Long time, no type

Heeyyy. How's it going? No, I didn't forget about my blog*, I've just been super busy what with quitting my job and starting pastry school full time.

Speaking of, I'm in serious need of getting my booty back on my monthly goals track. I've gained a few of my pounds back, but you would too if you were making danish, croissant, and baked Alaska 4 days a week. On top of that, we took our annual Shake that Big Bear ski trip the first weekend of Feb, and who sprained her MCL? This girl. While I'm not gimping around town anymore, I'm starting to swim tomorrow in an effort to maintain my new found daily pastries habit. What, a girl needs her sweets.

So what have I been up to? Here's the bullet version:

• Went to Raleigh for work meetings in Dec, and went to a bar with skee ball. SKEE BALL! How freaking sweet is that?
• Went home to MD for Christmas, drove around like a freaking manic, and swore to never return again. Except we have like 50 million wedding to go to this year, and all of them are there. Drat.
  
• Gave Duff a bath. Evidently he's a bit stinky.
  
• Finished working in Jan, job searching all of Feb, and so incredibly thankful I can now enjoy my Blackberry rather than thinking of it as an evil tether to Boss Lady.
• Moved. Like 6 blocks. $100 more per month in rent for a parking space, laundry, two times as much space, and an ocean view. Yes, I'm crazy.
• Joining a book club when I was so adamantly against joining one in the past. Justification: I need to meet new people other than the obnoxious 18 year olds in school with me. And duh, I like to read.
  
• Babysitting Liam! OK, only once, but J and I kicked ass at it! I mean, we were excellent role models for the young man.
  

I don't think I'll be able to update often as I have in the past, but here's a little peek at what I've been up to!

Little Venice Baker

March Goals:
Get back on track with my exercise, most importantly, keeping my knee healthy.
Convince my friends to have weekly family dinners so I have somewhere to put all my baked goods, other than my mouth.
Start my etsy shop with local delivery for most goods, and shipping for others. Cookies anyone?


xoxo James

* I still use it to read all the fabulous blogs in my roll, Google Reader what? Now I just need to get on actually commenting.

Pre-Weekend Update

First, many thanks to Katelin for well wishes on pastry school. One day I'll messenger over some sweet goodies to you. Only if you promise to share them with Ryan Gossling. Anywho, I'm officially applied and accepted, now I only need to figure out how on Earth I intend to pay for it. Because seriously y'all, pastry school is freaking expensive.

Nothing much going on in the World o' James this week. I went up to Seattle for an agency meeting that I spent pretty much all summer planning. Well, technically I spent about three weeks on this one, but there were multiple others including trips on seaplanes to British Colombia, private trains to Vancouver, and dinner cruises in Puget Sound that were cancelled. I kid you not. Having the freedom to spend nearly $30,000 on 30 people has pretty much ruined any chance I ever had of planning a small, budget friendly wedding. Not that I'm doing that. No pressure honey!

No big plans for the weekend. Softball on Sunday, a little H&M with Em and the family. I'm in the mood to bake some autumn treats for the office on Monday, so I'll try to get around to that. People have requested brownies. I'm beginning to think I'm the only person in the world who prefers brownies from a mix to the real thing. Maybe I just haven't found the right recipe?

The girls are hosting a homecoming party next weekend, so I may need some opinions on which dress to wear from my formative HS years. Pictures to be provided early next week.

Chocolate Chip Oat Cookies

My first recipe out of Perfect Baking was choosen out of necessity.  Necessary because a - oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are my go to cookie and b - it was the only one in the book that didn't require me going to the store for extra ingredients.  

Without further ado, here's what they looked like...(I appreciate any tips on photographing food)

I couldn't resist sharing this one though.  Duff looks like he's thinking, "Oh snap!  I almost had it."

I wasn't a huge fan of the cookie, but others, mainly Liz, really liked them.  I found the texture to be a bit too crumbly, they were incredibly dense, and not sweet enough for me.  I also substituted cranberries for the semisweet chocolate.  Keeping the milk chocolate of course!  Will I make them again?  Not likely.      

