Travelling to Toronto Pearson Airport, waiting for my flight to Brussels, Belgium

Friday June 14th. 

I waited last minute to pack, luckily my youngest sister, Carol came to my rescue to help me pack. By that I mean pack for me. =D She made it look super easy. It taught me some valuable lessons....

#1. I have too many black clothes

#2. Plastic bag everything. 

#3. Don't pack too much that your suitcase falls on you. 

#4. If you question it, you don't need it. 

I got to spend some time with her before I left, yay! sister bonding time! Friday night, I didn't sleep at all. This is very common for me when I'm anxious and excited. I stayed up the entire night watching movies and my mistake was putting on Final Destination and watched the last Canadian sunrise for a while. I got picked up, in the car I had the worst stomach ache. At first, I thought it was from hunger or just pure sheer terror from thinking of every worst case scenario that would happen on the plane. (it was my first time travelling)

We got to the airport and located the airline (Jet Airways) lucky for me, I had two excellent and experience people showing me where to go. I walked up to the counter and received my boarding pass, checked in my bag, and the lady was really excited I had a window seat. (I was no so...) I headed to the gates to where my plane was taking off. It's really important to get to the airport early for this. I walked through security and the night before, being me I youtubed how to get through airport security. LOL I was a pro. THANKS YOUTUBE! 

I waited a little under two hours for my flight. Checked in and ready I gave my boarding pass to the clerk. and proceeded to walk down to the plane. I was very calm at this point having processed everything that was happening. I got onto the plane, greeted by our flight attendants in three languages. I eventually found my seat and sat next to a gentlemen who spoke only Dutch. 

                                                       10 hours later....

I was in Brussels! yay! Tired and jet lagged, time difference got the best of me. I walked off the plane and went to my next connecting flight to Malaga. It was a 5 hour connection. I walked around the airport for 3 hours and the 2 hours.. I mingled with a lot of people on my flight. 

-J

Six Days til Spain!!! (seis)

Hello All! 

I'm still up at 3:26 am  on a Saturday contemplating what I should put in my suitcase. So far, I've made a bit of progress. I have a white bikini and my passport. I must say a huge improvement from last time I tried to pack. 

A lot has changed over the course of a week, relationships ended, new friendships formed.. I'm finding myself in the middle of peace and calm nature. I think the majority of it has to do with everything coming to a close. 

I can't wait to begin my trip to Spain. I'm looking forward to cervesas, churros and especially tapas. 

Yay! 

-Cat

Cote De Boeuf

Toronto. Ontario.

My sister, Carol and I went to Toronto to see the RENT musical at the ossington theatre on Saturday. As we were finishing up and leaving Delux Cubano Cafe, we walked past this butcher store. In most cases, a lot of people would scream at the sight of a pigs head resting on a white plate, but for me.. I find it fascinating! as would any other chef would.

In Waterloo you don't see most of these places nowadays.. it seems too obscene and unnecessary but I think we really need more adventurous places like these. =D

-Cat

Goodbye Blackberry =(

The past year, I've spent working at Blackberry cooking and servicing the staff there.. This dessert above is something I made for one the employees there. It's a vanilla genoise, layered with french vanilla pastry cream enrobed with white chocolate, coated with toasted coconut.

Everytime I look at this dessert it makes me happy and sad.. Hopefully in the next job I'll be able to bring such gluttony and decadence to the next.

-Cat

Experience or lack of it? just an ol' cook

This past weekend, I was updating my resume and realized how many places I've worked in. From restaurants to bakeries I found myself sitting back and wondering to myself what have I learned? With that mind set, it got me thinking about writing...

A couple of years ago, I had been introduced to the idea of potentially writing a cookbook, essentially a collection  of all my experiences from when I was first inspired to cook to entering the scary and rapid pace of the culinary college life. I have been thinking a lot about this lately and I'm waiting on a response from publishers. It made me think, I'm 24 years old and why this interest in writing? I started out as a cook and nothing more.. what seemed like moments ago, all I wanted to do was plate food on ceramic white plates, food stacked high and coated with a type of jus.

Now I found myself looking into the esthetics of food. I always appreciated food photography and the amazing pictures that some photographers can create. I thought, that's what I want to do.. but with my food.

So here.. I'm sitting writing one about baking and the experiences of it. I wonder how long this will take me?..... look back at blog in 20 years. lol.

-cat

June 14th-last day ... JUne 15th-beginning of a new chapter

On June 14th is my last day of work. =( June 15th is my departure to Spain. I find myself sitting here.. my mind is drifting off somewhere between la-la land and limbo (same thing?) In the mist of it all, I managed to find a moment of clarity. What if this is a sign of something good to come? June 14th-saying my chapter of a good job is ending... June 15th-saying the chapter in a new life is beginning. I'm going off to Spain that day and I think it will be a mind-blown experience, I forget anything that happened when I travel. I'm going off to meet new people, experience amazing cultural traditions and eat great food. 

