pictures of them.

I've been doing my best to learn how to take quality food photos.  My desserts may be incredibly delicious, but no one is going to buy them if the photos look amateur or messy.  So far, what little I have learned is this.  Don't use the flash.  Put your camera on the macro setting.  Use a plain white background.  Try to plate the food nicely.  And use natural sunlight whenever possible.  This last bit is hard because most of my baking is done after work, and as it is winter still, there is little to no sunlight left by the time whatever I've made is out of the oven, cooled, and ready for plating.  If anyone has anything more to tell me about it, let me know!

Life Changes

A lot of things have changed since the last time I did a real post here.  I have a lovely lady named Jes to thank for that.  She commented on my frustrated post with some really warm and genuine advice.  It was just the kick in the pants that I needed to stop whining and worrying about it and make it happen.  So thanks!

A week or two ago I decided that it was time to stop waiting for my life to change itself, and to start doing what I really wanted.  To be happy I needed a large project, something to keep me busy and motivated, something that I really truly enjoyed and had a set metric for progress and goals.  So one day I woke up, looked at Chris, and said, "I want to start my bakery".  He did not miss a beat.  He automatically started thinking of the techological aspect, bought my url and started designing a server for me on his old desktop.  He began researching rules and regulations for small businesses.  We went to the library and I took out a stack of cook books and small business ownership books.  We went to the Sam's club and I priced out all of the ingredients and found the unit price so I could get a ballpark for my materials cost.  I started talking to Elise about a logo and theme and she jumped up to the task.  I collected all the oddball ingredients I would need from Wegman's and started testing recipes or multiple recipes every day.  I started making adjustments and modifications, feeding people brownies, and getting really excited.  I bought a lot of tupperware and organized the kitchen.  I started writing a menu of offerings and organizing my recipes.  It feels amazing.

It's going to be difficult.  I can't really afford to rent a commercial kitchen or anything until I begin to turn a profit.  I can't take any orders until my website is active.  My website won't be active until I figure out what I'm selling and for how much.  Until then it will have to be classified as a "hobby" and I'll be feeding the people at Lauren's homeless shelter desserts until they beg me to stop giving them chocolate.  It's pretty time consuming.  Luckily I have a job that allows me to fill my day with other things, but you really don't know where the time goes when you're baking something every day.  My to-do list is out of control.

Chris was away this week so I tried to keep myself busy so I wouldn't be depressed.  I may have overdone it a tad, because now I feel like I didn't get anything done, but I did spend a lovely week with my valentine Cynthia.  We ate take out and watched Watson on Jeopardy!  We saw reruns of Big Bang Theory and watched the dvds of the fabulous BBC show she has introduced me to: Sherlock.  Seriously, it's amazing, go watch it, and try not to imagine Holmes and Watson having sex.  I dare you, try.

Another bit of my massive to-do list centered around cleaning the house and nesting.  I've been in serious nesting mode ever since we repainted the second bedroom and put the guest furniture and my desk inside.  We have so much more space and room in our closet.  I have my sewing machine out on my desk at all times and I can use it whenever I want for all of my sewing projects.  My stacks of magazines and notes to myself have a home that is somewhere other than out in the open of the condo.  Baking all the time means that the kitchen always needs to be cleaned.  In school, every day after class we would sweep the floor and then spray it down with water and disinfectant.  Then squegee the water into the drains on the floor.  Sadly, this cannot be done in my home kitchen, and if you walk in the kitchen you will inevitably track bits onto the carpet and throughout the rest of the house.  So we also need to vacuum and clean both bathrooms. 

Chris fixed up the TV cabinet and rewired everything so that it was nice and neat (I begged).  Put up a new towel rack and toilet paper holder in the second bathroom, put new hinges on the chest, and repainted and moved the furniture into the second bedroom.  All is going rather well.  I had so much energy on super bowl Sunday that I also organized the laundry room and our closet.  I placed everything strategically in the second bedroom closet, and my next plan of attack will be the coat closet.  Also, hanging the curtains in the second bedroom and  making a cushion for the chest so people can sit on it, and throw pillows for the couches.  Did I mention we have new couches?  My boss very kindly gave them to us when his wife was redecorating.  We have a like new, blue microsuede reclining 3 seat couch and love seat.  They are a bit too big for the room and carrying them into our place was among one of the most difficult tasks I have ever completed (so heavy that my arms literally gave out and I fell down a few times), but our place looks so much more like a home now.  We pulled the dining room table out so that we could actually eat on it. 

