Guess Who?
A hundred thousand views. Wow. This humble little blog of mine has just welcomed its 100,000th visitor. Mega. Mind Blowing. WOW.
First things first, a big
ALoHa~ to everyone out there. You’re probably wondering who this is. It is I, the
rum-induced, cheese-hugging, chocolate-loving nut job
who started this blog back in 2010. The same gal who would update this
site religiously throughout her Le Cordon Bleu Patisserie course: 3
times a week, 9 months straight, without fail. The very same gal who
then, without warning, went dark, like Jack Bauer in
24. Without A Trace. A Cold Case. I watch waaay too much American television, but you get the drift.
Well I am back.
It has been just over 2 years since I completed my course and shared my last thoughts
here. What happened? Life happened. Since leaving the
protective confines of school, I got swept up in the tidal waves of the
Real World, but one thing for sure, I never forgot about you guys.
Ever so often I would swing by for a quick peek to see if
anyone was still reading
this blog: I was gob-smacked to find that you awesome guys were not
only coming back, you’ve been coming back 100,000 times more! Granted
it’s minuscule compared to what many top bloggers get in a day,
but topping the traffic charts was never my intention. This blog was my
mental and emotional outlet, a chronicle of the detour my up-till-then
predictable life had taken. The fact that you gave two hoots about a
lost soul trying to follow her passion and find herself, has been
humbling. And knowing that you are still here, is just brilliant. You
guys rock!
So, I took that as a sign that it was about time I dropped you guys a note, to say a big Hello and a gratified Thank You.
I now take questions from the floored floor.
Molten Chocolate Cupcakes
with Toffee Banana Center
Why didn’t you say goodbye, you cold heartless bi-
Why, thank you for your question, anonymous reader. I didn’t say goodbye coz I suck at it. Loath it as much as I do
sugarwork and cleaning up. And to do so was to grant
this blog a finality it didn’t deserve. All this time this blog has
been, and continues to serve as steady reference for many of you who
are either LCB students reading up before the start of each class,
potential students looking to find out more about the course, or home
bakers wishing to learn out
how puff pastry is made and why you shouldn’t store fondant-covered cakes in the fridge. So you see, like how the first
Christmas cake has endured the test of time, I had faith that this blog would too.
Also,
a curtain call on the blog that has come to represent the best time of
my life and changed its course for the better, didn’t seem right. My
foray into the world of baking and writing has only just begun. So I
decided instead to wait till the time was right, when I’ll be back
to tell you more about the road since taken.
Prinsesstårta
Swedish Princess Cake For You Awesome Guys!
How did you manage to hit 100,000 views without a single update since 2011?
I
have these 3 feverishly devoted stalkers who monitor my every move,
steal my dirty aprons for keepsake and visit my blog 2,000 times - and
that’s just before breakfast. *waving* Hi guys! I *heart* you too~~~!
Just
kidding. I’ve been told by a couple of readers (who also happen to be
LCB patisserie students) that they would swing by and read up on the
relevant posts before each class to get a preview of what to expect in
the day’s lesson. (Such diligence on your part, kiddos!). I guess the
rest of you must just enjoy reading about my journey towards chef-dom,
or at least find humor in my incessant whining about why I hate sugarwork and attempting to make sorbet in the middle of a scorching Sydney summer.
Whichever category you fall under, I’m
gonna play the cheesy card here (everyone gets to play the cheesy card
at least once in their life) and say: Thank You to Each and Every one
of youse, without whom I would
never in a million years have reached 100,000 views. Heck,
that’s 99,999 times more friends than I have in real life. You guys
made my day.
Kiddo's Princess Birthday Cake
Are we still not allowed to tell your Mum that you quit your-
Let
me stop you there. The URL is still quite a mouthful, I get that. And
yes I finally broke the news to Mummy dearest coz my instincts do fail
me when I least expect it to. Call it an act of good (blind/stupid)
faith. Honesty is the Best Policy and all the other naïve feel good
talk? Don’t buy it, coz they sure as heck did not work for me. My
parents damn well nearly disowned me after my big revelation. It was
only after months of proving to them that bakers don’t end up in
ditches (i.e. poor and homeless struggling on minimum wage) I’ve been
allowed back in the house again.
Matcha Opera
One of my early experiments & now a bestseller. :)
What have you been up to since you left LCB?
Long
story short, I served my sentence in the industry i.e. work placement,
and decided that climbing the corporate cake ladder wasn’t my thing. I
wanted to work for myself, to bake what I enjoy baking, not make the same strawberry cheesecake cake 200 times over, week after week just to meet demand.
So I left the 5 star hotel where I was working at, and started an
online Patisserie cum Pastry School:
MyPastries. You can find me at www.MyPastri.es. Yes, as in the Spanish domain dot ES. Not dot com. Not dot sg.
Dot ES.
At
MyPastri.es, I take online cake orders, like most
interwebbing cake businesses do. More excitingly, I conduct baking classes on the weekends for anyone with a sweet tooth: Moms who want to
bake simple cookies with their 5 year olds; thoughtful girlfriends planning to surprise their boyfriends with a decadent chocolate gateau;
even seasonal classes for Mooncakes and Christmas cakes. We create
something different in every class and have a ball while we’re at it,
that’s what I love most about my classes.
Pigs In A Barrel
Anything else going on in your life?
Simon
and I welcomed a new addition to our family: a dog from the SPCA whom
we named Cider. We couldn’t name her Guinness after my favorite drink
coz being more cider-brown than Guinness-black, it’ll just confuse her
too much. She’s a mixed breed, completely mental, and we are absolutely
in love with her.
Oh, we got hitched too. Not me and Cider, you dodos. SIMON. I got married to SIMON. We just celebrated our 8th month anniversary, ya’all!
Cider peering over her doggie cupcakes.
So what now?
Unlike in LOTR (which in my, err, book, is
dee best show Eh-Vah), we have not come to journey’s end.
The learning continues, both for me through my clients with their
unique orders each week, and through my students, as you can see from their pics here, they fare much better than I did when I was learning to bake. They must have a very good Sensei. *ahem*
Dog Biscuits
Where can we find you next?
As I have done so here, I invite you to join me on the next leg of my journey. Drop by
MyPastries (www.MyPastri.es) sometime and see what I get up to. My life’s great adventure is well underway, as I continue to turn baking from dream
to hobby to sweet reality.
In
the meantime, this blog belongs to the ages, and will stay up as
long as you lovely folks continue to visit it. So keep 'em coming guys, and spread the word: This blog is here to stay.
Xoxo
Ally
