Pastry Pro I: Week 12: Finished Product

My sad looking banana cream pie

It's really Week 13 for the class but 12 for me since I missed a couple classes. Today was a make-up day because I was out of town earlier in the week and missed class, but it's finished product class so it really doesn't matter. My assignment was to make a banana cream pie and pots de creme. I have never made pots de creme before which is not a good idea, since I wasn't quite sure how it should taste and I had never tried the recipe. The pots de creme was rather grainy tasting, probably over cooked the custard, although I did it in the bain marie. I topped it with a chantilly cream mixed with cherry preserves. My pie should have been a cinch. I have practiced making several pies over the semester and know how to make a good pie. I made the first mistake by putting the dough in the freezer. When I took it out it was so hard and dry. It took a while to work it out and then it didn't roll out well. I ended up with a rather shrunken crust and not very nice looking. I made the pastry cream but I was trying to make extra in case on the pie crusts didn't work out. By making a big batch of pastry cream and not cooling it fast enough it overcooked some and tasted "eggy". I also made an orange caramel sauce which tasted bitter. So nothing worked out right in the end. The pie crust was slightly underdone, the cream overdone with a bitter sauce! But, Julie, the office manager at the school ate a piece and said it was tasty! I know I can do much better though.

Next day:

I had to make another pie so I made both a fruit tart with a pastry crust and a chocolate cream pie. They both turned out very nicely and got lots of compliments at the dinner party.

Sometime I'll post the chocolate cream pie recipe. I would make it again and may make it for the final.

In my "real" life I am going away for a week for a deployment training exercise. No gourmet food there!

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Pastry Pro I: Week 11: Finished Product

At 10:00 PM it's hard to get excited about eating cake!

I thought today would be fairly simple--make cake with mango lime curd filling and Italian Meringue. I figured I'd even have time to make some other types of cake. After all I had already made two types of cake--"magnificent butter cake" and pound cake. My cakes seemed OK so I started on the mango lime curd. Now I made this at home but for some dumb reason I messed it up at school by adding some simple syrup to the mangos when I pureed them. Then when I mixed the mangos with the lime curd it became too thin and watery. Still tasted very good though. I was successful with the Italian Meringue, however, and had learned from previoius experience that I should be sure to heat up the sugar/water to a high enough temp or the egg whites would be dull. I made great meringue, however by the time I used it changes had occurred in it and the texture was not quite as nice. I made a 4 layer butter cake with the mango curd filling but when Chef Kurima cut into it you couldn't see the layers. She suggested trying some raspberry jam as a thin layer to make the filling more visible. The pound cake was so dry even the curd didn't and simple syrup didn't help. Over all, OK but not great night and I sure won't be making this cake for the final.

I found out my partner for the final will be Tela. I'm very happy to have her as a partner. She is very skilled and reliable. We have to make enough to earn 100 points but after tonight when it took 3 hours to make a couple little cakes I'm wondering how in the heck I'm going to make several things in 3 hours. It is not going to be easy.

Butter cakes with mango lime curd and Italian meringue

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Pastry Pro I: Week 10: Finished Product, week 1

Pastries at the end of class--how would you like to sample all of these at 10:30 PM?

Apple Peach tart with frangipane and peach coulis

Chocolate Croissant with chocolate sauce



Mixed berry turnover with berry cream

We are taking the next three classes to use various components we've made since the beginning of Pastry Pro I. We've made pie dough, tart dough, croissant dough, and various fillings and sauces. We can use the components we've already made or we can start over and make them fresh. If we wanted to we could have made puff pastry or croissant dough and brought it in but I didn't choose to do that. I decided to make blitz or quick puff pastry instead. It doesn't rise as much as real puff pastry but it's close enough. We were able to choose the finished products to make and for the first week I made blitz puff pastry and chocolate croissants and apple pear tarts with fangipane. I also planned to make berry turnovers if there was time. I didn't have any trouble with the blitz puff pastry. Fortunately I had practiced a few times at home and even as soon as the night before class so I felt confident in making the pastry. I also decided to use the croissant dough I had in the freezer and make croissants with both blitz and the croissant dough. The first batch of croisssants came out kind of dark but Chef Sively said they looked fine.

