August 18, 2010
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| Making the filling for the cream puffs |
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| After 5-10 minutes the homemade vanilla pudding is almost ready! |
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| Puffing up in the oven! |
During lunch time, after I had eaten, I picked up this small 100-piece puzzle box that some kid had left on my desk instead of correcting the endless piles of work as I should have done. I was tired, stressed, and frustrated after another long battle with the middle schoolers that morning. As I turned the box of puzzles up-side-down and began to mindlessly put the pieces together, two of my students gathered around me and helped me put them together.
We spent the next 30 minutes putting the puzzle together, and - as if it had meant to be all along - we finished as soon as the clock hit 1:30pm, just in time for lunch break to be over.
As we were solving the puzzle together, the more talkative one of the two students began to ask me a bunch of random questions ("Teacher, what do you do for fun?", "Teacher, how's your life?", "Teacher, you wish that *insert another student's name here* never came huh?", "Teacher, who is your favorite student?"). As I gave nonchalant answers to these questions, one question in particular stood out: "Teacher, what do you do when you're feeling upset and need to calm down?"
First of all, I thought it was weird that he would ask me such a question. Second, I was surprised at how I didn't know the answer to that question immediately. It was even more ironic because I had been feeling exactly that way - upset - at that moment. My first instinct was to tell him, "I talk to my friends", but that was not particularly true, especially at that moment.
It wasn't until I headed home after work that it hit me. What do I do when I'm upset? I write. I read. I talk with some of my best friends. What do I do when I'm so upset and exhausted after a really tough day at work where the last thing I want to do is exercise my brain some more?
I bake.
Duh.
How could I have forgotten my greatest (and yummiest) remedy?
There's something about baking that calms and delights me. I love the fact that I'm creating something by combining a bunch of ingredients that can't really be eaten alone. At my internship, we talk a lot about the definition of "curating" - well, I think baking is definitely a curation. Anyhow, that's how I ended up in the kitchen when I got home, humming along and making homemade cream puffs. I love making cream puffs because there's so much transformation involved. The filling is made by combining simple ingredients - milk, sugar, salt, egg yolk, butter, and vanilla extract - in the saucepan. I love seeing how the watery mixture turns into thick, gooey yumminess over time. The dough is also prepared over heat, and then baked in the oven for 20 minutes. In those short 20 minutes, the dough gets transformed from a sticky yellow mixture to a puffy pastry!
Thanks to the high stress levels in my system and a little guidance from a student, my family now has a batch of fresh cream puffs to enjoy.
"When life gives you lemons...bake?"
*On a side note, my visa problem has been solved!! I received an email from the British Embassy today stating that my visa application has been approved and that the visa will come tomorrow along with my passport - but more on that tomorrow!*
