digressions, philosophy and the pathway to Om through sweet peas and such...

it's hard to believe it's only been two classes with Chef Ron and the sugar flowers. i say that for a couple of reasons. first: it feels like we've learned much more than could be taught in two classes. second: time is supposed to fly by when you're having fun. ...

now here's where i argue my point. i've NEVER bought into that theory. or saying. or adage... whatever you want to call it. when i'm having fun, it lasts. take for example, my marriage. i only recently celebrated my second year of marriage. we spent it frolicking about in a lavender field out east, doing a photo shoot for a photographer friend of mine [a dreamy, re-live your wedding type thing...] after the shoot, i even wore my wedding dress out to a little secret restaurant, famous for its seafood and old-timey, long island-y, traditional family victuals. and two years?? it's lasted for EVER.

the night of my photo shoot...it stretched on for miles as well. far beyond my blueberry pie [yup, wore my dress out to a public restaurant and i ate blueberry pie IN my champagne white, swarovski-adorned, silk taffeta gown. we left all together, unscathed by the way...haha] this is probably why my friends like me...i'll do almost anything on a dare. but can you imagine if i was afraid to get my pretty dress dirty? what's the point in worrying? it will never be said of me that i worried too much about my hair, or my silk gown, or any minor thing. bridezilla i am/was not! [by the way: bridezilla is term that is SO passe. it bores me and at the same time, reminds me of how sad it must be to not live fully present in the blissful moments of your life - if you can't wear your dress and eat some blueberry pie and dance until you fall asleep, well... it's a shame.] but i SERIOUSLY digress... *sheesh!*

and my wedding too, a 5-hour affair complete with westhampton sunset, rainbows and a giant, towering, glimmering wedding cake... lasted at LEAST 15 hours. not 5, but 15- maybe 20. i mean, there's this song that i love, by this band that i love...i sit alone at night in my tiny little office, playing it on my imperceptible piano, singing all by myself - a little secret place that no one can experience but me - it's called "celebrate" [give it a listen] and in it, there is a lyric that says:

can't make time stand still

but you can make it run

you can make it bend at will

and that's sort of how i look at this experience. you can't stop time and make it last forever, BUT you can absolutely drain every last second, celebrate it, make it stretch out and waltz by...make it bend at will. so yeah, it's been two classes...it feels like many more than that.

is that preachy? guess i am just a philosopher at heart. and i always hope the very best for everyone and everything and every moment. SO...obviously, i'm making sure to soak up all the Chef Ron that is possible...especially in light of the fact that i may never get an opportunity like this ever again in my life. i have to wrap my arms around my life experiences and hug them as long as they will let me.

we worked on so many wonderful things already...the whole room looks like early spring right now! slowly, little by little, flowers are coming to life...i swear it almost smells like things are blooming!

we started with the calla lily! a white one. one, simple petal, wrapped around a yellow center... and yet... it gave me the most challenge! NO, not frustrating, i don't get frustrated when it comes to getting challenged... i just simply felt....challenged. there are times, when something looks painfully simple to someone else, yet it will cause me the greatest challenge. like, for example...i can solve calculus equations...sometimes, partially even in my head...i can [and have] memorized ENTIRE Bach sonatas and played them without error on my flute - but if you ask me to give you change of a 20 dollar bill... and you're one of those people that will give me a 20 AND a nickel [ugh, or a penny], because you want a 10 back..FORGET IT! i'll be lost amidst a challenging sea of confusion...i'll figure it out...it'll just take me an impressively long time to do so. [hey, as long as it's impressive right?] anyway, my experience with the sugar calla lily brings to mind one of my favorite episodes of I Love Lucy, in which Lucy grabs her hair, messes it up and says, "the calla lilies are in bloom agaaaain" - i guess lifted from the original: The Stage Door with Katherine Hepburn...

but, after a great while and a lot of visualization, i managed to get two done (not the four that we were supposed to have finished *sad face*) but i was somewhat happy with it (only somewhat...in a "eh, i've seen better" kinda way). just give me time to practice them a few hundred times... *smile* i do love how it graciously hugs its center. wraps around it delicately, secretly, provocatively. flowers are sexy. i mean, they can be.

