First Exam

I had my first pastry exam today, over tarts and cookies. It was the WORST day EVER, at least for awhile. I'm on target, everything is going smoothly, I sailed through the written portion, and then I burned the caramel for my nut tart. It's supposed to be a light golden color, but it was the color of dark molasses. And smelled horrible. Everything went downhill from there. I made the wrong cookie dough - I was supposed to make vanilla crescent cookies, but I started making spritz cookies. So dumped one dough out and had to scramble to get the correct one going. Then I halved the caramel nut recipe for my big tart, instead of doing the full recipe - we were supposed to halve all of our other recipes, and I just kept on going. So I made the caramel a total of 3 times today. Then the caramel hardened up too much, and it tore a HUGE hole in my tart. It only covered half of it, so in a moment of either brilliance or stupidity, not sure which, I filled the rest of it with almond cream, which is what was supposed to go over all of the caramel filling. I prayed so hard that they would cut into the side that had the caramel filling, rather than the all-almond-cream side. Once it was baked, you couldn't tell that only half of the tart had caramel. I overcooked my bacon for the quiche lorraine. I was delayed on everything because I had so many messups in the beginning, and I wasn't sure that I was going to finish by our stop time of 1:30. Thankfully, by the grace of God, I managed to pull it off.

So now we arrive to judging time. Everything is plated nicely, and from the surface you can't tell that I have a huge secret waiting in my caramel nut tart. Chef Laurie called my name, and I start to sweat bullets, with a huge smile plastered on my face. She went for the caramel nut tart first...moment of truth. Would I look like a total idiot? Would I pull it off? I had angled it so that the caramel side faced her, but then she turned it to examine the edge of my tart shell. Sweating more. She took a knife, and cut a LARGE slice of the tart, and I wasn't sure if she would dip over into the all-almond-cream side. She pulled the slice out...and...caramel filling appeared. I almost did a jig right then and there. My crust needed to be baked a little longer in her mind (although I contest that it's just uneven browning from the really bad ovens), but she said it was perfectly thin and I had the flavor just right.

Moving onto the vanilla crescent cookies: she thought they were a tad uneven, but I'm going to go with what Chef Christopher, the hardball, said about them, that they were "beautiful" and I should make some extras up for the restaurant if I have any down time this week. Phew. Past that. Just the quiche remained. The quiche only has 1 minute once it sets to be taken out of the oven, or the proteins overcoagulate and turn to curds. Quiche lorraine is supposed to be soft and silky smooth. I had pulled it out of the oven and worried the whole time that I had underbaked it. But when Chef Laurie cut into it, she exclaimed with delight at how perfect the texture was, and that other students had been bringing her curds.

So, overall the day and exam ended well, but I never want to do that again. Unfortunately, our next exam is a week from tomorrow. I have the biggest headache, my legs and lower back are killing me, and I'm kind of smelly. I feel so unsure of my abilities now as a pastry chef-to-be. Maybe I'm just not meant to make tarts for a living. And I know that I'm definitely not meant to work in a restaurant under that kind of stress.

A few of us went out after class...me for lunch, and the other gals just wanted to relax. We picked our favorite little restaurant/bar near the school. Sometimes we order a glass of wine, but today, we were craving diet coke. We like to sit at the bar because the GM of the place comes out and talks to us, and the other staff are super friendly and chatty - it must be all of the desserts and quiches we give to them everytime we go. Last time we were there, we met Will Goldfarb, a fabulously well known pastry chef here in town. Ok, so we have a great time chit-chatting and comparing notes about the exam, and I'm feeling fine. But when I got home today, the stress of it all just kind of washed over me and I started bawling. Right now I just don't feel cut out for this. I know I'm good at it, but I had visions of going in, and surprising myself with this unknown talent of perfection for all things pastry, and then at graduation I would be handed the most amazing job and you'd see me on the Food Network one day, and immediately rush out to by my cookbooks. Okay - I didn't really envision quite that much, but I thought that I would be doing better than I am at this point. And really, I'm doing quite well, but under stress like today, my products just didn't exemplify what I can really do. Or - maybe we are only as good as what we can do under stress. Which means I'm actually a terrible pastry cook.

Will I get better? Or maybe it's just a matter of finding my niche in the pastry world. Or finding confidence in myself.

