Guilds, Chefs and Desserts!

So did you know that most Everyone called a chef is actually not a Chef, the way it works is you pretty much have to join a guild to get your acradadation, pass your guilds test, then work your way up till you are the sole person in charge of the kitchen you work at(ordering, scheduling, menu and ALL) and if you want to go further in the guild it go's all the way up to Master Chef.. when ask if I ever want to try for that I not so politely say "NO, I like being married" that kind of dedication requires a life destroying obsession, that I'm okay with not getting in to. So anyway kind of like how most people think that if you work at a hospital you are either a Doctor or a Nurse, when in reality there is a plethora of healthcare vocations (IE: EKG EEG lab techs, Respiratory Therapists, Audiologist, Pharmacists, Polysomnographs and on and on and on). So too in a kitchen there are a lot of vocations, mine is Certified Pastry Culinarian in layman's that means I'm a fancy baker, or if I or anyone around me is lazy I work in a kitchen so I'm a Chef, I find this hard for one because I have not earned the title Chef, but I get called Chef all the time, and for two it gets exhausting to tell people that a lot of true chefs spend most there time in the office keeping the whole place running, to witch I have no interest. I like baking, I LOVE european pastries, most of my favorite recipes are the hard ones, the creative ones, the ones that make people say "That is too beautiful to eat" this fills me with so much joy I have to turn away and say how happy I was to do it and "Please eat it, it should be quite good and I made it to be eaten and enjoyed". On that note my favorite dessert to make and to eat is Fruit Tart. If I was able I'd make one once a month and have it for breakfast as often as I could get away with. Before starting there are some things you should know always read the whole recipe before starting, gather ingredients in proper amounts "mise en place" and be careful this is hot stuff!

Fruit Tart

In food processor Mix till it comes together:

1 Cup powder sugar

3 cup AP Flour

12 oz butter (that is 1 ½ stick’s)

Press onto the bottom and sides of two 8” pans

Bake for 15 min till golden

Then put crust out to cool.

In a separate pan on stovetop boil:

½ cup sugar

4 cup milk

¼ cup butter

In separate bowl whisk:

2 eggs

4 egg yolks

¼ cup corn starch

½ cup sugar

2 T Vanilla

Temper milk into egg mixture.

Then place back in pan over medium heat and bring to a boil NEVER stop stirring! Warning at some point it will clot up, just Keep Stirring! once it smoothes out and starts to scare you with molten popping bubbles of pain, remove from stove and poor in to crusts . Slice fruit arrange in circles and brush with apricot glaze (½ cup apricot jam ½ cup water heat till boil).

Sorry for the bad photos.

Winning and being Disposable.

