Please Take What You Need...

Time.

Time is what I need. These days, it seems like there's just not enough time to live life. I feel like a shadow of myself, constantly staying up late to study and constantly exhausted. I can't wait until the summer; in one  month I'll be graduating from high school. I know that I'm going to miss this place where people make posters like these, this place where I've grown up, this place where I've spent four years of my life.

But I am ready to move on. One more month...

Strawberry Lemon Ice Cream

I don’t know who I am anymore.

I used to be that skinny girl who bakes. Of course, I haven’t baked in the better part of three months (holiday stress baking during the winter break hardly counts...) and to be honest, I’m not quite as skinny as I was before (the only saving grace is that I was really skinny before). I don’t blog much anymore either. This probably has to do with the fact that I haven’t baked in a while and hence, do not have much to blog about. 

Now I’m that girl who works at a bakery. Don’t get me wrong: I absolutely love being that girl who works at a bakery. My bosses are supremely awesome people, the breads and pastries they make are beyond delicious, and I get to stick one foot in the kitchen and the other out front with the customers. I love working there. 

I work about ten hours a week. Those are ten hours that I could use to study, hang out with friends, sleep, bake, or blog. But those ten hours at the bakery are so worth it. I’ve learned so much since I started working there and met so many interesting people. I can almost live with the idea of only having a social life during winter break, March break, Easter, and summer. 

Summer, I cannot wait until summer. In three months, I will have graduated from high school, I will have finished writing my exams, I will have accepted an offer to a university, I will have gone to prom. It scares me, the thought of leaving, but it is the fear that drives me forward. In the meantime, I look forward to spring, to the warmer days when sundresses and sandals take over and ice cream is no longer relegated to the back of the freezer.

Pastries

almond croissant.

caramel apple danish.

marbled danish

I love working at a bakery...

Green Tea Cupcakes with Green Tea Frosting

Unspoken

Green Tea Cake with Chestnut Cream

It was a long and lonely winter break this year. I spent the majority of it cooped up in the house, feverishly attempting to finish university applications, write an essay for English class, study for the upcoming English and Math exams, cram for that biology test, and read three novels (one of which was in French). Suffice to say, I managed to procrastinate more than anything.

In fact, my Christmas present to myself was two uninterrupted hours so that I might catch up on reading. It was a Christmas Day well spent because after what feels like two million years, I’m finally, finally done reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace, all 964 pages of it. I love reading; usually I finish moderately long books in one sitting. But War and Peace gave me a run for my money. After this year-long affair, I’m glad to be able to say that it’s done and that I did it.

Don’t get me wrong: War and Peace is a really epic book and it’s no wonder that it’s a classic. The immensity of the work in itself is impressive in that Tolstoy managed to capture the very essence of his characters’ lives. However, it is quite lengthy (and the text eye-straining-ly small) and a little bit slow at times. I’d like to read it again at one point in my lifetime when I have a better understanding of European history, but somehow I doubt that I will be able to stomach another book this tedious.

In celebration of finally, finally, finally finishing War and Peace, I baked a Green Tea Cake with Chestnut Whipped Cream for a family dinner. Making your own chestnut puree for the cream is quite tedious (like reading a 964-page book), but so, so worth it.

Click below for the recipe.

Right Now... & Chocolate Mint Thumbprint Cookies

Right now, I’m living the high-school-senior-life. I go to school, I go home, and I go to work. I’ve stopped going out with friends. I’ve stopped blogging, save for the occasional post, mostly because I’ve stopped baking. Not only do I lack the time, but I generally bring home morethan enough baked goods from work to satiate my sweet tooth.

Right now, I’m in the midst of applying to university. It’s terrifying to think that in half a year, I will be graduating from high school. I remember being in seventh grade thinking that I had years and years and years to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I wasn’t sure then and I’m still not sure now, but after three and a half years of high school, I have a better idea of what I want to do.

