**
My very first post, I talked about needing a project to keep busy. A constantly moving mind (thanks adult-ADHD!) The other things I wanted to do that my husband was resistant to - buying a home (check), having kid #2 (check), going back to school and getting a LLM (check!). As I wrapped up my LLM program this May, I thought about this project. About my approaching 40th birthday. About goals. About change. Taking plunges, like opening my own law firm two years ago. Success. Unfinished business. And I decided my last year of my 30's was going to be dedicated to finishing things. Starting with... my French Laundry Project!
This revival has less pictures, despite my miles-prettier kitchen, due to having people sitting and watching me cook (photos feel awkward now). More and bigger courses. Pushing limits and traipsing into the previously-uneaten foods of which I am no longer scared. In four months i've hosted 4 dinners, with more than 30 recipes covered. I am a more confident cook than I have ever been. And my children go to bed on their own and sleep through the night, which certainly helps my ability to work through ambiguous-as-fuck recipes, such as "make a farce and roll it into skin".
**
Another goal with 40 approaching is to organize my life. Photos, mostly. I can't remember things, and it scares me. Probably normal aging, but my grandmother and two of her sisters have Alzheimers - at just over 80, my grandmother no longer knows who I am - and there are few worse diseases. But photos and writing spark memories. I had no memory of eating, yet alone making, a handful of the recipes. When I remembered and skimmed through my blog, it all came back. Which clearly shows I need to document it. Once I am done, it is all going into a shutterfly book. One I can pull out and show my kids, to show them when mommy did something adventurous and scary, to show them that they can take on big projects and to finish them (even if it takes a decade!) Expect a return to writing, even if the pictures leave something to be desired.
**
When I opened the 'post now', I found a partially-written blog post (amusingly, of one of the things I told my husband I had zero recollection of making). Without further adieu, pictures from a dinner I made in 2014! Five years later, I have no recollection of how hard it was, how it tasted, or what I screwed up. The photos do tell me that there were a lot of freaking steps, so I probably don't want to do it again.
Weird cookies. The bottom, probably:
Who doesn't love a little sugar cooked with egg whites. Into some sort of meringue-like thing, I think:
Moving on: ingredients for creme anglaise:
Gonna be honest, this looks like meringue. But that's not where it is in the photo order. Mixed up photos? Something else? Maybe creme? But why would that be whisked? Your guess is as good as mine.
Now this I know. Melting chocolate with hot cream. Did a lot of times, including (apparently) for this dessert.
On its way to being mint oil:
Ta-da, I finished it! You know, five years later, I still think I nailed it with the mint oil drops. But I have no recollection at all of what this tasted like, or how I got the chocolate to be shavings. Still, I clearly did it, so check!