I plated one with chocolate sauce I had made in the previous class and some toasted walnuts.

I used the peach and apple filling Kristin and I made in a previous class, as well as the frangipane to make some free form tarts. I made one larger one, about 6 inches, and the rest 4 inch.

One secret I learned is that puff pastry cooks fast on the outside but the inside is often undercooked (convection oven) If I put the pastries in the still oven at a lower heat for 15-20 minutes and covered them with foil then the insides were fine. I added some peach/ginger coulis to the apple peach tarts. I had time to make berry turnovers as well. The blueberry, raspberry, strawberry pie filling I had made during filling class was still very nice. I added some fresh blueberries to it, thickened it with some cornstarch and the texture was good. Since I had practiced I learned that egg wash was important for putting between the folded sides so it would stick while it was baking. I also brushed everything with egg wash and sprinkled sugar on it. With the berry turnover I made berry chantilly cream--an idea I got from a class I took from Jon Bonnell where he made huckleberry empanadas with huckleberry cream.

All my dishes were good for a change (except the chocolate croissant made with blitz--it was undercooked). I was relieved and happy and even enjoyed making the pastries. I think using the ingredients we worked so hard to make in earlier classes was the key to having good finished products. I'm glad to didn't have to start over with everything--and knowing I can take a frozen filling and add some fresh berries to it was something I never would have thought of.

I also realized that the reason I didn't like puff pastry before is I didn't cook it properly. If it was underdone inside I didn't think about putting it in a lower oven for a few minutes.

I'm looking forward to next week's class but somewhat concerned about the final exam. More on that next week.