Molly rocks, the Japanese and counterpoint

One of our biggest concerns in New York is Molly's ability to make friends. On walks, she has been lunging and growling at dogs. Recently she's mostly quit growling but lunging is still a favorite behavior.

Well. Big news. I took her to the dog park today and, in spite of the lunging and in spite of the long time it took her to make peace with my in-law's dogs, she did great. Immediately, she was acting very friendly. It was all tail wagging and inappropriate sniffing. Huge weight off of our chests.



And for those of you who enjoy the antics of Japanese television, here's a clip. This show brings hopeful comedians on and subjects them to various trials and tribulations. There's no prize other than 15 minutes of televised exposure.



My previous post was about paranoia. I talked about the drastic reduction in violent crime. What didn't occur to me until someone brought it up via e-mail is that, despite the drastic reduction, there's still a 1 in 17 chance of an American getting robbed every year. That's a sobering statistic and I shouldn't have referenced it as flippantly as I did.

A Peek into the Classroom

I hear that everyone turns the mixer on high speed with a bowl full of flour at least once.
My tablemates got that out of the way early.

Peek into a Caramel Nut Tart.
I think this is my favorite one so far!

Family Meal, also known as lunch.

Today was the hardest day yet, not because of the pastries we were making, but in terms of how much they crammed into the day. I felt like I couldn't catch up to everyone else today. I'm exhausted, starting to get grumpy, and now my work ends up sloppy. My doughs come out nicely, but the finishing touches are losing their finesse.

Deliciousness and Fabulosity

Fig Newton logs, before they were cut

Chef Lauri and Chef Kir and classmates

Rustic Onion Tart: sautéed onions, tomatoes, walnuts, and blue cheese

Chocolate Bavarian Cream tart

Chocolate Ganache Tart - what my tart was supposed to look like. Instead, I dropped my (clean) whisk into the center of my tart after it was finished. Sigh.

Ceci-Cela Patisserie - fabulous atmosphere, yummy desserts and light breakfast/lunch dishes
Our first adventure for Pastry Wednesday research trips

The perception of safety

Physical safety. Will I be mugged? Will I be assaulted? Will I be raped?

I hope that very few of my decisions are motivated by questions like these. I'd rather be motivated by something else. Will I get a warm fuzzy? Will my friends be glad I did this? Will I have a good story?

The degree to which you are motivated by safety concerns is the degree to which you suffer from paranoia. If everything you do is in the service of safety, you're paranoid and you're not pursuing joy.

Two things are getting me thinking about this. First, I watched a video of Geven Tully. He runs a summer camp that helps kids be budding engineers. He thinks we should let our kids do dangerous things. Play with fire. Carry a knife. He personally gives power tools to second graders. He makes sense to me. If you shelter kids and don't let them experience situations where they can make mistakes, they grow up to be paranoid.



Second, I was reading an article which was exploring the statistical link between watching violent movies and porn on one side, violent crime and rape on the other. The article is interesting but not very compelling. Some of the facts from the Department of Justice, on the other hand, are very compelling.

I wouldn't have guessed it but crime rates have dropped by 50% from 1993 to 2005. We went from 6% of the population being a victim of robbery to 2.6%. Aggravated assault dropped from 12% to 4.3%. Rape dropped from 2.5% to .8%.

Excuse me while I exaggerate a bit. We are living in an America which is safer than ever before. I'm sure much of the credit for the improvement goes to increasingly paranoid behavior. Still, how much comes from more effective policing? Better infrastructure? Community efforts? I don't know, honestly. But my gut tells me that, while paranoia has its place, there's no longer a compelling need for personal safety to be the driving motivation behind our decisions.

When you ask a Christian why they are a Christian, might get one of these types of unhelpful responses. Timid: my parents are Christian. Self-referencing: because the Bible is truth. Vague: because Jesus has done so much for me.

I'd like to contribute something helpful. In part, I'm a Christian because Christ's actions freed me from paranoia. Regardless of whether or not I live in a safe place, I am confident taking serious risks with my physical, emotional and fiscal health because Christ has made me right with God. Because I am unconditionally accepted by the foundation of everything, I'm not worried about losing a few somethings. I am a Christian because it allows me to pursue joy and not be hindered by the potential price of pursuit.