I actually got myself to a meetup from meetup.com and met a group of lovely ladies from all over the Baltimore region.  I will hopefully be going to another meetup soon to get to know them a bit better.  I reconnected with my friend Hannah from college which also feels AMAZING.  I am so incredibly happy to be talking to her on a regular basis.  We are emailing pretty consistently right now and I am going to try to do the same with Morgan and possibly Matt (who is currently recovering from heart surgery in the hospital). 

Wedding plans are going well.  I'm talking with our photographer now about when to schedule our engagement shoot and what our theme/ideas are going to be.  Elise's NY shower is booked, I have a flight booked for her NH shower and great ideas to help Amanda with some of the stuff she has planned.  Her bachlorette party is also booked and will be super fun!  We are going to the 80s prom in the city and getting all crazy 80s dressed up.  Heat up your crimping irons, this is going to be epic.  It feels like our calendar is filling up very quickly with all of these things.  So glad that we have a vacation booked for April.  We will be going to New Orleans and then on a few day cruise to Mexico, then back to NO.  I'm very excited to hang out on Burbon street and eat some bignets. I'm helping Elise book her hair stylist now.  We are going to my house on Long Island this weekend to help her put together her invitations.  Laura and Jason will be there as well, and hopefully I'll be able to catch up with Jaclyn and Jamie as well. 

I have a lot of pictures of things that I have been baking and a before and after of the kitchen organization to post next.  Hopefully I will get those up tonight.  Thanks for reading!

Julibean <3

Fill in the Blank Friday!

1.   I wish       I could find some more fun things to do around here and make some friends.  And stop worrying so goddamn much.  Also that my sister would move here and stay with me forever in sisterly happiness.

2.  Yesterday I   Had sushi with Chris and Cynthia, beat my stupid Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Gamecube game, and watched some TV.  Chris after insisting that we watch Twilight Eclipse, fell asleep during it and then begged me to turn it off.

3.  Today I will      work till 5, possibly return some things via UPS, bake something for tomorrow, and have a few drinks with my manfriend.

4.  Tomorrow I will   go to trivia finals and compete for $1000.  Not that we're really going to win, but it would be a pretty awesome after party if it were to randomly happen.  Then meet up with the trivia people at Jon & Sara's house.  Yay for being invited to a party!  I thought we'd never make any friends!

5.  Maybe      I got some Christmas gifts in the mail that I can wrap this evening.  Wrapping presents is easily one of my favorite activities ever. 

6.  Someday        We will get a puppy.  And redecorate and re-floor our condo. 

7.  I love       lamp.

Pre-Thanksgiving Post

I do not have much to report here this week.

This weekend, Chris and I went to his parent's to put up their Christmas tree, do some decorating, and some holiday baking.  We played pool for a bit, drove all the way home to bring back the correct type of walnuts (I wasn't aware there was a wrong type of walnut), and went out to dinner.  I like going out to dinner with the in-laws.  It's usually at a really nice place and we eat and have some wine and usually have a very serious conversation about whatever, which ultimately boils down to a hilarious relaxed conversation, but always only after we've paid the bill.  I don't understand why his parents suddenly get hilarious at the end of a meal, and we start having a good time, then it's time to go home.  Very odd.

I'm doing really good on the calorie counting this week.  I'm down a whole 3 pounds in one week.  Not too bad if I do say so myself.  The goal is around 2 pounds per week or at least 5 pounds a month, which would put me at 50 pounds lost by the time our wedding rolls around in one year.  That leaves me with eating about 1500 calories a day, which is really not very much.  Granted, we were eating a ridiculous amount of calories before, but I'm in a bit of a cranky-hungry mood this week.  I'm thinking it will start to get better and pass altogether once I get my body used to it.  Also, I'm planning on joining a gym after Thanksgiving, so if I do any exercising I can up my calorie intake a bit that day and still reach my weight goal for the week.  I started this journey at 220 pounds.  I'm at 214 right now, and hopefully will continue to drop steadily from now on. 