It's never easy to make new friends, and if you have ever moved you know starting from scratch is painstakingly difficult. Where to start? What are they going to think of me? People are so busy with there day to day does anyone have time for one more friend, or am I just another time consuming tug on a full life? Yah your head will go through the gambit and pull you under the self douting nonsense of all the junk you have piled upon yourself your whole life "what if no one likes me", but we all know that is just rubbish, every person has something to offer. Friendship is built by people that build each other up and as long as you are willing to invest yourself you can be a good friend, and the more experience you get being social the better you get at it. The trick is finding out how you like to spend your time and finding others that have the same interests sites like Meetup can be really helpful. Also going to things and being fun just like you would with a friend shows off how great you are, and just about anywhere you go there are going to be festivals, ball games, farmers markets, scrapbook meets, local game shops generally have a game night and so on. Just keep putting yourself out there (it doesn't hurt to feed people) be the kind of friend you are looking for, warmth, kindness and selfless interest in another person. All of these things have served me well in the past but having just moved AGAIN (I'm at a life total of 15 moves so far)It's back to square one the hardest square of all, I've been putting myself out there playing Humans vs zombies, doing game night, going to festivals and have met some nice people. What I'm coming up against now is that people are either young with time to have some fun, but rightly self focused on the needs of getting a life put together, or old enough to relax with but to busy to hang out with. It gets very hard not to scream at the stars why cant I find a good shopping buddy that also is good at chilling by the fire with a nice glass of wine, long hikes, inside jokes. Oh right nobody told you that after you get married you still have to date "couple friends" for like THE REST OF YOUR LIFE! Trust me invest in Cranium and Scattergories now it will make things easer later. Anyway lots of bored games later with the younger generation, and I have been Shock at the Intensity for "Hurry Up" or complete detachment when not winning, Over and over it has been made clear that if your not winning it's not worth playing, and if you cant win freak out. Now I take issue with this because I like playing games to spend time with people I care about, winning can be fun but not at the cost of respecting the other players. So no I'm not the biggest fan of winning, In all honesty I would prefer to enjoy the company and conversation than win any game. Remember there is only one winner but everyone else is together in loosing. I always play to my best but I never really mind that much when I lose, I find more company there. Now for the Disposable part, in the process of making new friends people will test your boundaries (just as you test theres) it's part of getting to know someone and what they are comfortable with but remember you have to stand up for your self (witch is much harder when you don't have many friends to choose from) this is vitally important you are showing your new friends that you deserve respect, kindness and boundaries, this IS NOT to much to ask, for real friends this will be a give in! Never be okay with being disposable, you always deserve better than that from every person in your life: parents, friends, partners, bosses, you are not disposable and if they treat you that way they are the disposable one and have not earned one iota of your life. So in the practice what you preach, I called out one of the social group for really being awful to everyone, using jokes to hide name calling, throwing temper tantrums(including silent treatment in the middle of games) and generally not caring if any of us were alive... after typing this I realize this was a older version of bullying a sort of: do what I want or everyone pays whether by disrupting the game, insults or of outcasting disagreers. So now I face the question will I be invited back in the group or have to find a new group, witch is sad because I really like everyone else, and truly wish to spend time with them. I have to say even though I may be outcast from the group I'm still okay with what I said, because I have to treat my self the way I want to be treated, and the way I would want my friends to be treated, but as always I wish this had never come up. All that being said I still have the best friends in the world back home, and from my childhood, so I still feel crazy blessed. Game night last year with the cool kids Becky and Jason.

Hope and Quitting.

Well it's been a crazy week for America, and lets face it the world is a hard place, wars happen, bombs strike and loved ones die. I come from a very drama childhood so I have my own ways of coping. I have found that having hope and stepping away are immensely useful. First lets get in to stepping away, many people get very down on the word or act of quitting, but the deal is you never quit till you die. So stop for a minute or if you have the ability for the day, and take the time to be okay, by agknowlaging that you're not okay you are hurt, shocked and maybe scared. What this does is let you build yourself back up by building a safe place. I tend to go to a trusted book or TV series that is beloved, this bit of familiar stability is a routine of caring for myself that lets me tap a source of happy healthy that is associated with the time I first indulged in that title. This week it was Avatar: The Last Airbender, Book 2, and in it there was a great quote from Uncle Iroh "No! Zuko! You must never give in to despair. Allow yourself to slip down that road and you surrender to your lowest instincts. In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength". I love this, it is so true, we are the source of our own hope and sometimes we need to fill ourselves with it. So just like picking our friends and our media intake we need to find places of hope to replenish when so much has been lost. This is not quitting or running away this is closing our eyes turning off the news and breathing. The cultural instinct to shame stoping is just not humanly smart, we need rest we need breathers we need hope especially when things get harder. So when the going gets tuff stop rebuild stronger and get going! Also Mr Rogers = PS if you are looking for a happy place as more of a distraction, I highly suggest Pinterest I have a wall there for my page Every Body is different

Fattitude!