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Pastry Pro I: Week 9: Cakes

Pound cake

We had a surprise drill when we came into class. Make a 2 egg omelet--no utensils of course.
I was not afraid because I had practiced several times at home and I had actually watched Julia Child's original TV recording of the omelet show. She demonstrates over and over how to make an omelet with nothing but the pan and the movement you create. I mixed my 2 eggs with a little kosher salt and water, added clarified butter to the pan and heated it. It looked hot enough so I poured in the eggs and they immediately stuck to the pan! Chef Sively took the spatula and lifted the edges for me (thanks!) and then I recovered and made the omelet without anything but the pan and my arm. It turned out pretty good but I need to practice. AND make sure the pan is hot enough! We were given some advance warning that the first week of CP3 we'll be expected to make a perfect omelet, French onion soup, roux, risotto, eggs benedict, and demonstrate our knife skills. Time to start practicing!
Cake class was interesting. We learned the difference between foam cakes and high ratio cakes.
Foam cakes rely on whipped eggs for leavening whereas high ratio cakes rely on creamed fat.
Butter cakes are also known as creaming-method cakes. These are our typical birthday cakes and are supposed to be tender, yet sturdy enough to hold fillings and frosting. For a cake that needs to be rolled or sliced into very thin layers, the foam cake works much better. These cakes, called genoise, spongecakes, angel food cakes, and chiffon cakes, can be used as the building blocks to create multi-layered torts. As with all cakes, both butter and foam, can fail miserably due to any number of problems including undermixing, overmixing, undercooking, overcooking, not right temperature, etc. This is probably why cake mixes are so popular. But, a really well made butter cake is a wonderful thing I learned.
I have made many cakes in my life and some have been outstanding. I make a wonderful Italian cream cake, great carrot cake, outstanding German chocolate cake, and many others, but I never had a recipe for a good versatile basic butter cake, nor did I ever think of having a good basic cake to use to create other things. That's the reason culinary school is so great--it opens your eyes to new ways of thinking about things you already know.
For class we were given the following assignment:
Magnificent Moist Golden Cake--creaming method
Magnificent Moist Golden Cake-two-stage method
Magnificent Moist Golden Cake--dissolved sugar method
Classic Genoise
Orange Chiffon Cake
Angel Food Cake
Chocolate Sponge Layer
Joconde Sponge Cake
American Poundcake
Each table made all 3 golden cakes and then we chose just one other type of cake. I chose pound cake.
I worked on the dissolved sugar method cake and it turned out really well. It is so moist and tasty--but the two-stage method cake, made by Matt, was the best. It really was melt-in-the-mouth moist.
Recipe
2 large eggs (3.5 oz) at room temperature
3 large egg yolks (1.95 oz) at room temperature
1/3 cup buttermilk, divided
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups (7.1 oz) spooned and leveled cake flour (you have to use cake flour or it won't work)
1 1/2 cups (10 oz) sugar
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 T unsalted butter, cut into 1 T pieces and slightly softened
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup heavy cream
Preheat oven to 350. Spray 9 inch round cake pan with nonstick spray with flour and line with parchment circle.
Stir eggs, yolks, 3 T of the buttermilk and vanilla together in a medium bowl.
Mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a mixer with the whisk attachment on low speed for 30 seconds. Add the butter and oil and remaining 2 T buttermilk. Mix on low speed to moisten, then increase to medium and beat 1 1/2 min. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl. Add 1/3 of the egg mixture and beat for 20 seconds. Repeat, adding thirds until all egg mixture is incorporated. Scrape down sides after each addition.
In a cold bowl with cold beaters, whip the cream until soft peaks form and then beat a little beyond this soft peak stage. Stir about 1/4 of the whipped cream into the batter to lighten it, then fold the rest of the whipped cream into the batter.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Drop the pan onto the counter from a height of 4 inches to knock out bubbles. Place cake in oven and bake until toothpick comes out clean but moist, about 40 minutes. Cool on rack 10 min, then invert cake on rack that has been sprayed with nonstick spray. Peel off parchment. Cool completely before slicing into layers. Enjoy!
We also discussed our upcoming projects for the 3 weeks we will be making the "finished products". We will take things we've learned from previous weeks and using components we have stored in the freezer, such as sauces and fillings, doughs, etc. and fresh sauces and garnishes, we will make at least 6 finished products. We had to discuss and decide on our finished products in class so Chef Kurima can determine if they are reasonable and then make sure the ingredients we need are available the days of class. We have to make the following categories:
Stirred custard
Baked custard
Cake
Pie
Laminated Dough
For stirred custard I'm make a lime-mango curd, for baked custard, chocolate pots de creme, for cake, a coconut, lime-mango poundcake with Italian meringue, and pie a banana cream pie, and for laminated dough, blitz puff pastry with which I will made chocolate croissants. I will also make a free form apple peach and frangipane tart with peach coulis and some berry turnovers.
Wow, that sounds like a lot of work, but it is over 3 classes so it's not so bad. I will start testing some recipes at home.

Angel food cake was underdone and fell out of the pan. Oops!

Magnificent butter cake cooling. It was really good!

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Pastry Pro I: Week 8: Fillings and Sauces

