Can I just hide behind my hair today?

You ever have one of those days where some things just aren't going your way, and maybe they all get sprung on you right after you wake up, which makes you more cranky than normal, and maybe, just maybe you take a nice long walk to clear your head, and it's beautiful outside, it's sunny, it's warm, and then the assholes who honk at you come out of the woodwork, and that stupid guy at the corner who's best pickup is to call after you every girl's name he can think of to try to get your attention? Yeah, you know, him. You want to punch him, because he helped ruin your walk, and he's just weird.

It's one of those days, and you want to be back at your parent's house, where health insurance is a given, and you don't have to worry about silly things like work, and rent, and you just want someone to make you a cup a tea and tell you it's going to be ok. That everything will work out, that your hopes and dreams will make you a million dollars, even if that's a complete lie. On days like today, you just need to hear it.

On days like today, pms doesn't help, and you want a giant warm chocolatey cookie, and maybe a hug.

flours, meals and you.

I knew when I moved here that there must be a plethora of awesome places that were just waiting to be found. Niblack Foods is one of those places. Ross told me about Niblack and how they have a ton of different hard to find flours and baking ingredients for super cheap. We made a trip out to Henrietta and behold, baking heaven.

Here are some of the things I found, and totally love -


Whole wheat pastry flour. Kind of brilliant, kind of genius, kind of the best thing ever. I love using it in breakfast things like pancakes, waffles or muffins. Makes you feel full faster but without the super gluteny texture you get with regular WW flour.

White WW flour. I'm all about regular WW flour, and I love the super nutty flavor, but sometimes it can be a little intense, so the white is a nice change to breads or pizza dough.

Flax seeds/flax seed meal. I love flax seeds. I put them on my yogurt every morning, ground up in pancakes, breads, waffles, pizza dough, you name it. They're super good for you, raising your good cholesterol and lowering the bad. Plus they're super nutty and tasty to boot!


Don't get me wrong, AP flour totally has it's place and purpose, but these are definitely some different and tasty additions that will make your baking life more interesting.


e.

Sundays.

I have some confessions to make about Sundays. I love them. I love waking up early when I'm alone in the house, making pancakes, getting coffee at boulder, and in general collecting my thoughts.

Recently (e.g. today) I've been reading way too much Joy the Baker for my own good. I totally love this woman- witty, creative, quirky, and pictures. How I adore her pictures. Even the pictures of her don't make me hate her because of how beautiful she is, but rather make me want to hang out in her kitchen and go shopping together.

While Joy seems to justify eating way too many baked things for my own good, Heidi over at 101cookbooks helps me remember to eat my whole grains and veggies and even convince me that they taste just as good. I made her Buttermilk Farro Salad with barley last night, and had leftovers this afternoon. Hot damn, that woman knows her stuff.

Aside from indulging my blog habit and eating pancakes, I decided to putz around Target and buy some stuff I don't really need. Does anyone else have this problem? I go into target to buy mascara and I end up spending $20. I don't know how it happens. Really.

Oh, and I decided I'm going to Seattle in October. Try to stop me. :)

I am not above:

Watching movies on YouTube.

Eating cereal right out of the box.

Spending a little too long in my pajamas.

Eating boxed macaroni every once in a while.

Strangers seeing me in my foam hair rollers.

Wearing leggings with a couple holes in them.

Going out to dinner by myself.



I wish everyone wouldn't take themselves so seriously.

Moon Cup Review

So I made a video review of the moon cup (a menstrual cup brand), for more info visit http://www.mooncup.co.uk/

disclaimer for boys - if you're freaked out by period stuff, don't watch it!

Oh, and one thing I forgot to mention is there's no risk of TSS with the moon cup.

Just a spectator

Do you ever feel like you're just a spectator to your own life? That's kind of how I feel sometimes.

I feel myself questioning my decisions, what I'm doing, and my general happiness. I wonder if I gave up too much just to have a non traditional career, and not enough reward. I've been at my job for six months, and already I feel disconnected from the world. it's exhausting being the opposite from everyone else.. only being able to stay an hour at a dance, if I can go at all, not being able to reset at night and be up early in the morning. The repetition.. day after day, same thing... bread dough bread dough and more bread dough.

