Everything But The Kitchen Sink

We're over that hill that is the longest day of the year and moving full force into the heat of summer. I will never get over how magical summertime is. I constantly wake up bleary and sleepy eyed from a lack of sleep because those long days where it's light until almost 9pm make it difficult for a baker. It's hard to force yourself to go to sleep when you can still see the sun taunting you from around the edges of your blinds. Instigating you. Convincing you to stay up for another hour, or two. But summer is also the time where you can go nap by the city pool because you get off work so much earlier than everyone else. You can take your library book and read a chapter and nod off listening to splashing. Wake up just in time for adult swim. That beautiful ten minutes where all the kids line the edge of the pool, dipping their toes into the water. Enough to feel a little bit rebellious but not enough for the guard to blow their whistle. Those serene minutes that you faintly recall scorning as a youth, but now you can barely remember it through the fog of psuedo-adulthood.


I'm not really sure if I'm an adult yet. I don't really know when that defining time is. I have student loans and a car payment. But I also ate chips for dinner. I balance it out with a green smoothie. Is that adulthood? Realizing that you're being a little impractical and countering it slightly with something responsible. Trying to wash it all out in some giant balance of things? I've killed several houseplants so as badly as I sometimes want a cat to come home to, I'm not quite sure that I am ready to care for another life. I'm currently trying my luck with a succulent. Everyone keeps warning me that I just have to ignore it. People always kill them from overwatering, but we'll see just how quickly I can forgot to water it for six months, not noticing it shriveling away on the table.


Once or twice a year I have the urge to throw out all my earthly possessions. I am currently in one of those states. I convinced my housemates that it was a brilliant idea to have a yard sale. Forget the fact that we don't really have much of a yard, only so much as a walkway & a porch. Also ignore the fact that we are not on a street that anyone ever walks down. I half heartedly advertised it. We put fliers up the day before. I convinced everyone to lug out all the furniture that we didn't want while we sat on the porch for 4 hours waiting quietly. I sold a few books and maybe a cookie cutter or two. We stared at the furniture not wanting to bring it back in after all that effort and tried to pawn it off on people for free. The unused DVD shelf is currently resting several feet from the front door, as we didn't have the heart to move it a few rooms back again. I threw everything small enough into my car and donated it down the street.


I eliminated all the kitchenware that I bought to photograph cookies & cakes on several years ago when I started this blog and didn't know the first thing about photographing food. All of these terrible plates in too bright colors and dish towels in distracting patterns. I donated half of my cookie cutter collection. Adorable sailboats and mushrooms and kittens, that never quite come out looking quite recognizable. Endless pans for madeleines and doughnuts and bundt cakes that get used once and then stack up over time. Paring down the tea cups & saucers. They are my weakness. I hoard them and look at them and think about how beautiful they are. Those tiny, dainty china cups in delicate gold patterns but they only hold a sip or two of tea. And I'm the sort of person that makes tea two cups at a time, so they just sit there. Coming out only to photograph some beautiful almond strawberry & vanilla rhubarb macarons. I add a splash of whatever tea I have actually made several cups of already, and then they head back over to the shelf to sit there for a few more months until I find another cookie that will look nice on their saucer.


Is this what it is to be a grown up? To realize that it's ridiculous to have a shelf of beautiful plates that you only break out a few times a year to take a picture. To actually use everything you own or give it away to someone who will? To open up tupperware bins and marvel at how you somehow unwittingly collected 5 sets of popsicle molds in the two years since you last gave them all away? To determine that you don't need 25 silver plated spoons just because they are all slightly different shapes & patinas? To finally clear out your closet of all the clothes that don't fit you or you hate and haul them to Buffalo Exchange and swap them out for a few things that you actually need in your wardrobe to retain some semblance of togetherness? Because if so I am a total adult these days.

French Macarons

I went on vacation at the end of last month. For quite a while Greg and I debated over a list of cities that we hadn't been to and wanted to see. Denver ended up at the top of them. As we were getting off our last plane, I could start to feel the stress knots in my shoulder finally start to relax a little. It seemed like there was more space between my shoulders and my ears. Despite all the new pollen making my eyes & throat a little itchy, I tried to take deep breaths. We climbed a lot of mountains, I worked on my fear of heights. I saw tons of elk & even a few marmots. And as vacations tend to go, it felt like it was over before it even started.


Our time in Denver was a little less than a week, so when I requested my time off & planned the schedule several months ago I gave myself an extra day at home. Sure enough in the chaos pre-leaving & the rush of getting back into town I went into work. A day early. And had to un-request my vacation time.
Even though I came back a little less than refreshed, and am still almost unbearably stressed out, I am trying to make the best of it. It's summer time and this season never lasts quite long enough. I'm enjoying the honeysuckle around the bakery. I'm taking a cake decorating class this weekend. I'm planning trips to the city pool, more amusement park visits, and berry picking at Larriland Farms.


This summer I am also pushing myself to work on my skill set. I'm going to get better at decorating and hopefully find time to play with sugar. I'm going to work on perfecting lemon meringue pie and macarons. I've made a really decent lemon meringue pie, but there's just a few more wee changes I want to make to the meringue. The photographs here are of my second and third batches of French macarons. I need to get a larger tip to pipe them, so the tops aren't so swirly. I want to make a hundred more batches, tweaking all the ratios and playing with baking times & temperatures. I want to get a notebook and scribble down all my notes in between batches while I drink a million cups of tea and sing along to pop punk while I was all the dishes just like I did a few years ago when we were first opening the bakery. I want to feel that excitement and newness again.

Danishes

I'm not really the gushy type. I mean I am emotional and occasionally I get a little sentimental, but I am definitely not the kind of person who kisses in public or says sappy things where other people could possibly overhear them. Until today. Five years ago, my friend Yuri was playing a show in my little college town. I made a big batch of banana chocolate chip muffins and headed over to meet him early. Yuri had another friend with him, Greg. After the show, we made chili and I made the worst batch of cornbread of my life because I was a little nervous. Greg and I stayed up until 2am talking on the hood of my car. I had to go to work the next morning but I went and got bagels at 7am so we could eat breakfast together first. And then a few hours later I took a long lunch break to eat falafel & say goodbye. He flew back to visit me a few weeks later. A month later I flew out to see him. A few months later I flew out to see him again. A year later I got accepted to graduate school. We went from 11 hours to 1 hour apart. Two years later I left graduate school, and moved to the District. We went from 40 miles to 2 blocks apart. Four years later we started sharing a house. And now it's been five years?! We still laugh and joke and are silly all the time. He can't take a picture of me that isn't ridiculous. He has supported me through really rough times, when I didn't have much hope. He challenges me, and pushes me to be a better person all the time. He's also gonna be so embarrassed when he reads this.


When I saw that Sticky Fingers had made their first batch of danishes, I raced home from work to get them. If there is one thing that Greg and I love equally & have shared a lot of in the last five years, it's dessert. I was able to get a cheese & a raspberry danish. The pastry was the closest I have had to the butter laden version, and they were definitely some of the best sweets I have had from there. Danishes were a great surprise for a really adorable day.