Elise and Jason are coming for Thanksgiving!  I am so very excited to do all of our holiday baking.  I have so much fun when my sister comes to visit and we have a lot of wine and dance around the kitchen.  Our baking list for Thanksgiving is as follows:

• Apple Pie
• Pumpkin Pie
• Pecan-Caramel Cheesecake
• Chocolate Mousse Cake
• Cinnabons for Friday morning breakfast

It should be majorly delicious.  Jason is planning on moving in with us when his lease is up at the end of the year, so we will be planning a trip down to Virginia to help him get his stuff and put most of it in storage.

I'm really feeling the Christmas spirit and have started listening to Christmas music already.  I know it's early, but I was in the mood. I'm dragging Chris with me to Target later so we can buy a tree and put up the ornaments that I brought from home. 

I checked out one of the local Roman Catholic churches on Sunday.  I need to become a parishioner somewhere around here so we would be eligible to sign up for our pre-cana or pre-marriage classes that are required for us to get married at my church back home.  It was epic and modern and so strange.  Much different from things at St. Raymond's.  There was preachy music played by a guy that sounded like John Denver, 2 jumbo trons and video cameras everywhere showing slide shows of the readings and whoever was talking at the time, inspirational videos shown before mass and as part of the homily.  There's a cafe that looks like a Starbucks in the lobby and a lounge with a fireplace, and they had so much staff.  There was a person like every 10 feet with a little ID badge on.   There was a street entrance that looked like the big stone facade thing of a country club.  You could tell that they had a lot of money to blow on updating and maintaining the place.  I e-mailed the info address to find out about becoming a parishioner and they said they already responded to me.  They have a program set up for you to hear about the church and have dinner before filling out your registration.  Seriously, it's intense.  I'm going to take Elise with me to mass on Sunday for moral support while I sign up for the program thingy.  It should be pretty interesting. 

Can it be Wednesday yet?  I miss my sister.

Julibean <3

I Should Really Bake More

I feel like I'm probably a worse baker than the rest of my classmates at this point because I haven't really been practicing.  The only problem is, Chris and I are trying to lose weight.  It really doesn't help for me to make a cake or something and then eat the whole thing because there's only the 3 of us in the house.  I'm thinking more about the wedding cake situation.  I might be making my sister's wedding cake, and I might be asking one or two of my friends from class to make mine.  We're interested in some sort of brown piping detailed cake.  I have a bunch of pictures at home, but this one is really unique.  I like the Indian influences, I'm really digging it.

Who doesn't like peacocks right?

Julibean <3

Funemployment?

My two months at the bakery was finally up a few weeks ago so there will be no more waking up at 2 in the morning for me anymore. Although when I gave up that job I also gave up any income that it might have been giving me, which was not much because they were mis-paying me, a problem which is still unresolved.

Now I've been job searching every day for something/anything that will pay me a decent amount and be worth my time. I've been on a few interviews, but nothing that has really gotten me anywhere because all they really wanted was for me to try to sell people Direct TV at a Best Buy and that just so isn't happening. I had a really good interview for a job at Chris' company, but they didn't end up giving it to me.

I spend most of my days looking for jobs on the internet. I'm all over monster, careerbuilder, and the corporate websites, including the government agency websites, and no luck yet. I have a lot of temp agencies call me and they say they will be looking for jobs for me, which is nice, but even so they will probably only be temp positions and do not pay as well as what I was hoping to get.

The rest of the time i am doing housework and watching tv and playing solitaire on my laptop, it is seriously thrilling. So if any of you know of any jobs in the Baltimore area, please hit me up.

In other news, I ordered a new iphone so I should be getting that in a few weeks. My 22nd birthday passed without much incident. Chris came home with a chocolate cake, 2 bottles of red wine, and flowers for me. Then we went out to a simple dinner with Patrick and watched High School Musical.

