Where Has the Time Gone?

It's been ages since I've posted anything - I'm sure everyone has quit looking by now only because there is never anything new to read. But come back! I've got tons of pictures!

A couple weeks after Nick and Michelle's visit, and my subsequent trip to New Hampshire to see Jeff and Amanda and baby Jacob, we had more visitors - Mom and cousins Pam and Cheryl. Look Pam and Cheryl...you're on the blog! We had a fabulous visit with them...they all managed to cram in our tiny apartment, and it felt like a huge sleepover every night, with wall-to-wall beds, literally. Poor Luke was the only boy all weekend, but he had such a great time. The gals wanted to see "everything" since it was their first trip to NYC, so we did our best to show them everything. I think we wore them out. Our weekend started with breakfast at my favorite place for pancakes and all things a.m. - Clinton Street Baking Company. Then we explored downtown Manhattan, including Battery Park, saw the Statue from a distance (too cold for the boat ride), made our way back to the apartment because I was a bad New Yorker and didn't dress warmly enough, explored Grand Central, Times Square at night, Empire State building, Central Park, Yankee Stadium, and the list goes on.

At the Charging Bull statue, with a gazillion random other people.

All of the other pics from that weekend are on Mom's camera, so I'll have to wait until she emails them to me. Sorry guys!

During class that week, we worked on cakes. I hate cakes. I'm not good at them. I don't want to make cakes for a living. But here are some examples of my work:

Piping with Royal Icing is so difficult! But my marzipan strawberries are fabulous!

Marzipan covered cake with fondant decorations

Black Forest Cake

Rolled fondant covered cake - chocolate cake with pistachio cream - delish!

Birthday cake for a one-year-old...circus theme with chocolate cake and peanut butter buttercream. The sides of the cake were a tent, but chef cut into it, so it lost the opening of the tent which made it make sense.

Day 1 of our chocolate unit - coating real lemon leaves with tempered chocolate and then peeling the leaf off to leave these pretty little things.

Box made out of chocolate - dumb project

But the good part - we filled it with these orange flavored truffles

Candy Stand project - we had to make the entire thing out of chocolate and put candies in it, hoping that it was built well enough to stay standing. Below are more pictures of some projects by classmates.

My candy stand again, filled with candy

Our wall of fame - everyone had to make a brick out of chocolate with our initials on it.

Queen of Sheba cake

Family, Friends, and Petit Fours

Kind of random, but it was a neat shot that we got while the train was passing by us.

I look ghostly pale, but it's a fun shot.

Michelle and Nick on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Michelle told us about this dessert she had as a kid...it's a traditional Chinese (?) dessert that has sweetened condensed milk, ice cream, and red beans over ice. We're always up for an adventure, so we tracked down the name of it and found a place that sold it. Doesn't look very appealing, does it?

Trying to decide who is brave enough to go first. It definitely wasn't Nick.

Please watch this video - Nick's expression is priceless. It sums up what we all thought of the dessert.

While browsing through a vintage clothing shop near the apartment, we found an outfit that resembled something Michelle wore as a kid.

Had a great visit with Nick and Michelle - we've missed them so much! Did dim sum in Chinatown, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, (window) shopped in Soho, dinner out at some fun new restaurants...they toured during the day while I was in class and Luke was working. We had such a fun time and can't wait until we can see them again.

Petit four tray with: tuiles, meringues filled with passion fruit curd, checkerboard cookies, coconut macaroons, swirl cookies, nougat, and florentines.

Pyramid petit fours with orange buttercream, passion fruit buttercream, and raspberry buttercream.

Caramel Mou - chocolate caramels

Lemon Cookies with raspberry jam, dipped in chocolate

Petit four exam tray-up: gingersnaps, apple dartois, lemon meringue pies, brownies with port-balsamic glazed cherries, banana splits, whoopie pies, tuile sandwiches, swirl cookies

Buche de Noel

Amanda had her baby! Meet Jacob Allen Garman.

Cutest family!

I made it out to New Hampshire this past weekend to visit Amanda and Jeff and to meet little Jake...he is absolutely precious, and she is the most amazing mother. It seems to come so naturally to her. I'm trying to make it back there in a couple weeks, so more pictures to come.

So Behind on Blogging!

View from home one morning

Cake exam - classic genoise (sponge) cake with raspberry jam filling
and raspberry buttercream.

The cake, upside down on the stairs. Thankfully it didn't happen before I was graded on it!

Olive Bread, or Pain de provence


Irish Soda Bread and Petit Pains


Frying up english muffins


English Muffins


Croissants


Unbaked french macaroons


Sarah Bernhardts - quite an unattractive dessert, but oh so tasty


Almond Macaroons


Barquettes - they look like monster eyes!


Our first "tray up" of petit fours; Left to Right: financiers, cornmeal shortbread cookies, chocolate macaroons, tuiles, rum raisin cookies, barquettes with passion fruit curd and a blueberry, and gerbet (or french) macaroons

Opera Cake

Langues de chat (cat's tongue) - like the Pepperidge Farm milano cookies.

Coconut puff pastry petit fours (palmiers and sacrostans)

Lime Zest Madeleines

Products for our second tray up


Tray of petit fours; langues de chat, palmiers, opera cake, sacrostans, pineapple pate de fruits (pat duh fwee), madeleines

We've moved onto level 2 now and have completed our second unit on breads and are now on petit fours. I LOVE petit fours. They are all bite size and so cute, yet so bad because it's so easy to keep eating them.

I've also started an internship, under Chef Pichet Ong; I've been working 16 hour days and am utterly exhausted. I cut it back to just two nights a week, and am trying to be out by 10 pm each time I work. I was on the verge of falling asleep standing up during class, which was awful. I feel like I haven't talked to family in weeks or seen Luke much either. I hope that I start to learn more at the internship...it's not quite what I expected. There is a career fair in two weeks, so I'm hoping to get my resume out to a wide variety of places for other possible internships and/or jobs for after graduation. Luke and I would love to stay here, but we haven't decided on anything yet. We're just praying that the right job comes along for me, wherever it may be.

Nick and Michelle are on their way here right now! Their plane was rerouted due to weather, so they are stuck in DC for who knows how long. February and March are terrible months to travel to NYC. Since I have extra time now, I'm gonna run and do some organizing of the apartment.

Will post more later!