Old Baking Photos

I recently plugged Chris' old digital camera into our computer and found a few photos that I had taken while in culinary school that I never got around to posting on here.  The most interesting is the cake I had to make for my cakes final.  For each section we had in class (basics, cakes, breads, and advanced techniques), we had a written final and then a practical final.  Chef Katie would write down random foods from that section on slips of paper and make you pull them out of a mis en place cup.  For my basics practical I had to make crispy chocolate chip cookies and apple pie.  For my breads practical I got semolina bread and apple crumb loaf.  The advanced techniques final I got spiral danish and babka. And for the final final we chose items from the entire year.  Oddly enough, I got the exact same pick as the breads final and had to make semolina and apple crumb again.  The cakes final was really epic.  We got to be really creative within the parameters of our pick.  I pulled white cake, swiss buttercream, and baby shower.  So I could make whatever shape/decoration/colors whatever cake I wanted as long as it was themed for a baby shower, was made out of white cake and was finished in swiss buttercream.  We had a full day to complete it, but of course I had delusions of grandeur and designed an intensely complicated cake.  Everyone else was struggling so much that she ended up giving us the morning of the next day as well and allowed us to take home fondant and make our decorations if we needed to.

So.  Even though I had never had to frost a square cake before, (it's more difficult because it's all corners instead of one round side and one top), I had the awesome idea that I would make a baby blocks cake consisting of 15 mini square cakes stacked on top of each other.  WTF was I thinking. lol.  I made white cake in a half sheet pan so I could stack them easier, spent a lot of time measuring to make sure the cakes were all the same size, layered them with raspberry jam, and then began icing them.  I had mini cake squares everywhere, many of them shoved in random corners of the reach in refrigerator waiting for a second coat of icing.  BTW swiss buttercream is not as simple as let's say, simple buttercream.  It's easier than italian, but you still have to heat the egg whites and allow the  mixture to cool before you add the butter, so yeah.  I started with two double batches of icing which was not nearly enough.  I must have ran out of icing about 7 different times.  Luckily my friend Mihwa also had swiss buttercream and had finished her cake early, so I could use her leftover icing.  After frantically icing cakes for the better part of 4 hours, it was time to go home.  I had cut out the letters for the blocks already, but I took the rest of my fondant home to make my fondant decorations.

The next day I was positive I wasn't going to be able to finish, but somehow it all came together in the end.  Not my best work, but as a first try for such a complicated cake, I was rather proud of myself.  I would do a much better job of that cake if I were to try it again now, from all that I learned.  When it was time to bring it to Chef to be graded, she was like "WTF are you fucking kidding me?  When you said baby blocks I thought you meant like three big ones with like pictures of animals on them.  How the hell did you do this?"  Then she asked me who Heather was, to which I answered, I have no idea, no one, it was just the right amount of letters to support the top word.  I got like 100 on that fucking cake for sheer madness and ridiculous execution of a crazy idea.  Need I not mention that everyone else had done like a traditional two layer round, or a simple sculpted cake.  There were other standouts for sure.  Mihwa made Mr. Met out of a semi circle cake and it had a little baseball hat on and everything, so cute!  Someone made a wedding dress cake, and someone also made one of those cakes with the barbie sticking out the top.  I honestly don't remember what anyone else did except for Jamie and Brooke who made Dr. Seuss and Mix Tape cakes respectively.  I was in panic mode for 2 days straight.  The only comment Chef had was that the purple outline of the blocks should have been one continuous line instead of separate squares.  I actually had planned on doing that, but did the first few wrong and had to just stick with it.  Anyway, without further ado - my crazy ass bridal shower cake. 

P.S.  That thing was huge and heavy.  I went to work across the street after school, then had to come back to CALI to get it out of the fridge and tried to drive the 40ish minutes home with it in the front seat of my car.  I was dying to show my parents, but when I was getting out of the car a few of the letters fell off and the T and S ended up in the yard covered in dirt.  lol!

Julibean <3

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!

As always, thank you to the lovely lady over at The Little Things We Do for the questions. 

 

1.   I am       a people oriented, crazy organized baker, little sister and fiance to a wonderful man.  Notice how I reference myself in relation to other people?  I just noticed that.  When people ask me who/what I am, I always respond "a little sister". 

2.  The bravest thing I've ever done was    break up with my ex boyfriend.  I was so afraid to do it, but it was really the right decision.  I think I feel the most brave when I do something to test myself.  Can I survive alone?  Can I withstand whatever response I might get from saying this thing I've been keeping inside?

3.  I feel prettiest when       I look at pictures of myself from high school/early college.  Need to get back to that point.  Everyone needs to feel good about themselves, and I'm not quite there yet, but on my way.

