Christmas 2014

It seems a bit silly to be rehashing Christmas when it's finally blue skies outside, but it was a pretty good Christmas so it seems a shame to skip it.

After graduation, I still had a few weeks left before I was LA bound for the holidays. I had a ton of last minute shopping and baking to do for all of our peeps here in London, and I got to work!

I baked, while Casper wrapped the gifts.

J also had a poker game at work, and I agreed to make a bunch of treats for him and his crew. It went down a storm so I was pretty pleased even if a bit disappointed that there weren't any leftovers.

Pretty soon, it was time to fly back home to LA and get to work on Christmas dinner. On my first morning back in LA, I headed straight to Whole Foods and picked up our goose!

I think it's so much better than a turkey or a ham, and I got to work on that along with all the fixings. I think it's safe to say I spent all of this year's holiday in the kitchen.

But it was totally worth it, since I was also cooking for my soon-to-be-born niece!

I always bitch and moan about the long flights and especially during the hectic Christmas season, but there's so few things as good as spending the holidays with your family. As always, we had a great time opening all the gifts, and I bought a bunch of patisserie books for myself.

We weren't there long before it was time to head back home! But I made sure to leave lots of treats behind for my future niece, who was due to be born in March.

And I didn't stop baking once I got back home either!

I was so happy to see my little rascals again, and I swear Casper gets bigger and bigger every time I go away! J thinks he's a stress eater.

Anyway, I started experimenting more with stuff I'm not familiar with - standard cake baking and decorating. We learn all the fancy techniques and styles of classic and modern patisserie, but we only have a class or two on cake decorating in school. I've been trying to teach myself as I go along with the help of some books, and I think I'm doing as well as can be expected.

I'm pretty lucky, since I actually ended up going back to Le Cordon Bleu for a few weeks to assist for chef Matthew for the cake decorating course, so I could ask him any lingering questions I had. And it was a treat seeing him and all the other chefs again! I missed them!

New and Old Loves

I have a niece! And I'm beyond in love. Babies are generally very cute, but this is the first time I'm actually interested in something that does little more than eat, cry, and poop.

She was born in March, and she's just about the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. She's got my brother's nose, and the wavy hair must come from our side of the family.

My parents finally have the grandchild they've been waiting for. I definitely owe my little brother one for taking the heat off me for a while! 

I flew back to Orange County for the big event and hung around for a week, cooking and freezing things for my brother and SIL. Most of the time, I was just in disbelief that my baby brother has a baby! When I look at him holding her, I can't wrap my head around the fact that he's a father now. I kept having to remind myself that they weren't just babysitting. 

My sister in law is great about sending me pics, so I get to see how she changes every day. I can't wait to see how she grows up, but I want her to slow down at the same time so I don't miss too much while I'm away. Current opinion is that she looks like her dad, but I just know her face will change so much by the time I see her again!

I also got the chance to spend some time with Kitty on this trip. She was diagnosed with cancer on Christmas 2013, and the vet said that she would last three months at most after the operation to remove the tumors. Her cancer would continue to spread, and I had been living under the shadow that she was living on borrowed time. Every trip back home, I would wonder if this was my last time with her. I was wrong every time until now.

When I arrived, she was still up and about, anxious for her meals and to get petted. I could see that some of her tumours were weeping, but she didn't seem like she was in pain and my parents were seeing to her every need. I had been stressed about how I would know when it was time to put her to sleep. It didn't feel like it was time. She still wanted food and love - she wasn't ready to go and I wasn't ready to let her. 

A few weeks after I left, my mom told me that Kitty had stopped eating her food and had trouble getting to her litterbox. But then she would perk up and lick up some gravy and walk around again. I agonised over whether the time had come or not. It was so hard, being far away, when I just wanted to be with her.