I really enjoyed this class. Chef Loy lectured briefly about fillings, going over the differences between high and low pectic fruits, encouraging us to use a minimum amount of sugar so the fruit can be tasted. Fruit fillings need to have some starch so the rule is to use 1 1/2 tsp of starch per cup of fruit. Nutmeg goes with berries, cinnamon for apples, and cloves for peaches and apricots. Ginger goes with anything (but don't use too much). One thing he mentioned that I never really thought about was mixing 2 fruits to keep from being boring/ordinary. Mix 1 apple into a peach pie, or use 3 types of berries instead of 1.
My cooking partner Kristin and I had the following assignments:
Kristin:
tart glaze
caramel sauce
lime chiffon
baked fruit filling
I had:
dark chocolate syrup
frangipane
fruit coulis
blueberry pie filling (cooked juice filling)
champagne sabayon
For once all my dishes turned out well! Probably because this was an easy class, but what the heck, after last week it was nice to have success. It probably didn't hurt that I was really trying hard to improve my performance from last week. I read the instructions first this time and focused on producing a quality dish every time. I think the frangipane is really delightful. Nutty, fluffy, sweet and it will be great in a tart or bear claw. I used blueberries, raspberries and strawberries for the pie filling and it was tasty--a little lime juice and zest brightened it up.
I was very pleased with the peach ginger lime coulis. I pureed frozen peaches (thawed first) with crystallized ginger, strained them and added sugar and lemon juice. This was very fresh and wonderful. I like the fresh coulis better than the type where the fruit is cooked, then strained.
Fruit Coulis
16 oz fruit puree, strained
2 1/2 ounces sugar
1 ounce corn syrup
1/2 ounce lemon juice
Make fruit puree by taking 1 lb of fresh or frozen fruit, 2 T sugar and 2 T fresh lemon juice and processing in blender or food processor until smooth. Pour into a fine sieve set over a bowl and use a rubber spatula to press the puree through the sieve; discard solids.
My sabayon turned out very nicely and although I don't think I'll be making it for myself (it takes 8 egg yolks!) at least I know what it looks like and next time the Chopped or Top Chef contestants talk about their sabayon I won't be wondering how it's made.
My chocolate syrup was great--and I will find a way to use it when we make finished products.
The past few weeks we have been making components that we will be able to put together over 3 classes. We've made pie crusts, croissant dough, puff pastry, custards, etc. and put them in the freezer. Theoretically we should be able to pull out these components a couple weeks from now and make finished products. Trouble is who can remember what we made? My mind is clogged up with planning a national social work conference to be held in 3 weeks and I haven't even written my speeches yet! So when I can't sleep at night I'm alternately trying to remember what's in the freezer at culinary school and what the Bureau of Prisons social workers should hear about at the conference. The other problem is with my so call components. I know I can't use my puff pastry because it was not good. We froze the "lock-in" one week and rolled it out the next week and this was not successful. We are allowed to make another batch of puff pastry at home and bring it in but that is the only thing we can bring in. Some of my other components were not very good and I didn't save them. I threw out my pastry cream and creme anglaise so I'll have to re-make them as well. We will have to make 1 pie, 1 cake, 2 laminated items, a stirred custard, and a baked custard over the 3 classes. That really doesn't sound too bad, but then nothing does until you're standing in the kitchen at school and time is flying by!
I have been practicing though. I have made pie crust at home at least 4 times and my family is sick of coconut cream pie. I made blitz pastry puff twice now and palmiers are also on the "don't make that again" list. My pastry cream is light, smooth and delicious and everyone loves it.
For the 4th of July I am making a tart pastry filled with berries and mascarpone cheese with a blueberry coulis. I hope by the time we have the final exam I'll be able to make the required items with ease. As strange as it sounds I'm really enjoying the pastry class and find myself studying the notes from class and thinking about making things all the time. I have purchased several books and read them at night when I'm bleary eyed and tired. When my husband is watching TV I'm reading:
Bakewise by Shirley O'Corriher
Cookwise by Shirley O'Corriher
The Essentials of Baking, Williams and Sonoma
Baking Boot Camp
Chocolates and Confections (CIA) by Peter Greweling
Ratio by Michael Ruhlman
I have made lists of new recipes to try, tried new techniques for making puff pastry and pie crust and my counter is cluttered with stacks of my notes, recipes, books, equipment.