There was something strange clanging around on the bottom of my car. We took it over to the Midas and they basically just pulled it off and sent us on our way. Needless to say I am seriously bored and getting rather depressed just sitting around applying for jobs with really no end in sight and no discernible self worth or measurable income.

The Maryland State Fair is in town, and by in town I mean down the block, because we live right next to the fairgrounds. Elise is coming to visit on Thursday on her way down to VA to see Jason. I am missing my New York friends and don't think I'm going to be able to see Morgan before she moves out to California. Sad face.

kbye <3

So Yeah...

So remember how I was supposed to post pictures of everything I was baking and keep everyone posted about pastry school... yeah well that ended a while ago. Class was great, I ended up making a lot of friends and having a lot of fun. After traveling way too much going down to Maryland to see the fiance, I ultimately decided to move right after classes were over and do my internship in "the MD" as we like to call it.

I started working an internship at a French bakery for a few days and it was pretty terrible. So I decided against that and went with the supermarket bakery job that I had received the week prior. It is quite torturous. About 70% of the things they sell come shipped to them frozen and they just proof and bake, top it off, or decorate it in some way. I've learned about mass production at least, and how to adhere to company rules a lot, but I'd say that's about it. The real kicker is the hours. My shift is typically 3-8 a.m., 5 days a week. It is killing me. I'm trying to force myself to go to bed by 8 p.m. Chris hung a sheet over our window to block out the sunlight that is still coming in at that time. I anticipate the time and anxiously wake myself up several times a night, and my alarm goes off at 2:15 a.m. so I can get to work by 2:50.

The man keeps telling me to suck it up and get through it, but I've got to admit that it's got me feeling fairly miserable. The only slight consolation is that I only have about 100 hours of my internship left to complete, and the two hours that I work before 5 p.m. I get time and a half, which was an unexpected surprise on my first paycheck. They pay once a week which is nice, but they have my hourly rate $2 lower than it's supposed to be so far, so I'm still looking for my retroactive pay that I've lost.

The condo Chris and I bought is great. We have a lot of space and a really nice and big master bedroom. I'm loving having my own space and getting to see my man every day. Our friend Cynthia moved into our guest room and will be staying there for a bit while she looks for a job in the Boston area. We have a happy little family dynamic going so far; watching Gossip Girl on the couch and playing Mario on Wii when everyone gets home from work and I wake up from my afternoon nap.

The job search for me isn't going all that well. I've had one phone interview and one group interview so far. I've been looking for administrative assistant and admissions representative jobs at the local colleges. Hopefully I will be able to find something soon so I can quit my job. The man of the house says I'm not allowed to quit my bakery job until I have another one lined up.

Wedding plans will probably pick up again in a bit. Mom and Dad refinanced and started moving some money around,(something Elise and I begged them not to do), and would like to help us start paying for some other things. I'm extremely grateful and looking forward to some of the fun parts like dress shopping. The future MIL calls and stops by a lot. I'm hoping it will ebb with time, but I haven't seen any evidence of that yet. Chris' uncle from Texas is in this week so we're going to be having our second crab feast of the week tonight. I love free dinner, it's basically one of my favorite things. And with that... it is 9:30 a.m. time for a nap I think.

Until next time,

Julibean <3

Sick in Maryland

After my stunning digestive pyrotechnics on the Meadowbrook, I was still not feeling very well at all. I should really learn to just stay home one extra day before venturing back into my daily routine. I always push myself a little too hard and end up sick for twice as long because I didn't take the time to heal properly. Anyway...

We spent the next two days making apple pies and fruit tarts. They were delicious and looked absolutely amazing.

I really enjoyed making the fruit tart.  I like the very meticulous and creative projects the best.  Also I just like using knives.  For some reason I really enjoy the manual labor parts of baking.  Whenever we have something annoying to do I like to ask Brooke things like "can I chop the nuts?" or "I want to grate the carrots!"  I guess I'm just weird like that.

