"Strawberry Fields Forever..."

Wake up. Eat. Go to work. Work. Come home from work. Shower. Eat. Rest and repeat. This is my life. Sometimes, you can throw a little True Blood or Army Wives in there, but for the most part, this is it. I promise that I'm still barrels of fun and extremely cool. :) Honestly though, I do not have even a blurb of wisdom to share, like I usually do, and so let's just get right to it...

Thursday, April 7, 2011
I went to work at 5pm and worked service. It was fairly busy with about 150 people in house, and I was at the restaurant until 11 or so.

Friday, April 8, 2011
*Lemon Tuile.
*Ricotta Cakes.
In JP:
*Cut Pralines for Bread Pudding.
*Cut Wedding Cake and Birthday Cake.

I brought two cakes to Jasmine from the Pastry Kitchen, a 40th birthday cake and a wedding cake, for a small wedding reception at JP. After the ceremonial cutting of the wedding cake and taking pictures of the birthday cake, each cake was brought back to my station for me to cut. You can never have too much cake-cutting practice. :)

Pre-wedding. The top was saved, of course. I cut the bottom into 10ish pieces, and about half of that cake was left.

The couple loves their dog. They love their dog so much that he/she was given special permission to be at the reception at Jasmine.

It was made with nutella. I could smell it. :)

Unfortunately, Lexi moved out due to understandable circumstances. Jessica also moved out, to our previous apartment complex, because she didn't have a car and the shuttle goes/ comes there. So, it's back to me and Alexa in the Grove 10E.

Saturday, April 9, 2011
*Peanut Butter Cookies.
*Pecan Pies. Well, I just put the chocolate chips in the tart shell, really, and Temperance did the rest.
And, service was crazy hectic; we were super busy.

Sunday, April 10, 2011
OFF.
My day off started with my alarm buzzing, which can never good but in this case it was. I met Erin and Heather at Three Little Birds near my favorite Starbucks in West Ashley. The Banana Peanut Butter Smoothie and the Sweet Potato Benedict were ah-mazing. After a quick Starbucks trip, we headed to Heather's apartment. From there, we jumped in my car on our way to Wadmalaw Island to pick strawberries. It was so fun, minus the bugs. And at $2.25 a pound and leaving with $8 worth of strawberries, it was completely worth it for off the vine (vine?) strawberries.

It was only appropriate to wear my "You know you're from Georgia when your favorite food is" shirt.

I found a gem of a strawberry and "how's your mama and 'em?" (see front of shirt...)

Thank you, artistic Erin, for this photograph.

Erin, Heather, and the Intern (that's me, obviously)...

Erin and the Intern cheeZing on the tire swing...

I thought I was going to die, and after dropping Erin and Heather off at Heather's, I came back to the apartment with a tummy ache. I was cured with a two hour nap. :) I then proceeded to cheer for my new golf crush, Rory McIlroy, to win the Master's (after leading for 64 holes). Unfortunately, the stress got to the 21 year old and he shot an 80, or +8, that's EIGHT over par. Poor fella. Maybe, I will see him at the Ocean Course at Kiawah in August 2012?! :) Hehe.

Monday, April 11, 2011
*Bread Pudding.
*Key Lime Pie.
*Key Lime Base.
*Blackberry Sauce.
*Pecan Pies.
*Mac. Baskets.
*Baked Milk and Honey Bread.
In JP:
*Dipped Pretzels.
*Cut Lemon Cake.
*Assembled Flowers.

Monday was a hard day as a baker for me. It seemed like everything just wasn't turning out. Now, I may have high expectations, too high in some regards, but, when you have key lime base splash in your face, pecan pie crust crack in the tart shell, etc. all while being by yourself in the pastry kitchen, you would want to throw things, cry a little, and give up, right? I think it's the pressure, feeling replaced?! Okay, ha, I'm just kidding. I do like feeling that some of my effort is paying off, however, when I see the final product, and yesterday, I just wasn't feeling it. This is really the first time since I put rice krispy treats in red napkined-baskets (and 600 of 'em at that) in 2009 (not a good idea, right, Teena?) that I've felt like this though. So, my future looks bright. I made it through that (and that summer confirmed to me that I wanted to go to culinary school) and it's a new day in the bakery tomorrow.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011
OFF.

Today, I had a "me" day and it was glorious. Celebrating yourself and spending time solo every now and again to explore, be quiet, do your own thing, and focus on the senses is truly important. I slept in then started the day with lunch at Your Pie. (It was $6 pizza Tuesday, and I didn't even know it. And the guy who started Your Pie was my cashier...) After that, I headed to the post office and the Citadel Mall for some Target shopping, among other stores. (Sorry, mom, for being so darn good at shopping. Does it help to know I received a 15% discount for being a student. Not really? For the amount of money we pay for schooling? Oh, Negative Nancy. :)) I headed downtown to check out a couple of stores, which I found I could not afford, but I did purchase what I came downtown to buy. Throw in a little yogurt from FreshBerry (it's in the "Best of Charleston" and I thought I should try it myself...) and Starbucks and the day was almost complete. I live on a island, and a sparse island at that, and I decided to eat dinner before heading back. Zia Taqueria was the winner, where the baja fish taco and the chicken Yucatan taco were delish, along with the chips and salsa. Now, I am here, blogging away and yapping to you people.

Did you know that today marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War? And, the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter, just a boat ride away from downtown Charleston, where I was today and live about 20 minutes away from. As Americans, have we really made any progress in the 150 years since the Civil War began? Racial equality? No. Southern acceptance? For the most part, no. Northern humbleness? No, again, for the most part. But, that's if we are taking about allegiance and territorial limits. Now, don't get me wrong, as I know the Civil War is a prominent time in our nation's history, but the key point is that this happened 150 years ago. This isn't me arguing for a perfect world, but sometimes don't you wonder what is happening in the world, as far as humanity is concerned? Civil Wars start and continue. Hatred. Violence. Fear. Rage. Poverty. Slavery. It makes you pray ever faithfully for Jesus to return soon. I cling to the hope...

I thought I should document the paper from where it all began on the 150th year... because what would I do with the actual paper if I bought it?!

My friends are coming this weekend to celebrate my friend Evan's last few weeks of being single. Watch out, Charleston. I can't wait.

I REALLY DO WISH I KNEW HOW TO MAKE STRAWBERRY WINE, DEANNA CARTER.

Haley "Strawberry Shortcake" Rehberg