Motherhood

Motherhood can be tricky. There is such a fine line that will be walked for eternity that is the balance between taking care of your children, and making sure that your own needs are met so you can continue taking care of your children. I know that personally, I have always had an issue carving out time for myself. I hate asking for that time. It makes me feel selfish. It makes me feel like a bad parent to need a break. I feel like I should WANT to be with the kids all the time...especially since I am working and spending less time with them. I feel guilty. I always hear, "You have to take care of yourself before you can truly take care of others." My head comprehends this, but there is a difference between comprehending something and accepting the truth of it. I think mothers have a harder time taking the time for themselves, too, simply because we are wired differently than men. Marc, and many other fathers I know of, put in extremely long hours at work, seeing the kids for minimal quantities of time for long stretches in our lives. I am so grateful that I am married to a man who is willing to do this to make sure we are all provided for. I don't have that mental capability. When I don't see the kids, I begin to fall apart at the seams. I have an intrinsic NEED- not a want, a NEED- to connect with them daily, to check in and make sure they are emotionally ok, that school is going well and they aren't having problems with friends or teachers, to know what they are worried or joyful about that day. Marc just got a new schedule at work that requires him to be at work at 2PM three days a week. Our days off are now the same, so we have a "weekend" together...it's just during the middle of the week. This is going to be amazing, especially once summer comes and Harmony is off school. We can do things together as a complete family during the day, not just squeezed into a family night after swimming on Thursdays. The one thing that bothers me, though, is that until school is out, Harmony will not see Marc or I except for briefly in the morning, three days each week. This hurts my mommy heart. I have been leaving her little notes this week just so she is reassured I love her. I know she knows. I still just want to make sure our connection stays strong. With this change, I feel even more guilty taking any time for myself. Couple that with Marc working at sharing Visalus, and I feel guilty for asking him to take time away from that so I can have time alone. I need that though. I wouldn't call myself a hermit or anything like that, but I need time to recenter and reconnect with MYSELF, too. I have just always needed/enjoyed time by myself. I don't mind being alone. Sometimes after a busy, noisy day, I enjoy turning down the lights and just sitting in silence and semidarkness and breathing. I need that peace. I am so thankful to be at a place where Ohana, family, is important. I'm surrounded by those with families, and who understand that sometimes parenthood is messy. I'm thankful that Adam understands the difference in men and women and their built in need to take care of their children themselves. I don't want to spend minimal amounts of quality time with my kids...I want to RAISE THEM. I want to parent them. I want to shape them into responsible human beings who will contribute to our society. This requires hands on parenting, not shipping them off to sitters all the time. But there has to be a balance. I struggle so hard to find that balance. The balance where the kids have enough of my time to be correctly loved and parented, where my marriage has the time and effort devoted to it so it thrives and flourishes, where the house is taken care of, where I spend time exercising and maintaining my health, and where I can spend enough time researching and learning that my work life continues to grow and excel. Where does personal time fit into all that? I know that I am not the only mother that feels this way, so as Mother's Day approaches...take some time for yourself! :)

This and That

There a couple of new things that are on the menu right now. Awhile back, Adam had the idea of trying to smoke marshmallows in the altosham so they taste like they were done over a campfire. I decided to make a s'more cheesecake using this idea. There is a graham cracker crust, a chocolate ganache, and a marshmallow cheesecake layer made with the cold smoked marshmallows. I then make some homemade graham crackers to go with it, and a red marshmallow ganache on the side.

We have also had numerous requests to bring back a pineapple upside down cake that used to be on the menu before I came to Roy's. That is also back on the menu, replacing the almond cake that was on the menu for quite some time. It comes with coconut ice cream made in house, and I added a maraschino cherry chutney. I mean, come on! What's pineapple upside down cake without the cherry?!?

I decided, since I had my camera available, to take a picture of this season's Prix Fixe dessert, too. The spring dessert is a PB+J. This is a banana pound cake with a strawberry gel, fresh strawberries, a peanut butter mousse, and a peanut butter banana tuille. I have a love/hate relationship with this dessert. I really am not a huge fan of the banana extract used in the cake. It tastes like a banana runt/airhead. People either seem to love or detest this dessert. I do like the peanut butter mousse and the strawberry gel, but not the banana components. I think it would be better with a peanut butter cake and a banana mousse, if banana is included at all. I, personally, never ate bananas on my PB+J's, though, and could do without that flavor component.

Another recent task was to recreate someone's top tier of their wedding cake in cupcake form for their one year anniversary. This was a fun task, and I didn't get pictures of the final canoe, but I added heart shaped sugar cookies with a white royal icing and a silver rose painted on them. They were packaged in cellophane bags and tied with a ribbon. There was one bag of two cookies with roses on each side and one in the center that said "Hauoli Piha Makahiki" (Happy Anniversary). The cupcakes were red velvet with cream cheese frosting, topped with a thin layer of fondant to paint on and give a clean look.