so we also worked on one my favorite flowers in the entire known universe: the peony. my entire wedding was filled with peonies: creamy white ones, soft pinks. hugged up to gorgeous roses, hydrangeas of celadon green. my bridal bouquet was solely comprised of creamy white peonies and ivory white roses. peonies are a luscious, soft, fragrant flower that promises sweetness and romance. and so of course i'm always excited to learn a flower that i love so.

see? proof from my wedding photo album!

so it comes as no surprise that i sincerely enjoy making them, petal by petal. it's like building a little dreamy flower that sparks notions of romance in your mind. if, back in high school, when they asked what you wanted to be when you grew up...had "sugar peony maker" been on the list... i'd've circled that one. [well...that and world traveler and writer. for the record, i'm going to figure out a way to do all three *smile*]

my peony is not my best work. i was struggling to get a clean cut with my cutters. might be because my thumb is still sprained slightly and i can't press as hard as i'm supposed to... but i don't care if someone lobbed off my thumb. i wouldn't miss this class for anything. wild horses couldn't drag me away.

i also know that we will be adding more petals and of course i'm guessing we'll be dusting the flowers too. it's amazing what petal dust can do. it brings things to LIFE. i've done it a few times...but i know it transforms those sugar petals, breathes a vibrance into them that causes them to dance awake. at least i'm pretty certain that's what we'll be doing when we get to that step. but i'm just a mate on the ship, not the captain. i'm tabula rasa.

we made sweet little sweet pea blossoms out of a delightful shade of pink. what a delicate flower. [as an aside: i call my one cat maggie, "sweet P" on occasion, on account of her pink little nose and the fact that one of her 10,000 nicknames is princess baby kitty, aka. PBK, aka. P, aka. sweet P...get it?? she's pretty adorable].

so of course, i adore them. the ones we made look like the ones i've seen here and there before. i love their name, and their little hidden, sweet, shy appearance. (see photo below)

we made a part of our orchid which is a frilly little piece. i can't wait to put that together and see it come to life! (see photo below)

lastly, we worked a bit on "finger flowers." these are flowers that you use nothing but a pair of scissors and your ...you guessed it...fingers! it takes some time to get the hang of it... we were joking in class that if i could create a little portable work station, i could sit on the train and practice on the way home! [DON'T put it past me! i just might you know! i've mentioned how i am about dares... AND it's a long ride home! *wink*]

so these sweet little blossoms... the finger flowers. there are many types to make. last night we worked on hydrangeas. you start with a little ball, turn it into a tear-drop shape, then make 4 snips and start to pinch and twist and form the four petals. mine are...okay. they need work. guess that's what the train ride's for!

so at the end of the night, we had to pack all of our things together. i think we all are doing a fabulous job. and i love how everyone's trays are coming to life. like i said earlier...little by little, spring is blooming down in our kitchen! i can't wait to get back to class and see what's next!

well, what does "Om" have to do with all this? i guess just that getting to sit and conjure flowers out of thin air...it's just about as close to meditation as i can get. it calms me. i will forever love the act of creation. just sit down, pull a vision from the recesses of your mind...and then pinch, pull, twist, cut, snip, vein, curl, furl, frill, and somehow, out of gums and sugars and heat and vision, you end up with ...well, with beauty. sweet, sugary beauty. that's meditation. that's Om. namaste.

more to come!

xo

m

best get your boots on...

and pull up your socks while you're at it! drink up! eat up. get some sleep. make sure you got your gear. ...

oh, what am i talking about? a little somethin' Chef Ron calls sugar flower boot camp! BOOT CAMP. no joke, we were cranking last night.

we worked on a ton of petals, such a variety in 5 hours, it was whirl-wind-esque...

will i be divulging all the magic? the tricks? nope.

but i will be sharing some of the highlights!

so first of all, we all know how much i adore Chef RBI. if you are my friend, my family member, my friend of a friend...my waitress, my hair stylist, my make up artist, my favorite photographer, my neighbor...my cat... well, you know this. the way i will BALK at someone who might say, "who?," or the way i might dry-heave at their ignorance...[smacking my forehead here]...well, just know that if you want to hang with me, you MUST know this with certainty. and you must love him too, or alas, we cannot be friends.