I decided it was better to do it too soon rather than too late, and I arranged for a vet to visit the house. I knew it was the right decision when my baby, who's terrified of everything, didn't move when he approached her, and I stayed on the phone with the vet while he talked me through the whole process. It was as easy for her as I could make it - I just wish I could've been there with her at the end. Rest well, my sweetheart, and I'll bring you back home to me again. 

A Graduate of Le Cordon Bleu London

It's been a while since my last update, and I promise I have a good reason. When I started this blog, I thought my time in London would be limited, and I wanted a record so that when I was back in LA, I could look back and enjoy those memories. However, the circumstances of our stay have changed, and we have no plans to move back to the US in the foreseeable future. In that case, it seems like this blog has no particular purpose - I don't really want to maintain a record of my day to day life. BUT, I also feel that I should maintain this window into our lives that we lead so far away from our loved ones. In any case, the moms have asked me to keep it going, so I'm going to try my best.

Since my last post, I've graduated from Le Cordon Bleu with honours in Patisserie!

After the pulled sugar module, we had Restaurant Desserts, in which we had to plate two identical desserts for our assessment. As silly as it sounds, making two identical plates is ridiculously difficult! We had to include piping on the plate, a tuile, and a tempered chocolate design. I was pretty pleased with the way mine finally turned out, but let's just say I never cursed so much in my life.

Then it was time for our team to throw the tea party! Each term, the patisserie students throw an epic tea party, and we get to invite outside guests to come to the school and eat as much as they can of all the various desserts that we make. The chefs selected me as team captain, which was pretty stressful, since I had to make sure all of the desserts were ready on time and met the chefs' exacting standards. I'm happy to report that our team kicked major ass, and the tea party went off without a hitch! 

We also had a bread module, which meant we had loads of bread to take home for a while. I was lucky since I had assisted the chef for the short bread course, so I already had an idea of what we would be making.

We made lots and lots of brioche, which was delicious, but I especially enjoyed making our bread surprise! It's a box made of rye bread and decorated with bread flowers and wheat. The inside of the box is carved out and made into tea sandwiches. Functional and beautiful! I brought mine over to J's office for his lunch, and it mostly survived the trip on the tube. 

Our last module was chocolate. I hate working with chocolate since it's exhausting tempering chocolate by hand, and it gets everywhere. Don't ask me how, but I usually end up with chocolate on my hat, in my pocket, on my back - basically everywhere! But my chocolate box came out pretty alright - I designed it to look like a grand piano, and the lid comes off so you could fill the inside with truffles! We're supposed to showcase five different techniques, and I think I managed to get them all.

Another chocolate item we made was the chocolate egg. None of us were quite sure what to do with this one after we were finished, but it looked pretty nice so I took it home. I'm glad I took a picture since we had one of those rare sunny days in London, and my egg melted! Oh well. 

We were all pretty excited about the candy making session. It was basically chocolate and candy as far as the eye can see, and we all took home loads and loads. I think we were all pretty popular with everyone we saw that day. I dropped mine off at J's office, since I was already sick as a dog from sampling everything during class. 

All during superior term, we were all thinking of our final - the entremet. We were each given a list of ingredients and requirements and instructed to come up with our own entremet to present for our final exam. I did a lot of experimenting at school and at home, and I planned and planned so that I would be able to finish my entremet within the 4 1/2 hours we were each allotted.

I was really nervous about the time, and with good reason; I ended up using every last second! It didn't help that I dropped my tray of tuile during the exam, and I had to remake it. It was pretty funny when I dropped it, as I was pretty irritated, but everyone (including the chefs) rushed over to make sure I was okay and wasn't going to cry. Trust me, I wouldn't be the first if I did, but I'll be damned if I was going to cry over some biscuits. In the end, it all turned out okay since I passed!

Graduating was really bittersweet. I loved school and everything about it - all the new techniques, the chefs, my fellow students. It was hard to realise that I wouldn't be coming back - I had already assisted for most of the short courses, and I didn't really have any interest in taking any cuisine classes. So this was really and truly the end of one of the best experiences of my life. I would do it all again without a doubt!