School Updates

We've been working hard on mastering our pate sucrees and pate brisees, creme patisserie, creme de almandes, custards and meringues. Our first exam is next Monday, consisting of both a written portion and a practical. On the practical, we'll have to reproduce one item from our list of pastries we've worked on in the past couple weeks. We've made the doughs plenty of times so I'm not worried about those; it's the fillings that make me nervous, since we've only done each individual recipe once.

This week:

Spritz Cookies

Fig Newtons

Claufoutis aux Cerises

Lemon Tartlettes


Tarte Aux Noix (Nut Tart, with raspberry jam)

Esther - the first engagement

This afternoon we had tea with Esther, poet, painter and sculpter. 84. Is in love with being in love but her closest love has passed away.

The Lamp, Held High

Early every morning, an old woman puts
Her leftovers in a garbage can,
Because she has seen delving there
A hungry homeless man.
In that street can, at breakfast time,
He finds tasty, home-cooked food,
As when the neighbor holds the lamp
To lighten up his load.

*

Because her old one broke, an old woman
Bought a graceful new television.
The stand she had wasn't wide enough,
And, after investigation,
The stand she chose weighed fifty six pounds.
How did she bring it home?
As when a young man held the lamp
To lighten up her load.

*

Graggle, Gloggle. Midnight song.
Full sixty minutes. I long to sleep.
Is my young and elegant neighbor
So very dirty? I could weep.
We talked. "Is eleven o'clock at night
And bathing for ten minutes good?"
As when the neighbor holds the lamp
To lighten up my load.

Esther Lazarson
December 17, 2007

Inspired by Emily Dickinson from poem 419:

We grow Accustomed to the dark--
When light is put away--
As when the neighbor holds the lamp
To witness her goodbye--

Shortly before 17-Dec, Meghann and I were riding the free bus back from Ikea. The bus was packed above with consumers who had perused the Swedish selection and selected their wares, packed below with the wares. Packed. The ride is from Jersey to the center of Manhattan and people were standing in the aisle.

We had one bag of wood panels stored below. Esther, whom we did not know and did not notice, had a TV stand stored in the neighboring luggage compartment. "Excuse me young man, can you help me with my box?"

It took a second to realize she was talking to me because, when I'm in a crowd, I feel like I don't exist in any substantial way. I'm one drop of water in a stream, an indistinguishable part. Anyways, the luggage compartments and about two feet tall and seven feet deep. I did a monkey crawl to the back of the hole and pulled out her box. It felt good to assume a position other than the big three (standing, sitting, laying). We exchanged phone numbers and that's how we met Esther.

She called a couple weeks later and said that she had written a poem. She read it over the phone. It takes time for me to process a conversation which is part of the reason I do well with the written word and the simple childlike games but so poorly sometimes with more serious conversation. Anyways, I didn't understand all of the poem but she sent us a paper copy.

I was blown away. Most public acts of politeness live short lives and bear no young but my box retrieval bore a spoken poem. Esther immediately became an inspiration for me. She recognizes good deeds with heart. And she takes the time to convert her heart into craft. I learned tonight that she paints and sculpts as well.

It's because of her that I've been posting here. I've always wanted to express myself but never had the discipline to learn how. I painted one painting and found great worth in it, despite its modesty. I sculpted one sculpture and that was good too. And I've written some but never written enough to like what I write.

So I post here with the hope that, one day, words and plots and characters will flow naturally. One day, there will be no barrier between my thoughts and my words.

I pledged to Esther that I would bring her a poem at our next meeting. I'm not a poet. I can't rhyme or meter myself and I'm too short-sighted to consider an unmetered poem that doesn't rhyme anything more than prose with a healthy mix of pretension. But I would love to match the earnestness of Esther's poems with and earnest poem of my own.

I'll probably post a draft of two.

In Response

I'd like to defend myself after reading through Luke's last post. I had to exchange something at the Gap...I didn't go there because I thought it would be more worthwhile in NYC. And it's right after Christmas...Anthropologie is bound to have good sales, which is the only time I can afford that lovely store. I'm not a dummy that moves to a new place and only goes to the stores and restaurants that one would find back home.

Break dancing and death

Meghann and I were determined to do something fulfilling yesterday so we devoted the day to shopping at chain stores (the Gap, Macys and the peerless Anthropologie). We were thinking, just wait until the yokels back home hear about all the great stuff you can get at a New York Gap!

Turns out it's all the same.

