Dessert By Candy

Feeling Grown Up

For some reason, I always associate traveling with a fleet of backpacks as something that belongs to my days as a student. Besides, dragging around more than one backpacks at any time is just clumsy. To feel like that I've truly left those days behind, I've been slowly expanding my luggage collection. I already own a large Delsey suitcase in blue grey for week-long trips and a carry-on size upright Benetton suitcase in lime green. They are both very practical and so easy to spot out in a sea of black. However, with the increased number of weekend trips that I make, I find that I really need a good overnight bag.

For my weekend trips, I usually travel with my skate backpack containing all my skating essentials. However, I also need a seperate bag for all my non-skating belongings such as street clothes, pajamas, shoes, and toileteries. Luckily, I found my perfect bag at Lululemon yesterday. Their Activa gym bag is now on sale at $49 for selected colours so I quickly snapped one up. It is roomy, sturdy, and stylish yet it is still a good size for carry-on luggage. What I love most about this bag is the seperate shoe compartment at the bottom of the bag (a girl can't wear running shoes for every outfit after all). The inside of the bag is lined with easy-to-clean material. I can fit a water bottle on both sides of the bag and I can slip my phone or camera in the hidden front pocket for easy access. Now I can't wait until my next weekend trip so I can start packing!

Summer Pudding

I am intrigued by traditional English puddings because they have such great comfort food qualities to them. A rich bread pudding is my all-time favourite dessert obviously. However, I do wish to expand my repertoire. Summer pudding is a simple pudding of a mold lined with bread and filled with macerated fruit. In those hot summer months when berries are aplenty and turning on the oven is the last thing that I want to do, this is a wonderful dessert to make.

The following isn't really a recipe but more like a general direction of how to assemble a summer pudding. Depending on the size and shape of the mold that you use, the amount of ingredients varies.

Ingredients

• good quality white sandwich bread, sliced (I prefer the white pullman bread from Bakery Nakamura in J-Town)
• medley of berries, enough to fill your choice of mold(s)
• sugar
• lemon zest, finely grated
• lemon juice
• Grand Marnier
• raspberry puree
• yogurt

Method

1. Line the mold with plastic wrap with plenty of overhang. I prefer to use a round bottom bowl of about 5 inches diameter for easy unmolding.
2. Wash and dry the berries. In a large bowl, toss together berries with sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and Grand Marnier. Let it macerate for about an hour in room temperature so the sugar can draw out juices from the berries. If you use blueberries, you may want to lightly crush some of them.
3. Trim the crust from the bread. Cut the bread to size so that they line the inside of the bowl neatly. Neat is the key here because once you unmold, your handiwork will be the exterior of the pudding! You want it to look pretty.
4. Fill the bread-lined bowl with berries and juice. Close your pudding with one layer of bread. Fold the overhanging plastic wrap over the pudding.
5. Over the pudding with a large plate and weigh down the plate with...something heavy such as a large can of tomato. Chill in the fridge for at least 24hr until the juice saturate the bread. You want the bread to turn from white to deep pink.
6. When you're ready to serve, unmold the pudding and peel off the plastic wrap. Drown with more raspberry puree if there are still any white area on the bread. Serve with creamy yogurt or for a richer alternative, whipped mascarpone cheese.

Who Said I Don't Have A Hot Temper?

I lost my temper at practice last night because someone jokingly called me names. I've fought for years to keep my temper under control but that does not mean I do not get upset. It only means I've gotten better at not letting my temper get the best of me. However, I didn't let those comments slide last night as I normally would do. Unfortunately, I did not react in a way that explained why I was upset by such comments. Rather, it just looked like I got angry totally out of proportion (and people could conveniently brush it aside as oh-must-be-PMS).

MM once told me that an adult-based sports club lacks a ready-made volunteer base (aka parents) that most children-oriented clubs have. In order for the club to flourish, it requires dedicated volunteers from club members. Yet with everyone leading such busy lives, it is difficult to recruit any volunteers. MM is a person whose opinion I respect. Since I started skating, my club has provided me with many resources and opportunities to develop into a better skater. For that reason alone, I decided that I want to give back to show my appreciation.

I am offended when I am being made fun of for being responsible, dependable, and organized. Those are valuable qualities which allow me to contribute to the operation of the club. Those are the very qualities that get things done. Volunteering my time and effort is not something that I'm required to do. Standing aside and laughing at people are easy and effortless. However, when was the last time you get anything done without making an effort?

Brownies & Blondies

It has been a long time since I last baked anything. I'm going to mail a care package to my skating coach in Europe so I decided to include some sweet treats to cheer him up. Blondies and brownies are both sturdy enough to withstand shipping so I gave another two recipes a try from the Martha Stewart's Cookies cookbook. The one on the left is Butterscotch-Cashew Blondies (p. 277) and the one on the right is Chocolate-Ginger Brownies (p. 276).

Due to a lack of ingredients at home, I made some minor changes to the recipe. For the blondies, I replaced the toffee bits with equal amount of butterscotch chips. Alas, the toffee bits would have added such a nice crunch and a deeper layer of butterscotch flavour. This is the third blondies recipe I attempted from this cookbook and it is by far superior. The use of cashew is a nice change from the more popular walnuts or pecans. The buttery taste of the nuts made these blondies a rich treat. The texture is cakey and tender.

I love combining chocolate with sweet spices. These chocolate-ginger brownies has a nice bite from the ground and freshly grated ginger. I skipped out on the grated nutmeg and added 100g of dark chocolate chips to the batter to add some bulk. Only afterward did it occur to me that some chopped crystalized ginger would be a great addition to this recipe. The recipe calls for 8 inch square baking pan but I doubt the batter yields enough. Even with the use of the chocolate chips and a 7 inch pan, the finished brownies are merely an inch tall. This is a dense, almost fudge-like, brownie. I would recommend cutting them in smaller servings.

So Tired Of It All

I really don't know what to do. I feel as if there's a huge weight on my chest, so heavy that I can't breath. I am very certain that I do not want to be romantically involved with him (and to be involved with him at all was a mistake). However, having him at the outskirt of my life remains a test of my toughness every day. I cannot yet wrap my head around the idea that there is something so nasty about my personality that made him drop me like a hot potato within the span of one weekend. I really hoped that was not true but when confronted, he only evaded and offered not even a hint of denying. How can I not be convinced I really do disgust him so much?

I am scared that I am really such a horrible person and the only reason my friends have not abandoned me is because they have not yet find out about this other side of me. This has been a fear of mine for as long as I can remember. When he rejected me for, essentially, the core make up of who I am, my worst nightmare came true.

I wake up every morning and pep talk myself into a more cheerful person. I try my best to look at the world around me in a more positive light but I am not sure anymore that I am not fighting a losing battle. I try hard to give as much of myself as I can to my friends and family. Yet the fear that they will find out what a phony I am is looming ever so near. It has already happened once with EG so who's to say if he's with the majority or not? I certainly don't have that unwavering belief in myself right now to say his decision was the exception.