i was so happy that the rain and the train (and all things that rhyme with -ain) cooperated with me yesterday and i got to school with TONS of time to spare. typically, i'm running to and from the sub rails like someone's trying to murder me just so i make it with time to spare. yesterday, i could WALK..stroll, amble even! i enjoyed the ride down, which was not crowded, i enjoyed the cool breezes, the gentle rain shower, even the screaming fire engine [filled with all those hot NYC firefighters - my husband understands this about me... he WAS involved with the fire department and was a volunteer firefighter for a time as a younger guy..long enough to get a sweatshirt with his company's maltese cross, which i now wear around the beach and on bon-fire nights so...] wow, talk about a tangent...

anyway, i got to school without even breaking a sweat, which put me in an even better mood. i couldn't wait to get to class and get to learning from my hero. yup, cake hero. i'm pretty sure even Chef Ron knows i refer to him as my cake hero...and he is and will always be just that!

on the creation menu for the day were petals of all kinds: tulips, lilies, orchids, peonies [oh, peonies how i love thee]. even some leaves for roses and such.

and while this may sound remarkably vapid, the EASE and confidence with which Chef Ron handles his sugar paste is inspiring. i know that's so boring to say, so obvious...but it's one of the first things i noticed. i mean, it's not that i didn't expect that, but it was inspiring...what can i say?

his demeanor as a master of his craft is warm and he seems eager to share his knowledge. i mean, let's face it, it's intimidating to learn from someone like him and what i liked about him was that he didn't seem to mind that our entire class seemed a little star struck...a little quiet...a little nervous. but wouldn't you be? a little??

of course, by the end of the class, everyone seemed to be feeling more confident in their skills, myself included. my hands didn't feel nearly as jello-like as they had in the first hour. i mean, compared to my first leaf, my last petal was 100% more confident and i was steady-handed again. it was a great feeling. to see how much we had done in such a short time was exciting.

what made that even better was at the end of class, Chef Ron had even asked us to take a minute and look at all we had accomplished in 5 hours, and said we should be very proud of ourselves and our accomplishments. his clear vision and direct nature are infectious. and when he corrects and critiques, i welcome it. what a loss to not learn in such a wonderfully supportive and knowledgable environment. it's not like i want to look like a sugar-flower-buffoon...but if i make mistakes and mess up, i WANT him to see it...i WANT to hear it. how else am i going to learn??

the tips, tricks and flower magic [as i call it] that he shared with us..well it is just so amazing, it's impossible to convey! all i can say is, i CANNOT WAIT to get to class tomorrow, see what's next on the menu, and to see what else i can learn!!

with that, i can't be showing all the Chef Ron/FCI magic... i leave you with a few snippets of what i worked on! think of them as teasers! *wink*

i'm going to turn this into a tulip!

and i can't wait to turn these into gorgeous blossoms, blooms and beauties!

much more to come!!

xo

m

things are about to bloom!

so last friday's class was spent making sugar paste centers for the sugar flower unit! we made centers for flowers like roses, peonies, tulips, star gazer lilies... and quite a few more! all of this, of course, in preparation for the arrival of chef Ron Ben-Israel! i've spent years hoping to one day learn from him. as a matter of fact, it was just last year, almost to the day that i made the declaration that "this year, i'm going to meet Ron Ben-Israel!" long before i knew about this course at FCI, long before i even thought about paying for one of his classes...i just would repeat this simple fact to myself!

so you can imagine my excitement when i woke up this morning. today is day ONE of sugar flowers with RBI! i have limited experience with making sugar flowers - but i have learned what i do know from one of the best in the universe - ms. betty van norstrand - who i adore and will continue to learn from as long as she'll have me! i'm hoping i can keep up tonight! wish me luck!

can't wait to post about it! but mostly, can't wait to get started!

more to come!

xo

m

"let's do this!"

okay, okay. so yes, just last night we completed our mid-term. it was two classes long, complete with an intense written portion, and a cake sketch, and the building of a two-tiered cake. the Chefs gave us the opportunity to select the theme: we, as a class, picked "baby shower." honestly, there were several really good choices, but the majority voted (there are so few of us, remember!) and i was enthusiastic in my attack on this project.

