The Sweet Life

Happy New Year!! Someone recently asked me, working hard, or hardly working? A little bit of both actually! For a while we were very short staffed at my "new" job, which meant putting in long hours and long weeks, but we pulled through. Needless to say, that meant "hardly working" at home in my kitchen and on my blog. But I've put in my hours and am learning a lot, and I hope to bring more of that here in 2009. In my seven months at this hotel, I've gone from learning the banquets menu, to establishing breakfast standards, to running breakfast, training others (thank goodness we got two new people in October), to running brunch. Now I'm learning another facet of the pastry business as well as honing other skills. I made it through another year and am looking forward to the next. I really wanted to post something today, though it will be a brief one. As you can see, there are a few changes to the layout. Though I have neglected to post anything, I...

I spied this on the board in one of the kitchens at work: "Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: when the sun comes up, you'd better be running." --Anonymous Returning to our pastry kitchen, I told my co-worker about the quote. Minutes later I asked her, "Are you wearing your running choux?" She was piping eclairs.

I baked cupcakes to "celebrate" the occasion. Nothing too inspired, just chocolate cupcakes filled with a coconut caramel and topped with whipped milk chocolate ganache and salted toasted coconut.

I've finished my job at NoMI in Chicago, IL. It was a little less than 2 years. I've learned a lot and come a long way from my first week there. I started my new job today and the place is quite big; I need to leave a trail of bread crumbs just to keep from getting lost! I am excited for NoMI though, because they have a great new pastry chef, Andres Lara and I saw some great things from him my last few weeks there. As a matter of fact, the above picture is his Caramel Garden.

"I'm so hungry and the only thing in this purse is paper stuffing!" Poor thing. She looks like she's starving (or suffering from cramps). Sorry I've been MIA. I've been exhausted and ill (I can't bring myself to say "under the weather" we're all under it). I've been to the doc and she ran tests. I know what it is, and I am ashamed to say that I'm not taking such good care of myself, but I'm trying. It's not easy to eat right when you have no appetite. So, I've been relying on the odd strong craving for something to get myself to eat. It's almost like I've got a picky toddler to feed! As fleeting as these cravings are, after only a couple of bites, I'm turned off by what I wanted only moments before. Even when it comes to tasting stuff at work, I can't possibly imagine putting stuff I once ate pretty frequently in my mouth. But how can you create desserts without testing them on your palate? I tru...

What kind of ape makes floating islands? A Meringue-atan!

Here's a twist: I'm eating a grilled cheese, nice and tan on one side, and erm, nicely blackened on the other (I'm a little out of practice, ok) and drinking my orange juice from a Guinness glass. It's the new classic! Not much exciting going on at the moment. Still trying to get through the process of uploading my photos from Paris, working, and trying to work on a few things around the house and at the restaurant. My culinary projects include (but are not limited to): cashew custard, a wine pate de fruit, and new tuiles for the sorbets. I've worked out my blood orange friands (last night, finally!). Yesterday I made a batch of Jasmine Tea Caramels at home. All I need to do is cut, wrap, and give them away (of course I'll keep some here for myself). Went to dinner Monday night at Sixteen at the Trump Tower with a couple of friends. I didn't take any pictures, but I broke down during dessert and snapped pics with my Nokia. I'll try to get those u...