Disjointed thoughts on a Sunday day

I grew up the year I realised I had more to learn

I learnt to love when I realised you don't need it to be reciprocated

I learnt to look after myself as soon as I realised I it was ok to accept help from others

These are my revelations of the week as I have been pondering love, self love, growth, and chocolate cake. They are all very relevant subjects to my life at the moment (yes even the chocolate cake) as I take in the beauty that is my life and work out what to do with it. Its a slow but lovely process, as I pick my way through my head and my heart.

Today was my one and only day off that I got this week, and it was beautiful. Everything felt right. I put on a hat and gloves and had time just to be a lady, and wander though the winter weather with all the leaves blowing around me and sit in a cafe. Its times like these I know why I moved to Melbourne. I occasionally just get these moments of bliss where I think "yes, yes this is right."

I love having a day off after having worked so hard all week. Its like I can finally justify it to myself. I can stay in bed until ten and know that I deserve it. I can eat cake before dinner (its Sunday and all rules are out.) I can drink wine before dark. I can wear Chanel without an occasion, and I can just chill out.

Today a friend and I gave Donna Hay's four layered chocolate cake a go. It was so beautiful just to drink some wine, do some baking and really talk. Not enough real talking goes on in life, and I love it when you get raw moments when you can actually express what is going on in your life and how you have been feeling. The cake was really tasty but not quite as high as it should have been. I don't want to blaspheme, but I don't think donna hay has actually given the right recipe for the picture in the book. Her icing is much darker, and richer looking and I suspect it is a gnash not a cream cheese icing....but I'll forgive her this once.

I hope you all had a lovely Sunday. I'm off to school tomorrow to learn how to cook lambs brains.....yes you read correctly. Part of my wants to be all mature about it and be like "Well of course we are cooking lamb brains, its basic traditional cookery", but the other past of me wants to squeal like a girl and through them at the other students. Wish me luck!

Mulled wine.

Last weekend when I had my dinner party we drank some mulled wine. Its so yummy and festive. Now that winters coming on I thought maybe you could use the recipe too. It make an event feel a bit more special and you can make it on a budget (which is really handy.)

What you need:

• 2lt of red wine (it doesn't matter how cheap it is....this is the beauty of the recipe)
• 2 oranges
• Half a cup of sugar
• One drop of vanilla essence
• One cinnamon stick
• Some love

What to do:

1. Slice your oranges
2. Place everything in a big pot
3. Slowly on a low heat, warm the wine but do not boil (If you boil the wine you will cook out all the alcohol.)
4. Bring to a simmer. Turn off, and serve.

Hope you enjoy

Cake is wrecking my life...

Pastry school wasn't all roses today. We were doing such delicate work and I was coughing and spluttering all over the place. I felt so sick all day, and just couldn't seem to pull everything together. I made so many mistakes and half way through the day felt like crying into my melted marzipan. Lunch time came and went but I was too behind to stop for a break. Around one, I decided to take five minutes to eat much lunch, so I could sit down for a little rest. I opened my lunch box......and found my curry had grown mould. This week has been so hectic that I thought that the lunch I packed on monday night was packed on thursday night. Turns out the whole week had passed without me remembering to take it (I have no recollection of what I ate on the other days.) So I sculled an orange juice and headed back to class. To be honest I was so sick I could hardly tell if I was hungry or not.

There was one redeeming factor of the day though......my cooking partner. I initially picked him at the start of the year to avoid being a loner, when the two girls I had made friends with paired off. We haven't worked with anyone else since. Despite the fact he can speak next to no english (today we had a conversation that went like this:

Him: do theses belong to the teacher?

Me: Sorry what?

Him: Do these belong to the teacher?

Me: Sorry I have no idea what you just said

Him: Are they the teachers

Me: Did you just ask me if they were made in china? I really have no idea where they are made sorry.

Him: NO the teacher!

Me: Oh sorry. Yeah they are the teachers.) he is a life saver, and so so sweet about everything. Today when I made the macaroon mix too runny he insisted that it was his fault, when I scrambled the custard he told me that we had heaps of time on our hands so it really didn't matter (lies), when I couldn't pipe straight he gave me a lesson, and when I insisted I needed to sit down for five minutes he told me he didn't want a break because he would eat at work, so he started on the dishes.

Its saved my day having such a good friend. I don't think I would have made it through the day without him.

So I'm all curled up in bed for the night, not thinking about how much I need to practice my pastry skill. I'll put up a picture of my petit fours.....but you must promise to pretend that my piping work is neat, the macaroons aren't too big, the pastry isn't overworked and the chocolate dipping isn't messy. Alas.....so much to learn.

When life gives you lemons

I have been sick all week. I have no recipes for you and only the will power to drag myself out of bed everyday and go to school and work. Its really disappointing because we are making some amazing things in class tomorrow but I just feel too sick to care. Despite how bad I feel, I'm still pulling in huge days at work and school and trouping through it.

I've actually been really proud of myself this week. Sometimes its nice when life is hard, and you overcome it. This week could have been a disaster in so many ways (life became super complex for a few days) but I pulled my head, my heart, my body and everything together. So here I am, still sick, still tired, still sniffly, but proud. I learnt this week sometimes doing the right thing does actually feel a lot better.