I was still feeling really shitty but I hadn't seen Chris for a few weeks so I was determined to make it down there somehow.  I contemplated taking the bus, but trekking into the city with my bags is pretty exhausting and I tend to get sick from all the random people and germs, so I was really not feeling like adding to my sickness.  Fortunately, Casey needed to go down to Maryland to visit her Uncle and cousins, so she offered to travel with me and drive my car down so I could rest.  In return I gave her family 3/4 of my cheesecake (I let Chris eat the rest).  Chef Katie was nice enough to bake and un-mold the cheesecake that I had made before I left for Seattle so I was able to get it out of the freezer and bring it home.  I got rave reviews from K's family about the cheesecake.  Apparently it was better than Junior's bakery cheesecake, which means a lot if you're from Brooklyn!

Casey dropped me off at Chris' parents where we would be spending the weekend dog-sitting for Abby while his parents were away in Phoenix for the week.  I lent her my car for the rest of the weekend since hers had recently been totaled in that stupid car accident.  I felt like such crap that I basically moped around in sweatpants for the majority of the weekend whining about how much my throat and stomach hurt.

Andy and Becky came up for dinner and a movie Friday night.  We had some pizza and watched The Proposal, which was surprisingly amusing, and then went to bed.  They left early in the morning because Andy had to be back in D.C. for a robotics competition.  Saturday I was determined to try one of the recipes that I had missed while I was absent.  I didn't want to get too far behind so I decided to make eclairs which included three elements that I had missed that week; pate a choux, pastry cream, and ganache. 

Even though I had asked Brook and Chef Katie about the recipes, copied Brooke's notes and basically made her act the process out for me like charades, I still could not manage to get it right.  I attempted pastry cream 3 times before I decided to call it quits for the day.  I felt so terrible that I was not concentrating at all.  I called the emergency number for my doctor's office and left a message.  I really needed to know if there was anything I could take for my upset stomach because all of the drugs I had picked up at the pharmacy told me not to mix with antibiotics.  Thankfully, my doctor got back to me and wrote me a new prescription for a different antibiotic which he called into the local CVS.  At this point all I was thinking about was how long I could stay on my feet before I needed to lie down.  So instead of baking anymore we went downstairs and watched Crank.

Chris' parents got home and we went out to dinner at Red Lobster.  I had never been to a Red Lobster and honestly, now having been there once, I think I'm all set for the rest of my life.  Granted, I was ridiculously sick and weak and feverish, but the food really sucked, and the waitstaff was not that great.  On the way to dinner we realized that the local CVS that was located in Sketchville, MD had closed early.  So I had to wait another day to get new drugs.

Casey showed up at Chris' on Sunday morning after breakfast while I was completing my eclairs.  I had finally gotten the stupid pastry cream right (apparently I had it right all along but I kept thinking there was something wrong with it.  Go figure.) and was filling my eclairs.  Since K is an amazing sisterfriend, she went to the sketch CVS and picked up my drugs while I finished the eclairs (which were delicious).  I packed up my stuff and the three of us had lunch before Casey and I left for home.

More to come... Julibean <3

Strep Throat

So our last day in Seattle we went to the park and took a bunch of pictures with Dan's new badass camera.  We basically just ran around posing and jumping in midair and such.  It was a beautiful day, clear blue sky, great temperature.  These are the days that make me want to move to the west coast.  Well maybe some day, but certainly not now. 

Later we packed up our stuff into Dan's car and then met his friends at a hibachi restaurant.  I've been to plenty of hibachi places, and I pretty much always love them, but the performance tends to always be the same.  However, the guy at this place was the best hibachi chef I'd ever seen.  He did awesome unexpected tricks, and was so nice, personable, and funny.  I would definitely go back there again.  Pretty much everyone in the restaurant was laughing and having a great time, the atmosphere was amazing. 

This couple that we had dinner with is actually getting married shortly, and Dan, our very own internet minister will be marrying them.  Trust me, I had the, "Dan should marry Chris and I" argument with my mom plenty of times and I'm just not even going to bother going there again.  It was pretty pointless.  It's a Catholic wedding for us!

We had a pretty terrible flight back.  Elise felt awful at dinner, and whatever she got slowly spread to me throughout the flight so by the time we got back to JFK we were both miserable.  I called in sick to school because I could not even keep myself sitting upright I was in so much pain and discomfort.  Turns out we both had strep throat and Dan got bronchitis.  What a lovely trip to Seattle it was!