If it was just easy enough to say, "Here are my guidelines of how I want to be successful" and then have it be true. I suppose if we could all say that than there wouldn't be so many struggling artists in the world, and there would certainly be a shortage of restaurant waitstaff.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, baking in my kitchen, when I want, and what I want, is what makes me happy. Maybe if it turned into something I had to do, it wouldn't be so much fun, and maybe you can't be a millionaire by just having a really awesome food blog, but I kind of wish it was.

Life is too short to just be a spectator. I want to do something. Something that sets me apart from the rest.

Maybe I'll figure it out tomorrow, or the next day, or maybe I'll spend the rest of my life trying to figure it out... I'm not sure. If nothing else, I'm hopeful.

Food Inc - a must see

This evening I had the pleasure of finally watching Food Inc, after being told to watch it numerous times by various people. Eye opening, depressing, inspiring, and down right sad at times. I can't say I was surprised by a lot of the content of the film after taking Dr. Heath's sanitation class my first semester, but hearing about it and actually seeing it are two very different things.

I consider myself to be fairly educated on food, nutrition, sanitation and the how and why we feed our bodies what we do, but not until I hit my mid teens was that the case; when I was twelve or thirteen I didn't know that fast food was bad for you. I'd like to think kids are more educated almost ten years later, but sadly, I think they're just as naive as I was. I give a lot of credit to people like Jamie Oliver for trying to start his Food Revolution, and average people like Mrs. Q of Fed Up: School Lunch Project. They're trying to make a difference, and people are noticing.

One thing that put a smile on my face in the film was the free range farmer they interviewed. I didn't shudder in fear as he killed and cleaned his chickens. It just seemed like the way things are supposed to be done, and probably pretty close to how grandma used to do it back in the day. I want to find that man and give him a kiss on the cheek. I can't say the same for the way I saw things done commercially; I teared up at the sight.

It makes me sad to see that most farmers, who give us the majority of our food are being treated so poorly. The people who nourish us, provide us with food and happiness on a daily basis, are continually sued, threatened to be shut down, and constantly being drained of funds. They're farmers, not criminals.

Seeing all of this makes me want to know more and do something to change the system. I think the "buy local" movement is one of the smartest, simplest ideas that everyone can do to help, but somehow I think that's not enough for me. In the past year or so I've thought if I wasn't a baker I'd be a nutritionist... I have a pretty faint idea of all that entails, but you can bet I'll be doing some research.

You call me cute, and I punch you in the face.

I can't count the number of times after telling someone I'm a baker, the response has been "Oh, how cute!"

I have a problem with this.

Baking a batch of cookies at home in your kitchen is cute. Making your Dad a birthday cake in your little 4 quart kitchenaid? Adorable. Puppy equivalent, I'm sure. But when go to work when most people sleep, your back aches from standing all day and not getting a break, your hands crack and burn from the flour and cornmeal, or you're up to your elbows in batter, it's not cute, or glamorous, it's freaking hard work.

It seems like only actual bakers understand how un-cute the actual job is, and frankly, just plain not respected like it used to be. It used to be all men, who dedicated their lives to being bakers. Women weren't allowed to work in kitchens, and they sure as hell weren't respected when they started to. I think people have this mental image of a modern day bakery being all women in frilly aprons... and hell, maybe some places it is, but it's still a male dominated field, and I know I'm the only girl in my department at work. Anyway, I don't want to get into a feminist debate, but just sayin'.

Maybe someday being a chef, pastry chef, or baker will have the same respect and prestige as being a programmer, or an engineer, or any 9-5 cubicle job. I think chefs and pastry chefs have both come a long way, but being a baker still seems to have that humble ring to it.

I'm not saying I want to change the world or anything, but I would like someone to eventually say, when I tell them I'm a baker, "Wow, that's a lot of hard work", and I'll smile and say, "You're right, it is".

Best meal of the day? Brinner.

You heard me. Breakfast for dinner.

Now, I love breakfast pretty much anytime of the day, but I also really enjoy sleeping in, so when I wake up at eleven I don't really feel like spending an hour making breakfast, so cereal it is, but when I'm going to be making dinner anyway, it's breakfast time.

I had the pleasure this evening to dine with some lovely people in a full on brinner extravaganza. With the help of Jesse and Monica, I think we had a pretty rocking meal.

