Flowers, Yoga, & the Lovely Long Weekend

School started last Wednesday and my life feels like it's been moving nonstop since then. Even sleep is like in bed, then out of bed.

Some great things have happened though - I got many truly exceptional students back in my classes, which I was ecstatic about! I love many of them with all my heart, and can't wait to teach them this year!

Also, the first day of school, my parents sent me roses. They send them every year and I keep telling them that they don't need to but they do anyways (evidence that I am so lucky to have the parents that I have). Here are the beautiful yellow roses on my desk:

In my quest to stay sane, fit, & healthy this year, I decided to join Yogaworks in El Segundo. I. Love. It. And, they have a special teacher rate right now that gives me a $30 discount EVERY MONTH and no initiation fee! I've gone 4 times in the last 1.5 weeks... it's amazing how de-stressed, cheerful, healthy I feel after one of their classes. I'm definitely so excited to keep this up.

As Yogaworks is right next to Veggie Grill, I had to try it (thanks to Mya for the recommendation!). This is the All Hail Kale salad (to go) with Tempeh which was AWESOME! Who knew that veggie "meats" can actually taste BETTER than real meat? Holy cow!

Made another batch of baguettes this weekend... they're getting better and again, so nice to have taken the Artisan 1 class. When these get good, I'm going to email Safa to tell him about them.

Made a skirt with beautiful grey jersey fabric from NY Mood. I didn't have a pattern and did my best... I think it looks better in person :)

I visited Will for 2 days over the long weekend... best 2 days in the world, really.

View from the airplane as the sun set...

William is always so sweet to take me to my favorite shop, the Cheeseboard, for pizza and my favorite bread in town.

paulette macarons and umami burger

Paulette Macarons was alright. Maybe I've hyped it up in my mind to be this great thing. Don't get me wrong, the macarons were pretty good, but if I'm going to pay $10.60 for 6 cookies... the flavors on the macarons were not mindblowing, and the crust on the Sicilian Pistachio was way too thick (and I couldn't taste any distinctive pistachio flavor). I do, however, love a good macaron and shortly thereafter, I had a Raspberry which I think was my favorite. The crust was oh-so-thin and the flavor was very sweet but tasty. After the initial crunch, the crust melted away into the gooey cookie and raspberry jam filling, blurring the line between cookie and filling. As far as macarons go, I liked it but I think maybe the big problem I had with the cookies on whole is that they were too sweet and that overpowered any flavor that the cookie should have emoted.

I also had:

*Chocolate ~ which had Cacao nibs on it! What a great idea! This was a very very chocolatey cookie, I guess I don't know what I was expecting but it was very un-macaron like to me. Nonetheless it was #2 in my favorites to the Raspberry one.

*Madagascar Vanilla ~ Too strong of a vanilla flavor, I wasn't a huge fan. It almost tasted artificial

*Violet Cassis ~ Slightly floral and fruity, very sweet.

*Coconut ~ The top cookie was covered in little bits of coconut and the filling had coconut in it as well. Very tasty, I liked the texture of the coconut, reminded me of a coconut cake.

This shows: Coconut, Raspberry, Caribbean Chocolate, Violet Cassis, Madagascar Vanilla, Sicilian Pistachio.

After macarons galore, I met with Rachel and she took me to Umami Burger! MMMmmmmMMMMM it was so good!!!!! I have to say, that was the best burger I've ever had in my life. On my square plate sat a 3/4" thick patty with a perfectly semi-circle bun sitting on top. It was so cute. I opened it up to look at what was inside my classic Umami Burger and there was a melted-then-cooled round of crispy grated cheese, a fat (sundried?) tomato, and a shitake mushroom. It was a flavor like no burger before - do they put dashi in the meat or something?? It was so good I can't even describe. Flavor explosion, all the tastes coming together for a beautiful beautiful burger. We also got tempura onion rings which also had a wonderfully unique taste to them - the only complaint was that there were only 4, but they were crispy, airy crust, substantial taste and size. Yum. A great lunch with Ms. H - thank you so much for lunch Rachel!

(sorry no pix!)

Poolish baguette 1

They are ugly, misshapen, flat, and the scores barely show. However, the crust is the best I've ever made at home and the crumb has good flavor! Yayyyy! I feel victory in the fact that even though I made mistakes, they have improved significantly due to my SFBI Artisan 1 class. Thank you Safa and SFBI!

It was soo hot in my apartment when I was making the poolish, about 86 degrees. I also don't really have a freezer, so I couldn't use any ice to cool down the water I used. Not ideal. On top of the fact that the Kitchenaid inherently creates a lot of heat in the dough! Ah!

My poolish on the morning of Day 2

I've really started to learn the importance and nice-ness of having mise en place.

Dough after mixing (to improved mix)

After final shaping into 350 g baguettes. I'm limited by the small depth of my oven, so I think next time it'll be 300 g baguettes.

Wanda from SFBI told me how she boils the water on the stove and then sticks the entire pot into the oven when she bakes. Safa suggested the cast iron pan, and this combination resulted in some really nice carmelization on my better-than-usual crust. I think I've found my technique!

Two of the baguettes, they are so ugly but they tasted very nice!

Some of them had a tighter hole structure like this one:

Others had nice open hole structures like this one:

My lunch tomorrow, with curry chicken salad:

Gifts for friends tomorrow at school (I'm a teacher), in some cute wrapping paper from Target

Great experience, I can't wait to bake another set of baguettes!

Getting back into running

I went running twice! On Friday with William at Columbia Park, and today by myself at Columbia Park. Running with Will was awesome, it felt really great and invigorating to be out running on the park's 1 mile winding path, and running with the one I love made it so much fun. Hope I can keep it up!

Roy's

One of our favorite restaurants is Roy's. We've been to the one in Downtown LA and in Tokyo, here's a dinner we had there on Saturday after running:

Crab corokkes

Will's misoyaki butterfish

Macademia nut encrusted mahi mahi

Chocolate lava cake with vanilla bean ice cream and raspberry sauce

Very yummy and wonderful dinner together, we sat by a window and talked the whole time. It really was so nice :)

Trying to lose 4 pounds before school starts

After a week of solid eating in NY and a week of baking class (and all the beautiful pastries and lunches that went with it), I've looked at pictures of myself and realized that I've gotten... rounder.

So, in preparation for the new school year, my goal is to lose 4 pounds before school starts. I've done pilates tonight and last night, and just signed up for the Nike Human Race. That was awesome last year and since I've fallen out of running given the lack of Nike Run Club in the South Bay, I figure it's perfect timing.

Goooo me! I can't let the stresses of the start of school get in the way of how I love feeling physically fit! Woo!

PS. I've also realized I watch way more Korean dramas than I like... I need to read more.