How I love baking.
It makes me feel at peace and always helps me to forget about my sorrows. Almost nothing else brings me as much happiness as sharing something I made with someone else and watching them enjoy and savor it. I could read food blogs and cookbooks for hours. I spring at the opportunity to make a sweet treat.
I've been wanting to spend more time in the kitchen lately. This may largely be because I live alone, and when I'm working in the kitchen I don't feel lonely. I can have conversations with the recipes and fill my mind with the next steps we'll take together. We build a relationship, we become friends and by the end of it all I don't even care to eat it (maybe just one bite). I just enjoy looking at whatever it is and then excitedly seek out mouths to feed it to.
To start the new year off right, I am going to hone and perfect not only my pastry skills, but cooking in general - which I need (and want) to work on. In order to begin my pursuit, I am buying new kitchen knives and slowly collecting more and more baking necessities (tart pans, cake molds, etc.). These cook books (here* & here) are in the mail and will soon find their way to my front door. And, because both my sister and brother have food allergies - and I think I just might have them too**, I plan to add Gluten-Free Girl's new cookbook and possibly Blackbird Bakery Gluten-Free (which I bought my sister for Christmas) to my collection.
Cooking and baking, however, is not nearly as enjoyable without people to share it with. So, earlier today, while getting overly excited by the food photography and recipes at Cannille et Vanille (what a beautiful blog!) I called up my two younger brothers and announced that we are starting a supper club. I will cook and bake for them a gluten and dairy free meal twice a month and all they must do is eat them. They were both equally enthusiastic about my plans and I am thrilled!
I'll have to buy two more chairs for my teeny tiny dining table.
*I love Emily Luchetti.
**After completing the cleanse I did last week, and reintroducing all of those things back into my diet, I realized that I actually did feel better without some of them. Notably gluten, sugar and dairy. I have suffered from migraines for as long as I can remember, and I have various kinds of headaches 3 to 4 times a week. I didn't experience any headaches at all after the assumed withdrawals wore off. I am not sure whether it can be attributed to the cleanse or not, but I'd really like to finally find out why and where the migraines come from. I booked an appointment with my sister's doctor, who 'fixed' her, to do food allergy testing. Hopefully I'll finally find the root of the problem and put an end to them.
11 January 2011
09 January 2011
08 January 2011
07 January 2011
06 January 2011
kind of corny
I keep these quotes on the sticky notes of my computer. They calm me down when I start to feel confused, overwhelmed and aimless.
I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.
—Helen Keller
What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain knowledge must precede every action. The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. ... I certainly do not deny that I still recognize an imperative of knowledge and that through it one can work upon men, but it must be taken up into my life, and that is what I now recognize as the most important thing.
—Søren Kierkegaard , Letter to Peter Wilhelm Lund dated August 31, 1835
05 January 2011
last breakfast
Feeling rather disgusting after the holidays, my friend Sarah and I decided that we would do a cleanse of sorts. On this cleanse there can be no dairy, grains with gluten, meat, shellfish, anything processed, fatty nuts, nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, eggplants, etc.), condiments, sugar or caffeine. Oof! She and I both love food and we knew that sacrificing some of our favorite things for a whole week (wimps, I know) would be a struggle. So before we committed ourselves, we indulged in a beautiful breakfast at Oddfellow's (the food is notably better since their new chef arrived). If you look closely, you can see that we didn't waste any time and started our meal with the hazelnut and nutella frosted cupcake. We were both expecting the frosting to be overwhelmingly sweet, but it was actually very light and delicious. We commented on it to our waiter, who promptly ushered the pastry chef to our table who had written his recipe on a guest check for us. So nice!
Sarah and I have both been eager to test out the recipe but decided to wait until we've successfully finished our cleanse. Saturday is our last day. I am very much looking forward to it.
Ps. I'm not sure why I decided to write about this now, half-way through. Looking at this picture (bacon, coffee!) is making me feel weak.
04 January 2011
discovery
My friend Stephen emailed me with a link to this video today. Am I the last to hear about Vivian Maier? How could something so beautiful slip past me!?
I am in love with her photographs - they're amazing! How I wish I had the guts to go out and take pictures of perfect strangers like that. And, the story of how she was discovered is so interesting. I plan to buy the book as soon as it comes out.
So inspiring!
Photos via the Vivian Maier Blog. - There are so many to look at, you must pop over for a peek!
sleepy mama
After an evening of visiting with my parents, they drove me home and my mama, wearing her slippers and bathrobe, came up to see my place. She took a look around, laid down on my bed, and almost immediately fell asleep.
Why can't sleep come that easily for me?
I am longing for my bed today.