Day 28 Update

Monique Burr- the biggest event to date

April has been a crazy whirlwind of a month. Layla's birthday was followed by Easter, followed by a wedding cake, and finally, the culmination of it all, the Monique Burr event. Monique Burr is an organization that advocates for abandoned and abused children. Every year, Roy's heads up an event called A Night in the Village. The parking lot is transformed into a "village" with lights, fences, trees, tables, a stage, etc and the businesses in our plaza open their doors for special treats and shopping with all the ticket and sales proceeds going to the Monique Burr Foundation. In the past, there has been approximately five hundred attendees. This is the biggest event I have prepared for to date. The stress level at work has been through the roof this last month. Event after event, combined with management vacations and conferences left us all on edge and the usual back of the house spirit was definitely a little more tense. I've been feeling the pressure. We began preparing for the event a couple of months ago. We determined the dishes and I created a detailed timeline to make sure everything was prepared in time. It all went off without a hitch. I didn't feel much stress as far as the actual dishes were concerned. My stress was definitely more of a social thing. Roy Yamaguchi himself attends this event, as well as many of the Executive Chefs of the Roy's on the East Coast. Back of the house is not very big, and having an extra five Chefs plus food to serve 500 people only makes the space that much smaller. I'm used to having the back of the house/pastry area mostly to myself, and many (influential) people were in my personal space. I did my best to grin and bear it, but I definitely needed a couple of Ativan to make it through.

The day of the event, I was prepping and Roy Yamaguchi walks around the corner. I have gloves on my hands since I am preparing ready to eat food. I have to make a split second decision. Do I shake his hand wearing a glove, or do I take off the glove and shake his hand with a sweaty, just-ungloved-so-kind-of-powdery hand. I opted for the ungloved handshake and as he walked away after a quick head nod and "nice to meet you", quickly face palmed myself. I just shook Roy Yamaguchi's hand...and my hand was gross and sweaty and powdery. I quickly shook it off and realized that he has definitely been in this business long enough to understand, and was thankful I was wearing the glove to begin with. My favorite dish of the night was my Kaffir Lime Curd Tarts with a Ginger Meringue and my Signature Sugar Cookie base. The idea for this was my own, and I love how they turned out.

We also had Cannolis stuffed with a Haupia (traditional coconut pudding) cannoli filling. Some had a brunoise of pineapple folded in, and some had chocolate shavings folded it.

Natane was in charge of the Ice Cream for the Teeny Tiny Ice Cream Cones. She made pistachio and nutella ice creams, and a blueberry sorbet. She spent most of the night in the freezer scooping ice cream. THAT is dedication.

Our final dessert was a Yuzu Pound Cake with Mirin Macerated Strawberries and a Basil Whipped Cream. It was a new take on Strawberry Shortcake and went over very well.

Overall, the event couldn't have gone any smoother. I learned quite a bit and am proud of the success of the event. I'm extremely glad that it is over for the year, however. Now that I have done one of these events, I have a better idea going into the next one what to expect.

19 days into my 90 Day Challenge

Today is day 19 of my 90 Day Challenge. My brother is getting married in October and I found this amazing dress that I fell in love with and would be perfect for the occasion.

Marc said to go ahead and order it. I did, and ordered a size 10. It was the only size they had left. It came on day two of the challenge and I couldn't zip it. Not a single inch. I was disappointed, but hopeful because it gave me a more tangible goal than a number on a scale which can be deceiving. I tried it on a few times in the last 19 days and today...well... TODAY:

I'm so friggin' excited!! It wasn't very easy to zip, but if it didn't zip AT ALL 19 days ago, I know in a few more days it will zip right up without a struggle. I'm already down a pants size, too, and the scale showed a 5 lb loss on Tuesday. We will see what it says in two days on THIS Tuesday.

I've always been skeptical of this kind of product because I get REALLY crabby when my blood sugar gets low, I feel deprived of food, and/or am hungry. I haven't felt ANY of that with this!! It's been so amazing! These shakes taste SOOOOOO good (my favorite is the butterfinger- literally tastes like a butterfinger) and, being a pastry chef, it doesn't deprive me of "dessert" because it's like I'm drinking dessert two meals a day!

If you want more information, go watch this six minute video. It tells you way more about it than I ever could.

Wedding Cake

Last Wednesday, I was informed that I had a wedding cake to create for the 14th. The person they were communicating with was in Germany, and the only information I was getting was through the person who plans the parties for our restaurant. I secured some basic information, but it boiled down to them just trusting me to come up with something. They wanted a round, two tier with no separation, vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream and fondant. Their colors are blues, but we didn't have a sample of WHICH blues. They are getting married on the beach, then coming the short distance to Roy's for their reception. I had a photo of the bride's bouquet.

I browsed online and in cake magazines. This is someone's wedding cake. I wanted it to be special and perfect for their big day. I found a cake that I gathered inspiration from, drew up a sketch, and went from there. The hardest part was that I had to rely on others to secure the cake base and flowers. It's hard to let that kind of responsibility go to others when the end result has your name on it. It all worked out, though!

I had so much FUN doing this cake. It went smoothly, I had good quality fondant to work with which makes things so much easier, and I had space to work. I can't wait until the next one!

Chocolate Painting

Marc and I ADORE TacoLu- a local eatery in Jax Beach that seriously has the best tacos around!!! My favorite is the avocado taco, I think. We go there fairly regularly, so when I heard that the owner, Don, was in with his family to celebrate his birthday at Roy's, I knew something special needed to be done. The signature artwork around TacoLu is the day of the dead skull. I saw a piece of artwork hanging there that I really loved, so I snapped a pic of it on my phone the last time we were there.

I pulled it up and did a loose interpretation of it on his birthday plate in chocolate. I wasn't able to get any pictures, but he did and posted them all on Facebook!

I was so glad he did! This is just one more reason I love my job and makes it get more amazing every day!