4.  Something that keeps me awake at night is   obsessing.  I think too much, all day, every day.  If I'm worried about something I will panic and go over it and over it and freak myself out.  Also if I have something going on the next day that I have to be up early for, I will wake up and stare at the clock.  OMG it's 2 a.m., I only have 3 hours to sleep, that's just not enough, I'm going to be tired, go to bed, go to bed, go to bed.  Just like that.  I actually got rid of the alarm clock on my side of the bed and make Chris tell me what time it is when I'm sleeping and have my glasses off.  If he's sleeping, I don't get to know.

5.  My favorite meal in the entire world is   that's tough.  I guess I would have to go with BBQ.  My standby is usually ribs, baked potato, corn on the cob, bbq veggies (especially crispy black red peppers), corn bread, and a beer.  Or dessert, obviously.

6.  The way to my heart is        through textbook romance and humor.  Recite lines from a favorite movie or book of mine and I'd probably melt right then and there.  But if you can make me giggle and laugh at myself, that sort of carefree love is amazing as well.

7.  I would like to       get my college group of friends back together and living in the same place again.  How awesome would that be, sure we all have jobs now, but a good old life discussion on the porch with a 30 wold make my day.

Fill in the Blank Friday!

Another fun fill in the blank Friday from  The Little Things We Do!

 

1.   If I could only read one magazine publication for the rest of eternity, I would choose Martha Stewart Living?  Maybe Bon Appetit, not that I even get that magazine, but I could start.

2.  If I were to run my own magazine it would be    Colorful, fun, probably wedding or baking related, and designed by my sister.

3.  I buy my magazines (at the grocery check stand or via subscription)       Via subscription.  I rarely pick up a magazine when I'm out in a store, but I have been known to pick up a couple that I don't read very often in a airport for a long trip.  They are relaxing to read while traveling.  

4.  I prefer my magazines (in print or online)   Of course in print.  Online magazines are obscenely distracting with popups and links everywhere, they are disorganized and no different than reading anything else online.  I get a magazine to actually pick up the glossy paper and read the actual thing.

5.  The number of magazines I buy each month is    Well subscription wise I usually get a Cosmo, Martha Stewart Living, Martha Stewart Weddings, Real Simple, and Bride.  In addition, Chris gets Motor Trend and Car & Driver.  It's pretty funny that there's a pile of Motor Trends and Cosmos in the bathroom in a pile.

6. My favorite magazine genre is (lifestyle, gossip, home, etc...)       Wedding, food, and home magazines.  My ideal magazine would probably be a cross between Martha Stewart Weddings, Real Simple, and like Lucky or some fashion magazine.  I actually really liked Seventeen for fashion, even though I've outgrown it at this point.  I also really enjoy reading all the science magazines that my parents get.  I'm a big fan of Time magazine and the Baltimore magazine that Chris' parents get.  My parents probably have like 10 subscriptions including; National Geographic, Scientific American, Air & Space, Consumer Reports, Time, Weight Watchers, Popular Science, & Discover.

 

P.S.  To all of you that were actually following and reading my blog, I made it private because it was becoming more personal than I originally anticipated and I decided that strangers and certain other people didn't need to be reading it.  If you'd like me to add you or someone to the list of readers I'm allowing on here, let me know.  

 

Julibean <3

Fill in the Blank Friday!

As always, thank you to the lovely lady over at The Little Things We Do for the questions.

 

1.   My favorite quote is       probably this one, paraphrased from an episode of the West Wing.  "Words.  Words when spoken out loud for the sake of performance are music.  They have rhythm and pitch and timbre and volume.  These are the properties of music, and music has the ability to find us, and move us, and lift us up in ways literal meaning cant."

2.  A bad habit I have is    Over analyzing.  Obsessing.  Thinking too much about things until they morph into something terrible and completely different from the original purpose.  

3.  The first time I felt like a "grown up" was       I don't know if I'm even there yet.  I'd like to say something like, when I graduated from college, or when Chris and I got engaged, but really, we're all still soul searching, and I still don't know what I want to do with my life, what I want to be when I grow up.  I don't think any of us ever do.

4.  Weekends are   usually for lying about in my underwear, sleeping in, reading a book, and not bothering to shower until about 4 p.m.  However, they always seem to end up with me having too many tasks to do, and too many errands to run.  I'm starting to think that they should be about me.  Finding something that I really want to do, and just doing it.

5.  When I was a child I wished my name was     umm... I have no idea.  Probably something from a tv show like Piper or Felicity.