So when life gives you lemons don't make lemonade.......make lemon italian petit fours. Thats what I'll be doing tomorrow anyway.

night

What my day looked like

I'm much too tired tonight to write. I have the flue. But here is a picture of the most beautiful thing that I did today.

Thoughts on Petit fours

This week in my pastry class we are working on petit fours. This is basically really small beautifully decorated cakes and tarts. They are gorgeous but very time consuming. Unfortunately its not really my strong point as I'm not so good at precision work. Everything has to be exactly the same size and shape, and well, I'm more of a rustic girl. The whole idea of all this perfection really got me thinking.

What is it as humans we love about perfection? I feel like I'm always striving to be neater, more organised, thinner, up to date, and put together. I see so many girls in the city which I have dubbed 'The untouchables' as they always looks so very perfect. Not one hair is out of place, they are wearing the latest fashion, are super organised and look like nothing could ever effect them. What are we striving for?

I had a long hard think about it and realised that its our basic need for love that drives this. Ok I'll break down my theory for you. I worked it out like this. Nothing touches me more in life than when someone buys me a gift that they have really put thought into. Like a bunch of flowers that is your favourite colour, or something they just felt was 'really you.' It shows they put time and effort into it. They have thought about you, who you are, what you like, and what will bless you most. This time spent is an expression of love, and therefore, as humans we are led to believe that time equals love. It can be expressed to others through doing something for them, or to ourself by putting effort into the way we look.

Basically these 'untouchable' girls I see in the city everyday are either saying "I care about myself enough to put effort into the way I look", or trying to justify to the world that by putting enough effort into themselves they are worth love, and therefore other people should love them too. The subject of time therefore is not just about love, it's also about worth and our needs as humans to feel cared for and wanted.

It spreads even further across the board than just appearance and gifts though and filters down into many aspect of our lived such as fine food, designer clothes, quality products and even good wine. All these things take time and effort to make, and when we buy them for ourselves we are justifying to the world (and ourselves) that we are worth both time and effort.

Obviously this isn't the only reason humans appreciate beautiful things but I feel it explains a lot of it. We are so obsessed with beauty.......but really I think we are more obsessed with love.

I have no idea how this new theory will effect my cooking, but it helps me to understand it a bit more. When I do finally overcome these tiny petit fours I think I'll give them to a few of my favourite people in Melbourne.......just so, on some subconscious level, they will know that they are really loved and cared for.

Posh Pizza

Back at school today, and it felt quite good. I was cheery most of the day...probably something to do with my high caffeine levels. I really love being at school and feeling like I'm learning something useful. Its nice being around other people who care about the same things you care about. I love that I can sit down with someone for half an hour in the lunch break and just talk recipes.

I was very chuffed with myself today as I managed to talk the nerdy boy at school into selling me his text books (he didn't use them anyway) for much less than I was going to have to pay. Really I was doing him a favour......ok ok, maybe he was doing me a favour. I have a feeling I'm going to regret it though. He followed me around like a puppy all day. Previous to this the most words we had exchanged was the time he was telling the class about all his girlfriends (imaginary of course) and I mentioned quite loudly that his mother doesn't count. I was having a bad day....and he had been pushing the whole class to their limits with stories of drunken escapades that no one believed.

With the money I saved on the books I was able to pay for my gym membership. I've decided Its high time I get back into working out. Here again though I ran into trouble. All I wanted to do was sign up and pay my fee, but the recruitment guy wouldn't stop making fun of me and chatting. I wanted to stop him and say "listen, I know how this works out....we go for a drink, one sip in you ask me if i like sport. I say no. You act surprised and a little hurt. I start talking about cooking and writing, and this is your turn to be disinterested. We pick a mutual subject like music, but again, we find we have different tastes. You ask me about clubs, but I only know cafes........but you don't drink coffee. So lets just save us both the time and embarrassment, and stop before we start. ok?"

Why am I so bitter today? Because I have decided today that I have 'bad love karma' at the moment (as a result of hurting someones feelings at the start of the year) and only the people I don't like, like me but the ones I love wont. I'm hoping it will pass, because I don't know how many more bad dates and 'inconvenient loves' I can take.

On a brighter note, last nights dinner party was lovely. It was so nice to have good friends over to cook for. Its really what life is all about. I made a heap of pizza's which I really enjoyed. I'm so obsessed with cooking breads and doughs at the moment. Here's the recipe for one of the pizza's I made. Its one of my favourites. They used to sell it at my favourite bar in noosa, and I'd always go there for a cocktail and some dinner with girlfriends.

Posh Pizza

You will need:

• One pizza bace (you can make your own, or buy a made one from the supermarket)
• Cranberry sauce
• One chicken breast
• One avocado
• Half a red onion
• A handful of rocket
• Half a round of brie

What to do:

1. Slice up the chicken breast and pan fry. It doesn't need to be cooked all the way through because it will cook again when it goes on the pizza (you don't want to dry it out, but also make sure its not raw in the middle when your pizza comes out of the oven.
2. Slice red onion, avocado, and drie
3. Spread your bace with the cranberry sauce (you don't need too much)
4. Layer all your ingredients on top (except the rocket)
5. Crack some salt and pepper over the top
6. Place in the oven and cook until bace is ready (or if your using a ready made one, until cheese is melted.)
7. Sprinkle the fresh rocket over the top and serve.