Our menu included:

-Whole grain sweet potato waffles

-Homemade apple sauce

-Salmon cakes

-Bacon (second batch w/ brown sugar)

Oh man, it was awesome. The only disappointment I had was that there were no leftovers.

Brinner, ftw!

Red Dresses

I'm currently sitting here volunteering at Northeast Girl Jam - it's been a fantastic weekend full of hilarity and great quality dancing and workshops. Big thanks to Groove Juice Swing for putting on such a fantastic event.

I hope to post video of our "Naughty Sweeties" performance on Friday night very soon, but in the mean time I'll say I'm very proud of all of the girls, and we looked hot in our red dresses, damn it. It was great to see it all come together in the end.

I finished new job week number 1 on Friday, and so far so good, everyone seems pretty chill and pleasant to work with; I feel like I'll learn a lot there. I do feel like I need some sort of phrase to work there though... my highly entertaining superior from Bosnia seems to say "How sweet it is" on an hourly basis.. usually when something good happens, and my other coworker has "Mama mia" as his phrase.. usually when he realizes how much we have to do. They're both a riot.

Anyway, weekend's not over yet.. since this isn't really a dance blog I'm not going to do a whole recap of the week, but I will again say how much I enjoyed myself, and look forward to finishing it up with a bang.

"I'm tired" "My toes hurt" "My feet are sweaty" "I'm full of snot"

It happened on job search - day 20 - I got offered the job!

The past few days have been a little hectic between going home, packing all my stuff, taxes, trying to work out health insurance, driving back and forth and continuing to choreograph/practice with the girls.

But it's been good - I start work tomorrow at 2 in the am, and while I'm a little nervous, I'm really excited to actually have a job, be making money, and have it be in the field I want. I know that's more than a lot of people can say right now, so I'm extra feeling like I made the right career choice - people still want baked goods... and when they're depressed by how much the economy sucks, that cinnamon bun might just make it a little better.

Still won't be officially moved in for a couple weeks, but in the meantime at least I have something productive to do, and will be extra busy leading up to girl jam. Today it's practice performance hair: try #1, and continually try to break in performance shoes.

Did I mention the world might explode by how much hotness there will be on Friday night? Well, five beautiful girls, vintage hair and costumes (seamed stockings, FTW). Need I say more?

"..and no grabbing any boobs... or butts"

Well Cookies, it's job search - day 15 - Two interviews down; one declined, one pending. I think it's safe to say I really want the pending job, and I'm kind of getting my hopes up. The job is at a bread bakery, which is kind of my ultimate goal, and since I don't have much experience with bread, they would be willing to train me. Keeping my fingers crossed.

You may be wondering where the title of this post came from... a bunch of us Rochester girls have been hard at work preparing a performance for Northeast Girl Jam next weekend, so needless to say, we've had some pretty hilarious quotes from some of our practices. But on a more serious note, it's a great change choreographing a piece for five girls vs. two, and really seeing your vision come to life. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

In everyday life adventures, my and Ross's starter, who we've named Big Bertha, is coming along quite nicely. But one thing to definitely note: sourdough is weird. We decided on Saturday night that she was ready to start baking, so we proofed the sponge overnight, and made dough in the morning. All of Sunday - nothing. Absolutely nothing. She wouldn't rise at all, and was seemingly inactive, aka dead dough. I was extremely frustrated by this, especially with my last horrible sourdough experience. So by the end of Sunday, I stuck the dough in the oven, not wanting to look at it any longer, and not having the courage to throw it out.

Then the weirdness started.

Monday morning after P90X, I opened the oven, the dough at actually started to rise. After that, smooth sailing, like the disaster that was Sunday had never happened at all. It rose like a dream, baked beautifully, and tasted delicious. I'm still letting Bertha sit out a few days longer just in case, so maybe next time this situation won't happen again.

Alright, enough ranting about jobs, choreographing and sourdough - hope to see you at Girl Jam!

Job Search - Day 10 / What I do when I'm unemployed

Today is day 10 of the job search... my list of bakeries is ever dwindling and I've broke down and applied for a few barista positions in lieu of any leads. If nothing comes up by the end of this week, I might have to come up with a new game plan, but even though a lot of doors have been shut in my face, I still like to think everything happens for a reason.