6.  I wish        I could find out what I really want to do with my life and turn it into something wonderful without being afraid of failure.  I don't want to work for anyone, I don't want to work 9-5, I want to be creative, and I want to live.  To feel alive.

7.  A secret I have is       Probably something I lie to myself about, and therefore would have no idea what to tell you it was.

I'm in a really weird mood today.  I'm sitting at my desk at work, where I have been for the past five days this week, and the five days last week, and the week after that, and the week after that and I find myself incredibly frustrated.  I'm frustrated, I'm angry, I'm upset, and I'm fanatic.  I guess I never thought my life would end up quite like this.  I had really big dreams, I've wanted to open a bakery for a long time.  I wanted to be a writer, a librarian, an editor.  I've wanted to be a lawyer, a politician, a philanthropist.  I've wanted to be so many other things, and right now, I'm stuck being nothing.  I'm doing nothing.  My life feels empty and meaningless because I wake up every morning to come into work and sit at my desk and have nothing to do.  I try to keep myself occupied, read blogs, read books, play games, come up with ideas, watch videos about baking, plan our wedding.  But I can't get into any of it.  I feel isolated in a new place with only my fiance to comfort me.  I feel like I am sleeping through my life, and I want out.  I want to wake up in the morning and feel like I can't wait to get somewhere and do something.  To be busy enough to keep myself occupied and focused, and not wasting my time with stupid worryings and anxiety ridden afternoons, complete with shakes and hyperventilation.  I just don't know what it is, or how to do it.  I am cranky and frustrated all the time.  I do not feel like myself.  I don't laugh anymore, I don't get excited about anything, and I don't appreciate any of the good things because I am stuck in a hole and I don't know how to get out.  

Something has to change.  I don't know what it is, and I'm incredibly frightened that I will screw up my relationship on the road to whatever it is, but I can't continue to live like this.  Living day to day like a walking shell of my old self.  I want art.  Creativity.  Words.  Music.  Beauty and Passion.  This is no way to live, angry with the only person in my life that means anything to me, all the time, just because he is there.  Just because he is there, and not this ridiculous ideal that I have in a fantasy wrapped up in my mind.  Reading so much fiction has me longing for something that doesn't exist.  We can never be as happy as these people, have the love and passion for each other that they do, because they're not real.  They don't exist, their feelings don't exist, they are characters.  So why am I so envious of them?  We can never say or do the right thing at the exact right time, because some author somewhere didn't sit for hours planning out and wording everything we say and do to reach that type of perfection.  What is wrong with me?  Do other people feel this way?  Upset and angry with their lives because they, and their partner, and everyone else in their lives aren't living up to the expectations of carefully thought out words and flourishes and catches in their breath.  

 

I am being unrealistic to the extreme.  Yet I cannot shake this nagging feeling.  This yearning for something more than what my life is offering me right now.  For words that resonate, for touches that chill, for erratic breaths and heart palpitations.  Maybe this is just an inner cry of turmoil.  My creativity is nearly bursting out of my chest without any regard for the reality at hand.  It doesn't care that I am responsible for my own life, for someone else's happiness, to maintain the balance of our lives.  It wants to scream out, and sing out, and reverberate.  Bottling this up has literally caused me to tremble, to stutter, I can't control myself.  I need an outlet, a vessel for this pent up aggression and need.  There is nothing holding it, no receptacle, nowhere for it to be channeled and held and looked at.  I am scarcely able to understand it at all, because it is seeping out of me from every possible place.  I want to cry from the stress of it all, and to kick something because I had not realized and done something about it sooner.  I want to hide because I don't know what to do with it, what to do with this feeling that I have that I will never be enough, never have enough, have never had enough of whatever I'm lacking.  Purpose.  

 

Do you ever stop and think that God has put you on this planet for a reason?  That there is a reason for your existence, some purpose that you were sent here for.  Something that you and only you could provide.  Soul searching to the extreme.  What is it?  What is your talent, your ability, your reason for living.  When I was younger I thought it was family.  I thought it was love.  Compassion.  I wanted nothing more than to have a husband who loved me, and a family to take care of.  Children to nurture and help grow.  Someone to love with such fervency that it could not be contained.  That I could love someone so much, that I would make their life complete.  Lift them up.  

 

I am far to screwed up right now to be able to provide that kind of thing for anyone.  It was a locus entirely separate from myself.  Be something for someone else, have other people need you and love you, a constant need to be useful and necessary and wanted.  That does not exist for me.  I am doing nothing for myself right now, and definitely nothing for anyone else.  I am feeling useless and I am hiding from myself, hiding from finding what I want to do and be.  I'm frightened.  That I will never find it, and never feel any better than I do right now.  I live in constant fear that my life will never get any better than this, and there is then, no point in trying.  Just curl up in a ball, cry, and try to make the feeling go away.  It is exhausting.