Luckily we experienced something worthwhile while in transit, which is often the case. One of the things I like about New York is I don't have to be particularly creative about the activity that I'm setting out to do. As long as I take public transportation, I'll see something that I've never seen before. This time, it was public break dancing.

The good stuff starts at the 1:29 mark.



I work at home (lucky me) and that gives me the freedom to listen to whatever I want. Which is good because my tasks only utilize 10% of my brain. Listening to the news engages the rest of my tiny brain and staves off boredom.

I was listening to the White Horse Inn which is an ostensibly non-denominational radio show about Christian theology. I've never heard a show whose message wasn't reformed so take non-denominational with a grain of salt. Anyways, in this show they were discussing the virtues of churches who are nearly always positive. (think Joel Olsteen).

They began discussing funerals and the consensus was that funerals were not a time for celebration. They were a time for mourning. Death is not a natural part of the cycle of life. It is not the natural and inevitable last leg of the journey. Death is an aberration of God's intent, a bad consequence of bad deeds.

My life changed just a little bit. In theory (I haven't been to a funeral since I was old enough to have theories), I've always believed funerals should be a time for joy and celebration. The thought was that nothing wrong has happened. This is the way it should be and we should learn to always find joy in those things which should be. Any mourning comes from a selfish Scrooge like hoarding of all the good things that person provided.

But death is a tragedy. It is the price we pay for betrayal. Not a time to be giddy.

In retrospect, my old theory was haughty and removed from the reality of suffering because I couldn't explain why we felt the suffering. The best I could come up with was that it was motivated by selfishness but I think I knew that the suffering was more intrinsic, more fundamental than that. This suffering is caused by the second deepest reality of humanity: betrayal.

The good news? Love came before betrayal and love comes after betrayal. Love is the deepest and third deepest reality.

More New Year's Eve fun

So Luke posted a funny video that we took in the subway on the way home New Year's Eve...it's on YouTube, but that was taken courtesy of Luke. This crazy guy was playing drums and a few girls decided to be his backup band...quite funny. We missed the train, which was running REALLY slowly that late at night, and had to walk home. At least we were already in Manhattan, and not still out in Brooklyn.

We spent our evening with new friends Kathryn and Ben...Kathryn is a fellow classmate, and Ben is her boyfriend, visiting from the Chicago area. Prospect Park in Brooklyn put on a great fireworks display, so we rang in the New Year there, as opposed to the wildness of Times Square. Mom calls me an old lady because I don't like crowds.




Lost my Metro Card (worth a full month, which I had for all of 3 days) somewhere on the streets of Brooklyn, so Luke and I spent 45 minutes retracing our steps. By the grace of God I found it, only to find out later that they'll replace that kind of card if you paid by credit card. C'est la vie.

Today we reached a high of 25 degrees - I'm sure everyone back in Texas is wondering how we're surviving this. We've actually grown quite accustomed to the cold, and have learned to layer layer layer. When I left for school this morning, it was 14 degrees outside, making it a VERY fast walk to the subway station, with a stop at Starbucks for hot tea on the way.

There are some mornings, like today, where I become so astounded, and even more thankful, that we're actually here in NYC. At seven in the morning, the streets are really quiet...this is my favorite time of day here. I know you don't move to this city for peace and quiet, but down in Soho, where the school is, the buildings are so old and beautiful, and I'm able to really take it all in and appreciate this experience when the hustle and bustle isn't in the way.

We miss you all! Come visit us soon so we can share our favorite spots with you.

Past Couple Days of Desserts

Alsatian Apple Tart - apples flambéed in brandy in a baked custard tart
Yes, that's a beautiful pâte brisée that I have now mastered.

Fruit Tartlet

Chocolate Pot de Crème with a Vanilla Crescent Cookie and Chantilly Cream

Pineapple Tart with Pastry Cream

A small taste of our New Year's Eve

Subway entertainment.

Happy New Year!

I've decided to give up on the second blog...it's already too much to keep up with, and I know most people will forget to check it. It's deleted already.