But I’m not worried. I have the grades to get me where I want to go right now and I know I’ll figure out the rest along the way. I’ve just received my first offer of admission and I look forward to receiving at least four more (should I actually get around to finishing all my supplementary applications...)

Right now, my mind is shot. I feel stretched thin in all directions, unsure of what to tackle first despite knowing that everything needs to be done, um, now. I’m feeling scatterbrained and unorganized, though I have all the lists in my Moleskine to tell me what to do. 

Right now, I’m contemplating whether or not I should bake another batch of these Chocolate Mint Thumbprint Cookies. They’re kind of hard to resist, especially so because they’re intensely chocolate-y and just the right kind of sweet—bittersweet—and oh-so buttery. Yum.

Click below for the recipe.

Gluten-Free Brownies

senioritis

noun. A crippling disease that strikes high school seniors. Symptoms include: laziness, an over-excessive wearing of track pants, old athletic shirts, sweatpants, athletic shorts, and sweatshirts. Also features a lack of studying, repeated absences, and a generally dismissive attitude. The only known cure is a phenomenon known as graduation.  

Senioritis has hit me hard... I’ve yet to stoop to wearing sweatpants to school (though they’re the first things I change into when I get home...) and I’m still studying (because I actually want to get into university), but going to class is beginning to require a little bit more motivation.

During the week before winter break, I skipped nine classes. It was somewhat legitimate on Monday, when I figured that I’d use the morning to finish up some assignments. I did get some work done, but somehow, I spent the majority of that time reading The Scarlet Letter (which, by the way, is an amazing book).

On Thursday I woke up feeling gross, kind of headache-y and tired and sniffy. I had been feeling ill on Wednesday, so again, skipping my first three classes was mostly legitimate. After I slept in for another two hours and ate a leisurely lunch, I felt much better.

Then, somehow, I decided it was a good time to make Gluten-Free Brownies for a recently celiac friend since I’d see him the next day—Friday—when we would go rock-climbing. Don’t judge. Mustering up the energy to go to class during that last week before the holidays is incredibly difficult, especially when you’re not actually doing anything important in class.

(Unfortunately, I will not be posting the recipe as it  was passed along to me by my boss, who would rather not share the it online.)

Classic Pumpkin Pie

I love sleep. Unlike all my insomniac teenage friends who can sleep at 3AM on a school night and still stay awake through fourth and fifth period the next day, I tend to feel like crap if I haven’t gotten enough sleep the night before. My head throbs, my eyes sting, and getting out of bed and staying awake becomes a physical challenge.

This year, I’ve made a solid resolution to go to sleep at a respectable hour. I can’t extol enough just how wonderful it is to wake up after a good night’s sleep. The changes are immediate and visible: I no longer sleep through fourth period, I’ve stopped feeling tired all the time, and I don’t snack for the sole purpose to keep myself awake (that often) anymore.

The rest of my family still sleeps late. At 11:30PM when I’m getting ready to hit the hay, my brothers are playing their guitars, my dad is watching a movie downstairs with the surround sound system, and my mom’s clinking the dishes around in the kitchen. Every night, I make the rounds and inform all my family members that it’s late and that they’re loud and that I really want to get some shut-eye.

Being a light sleeper sucks.

One night, I go to sleep particularly early because I have a morning meeting the next day. My brothers stop playing guitar. Within twenty minutes, I’m mostly asleep when the clinking of the dishes from the kitchen downstairs rouses me from my slumber.

I wake up. I’m angry, because whoever’s in the kitchen (my mom) has essentially woken me up from a power nap and I know that it’ll take hours, if not the whole night, to get back to sleep. I know my sleep patterns.

For the next couple hours, I drift in and out of sleep. It’s 4:30AM now. I feel tired, but I still can’t fall sleep. An hour later, I crawl out of bed and go downstairs to eat comfort-eat a slice of Pumpkin Pie. I’m in a bad mood. I accidentally forget to be quiet. My older brother storms down the stairs and yells at me to be quiet.

Click for the recipe below.

Unspoken