Being so afraid and upset is exhausting.  Being useless is exhausting.  Sitting here every day with nothing to do is exhausting.  So much so, that when I do get home, I don't have the energy to be happy.  I don't have the energy to be excited to see anyone, to love anyone, to be kind to anyone, to want to do anything, to try to find out what it is that I should be doing to make these feeling obsolete.  To make sure that I never have to walk into this place and feel this way again, hopeless.  I had been too tired to think about it, to try to fix it.  This stops now.  I'm angry with myself for  letting it go on for so long.  When was the last time I was truly happy?  Culinary school.  Going to visit Chris on the weekends, showing him the things I had made, bringing slices of cake with me on the train, having people smile and tell me it was delicious.  I had friends that I loved to be around every day, work was not work.  It was fun, educational, creative, exhausting, and wonderful.  I would be antsy to get in the car and go to see the man I loved, because I had a good day and I wanted to share it with him.  To tell him what I learned, to show him something I had created with my two hands.  To live in a house with my sister.  My best friend.  My partner in crime.  What am I fucking waiting for?

I didn't want to put the work in.  The move was scary.  It still scares me.  I have no one here but him, nothing tying me here but him, nothing that I enjoy.  No one to talk to when things with him get rough, nothing to show for my life at the end of the day.  What did I do today?  Nothing.  I worked with no tangible result.  Task completion.  We talked about it in business school all the time.  The satisfaction and motivation in starting a project and seeing it through to the end.  Starting something, doing all the work involved, and then having something to show for it when you're done.  The relief that it hadn't all been for nothing, that your work was going uncompleted and unnoticed.  Where do I go from here?

I have been waiting in vain for my sister.  I want our plan to work out so badly, but I have no idea how to start my end.  Too complicated, too risky, too much start up capital needed.  I have no experience.  I don't know what I'm doing.  I don't have the effort to take a crappy job with crappy pay and crappy hours and learn what I need to learn to do what I want to do.  I don't have partners or staff.  I don't want to pay my dues to anyone.  I only want to work for myself.  It's unrealistic.  I don't know how to begin.  I want to work with her paper crafts first.  Start a business model.  Feel successful in what we're doing.  Knowing that we have a good product with selling potential that people would buy and enjoy and feel good about.  That would make me feel good about it, running our own business, being our own bosses.  Learning along the way.  Making something for myself, of myself.  But I can't keep waiting around for her.  It will never happen that way.  I can't control her life.  I can't control where Jason gets a job, and where they will move.  The thought of her leaving breaks my heart.  I don't know what to do without her.  I need to find a new avenue.  A new tactic.  I can't sit around and wait anymore.  I'm driving myself crazy.  Where do I start?  Writing this all down was a good step.  I'm going to go home and make some cupcakes and roll out some fondant and try to will it into telling me what to do.  Only time will tell, I will have to be patient.  Not one of my strong suits. 

 

How do people live like this for their entire lives?  Stuck in dead end jobs, only working for the money that they need.  Feeling exhausted and useless and frustrated.  Never achieving their dreams or their potential.  I am sleeping through my life.  Using less than 1/8 of my mental and creative capacity.  I refuse to be one of them.  One of the people that hate their lives and feel stuck and never amount to anything.  I have skills, I have smarts, and I have the support of a man that loves me.  The change starts now. 

Fill in the Blank Friday!

1.   Giving is       Sometimes stressful.  I always want to find just the perfect thing, and it never quite works out right.  That's why I end up baking mostly.

2.  Receiving is   very sweet, but makes me feel awkward sometimes.  Especially if the gift is expensive or you didn't reciprocate in the appropriate amount.

3.  The best gift I ever received was       probably my engagement ring.  A nice sparkly rock and a lifetime with the love of my life?  Yes, please.  I think Quatchi might be a close second.

4.  The best gift I ever gave was   umm... I don't know if I've ever given a really good gift before.  We'll see how this Christmas goes, then I'll get back to you.

5.  Something intangible that I wish I could receive is       a brighter outlook/sunny disposition.  I wish I could go back to college.  Lying in the grass reading a book in the sun really makes me so happy. 

6.  Something intangible that I wish I could give is        a happy ending for my sister and her fiance.  They've been dealt a real shitty hand this year.  A clean and organized house that magically stayed that way for my parents.  A healthy pregnancy and delivery for Jaclyn and Andy.

7.  The one gift I always wanted as a child, but never got was       an Easy Bake oven.

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.