the mid-term is really a good point to begin to pull all that we've learned together. the first half of this course has been formula-, methodology-, practice-, build-the-foundation- and process- rich. and that's been intense! we're talking an entire binder's worth of recipes. an entire text book. DONE! you don't go into a program like this with the notion that "hmmm, i GUESS i like cake. i'll do cake!" no! that would be a mistake. do yourself a favor...be a cake person! this is for the passionate, the obsessed, the interested, and for those that want to earn it. to work for it. and your brain has to come prepared for some grueling workouts! but i can tell you, it's so worth every second, every dime, every ride on that awful, stinky subway. because you learn so much. it's ambitious curriculum...designed and taught by ambitious, talented [TALENTED] chefs. and it provides a forum for the ambitious to play in an ambitious playground, and do work, and work up a good sweat.

so in preparation for my mid-term cake i prepared, read, studied my notes and poured over my books on the train to and from school, on the weekend and even on my days off. i just so desperately want to understand, learn and KNOW everything. i feel like if i don't cement it into my cranium, i'll somehow miss out on this fleeting gift i've given myself - by that, i mean cake school, FCI, Chef Cynthia, Chef Judy, Chef Ron, ...all the Chefs, all the hard-working people that are building this class, NOT TO MENTION, all the sacrifices i've made to be here. my job, my savings, my piggy bank, my time, my sanity, my nights, my weekends, my train and subway fare... every last tool, cutter, book, photograph. i'm a girl-obssessed...and i'm okay with that :o)

i came up with a sketch that i thought was really cute- inspired by the marzipan pea pod i had made a few weeks ago. i thought to myself, "ohhh, i'll do a twin-inspired baby shower cake, featuring a pea pod on the top, pinks, blues, celedon greens..." and i made my sketch, brought it in, and felt pretty happy...at first.

then i went home and thought, "hmm, i wonder how popular this concept is." and i googled "pea pod baby shower"...and well, 4,000,000,000,000+ bazillion hits came up. "ok," i thought, "sooooo, apparently, that's horribly unoriginal." and then i was sad.

i wondered, "so, two+ months into school and i come up with some lame, common cake concept? that's the BEST i've got?"

then i got un-sad. i woke up the next day and looked in the mirror and said something i often say to myself when i feel challenged and overwhelmed [sorta like what i said way back during my first weeks and i had to figure out the subway remember this?] "let's do this." yes, i did give myself a little wink and a smile and sat down at my desk. "let's do this!" blasting my music, tuning out the world, tuning into the creative force i keep inside, i grabbed a pencil and a piece of paper and closed my eyes.

and then it hit me... inchworm.

yup...inchworm.

let me explain:

when i was small, my grandma...my nana used to watch us a lot while my mom worked two jobs. and sometimes, especially on friday nights, when my mom worked a late shift, we'd sleep over nana's house. by this time, my pop pop had passed away and i'm pretty sure nana loved our company as much as we needed hers. saturday mornings meant sun-drenched kitchen, steamy, hot pancakes, and orange juice - which was, in fact, the smell that would wake us up [by us, i'm referring to my brother and myself.] saturday mornings were awesome. but friday nights were lonely for me. i often missed my mom and wished she'd come home early. but she couldn't and friday night sleepovers were imminent. at night, if i couldn't sleep, nana would sing me songs and one that has forever stayed with me is the inchworm song. she taught me how to sing it and we'd duet and sing it over and over, until i wasn't so sad or lonely and often very sleepy. here's a clip i love of charles aznavour singing it with the muppets. for me, it's haunting and makes me think of being a little girl, singing myself to sleep with my nana.

photo of my nana and step-grandfather, harry. *heart eyes*

photo of me and nana, at christmas about 10 years ago.

so in designing my cake, i wanted to pay tribute to my nana, and the song that helped me through some of my roughest nights.

you might think...worms? on a baby shower cake? but seriously, i adore inchworms. their brilliantly green little bodies, their seemingly inquisitive nature. and just in case you still don't believe me, i photograph them sometimes. just this past spring at the bronx zoo i got to visit with one of these green little fellas.

you know, i've always believed this but it was VERY recently confirmed in my conversation with a rather famous and intensely talented cake designer and artist extraordinaire... there is inspiration every where. you simply must look and find it. [ps...this conversation i'm talking about... oh...SO MUCH MORE on that next post! you don't want to miss that! *wink*]

so...back to this cake design.

