On a lighter note

I today remembered my desire to chase a tornado after seeing some waterspouts off the coast while relaxing at the beach.

And I saw an ENORMOUS iguana walk past my patio this morning.  I really need to get a better camera.

Hallucinations

There is a part of my brain that I want to label "dark" but I really don't want to label it more.

This part of my brain plays horrid flashes of images in my head all day.

Images of me slicing up my fingers.  Images of blood flowing because I have sliced myself or raked my fingers through spikes.  It's always my hands.  I hate it.  I have to not think about it too much because it makes me feel like there is some part of my brain trying to tell "me" something and I don't know what it is.  I don't know why I repeatedly see these things.  I am trying not to hate it.  I am trying not to let it depress me.  I am trying to be very zen about it and accept that my brain is producing these images and not label it as anything, you know the whole, it-is-what-it-is-bit.  Sometimes this is very easy.  Sometimes I just want to cry because I want to stop seeing them.

Today, I was cutting some potatoes for dinner and I felt very comfortable with the knife in my hand.  Very secure.  I thought to myself Why do I keep seeing these things when I feel confident with this knife in my hand?  No images of blood when I actually have a knife in hand.  Just "randomly" throughout the day.

Then I think of this book I read called Little Bee.  Really good book.  <<SPOILER ALERT-SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU WANT TO READ THE BOOK>>  But there is a part in the book where an American couple has to chop off a finger in order to save the lives of a couple of African girls.  I wonder to myself if I would do it.  In the book, the husband doesn't do it but the wife does.  I think to myself, well this woman chopped off her own fingers, maybe I should just chop off my own fingers so the fear of chopping them off and the horrible images will go away.

I am not going to chop off my fingers.

I believe that the images don't have much to do with my fingers.  I sure do wish I understood what they do have to do with.

Just so I don't forget...

And to make you salivate...

Specials I have already run:

Passionfruit Pavlova (meringue cup with passionfruit mousse and tropical fruit salad atop)

Mocha Mousse Cake (chocolate cake layers alternating with coffee mousse and topped with coffee ganache)

Toffifay Tart (chocolate cookie crust with a caramel layer and topped with a hazelnut chocolate mousse)

Banana Cream Pie (chocolate crust with bananas in vanilla pastry cream and topped with chantilly creme)

Mango Mousse Timbale (thin layer of vanilla cake topped with mango mousse, molded in a cylinder, and topped with chantilly creme and curvy tuile cookie)

Okay, I think that is all for now.  I really need to take my camera to work.

I can't wait to compare this something I do in 6 months.

My first cake on the job.  Still working on my decorating skills (would have been better if I actually had my appropriate tools.  arg).  But the cake was BANGING!!  White cake that tasted like a sugar cookie with lemon curd filling (the most divine emulsion in the world!!) and frosted with melt in your mouth, light as air lemon swiss meringue buttercream.  I am either going to weigh 300 lbs when this is said and done or I'll have diabetes.  Or no teeth.

Swirly Love

I am going to try to bake these inside of the restaurant on Sunday mornings so when people come in for brunch, the restaurant smells like freshly baked cinnamon buns.

Which way is infinity?

So, I have been here for a couple of weeks now and I have so much to say!

But I'll start with one of my favorite things about this place:  sunsets

I moved into an apartment where a fellow ex-pat was renting out a room.  An English chap, very nice.  The apartment complex is on the water, and from the back patio, I can watch the sun set over the water.  It's without words.  It's been a while since I have seen the sun set over water.  And since I lived in Virginia Beach for 99% of my life, only sunrises happen over the water and if you know me, you know I didn't catch many of those.

So, there was a storm brewing somewhere in the ocean and it made the water very choppy here, which is not normal.  And this complex is on the water, but the water meets a rocky shore, not a sandy one.  There is a 2 foot tall cement wall that runs along the shoreline of the property, separating the grounds of the complex from the "beach."  So last night I decided to go out and lay on the cement wall and watch the sunset upside down.  It wasn't so much the sunset that was freaky, but watching the water crashing into the rocks and splashing down??  It was pretty freaky cool. It actually kind of reminded me of a salamander (this cool thing in a kitchen that burns above the food).   I highly recommend watching any horizon at any time of day from a different perspective.  Even laying on your side is pretty freaking cool.  It actually inspired some plating designs in my head.  When I actually do them, I'll take a photo.

But imagining infinity in a different direction is cool.  Normally, up is infinity, leading away from you toward the heavens, the stars and "higher" powers, etc.  But when you turn upside down, infinity goes down and somehow leads to you.  Or you lay on your side and infinity goes to the right.  It's weird.  Try it.  Just lay some other way and take in the direction of birds and trees rustling and cars driving and kids going down a slide.  It's pretty neat.

Good morning

there is so much beauty in going from reverse warrior to triangle pose.
that alone will sustain me the rest of the day.