New Feature...Baking!

As you will read in my birthday post (coming up once I add some photos), Liz and Byn both gave me some great baking cookbooks. I plan to try one recipe per week, posting my photos, critiques, and of course mistakes here. Of course I won't post the actual recipe, but I'll let you know the titles in case you'd like to play along.

So Jota...you better get to band practice! Or maybe I can bake on the day you have soccer, and you can have band practice the next day? That way you can take some yummies for the boys. Then we can call you The Cupcakes, or The Cupcake Effect...or something like that.

Baking my Little Heart Out

When Jota and I first moved to Santa Monica, we only had each other. Seriously, we had no friends. Until we got Linus McDuff of course. Then we were constantly bombarded by crazy dog ladies, but that's another post all in itself.

Being an avid soccer player, Jota set out to find some local pick up games and teams. This is where he met his first friend, Nick Barker. Nick invited us over to his apartment for a BBQ on Memorial Day weekend in 2005, and the rest is history. Soon we were gallivanting around town with Nick and Emily, and more friends to follow.

On the nights Jota played soccer, I found myself with nothing to do. See, unfortunately, Emily worked nights at the hospital. Totally awesome when I didn't have to be in the office until 1:00pm. We'd spend many a morning watching reruns of Dawson's Creek and eating chocolate chip pancakes. However, it totally sucked in terms of watching shitty reality tv and Desperate Housewives.

To pass time, I resorted to baking. First it was always my oatmeal chocolate chip pecan cookies. Then homemade Milanos, coconut kisses, applesauce muffins, etc. While Jota appreciated the baking, it was the men at the office who really loved the goodies. Before long, our CEO was asking, "Doesn't your boyfriend have a soccer game this week?"

When I started in a new division last year, the baking began to slack off. Pretty soon, it was only for birthdays. And then only the people I liked.

Last week, I had an epiphany. Jota and the boys have band practice once a week. I should start baking again! And baking I did. Em's baby shower is coming up in July, so I needed to test a recipe. This recipe is amazing. Red velvet cake seriously creeps me out, and I still love it. While mine may not be as perfectly pretty, I still think they're pretty damn cute.

Em, I better get some excited kicks from Doo!

Whose Birthday is Next?

Oh wait, it's mine. Seeing how I was completely obsessed with the salted caramels from Fran's, I HAVE to make these cupcakes!

Such a Brat

DH's roomie made cookies last night, and there is a plate of them on my desk. My desk just happens to be the spot where people know to look for treats because, duh, I like to bake. However, I do not like these healthy, organic cookies on my desk. They're ugly. I don't know what they taste like, but people keep saying they're super sweet. And I do not want people thinking I make ugly, super sweet, organic cookies.

An Almost Culinary Success

I try not to bitch about work, but having Byn come into town was an issue. Work is pretty lax about taking a day here or there, plus they give us the week between Christmas and New Year's off. So when I submitted my form two months ago and told my boss I would be in town, I thought it was no biggie. I was wrong. Evidently, disclosing my lack of destination meant that I wasn't really on vacation. Meaning that when my boss decided that we were going to fly a candidate in to interview all day Friday, I was expected to come in. When I refused, she pressed for me to at least come in to handle lunch. Fucking bullshit. I flat out said no, resulting in the most awkward and stressful week before vacay EVER. A full week later, and she's still pissed at me.

To solve the lunch "dilemma" I asked a co-worker to sign for the delivery, and make sure that it was actually one time. She awesomely also did her best to keep my staff on track with interview times.

As a thank you, I made her this beautiful recipe that I found on Smitten Kitchen. I did the basic lemon/blueberry combo, adding an extra 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla and lemon zest. I have these super cute cupcake boxes that Em gave me, so I made muffins. No pictures from me though, I forgot to rinse my wild blueberries, and ended up with the dreaded purple muffin. At least her kids will appreciate the color.