WHEN YOU REALIZE YOU HAVE TO START JOB HUNTING AGAIN

Gone Awry

For a moment, I considered grad school. I thought, Sure! Why not? Then I actually looked at some requirements and now I'm running for the hills. Terribly intimidating. Then again, I was looking at Yale's Doctorate program in Neuropsychology.

So I think grad school is off the table for now. I'll still aim for that MBA and M.Ed. But boy do I want to learn more about neuroscience. Is that weird? I am addicted to reading non-fiction. My favorite genre? Medical discoveries and abnormalities. This is such a stretch from food, right? However, I want to understand why people choose the food that they do. Why they tick and why decisions can be made in split seconds. But I don't want to hear the verbal garbage that spews out of sociologists. Nor do I want to pursue the analytical side of market research. I like biology and chemistry. I want to see the evidence and hold a brain in my hand. That would be AWESOME! This is what happens when I spend too much time at the library. I learn new things. :)

Check this out:
1. The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge
2. Compass of Pleasure by David J. Linden

Cinnamon Apple Brandy Bread Pudding

Finally the recipe!  I made it, I tried it, I'm adjusting it for you. I like my food sweet. Like cavity inducing sweet. This certainly wasn't sweet enough. But if you don't want cavities, just cut down on the sugar. Enjoy! Also! From other tasters, this is a "drier/breadier" bread pudding by the way.

Cinnamon Crumble Apple Brandy Bread Pudding
Used: 11x7 glass baking dish
Servings: 6
Serving size: 3x3in piece
Total time: 1hr+

Ingredients:
1 very stale sweet baguette
5 eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 cups low fat milk
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
Splash of Calvados apple brandy (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Butter dish on all sides. Lightly!! (I made it look like frosting and that was not a good idea)
3. Cut the bread into 1 inch cubes. There was no need to toast the bread because it was so dry I got cut! But if your bread is not rock hard stale, do toast it as a dry bread will soak in more of the milk mixture
4. Beat the eggs then add all the rest of the ingredients. Whisk thoroughly.
5. Taste as you go is key! Don't drink it as raw eggs are risky to eat.
6. Put the bread into the milk mixture. Allow it to soak for 10minutes

Crumble
2 tbsp melted butter
1/2 cup flour
2 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp brown sugar

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together first
2. Slowly add the melted butter while stirring the dry ingredients
3. Stop when crumbles are formed

Place the bread into the buttered dish and put the crumbles on top.
Cover the dish with foil and cook for 30minutes. Uncover and cook for another 30-40minutes.
It's done when you poke it with a fork and there is only a little bit of moisture on the end.
Keep the dish uncovered so the top doesn't get soggy. Eat!

Science of this recipe tomorrow! Carbs!

Which will you choose?

I have few requirements for my life:
1. Find a career that pays more than the career path I strayed from (Food Scientist)
2. Love what I do
3. Dress pretty for work
4. Travel

So where does that leave me? I had a minor pre-quarter life crisis with it being my birthday month and all. I love my current job! I truly do. I don't like the pay but the customers and my bosses make up for that. I've done the research and found a couple of options.
1. Catering
2. Food writing/editing (I always did want to write that book on...I can't tell you! You'll take my ideas! lol)
3. Food styling (Mentioned this in a previous post)
4. Travel agent
5. (advertising) Account Executive but I lack the degree in business

Too many choices. Too many unknowns. So my solution to all this? Run. Run to another country and maybe I can figure it out over there during my adventures. I need a global map and darts. Next stop.....*throws dart*

Happy Independence Day America!

This was the only thing on my agenda today:
(Recipe coming soon!)
And then I ate it. By myself. NOM NOM NOM!

Eyes, not nose

It's a day where I have it off. It's the middle of the week! Whereas I would love to hang out with friends on my days off, I cannot as they have "grown-up" jobs with proper weekends off. But I can't complain about the flexibility. So with ugly weather outside, I'm on Tastespotting rather than out spending $$ at restaurants. I came across this recipe:  Cinnamon POPS

So I would like to thank Tastespotting. Thank you for giving me eye candy. My stomach and I thoroughly appreciate it. :)

Eau de Baked Goods

So my job ends the day at the cleaning yard which is located right next to La Boulange's baking headquarters.  As we're cleaning the contents of the day's work, we can all smell the fresh baked bread coming from the other side of the fence.  None of us has ever been inside the factory. Until me.

It was an emergency! I needed a restroom! Per usual, all the workers are Latino so I can only ramble in my broken Spanish to get in the door at 10pm. The guy was very amused and basically snuck me in.  When you walk into the building, on the left are the offices, to the right is the locked door into the bakery. He enters the code and waits for me to enter. By the door is a box of hairnets and shoe booties. OMGOSH! It feels like college when I had to enter the food laboratory. I hesitated since I can see in very large font: ALL WORKERS MUST WEAR HAIRNETS AND BOOTIES. I understand the importance of food safety as all the information was drilled into me over 4years of college. I grabbed both and threw them on immediately. The second I walked into the main floor, it was pure magic. There is flour EVERYWHERE. On the floors, on the walls, in the air. It smelled amazing. I wanted to stay there forever. Alas, I did my business and got out of there before anyone would question why I was there. But I do want to return. As a quality control inspector possibly? :D Yes, I'll need to eat everything.

As you probably heard from the news, Starbucks acquired La Boulange hoping to incorporate the baked goods into all their stores. Yay?

I'd like to contribute to this section: "With the acquisition, the Seattle-based coffeehouse chain plans to beef up its food offerings in Starbucks stores with La Boulange-branded French pastries, croissants, breads and muffins, which company officials hope will drive traffic and build the chain’s food attachment rate."

Read more: http://nrn.com/article/starbucks-buy-la-boulange-bakery-100m#ixzz1zVrFTQ00

Starbucks has been working on this for a long time.  In fact, I met the Starbucks marketing manager and she liked my shoes. But anyways, they were hoping to work on their food offerings. The company I was at did an analysis of their current offerings and bleck. Low quality and non-substantial amounts of food. Plus, boring and completely unappealing. So we were told to do more research into lunch "boxes" from major retailers. I guess they didn't want to go through more R&D as they clearly just bought La Boulange to give them that option now. Business is a fickle thing. Starbucks, to customers right now, is purely a coffee house. Well now Starbucks hopes to take more of your money by offering lunch options. I'm sure they are working with Pascal Rigo on that right now. A new panini or something? So get ready to see some test runs in certain Starbucks retailers. Only time will tell if consumers will associate lunch with Starbucks. 

That is all.