We're spending New Year's Eve as a typical New Yorker would...far away from the mess of Times Square. We thought we might try it, but after hearing accounts of what it's really like, and me not being one for large crowds and drunks, it's probably the best decision for us. We are going to meet up with a gal from my class and some other people out in Brooklyn to watch fireworks. I've been trying to fight off a cold or sinus infection, not sure which, so a low-key evening sounds nice. We went out a few nights ago, and I had to yell over the noise in the bar, so my throat has been bothering me ever since. Last night I was in bed before 9 pm, and slept for 12 hours straight. I'm such an old woman sometimes.

Here are two desserts made on Friday in class...these are the finished products from my disastrous pâte brisée.

Not my finest work, but at least I can learn from these two...they'll only get better from here.

Luke and I are so excited to be starting a new year in a new city - I feel like this year holds so much promise for us. We hope everyone has a festive evening!

IKEA! yum

Big doings today. We went to IKEA and invested in turning our perfectly functional apartment into an appealing living space. We've got proper boxes in three colors to store our clutter. We've got lighting fixtures from the 21st century. We've got organizers. Next step is (possibly) some creative but nuanced wall painting and, one day, some art work.

It's fun to play the interior decorator. When I was under my parent's financial umbrella, I was too caught up in deliberately not impressing anybody to care about decor. When I left that umbrella, I was too poor to indulge my wife's desires. But our landlord is looking to sell this place and she's underwriting the dressing up. She's providing the means, Meghann is providing the will. Pictures will be posted when it's done.

I'm growing older. I'm beginning to abandon the more severe philosophies of my youth and, whatever is left, I'm sealing away in concrete. Never to be revisited, never to change. Obviously, I won't ever be able to admit this if confronted. But the truth is that my most fundamental beliefs (God has a personality and loves humanity, he came in and lived a life like mine but crappier, everybody is crippled by pride, money provides temporary bliss, the secret to happiness is not to learn how to get what you want but to learn how to want what you have) are axiomatic. They are not based on bodies of replicable evidence which directly yield specific conclusions. They are based on non-replicable experiences and assumptions about the way things work. These experiences and assumptions cannot be constructively critiqued because nobody understands them like I do.

I'm growing older and I can tell because my beliefs are not changing anymore and I no longer have the passion to earnestly revisit them. It's fun to play the interior decorator because it's more than just pandering to a crowd. It's an easy way to practice taking my aesthetic out of my head and putting it in the world.

Making acquaintances

We went out tonight with friends (acquaintances, really). That's a first for NY. We did dinner (Thai food) and a bar (3 Steps). The bar was predictably loud, which is bad because I have a terrible time distinguishing sounds. But it was also low key. Not too many people there, no smoke, no gross displays of sexuality. Oddly enough, it seems like we're having an easier time making connections in New York than we did in Austin. It took us months in Austin to build the rudimentary ties we have already. I credit three things with our societal good tidings: close proximity to neighbors, free and valuable offerings (pastries) and Meghann being engaged full time in a community of like minded people. Speaking of pastries, Meghann did a wonderful thing today. She bartered away her pastries for a fresh baked baguette. Heavenly.

Adjusting

I went to Barnes tonight and Trader Joes (the grocer) afterwards. I read a comic book about angels and demons, putting new twists with modern morals on ancient stories. Guilty pleasure - I'm an escapist when I read. Anyways, coming back home from Trader Joes I walked past a restaurant that's popular with the young. There was a group of them lounging outside of the restaurant, leaning against the metal poles that support the makeshift awnings which are all over the sidewalks in New York. I'm a first blush judge and at first blush it was evident that, despite being in the Mecca of the American lifestyle and despite having the funds to enjoy themselves, they were still bored. New York is rife with pleasing stimuli but I think the human psyche instinctively normalizes it's perceptions of great and bland like the cornea adjusting to the light.

Edit

Okay, I went ahead and fixed my new blog...it'll have all updates and details regarding school, so check that one to see what I'm up to at the FCI. Once in awhile I'll post highlights on here, but if you don't want to read all of the procedural details, etc, just read this blog. Or, you can still check that one out for the pics.

 

 

 

We completed our second dessert of the program, a banana cream tart. It's quite tasty, but I liked the apple tart better. The middle pic is Cornelia, a gal at my table, working diligently on her own tart. The last pic...decided I'd try making a star instead of a rosette, so I added that to the center.

Ok, so a lot has happened in the past week! I've only been to three days of class (had Christmas break in between those days), and I'm already exhausted. I've been wanting to start a second blog of just my creative desserts and experiences at culinary school, but I have to come up with a new title, since the FCI has apparently just started a blog with the EXACT same name I picked out. That blog may or may not be coming soon - it might just be easiest to post everything on here.

