College

Wow, it's been a long ride with as Littleleafer! I went back and read some of my first posts when I was a freshman in high school! I cannot believe how long ago that was! I actually found myself to be quite amusing. Anyway, having this written record of my hatred of high school is good, because it allows me to have a comparison to my experience here. I can always look back and think, that college is so much better. The only problem I would say that I have here is that it has not lived up to the hype. I really wish that people wouldn't say "you'll love college", "that's what college is for", "the best years of your life"! It would be much better if they said, "maybe you'll like it", "don't expect too much," or "it's a lot of responsibility and you're there to study," because then I would have had lower expectations. Unfortunately, I was only given advice on how awesome it would be so even if it were quite good, in comparison to awesome it'd still be considered shitty. Anyway overall I enjoy college -- I think. I have some friends, people are for the most part universally nice, and the workload is doable. So why am I not happy? The seed of the notion that I cannot be happy has been planted, and whenever I'm alone I downwardly spiral towards that conclusion. This summer I was relatively happy. At least I was content. I had no time to think about my purpose in this universe. Now though there is seemingly so much free time (there really isn't I guess, but it sure feels like it). I just hope that I can get into the gist of things and it will be good. I guess I'm just impatient and nostalgic of the glory days of knowing everyone and having a tight knit group of friends. I really want to get into some activity, but I don't know what yet. Anyway, just checkin in. Toodles.

More Macarons

Lemon shell and raspberry jam. Can't stop makin em! I don't really like the taste of them any more but it's so fun to make with all these combos! And this is another picture of the lychee black tea macarons but it's of the mini's.

FINALLY the Feet

These are the macarons that I made today, and last week. Finally got them almost right. Greentea macaron and pecan macaron with green tea meringue. I was gonna make the pecan pie filling but didn't have the right supplies. Man these babies are so fragile, I keep accidently cracking them. Thankfully they are filled inside instead of being hollow. I will keep working. At the end of today I felt very tired of macarons and baking, but tomorrow I will get the right supplies for the ganache and will kick ass. I have like 12 egg yolks that I am at a loss to what to do with them. I have so many ideas as to what to bake! I just hope that people like them.

Some potential combos: Azuki and Green tea, chocolate cheesecake, green baked tea azuki/white bean, mango, lychee etc. Lots of recipes to try! And since I am not working this week I will be baker girl. I wonder if I should try any other baked goods...It's easier to just make the same thing to refine and you have the same ingredients to use. We'll see. Toodles.

Let them eat bread!

I had a dream that I was a baker. So the next day I baked lots of bread! I love foodwishes from hungrynation on youtube, so I used his recipe for ciabatta bread. It took 18 hours to ferment or err whatever it's called. I also tried to do his pizza dough recipe (also 18hrs), but my mom was stupid and turned on the oven to warm up the house while my dough was rising, killing the yeast. So that project failed. Then I got impatient yesterday so I made some faster rising bread. I made these french rolls (seen below). The dough was quite nice, and it was pretty easy to work with. Today I excitedly prepped my ciabatta dough for baking. The dough looked just like in the video, and that was exciting. Unfortunately the product wasn't exactly the same, but still quite good! So last night, frustrated after my pizza catastrophe, I made a quick pizza dough and left it in the fridge over night. That dough had hundreds of good ratings, but for some reason didn't work very well for me. I had to add a bunch of extra flour, and the gluten strands were really weak feeling. Anyway, in the morning it was quite elastic and cool, so that made me happy. I made the pizza and it was quite good. The bread just finished a couple of hours ago. Pictures below! Also, I added some random food pics from the past two weeks. Just Japanese new years food.

I really want to try dutch crunch and baguettes soon! Shit I have so much homework to do. Adios Amig(a/o)s