The Sweet Life

If you don't believe you deserve better, then you won't get better. I took a chance and went on an adventure today. I went all the way out to Arlington Heights to Mitsuwa , the Japanese marketplace. My excitement and tension mounted during the train and bus ride (a poor elderly woman passed out at the bus depot, but I'm sure it wasn't because she shared my excitement), but when I got there, it wasn't what I expected. It's a large space, but I was expecting something . . . erm, well, bigger. More spectacular, more like the Mitsuwa in New Jersey. What gave me that idea? I dunno, maybe their website, maybe the photos from a fellow food blogger's blog , maybe it was my own imagination. Who knows? But it wasn't the spectacular extravaganza I was expecting. The aisles were small, the sections were small, the most interesting thing was a rice cooker that cost around $200! But, I would go again. Why, do you ask? Because it was an adventure and maybe ...

For some reason, I'm on a moon pie kick and that's kinda odd, because I wasn't crazy about the commercial cookies when I was younger. Even as an adult, I stayed away from them because of the marshmallow filling (as a vegetarian, I try to stay away from anything containing gelatin). Anyway, when the pastry chef at work added moon pies to the dessert menu, I was never tempted to try one until a few weeks ago. We use marshmallow fluff which contains corn syrup, sugar, dried egg white, and vanillin (yes, I know, not the real stuff). Well, after eating a couple, I decided to make some at home. It's a safe bet; I can keep the batter in the fridge and bake them as I crave them, instead of having an entire 2 dozen cookies tempting me as I pass the kitchen. The recipe is one I found on the allrecipes website. It works well, the cookie is dense, yet soft in texture, and not too sweet, which compliments the filling. Moon Pies (adapted from Judy Crout's recipe on allrecip...

It's my second day off and I can finally think with clarity. I was a bit muddled last week and yesterday. I have to go run errands today, stuff I didn't do yesterday. Yes, again I spent the day in bed, recharging my batteries. Watched tv, finished watching Crash and just lollygagging. I have to buy a new paring knife. Somehow, the dishwashers lost my other one. All this time they've cleaned and returned it, this time that didn't happen. I've had this knife since school, so it holds (or held as the case is now) memories for me. So I'm justified in going to Sur La Table to buy a Shun paring knife. I should get two: one for the station, and one to use in back with my prep work, because I sometimes forget to take it with me when an order comes in. Maybe two is too much justification. Maybe I'll buy this one, and when I go back to work, the other one will miraculously reappear! Let's see, what else do I need do to? Oh, yeah, buy food, take care of some ma...

I'm too tired to come up with a cute title. And excuse any typos, though I'm anal enough to go through this and try to check any errors. Thank my mother and my Type A personality. I'm home. I stopped by the Ale House, but F**k it I'm home. I'm tired, walked into overhanging branches and almost into scaffolding, but I'm here in one piece. (I only had one drink, thankyouverymuch). I worked 13 hours today. Good for the pay, but I'm pretty much burning out. The morning crew is great; The morning GM guy set up my station for me and everything. I was having a great day until the evening crew came in. The PM GM was b*tching and complaining and servers were coming back to the kitchen to ask me to do desserts. Simple sh*t, so I went up to see what was going on. Not a d*mn thing. The Hot Apps guy was in GM, and the GM guy was on the hot side f*cking around. I asked Hot Apps if they were in the weeds and he said no. I told him to get the GM guy to handle ...

I'm home. Again. Just got in from Walgreens where I purchased a Life & Style magazine (gotta get the details on Angelina and Brad), two Aquafina waters, an orange juice (for in the am), and a cranberry juice (gotta dilute the vodka with something). I'll be doing some "real grocery shopping"-full bottles of juice-tomorrow when I get paid. I worked almost 12 hours today and I didn't get everything done. Red velvets escaped my notice. I'm sorry. Yesterday I baked 612 red velvet cupcakes, today I cut the tops off of them to level them for frosting. Yesterday I started baking and rolling 209 (or some such number) of chocolate lacy tuiles that I finished baking and rolling this morning. If you don't know what tuiles are, they're really thin cookies that are shaped, by hand, hot from the oven. Ouch, yes. I think I'm earning my asbestos fingers. I made quadruple the recipe cream cheese frosting for the cupcakes. I hefted a hobart mixing bow...