So you may know by now I'm not a size 8, actually I'm a size 18, that being said I love to exercise, some of my favorites are long walks sometimes in the form of 5k's, new workout equipment today was a fun one: straps hold your feet off the ground, you do a push-up then pull your knees in for a ?floating? crunch, also I really enjoy rock climbing and dance. So how do you go to the gym, dance club or park knowing that your umm not what people expect and in some cases not what they want to see... well my answer is Fattitude keep in mind this is not making fun of your self to hide the pain (spoiler, that one doesn't work out so well) this is something completely different. How it works is being proud of what you have IE fat, yes fat, if you have it your caring it around, and that means you can in your day to day life carry weights that would kill a smaller person. Say you get tired at the gym well stop for a minute and realize you at 230 have done twice the work of someone at 115, so yah they can run a little further, but could they while carrying twice there weight? uh NO! What this really means is you are strong, your body in an odd way has been doing some weight training and that gives you some edge. So try playing to your strengths walk till your body says okay next, then always being nice to yourself try some weights, start small, see what your body likes, you may be surprised what you are capable of in a short time, a-n-d if your thing is weight loss one of the best plans is to grow muscle mass, muscle keeps burning energy even when you're not doing too much (you lose muscle mass if you don't use it though) Keep in mind you Have to feed yourself. The best way to gain weight is to not eat, I was 118lb. when I started a crash diet and then many more calorie killers led to where I am... well were I was. Now that I eat when I'm hungry and exercise/play/clean/work basically be active for some part of the day I have lost 10lb. and kept it off, but that was not my goal, now heres the trick !I STOPED CARING! I started accepting me, my curves and my fat, my beautiful fat that gives me a booty like Kim K, and a belly that took the fall for me, the other day when I was running my foot caught and down I went, but silly as it sounds my tummy hit first and Voila no broken bones not even a bruise, I jumped back up and kept going just like that, a bit of a sore stomach but I was totally beautifully saved by the one part of me I have been hating on most.. for a bit I felt so guilty for all that time I had spent hating a part of my body that would so easily save me. For the first time I felt love from and for my stomach... kind of crazy, but now when I run and it jumps for joy a long with me, I smile. So that is my Fattitude, my body loves me (no matter what I have put it through) and I am learning to love it back. So in playing to my strengths I tried: Why not leg lifts at 100lb. 10 reps... okay how about 180lb.? okay done how about 200lb. done 240, 280, 300!! Yep then 340 and why not lets try it 400lb. yep thats right 400lb. So today I leg pressed 40 reps at 100lb. AND 20 at 400lb. and then when I was done I walked out of that gym like I owned it, because if any one said anything to me I knew I was stronger and happier than them. So yah I love my life!

Space food and me.

Today is the beginning of the HI-SEAS (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation), what all that means is that on the volcanic mountain of Manilow Hawaii, some crazy smart people are playing house, Mars style! What that has to do with little old me in Indiana? There was a recipe contest, to help the "astronauts" with variety on the four month mission, and well I have a cuppel of contenders in the running, so at some point during the mission my recipes will be tried out! Oh and there is a distinct possibility that not only may real astronauts eat my food, but my name and recipes may be put in little print in the back of the Cornell University data bace <3 Suck it legacy at 28 haha! What is life for but taking chances and putting your self out there, one of the ways I found to do this is entering random contests, it never fails to make me work harder at life and hone my skills. On one occasion I even got runner up in a costume contest for this outfit I made in less than 24 hours Meant to look like the Dovahkiin from Skyrim.

FEAR OF DYSLEXIA

So today I made a blog (LET THE FEAR OF DYSLEXIA STOP YOU!) Is echoing in my head at the moment, but hears the deal I only get to be me by accepting all of me and the reason I see thing so differently is because for some reason my brain functions differently. Some of the most influential people in the world have been dyslexic, I'm blessed to have this gift, but Man is it defeating for things like blogs, Facebook, school, some social games and work. I had a nightmare last night that someone sent a note to my boss saying the cake was great but the spelling was wrong, oh and one of the fun quarks about dyslexia is it gets worse under pressure, so the other day we had a rush order and I forgot hoe to spell happy birthday! Then the week after that some of my coworkers were talking about not being able to be friends(on Facebook) with someone that cant spell. I find that I constantly have to remind people that learning disabilities are Not about being lazy but about being different and that thoughs differences are a good thing. So if So when you get annoyed at my spelling and grammar try to remember that only about 22 to 25 percent of children with dyslexia become functioning dyslexic adults .

What It's about.

I love life, I have worked hard to get to the life I want, and now that I have I want to see and learn and do all the things that make me happy healthy, and one of the biggest things that I enjoy is learning and sharing. So on this blog I intend to share some of the ADD, passion and love of life that makes me me. A lot of this is about self acceptance and a journey I have been on with media intake and how it affects your body image, in hopes of helping others love the body there in. Some of it is about art and Pinterest fun. Some will be about travel and work, seeing as I have the blessing of being able to travel about twice a year and I am a CPC (certified pastry culinarian in layman's pastry chef or baker) so I have a lot of flavor to share. All and all this is one ADHd blog and I hope you enjoy it!