Here's what my day looks like - up at 6 am, get ready, and lug all of my equipment to the subway stop. Short train ride, and then walk a few blocks to the school. I have it much easier than many of the students, who commute in from Brooklyn or Jersey or student housing somewhere off of Manhattan. Once I'm at school, I change into my uniform (pic coming soon). The entire ensemble takes forever to put on. In class at 8 to set up, and lecture/demos promptly begin at 8:30. This week we've been going through sanitation lectures in the morning before break around 10:30, so that we can take our sanitation exam in a week or so. Definitely not pleasant lectures, and makes me not want to eat out much anymore! These lectures will be over soon, and then it will just be work work work. Lunch is at 12:00, for 30 minutes, in which the Level 4 culinary students (as opposed to the pastry students, aka me), cook Family Meal for the entire school. I love this part of my day! Luke is at home eating PB&J or leftovers, while I get some gourmet cooking everyday. I wish I could bring him a doggybag. More work after lunch, to finish up projects or start new ones for the next day, and then we're done at 2:30.

The chef will demo everything first, to make sure we know how to make the dessert, and then we'll go off and attempt it ourselves. We are constantly working on two or three desserts at a time, making a small part of one and then letting it chill or rest or bake as we work on something else. Chef Christopher is our regular chef, but he happens to be on vacation through the new year holidays, so we have Chef Laurie and Chef Tom right now. They are all fabulous and have so many helpful tips for us. It's nice that we get to work with multiple chefs, because it lets us learn new techniques from each one.

So far we've done two types of dough - pate sucree (pat sue-cray) and pate brisee (pat bri-say). The first is a sweet, crumbly dough (used with both the apple and banana tarts), while the second is flaky, like pie crusts. I did a great job with the first dough, but my pate brisee was not as nice. It'll get better with practice, but I'm not used to doing everything by hand...Kitchenaids and food processors have made us lazy. Tomorrow we will bake and fill our pate brisee, so it will be interesting to see what my final product looks like. We also made gingersnaps today, which were delicious, and that is one recipe that I will be hanging onto for a long time.

My knife skills need some work, so I bought 3 lbs of apples at the greenmarket for $1. Nice! My apples may look good on my apple tart, but they took quite awhile to cut, with some helpful reprimanding from Chef Tom. Oh well.

The class is made up a wide range of students, coming from all over the world. Israel, South Korea, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, another Texas gal, the Caribbean, Nigeria via London and Paris (I think), plus a handful of New Yorkers. Most everyone in the class is super friendly, but I wonder if that will change once we get more advanced. I'm curious to see if their competitive sides will come out and how that will change the dynamic of the classroom. Right now I enjoy seeing everyone's creativity come through, even when we're each making the same product.

I'll keep putting pics up - it will be my portfolio of sorts.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! We spent it with some old friends, the Rileys, that we knew in Waco who now live in Long Island. We are so thankful for their hospitality, as it was difficult being away from family over the holiday. Luke is off of work all of this week, through next Tuesday, so he's finally getting to explore the city more. I get a couple days off next week as well, so it will be nice to spend some time with him. I'm such a bum in the evenings lately, since I'm so tired from school.

Oh yes...Luke's recent post mentioned some new neighbors that we have met. They are fabulous! I'm liking how popular we are right now on our floor, since we pawn off desserts as much as we can. Our great neighbors across the hall took a sampling of everything today, which I was so appreciative of. I can't have all of this dessert in my house or I will eat it! We're hoping to meet more people in the building, and giving away plates and plates of tarts and cookies and pies seems to be very helpful in this.

I've bored you enough.

First Pastry!

 

 

My tarte aux pommes, or apple tart. Before and after. I'll blog about what school has been like tomorrow, but I wanted to get these pics up tonight. It tastes amazing!

Neighbors!

I walked into a neighbor's apartment for the first time. Man and wife, Daniel and Beth. They had a kitchen island which was, to my low budget studio mindset, revolutionary. Anyways, it's a good sign of things to come. We were able to barter away a freshly baked apple tart (rated delicious) for a tiny seed of their friendship. We'll plant that seed in baked goods, water it with wine and hopefully it'll bloom beautifully.