Elise and I had crazy high fevers and went to the doctor.  Elise's throat was so sore that her tonsils were literally swollen and bleeding and she had to be prescribed pain medication.  I was told to stay home an extra day from school until I was on antibiotics for 48 hours.  I ended up missing Creme Anglase, Pastry Cream, Pate a Choux, Meringue, Chocolate Mousse, Eclairs, Ganache, and Paris Breast so I had a lot of catching up to do when I got back to school.

Unfortunately, whatever antibiotic that the doctor put me on did more harm than good.  Apparently when I was a baby augmentin made me very sick, but my mom failed to mention this to me, so I didn't know to avoid it.  I was incredibly sick to my stomach, could barely eat anything, had to use the bathroom a lot, and was consequently very dehydrated, still had a sore throat, and was light headed and dizzy from not eating.

I stuck it out in class anyway, after telling Brooke that I felt terrible and asking her to do anything that involved walking over to the hot ovens or stove tops.  I was really pathetic.  We prepped flaky pie dough and apple filling for a pie we were going to make the next day.  I made it through the day and then really started to feel sick as we were leaving.  In true Julie style, I managed to throw up out the driver's side door of my mother's car on the shoulder of the Meadowbrook Parkway after quickly drifting across three lanes with my mouth clenched shut.  Not one of my finest moments.  Needless to say I think I went home and went to sleep.  I don't even remember.  All I know is that those antibiotics were really not working for me, and my throat still hurt like a mofo.  

Kitchen Day 2: Advanced Cookies

Tuesday in class we broke into our usual pairs and were given two recipes to complete by the end of the day. It was nice to get to do something different so everyone is not looking over each others' shoulders and fighting for the same ingredients. Brooke and I were assigned cheesecake brownies (mmm) and cinnamon cookies. I am a huge sucker for brownies. Probably my favorite dessert in the world would be a hot brownie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top, with magic shell or hot fudge or something on top. I also love making and eating cheesecake, so needless to say I was very excited about this one. The cinnamon cookies were pretty much snicker doodles. Or at least like sugar cookies with some spices in them. I wasn't too excited about these because they didn't have chocolate in them, but they actually turned out quite well.

Here are some photos that I unceremoniously thieved from Brooke's blog. If you're reading Brooke, I hope it's okay I borrowed these, maybe I get some kind of immunity as your baking partner about photos of things we baked together! I promise, I put my digital camera in my toolbox and I'm going to make sure that I use it during our next class!

Our cheesecake brownies

Our cinnamon cookies


Our other classmates cookies:

Pinwheel Icebox Cookies

Ginger Snaps and Shortbread

Sugar Cookies

Raisin Spice Bars

Spritz Cookies

Coconut Macaroons, Russian Tea Cookies, & Mexican Wedding Cakes

Double Chocolate Macadamia Chunk Cookies

Linzer Tarts & Cornmeal Pistacio Lime Cookies

Butter Tea Cookies with Raspberry Jam

After class we lined all of the cookies up and were able to take a few of everyone's home so we had a nice variety for our families. Chef Katie said that our cinnamon cookies were one of her favorites and she at like four of them. That made Brooke and I feel happy and high five. Everyone wants to be the best and Chef's favorite. We're all in this silent competition with each other, but when it really comes down to it. I am not going to be competing with these people for jobs. I am smart and savvy and capable and I will be making my own way in the world. So I like to make the best looking products for sure, but it's really more about the learning experience. I pay attention, take notes, as an obscene amount of questions, because this is something I've always wanted to do. I wasted $25,000 and 6 months of my life to find out that this is what I should be doing. I am going to get every last little bit of knowledge out of this experience and make sure that I leave here the best baker and professional that I can possibly be. I may be annoying the crap out of the people around me as I do it, and I try to be as amiable as possible to everyone around me, but when it comes down to it, I am here for me. I am going to get everything I can out of this for myself, because I want it that badly. It feels really good to be so passionate about what I'm doing. I never thought I would feel this way again, and it is such a refreshing change. I can't wait to get back to work!

Until next time,

Julibean <3