Now, even though I've been kind of distraught about all of this job business, I've been doing a lot of things I always told myself I would do when I had the time, and even knocking off some resolutions... some examples include:

Re-trying starting a sourdough starter with the help of Ross - I tried this about a year ago and it ended in probably the worst baking project to date.. but a good learning experience nonetheless. This time we'll show this starter who's boss.

Going to the farmers market, also with Ross (Ross is pretty much my cooking/bread baking partner in crime, so you can pretty much guess all of my food projects will involve him), which resulted in some amazing dinner: roasted beets and parsnips over lentils and topped with goat cheese - Ross also made amazing rosemary/ olive oil/ sea salt no knead bread to go with this. We also plan on making homemade mayonnaise in the near future (which I've never made before), and last week we made eggs florentine with homemade hollandaise. Saying we've been eating well is kind of an understatement.

To go along with resolution #8, I started P90X with Mike/Jesse/Ross yesterday morning, and after plyometrics this morning, I'm sore in a lot a places, to say the least. Plus since I'm pretty used to getting up early and having to be ready to go, our 6:30am wakeup call isn't too out of the ordinary for me... but I still want to punch Tony Horton in the face sometimes.

-E

Job Search - Day 4

Instead of a recap of my past week, I thought I'd shake it up a bit and do a video blog - enjoy! Note: I started this one Saturday before I left Albany.

Goals for 2010

Now that I'm in Rochester, I can officially start the job search. So far I have five applications in, three of which are actually hiring. Since most bakeries are closed on Mondays, I've done what I can for today.

Now here are some of the goals I mentioned for 2010 - some easy, some not so easy, but hopefully I'm be able to accomplish them in good time.

1. Get better at tennis - there was a time for a few years there where I was really good, but life and other interests got in the way, so now I'm back to hitting the ball out of the court... I'd like to fix this,

2. Find a job that fits my life - I don't like a job to totally consume my life, nor do I want one to be totally separate - so I'll try to avoid having to wake up at 3am, and find something that'll fit just right.

3. Move to Rochester - this one is in progress, considering I'm temporarily living here now, but to accomplish #3 I have to accomplish #2 first.

4. Be happy with my dancing - I don't have to be super- rockstar-awesome-competitor-whatever to be happy with my dancing, but I do want to get better, be more creative, and generally feel not so out of practice all the time.

5. Get better at vintage hair - also a goal in progress. I've gotten pretty good at pin curls so far, and I'm hoping being around all these great fashionable girls in Rochester will help expand my repertoire of great hairstyles.

6. Expand knitting knowledge - I've been knitting scarves for a few years, and at the very minimum I want to know to to purl - crocheting might also fall into this category.

7. Learn to sew - because if I'm going to call myself a conventional woman, I feel like sewing would be a great addition. Plus my wonderful friend Monica promised to teach me. :)

8. Get stronger physically (somehow) - not sure exactly how this one is going to get accomplished, but for work purposes I usually have to do a lot of lifting, so making that easier would be beneficial.

9. Take advantage of summer farmers market - now that I actually have people that might want to go with me, there's no reason I shouldn't take advantage of living more sustainably... and deliciously.

10. More tango - about a year ago I was trading private lessons with a tango instructor, but after a while the logistics didn't work out, so we had to discontinue. During this period, I absolutely loved it and I really want to learn more now.

Looking at this list seems a little daunting, but a have a whole year, right? .... right.

Impatiently Waiting

It's scary sometimes when you wake up and don't remember what day it is.

My last two weeks at home in Albany have been uneventful, to say the least, though I have made progress on some things, like buying a car (silver '02 Honda Accord), and starting at least the online portion of the job application process in preparation for moving to Rochester.

Right now, I'm sitting around waiting for my mechanic to call. I wanted to be able to drive to Rochester tomorrow to start my temporary job searching move, as well as attend a dance on Saturday at RIT which my sister Jesse is organizing. So while I'll still make it to the dance, my journey might not get started until Saturday, depending on whether they finish tonight, tomorrow morning, or tomorrow afternoon.

Since I've had a lot of hours of free time on my hands recently, I've been trying to think of some goals for 2010, inspired by the extensive list that my lovely friend Breanna Perry posted earlier this week. I'll have to share with everyone once my list is a little more to where I'd like it. But I'm glad to have completed goal #1 - buy a car, and to be working toward goal #2 - find a job/move to Rochester.

Now.. back to waiting....