In the mist of all this chaos, I can't help but think of the people this effects. My units closing down, all I can think of is... where will my staff go? will they manage to find jobs? What about the benefits they will no longer have? This feeling, my friends is called "caring". Yes, I emphasized on it, but for me, its taken me a long time to develop and understand this feeling. I am so greatly sorry to deliver the news to my customers, it's been great. I couldn't believe the relationships that I built working here and I will sadly miss the funny conversations that I shared with everyone here. 

Now is the time to close this chapter in my life, and open the door to a new opportunity... 

-Cat

I was looking at some old pictures and I stumbled upon this one, fits the theme quite perfectly. I'm travelling to Spain in less 3 weeks, why? To be honest, I desperately need a vacation and why Spain? Well... why not.  In the picture above, I made this with my youngest sister, this dish is paella, it has rice, muscles, shrimp, chorizo sausage, tomato, saffron and garlic. 

I am staying with a host family in Malaga, Spain and just received information about them. I google walked through the internet of where the location is and I'll admit, all of Spain is beautiful, the walk to school will be amazing. It's around 15-20 minutes to get there to a street call Juan something. So far, I have taken-well-procrastinated is a better word for this, slacking on my Spanish Studies. 

I can have a conversation to the bare minimum.... "Hola, que tal?.. Mi nombre es Jessi..." That's pretty much it. I had thought about making sticky notes and writing words in Spanish and labelling everything but I figure that's a waste of paper and it would be annoying for my host family. I'm really excited to meet them, they all seem quite friendly. In the information package, they say they cook mainly Arabic meals. I'll be honest here, i have no idea what goes into preparing Arabic cuisine. I am excited to learn about it. 

Off to bed.. it's 5 am in the morning and I have to be at work in 1.5 hours.. how will i do this.... counting down the days until freedom!

-Cat

Baby Shower Cake

My sister knew a girl who was having a baby and asked me to make a cake, regretfully I had never made a baby shower cake before. I made a zebra striped cake, filled with chocolate cake and vanilla butter cream. 

This was my attempt at baby shoes and a monkey, it looks like a cross between a monkey and a gorilla. :(

-cat

Birthdays

I always enjoy making birthday cakes. Why? There is almost always a guaranteed smile and well the occasional gratitude when you finished it and they receive that small but meaningful gesture because you remembered their birthday.

I've always enjoyed making people happy through food,  well the weight gain is something to be said for a sacrifice, it is worth it!

-cat

Triple Chocolate fudge Brownie cake

I've been working at my job for the past year this month will be the year anniversary of when I started. Within that year, I've grown to build many friendships and great relationships with everyone there, the employees tend to move around every so often, this employee in particular was transferring over to a different building and he has been with the company for over 6 years. I decided as a farewell to make him this cake, getting to know people you feed, you learn to know about their tastebuds and personalities. Almost always I match their personalities with food. This one for Scott I made a triple chocolate fudge brownie cake layered with caramel, rolo chunks, french vanilla buttercream, raspberry coulis, fresh strawberries and pop rocks.

Everyday I would see him for breakfast and lunch and he would always talk about the cravings he had randomly of deep chocolate fudge and pop rocks combo, so I decided to merge those two together. Guess what? HE LOVED IT!

It is always sad to see people go, it's almost like a disconnect from the workplace but I was very happy to present him this cake.

-cat

Avid Sushi Fan!

Today, Sunday May 5th, 2013 I went and ate a new sushi restaurant. This specific restaurant is part of a chain of AYCE (all you can eat) sushi places in KW area. This group is the Ye's Sushi group. I have been going to the restaurant for the past 6 years, the transformation over the years has been quite the change from old to new, past to modern decor. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the decor, but obviously I took a picture of the food, if that was my full time job I'd be one happy pucca!

Here is a little of what we sampled today.

New Year, Big changes!

I haven't written in this blog for almost a year now! =(  So much has happened over the last year, some memories I'd like to forget.. some I don't.. and most I remember =)

I'll be leaving for Malaga, Spain in just a little over a month. Over the last 2 years I've been practicing my Spanish, when I arrive there in Spain will be the true test of if all the studying paid off. I'm beyond excited to go, I work for a great company now and I got a promotion in January, so far it's been a learning experience. I don't get to do that much baking any more but occasionally I'll get a client or two every week. Last week I made a chocolate mousse dessert for a guy at work who just wanted some petit fours to eat at his desk on his birthday. Sad? no way!

I'm slowly but surely beginning to realize that packing is a tedious job, we as people tend to overthink and analyze too much of what we need and "have to have" in our suitcase, so far I've got a Spanish language book and my passport, much to be said about procrastination but it will get done before June hopefully. =S wish me luck!

-Cat