i designed my cake with this song playing on repeat in my office. [which MAY explain the quizzical looks i got from my husband when he walked in...]

it's all my favorite things: the colors, the textures, the delicate features, the fun, sweet, tender vibe. i chose to model my flowers after the french marigold, versus the african variety, due to the fact that i couldn't make them look realistic since i had no time, and i didn't know how to make them any other way! :o) i love how it came out, considering it's a mid-term cake and we had a little under two classes to bake, build and decorate it! i've also never seen a cake like it. and that just makes me happy on so many levels, i can barely describe it. [yup, even with my penchant for all that is verbose!]

during the Chef evaluation, i got some great constructive criticism, especially where my creme d'or [slightly over folded] and liqueur soak in the bottom tier [could've been a little more]. but the layering was nicely done, the fillings were basically good. of course, besides the sketch and execution, an equally important part involves making sure your cake TASTES as wonderful as it looks. and let's face it, no one wants a beautiful cake that tastes like flavored sawdust...

i went home EXHAUSTED...but i just love this cake. adore it.

despite the fact that i had to change two design details in the last half-hour due to time constraints...i was able to get it done with a strict time-limit, thanks to Chef Judy suggesting i create a very literal, articulate time-schedule ahead of time!! i finished with ONE MINUTE to spare! *phew*

i don't know how i did grade wise, but i'm happy. really in love and happy with it! [that's a first, by the way, because i often hate cakes by the time i'm done with them...something to do with being an intense perfectionist! *wink*]

anyway, here's the cake :o)

Chef Cynthia was even kind enough to cut out the evaluation slices from the back, ever so neatly, so as not to really mar the cake until i could get it home in one piece and show it to my family :o) THANKS CHEF!

more to come! (SO MUCH MORE, keep checking back! super exciting news to share soon!!)

xo

m

ps...lyrics, just cause it's so darn sweet!

Two and two are four...

Four and four are eight...

Eight and eight are sixteen...

Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two...

Inchworm, inchworm

Measuring the marigolds

You and your arithmetic

You'll probably go far...

Inchworm, inchworm

Measuring the marigolds

Seems to me you'd stop and see

How beautiful they are...

temper, temper!...chocolate that is...

i wonder if that's why they call it tempering. because you need to have a cool, calm temperament... or not much of a bad temper? or maybe you have to be a passionate hot-head... must have something to do with it...because it brings out the secret, hidden temperaments of a person. eh..just a theory, but guess what? i love LOVE tempering chocolate.

it's so scientific! i mean, different types of chocolate have different temperatures to which one must heat it. dark chocolate for example, must be melted and heated to 122 degrees F, cooled to 81 degrees and then warmed up to about 86 degrees in order to be tempered. we made some pretty incredible things too! milk and white chocolate have a slightly different temperature scale.

it's like a dance. like a tango. you heat it up, cool it down, heat it up a little bit. and then you get the payoff of a gorgeous chocolate, with a lovely shiny surface, a little bit of play time during which you can manipulate it to do a variety of things, and a perfect contraction and delicate "snap" which is chocolatese for "yup, i'm perfectly tempered." by the way... i have a deep respect for Mr. Chocolate, Jacques Torres..and a new found understanding for why he is Mr. Chocolate, and why he does what he does. OH, the things i can get obsessed with. what a perfect siren doth chocolate make. and i MUST take a trip to his shop soon and pick up some of my favorites. nope, not much of a sweet tooth, but give me something deep, dark and so chocolatey you can actually taste something foreign and rainforest-ish ... i'm in heaven. add some ginger, or something hot and spicy or something exotic and i will love you forever. (just ask my husband).

but back to tempering in class...

so there is something called the "chocolate belt." the area of the globe on which we live that is the exclusive area from which chocolate comes! 20 degrees both north and south of the equator, in tropical areas is where one will find the three varieties of chocolate producing trees: forastero, criollo, and trinitario. chocolate pods are harvested (BY HAND) from a tree, which can carry as many as 40 at a time! each pod contains up to 50 seeds which must be allowed to ferment and develop that taste, and color and chocolatey smell that i adore so very much. eventually those beans are roasted, add to that some cracking, grinding, mixing, refining, and conching and voila... chocolate!

i took a little photo to show the various stages and components in the life of a piece of chocolate. i bet you never realized exactly what you were putting in your mouth, how much time, love and labor that goes into a piece of Jacques Torres chocolate! i bet you'll thinking about it now, take a nibble. for the love of chocolate: learn to savor!! :o)

we learned a few methods of tempering... tabling, ice bath and seeding. i enjoy the ice bath method best... i feel most in control of the process with use of the ice bath.

but a word of caution: DO NOT EVER get even a single drip of water, be it in a bowl, on a tool, or heaven forbid directly in your chocolate or alas, you will never temper it because the water will cause it to seize. once that happens, you will have to use that batch to make brownies or something (there are worse things i suppose)... but for the purposes of tempering, be MINDFUL of the water. beware the water! even tempered chocolate has a foe it seems...

i was quite proud of my first attempt at tempered chocolate! it contracted beautifully, curled up at the edges, had a gorgeous shiny coat and had a perfectly lovely little "snap" when you broke off a piece! [taking a moment to pat myself on the back.]

once we played with it, we used sheets decorated with colored cocoa butter to create curls and tiles and things...

and whoa, talk about a chocolatey cake! check out my finished product!! it was a german chocolate cake complete with an amazing filling that is filled with pecans, coconut and a delicious caramel. my favorite view was of the candied pecans that decorated the top. just gorgeous to look at.

we also worked on and completed a black forest cake!! (a long time favorite from my childhood). think whipped cream, think creme d'or, think cherry compote, kirsch...think all things indirectly related to the deep, dark, magical, mysterious german black forest. then we even got to decorate it with a chocolate band that we painted with a tinted cocoa butter and even sprayed the whole cake with chocolate giving it a velvety finish. i particularly loved making the butterflies!

that being said, both of those cakes made it home, through my nightly jog, my subway ride, my train ride, my car ride, my trip up the stairs... with little more than a dent or ding. not bad. of course...they didn't survive the onslaught of neighbors, friends, relatives and friends of friends twice removed... wasn't but a crumb left really. that...and a lonely little chocolate butterfly. i ate that myself.

more to come!

xo

m

how do ya like them carrots?!

so the long awaited post about the most amazing carrot cake known to earthling-kind. is that a word? if not, it is now. my blog, my rules :o)

seriously, if you even THINK you like carrot cake...even if you're one of those people that eats it for the cream cheese frosting... this carrot cake with convert you to a believer...in carrot cake. for the cake. in a "i'd scrape off the cream cheese just to get to the cake" kinda way. i kid you not!

it's tender, light, delicate, filled with a sweet, nutty, subtle-spicy, buttery flavor. just everything you want in a carrot cake. another HOME RUN by the chefs at FCI. nice job! (they are the yankees to my cake school - yup, yankee fan!)

so why the video from my last post?? one bite...well, it makes me sing and hum the barber of seville with great fervor - it's the kind of cake that inspires a triumphant solo of the french horn or happy duet of a clarinet and flute or piccolo to dance in your head. it's all very synesthetic for me. that's what playing classical flute for over 20 years will get ya i guess. you taste the cake with your brain. at least i do. i see the smells as explosions of color and hear the flavor as a great passionate symphony - a great culmination of the passion, talent and vision of the great chefs that i'm learning from and all that i am putting into school.

...how's that for a preface? i think i should be writing celebrity intros! haha

so the cake:

bakes beautifully...makes for some cool shots too!

you know what else MAKES this cake so good: candied carrots! candy the carrot slices until they are shimmery, translucent rays of sweet sunshine. they are gorgeous! and easy to make! you just have to be careful to slice them evenly and carefully remembering that the shape you make them, will be the same they are once they are prepared. a good chef has to have a vision from start to finish.

the slices must also be laid flat and inspected so that you can choose the best examples to showcase on your cake.

the rest involves the most amazing delicious, sweet (but not overly so), lemony cream cheese butter cream. remember not to over-do it... this cake doesn't need too much of any thing. like i said...read my intro again, if you must.

the finished product features the candied carrot slices, and even a few of those marzipan carrots i filmed dancing in my last post.

behold: my carrot cake :o)

more to come!

xo

m

ps- it's probably best to read this whilst listening to the barber of seville...just sayin'