If someone were to come into my house and look at the books in my kitchen and then the ones in my bedroom they might be surprised to find that I'm also reading:
The End of Overeating by David Kessler
Move a Little, Lose a Lot by James Levine
Although I'm in pastry class now I am also interested in living a long time so another side of me is very aware of downside of gourmet eating and cooking!
At the 2009 Southwest Foodservice Expo earlier this week I was reminded of my interest in nutrition and health when I attended a demo by an instructor from Remington College. He spoke of 21st century nutrition and how important it is to be nutrition-saavy today. After all, the baby boomers like me are now in our late 40's through 60's and we are now focused on living a quality life well into our 90's. We are not passive and content with listening to mainstream authorities when there is a better way. The chef demonstrated using ancient grains to make things such as a quinoa tortilla, a crepe with amaranth, and a wild rice and black rice waffle. For moisture he used what he called "tri solution", a mixture of silken tofu, soy milk, yogurt, and rice milk. He spoke of reducing salt, fat, and chemicals in our food--all of great interest to me.
I tasted the things he made and found them to be very unusual and good. Compared to the very highly seasoned, fatty, sugary, and salty things I had been sampling earlier his things were rather bland but I know that if I'm not eating the aforementioned common foods the natural dishes taste much better.
The culinary trend of today seems to be more of a focus on healthy, sustainable, organic, and local. At the Texas Chef's Association meeting this week Chef Michael Moribito started the round table by asking all the attendees to consider growing their own gardens. All present spoke of their home gardens if they had one. I laughed to myself because I am now on my 3rd year of growing vegetables seriously. For many, many years my mother always had a huge yard of vegetables and fruits which she always wanted to show me. I yawned through most of her tours and photos of her perfect vegetables and fruits. She was particularly proud of her persimmon tree and fig tree. When she moved in with me in 2000 she wanted a small vegetable garden so we made her one every year which she faithfully watered, weeded, and cared for from the ages of 76 to 81. I enjoyed the vegetables she grew but was way to "busy" to get very involved. We moved in late 2005 to our current house and created a space outside her bedroom door for a small vegetable garden, but she died in the spring of 2006 before we could plant it. While she was in the hospital in late March she told me to be sure to buy the Japanese eggplants at Russell Feed Store in Benbrook, the only place she could ever find Ichiban eggplants. So I trekked over there and bought several plants. She never saw the end result but she would have been pleased.
The next year I had a man come out and create a raised bed that is 20 feet by 12 feet. I have since had both an herb garden outside her bedroom door (which is near my kitchen) and I always plant shiso (perilla) for her and a garden full of Japanese eggplant, Japanese cucumber, tomatoes, edamame, various peppers, green beans. I have a raspberry bush and strawberry plants. When I'm out in the garden I think about my mother and know she would have been so thrilled to see all the perfect vegetables and know how much I enjoy cooking them, eating them, and sharing them with others. I wish I had taken the time to learn all her gardening tips when she was alive but I was so "busy" then. The least I can do is have a garden in honor of her memory and perhaps pass on her love of gardening to my four children and grandchildren. One of my children, my son Glenn, loves the garden and the biggest enthusiast is my granddaughter Kyndal. At 5 she comes over every week and the first thing she wants to do is pick berries or tomatoes and always insists to have a lot to take home with her. She also wants to be a chef!

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Pastry Pro I: Week 7: Custards

A custard is anything thickened by the coagulation of egg proteins. Custards can be stirred or baked. Stirred custards are cooked on the stove top and must be stirred throughout cooking to stabilize the eggs and prevent curdling (overcooking). Think of the filling for a cocount cream pie, made with pastry cream. Pastry cream is a custard. Another common custard in creme anglaise (vanilla custard sauce). Now I have some experience making custards. I have made successful creme brulee, panna cotta, and recently a very good coconut cream pie so I went into this class with confidence. How hard could it be to make some custards after all? Chef Loy warned us about curdling and the thin line between perfection and ruin so I was a little worried.
Pastry class in Texas when it's 100 degrees outside is also a factor. It's hard to concentrate 80+ degree kitchen! We were given the the following assignments:

Pastry Cream

Vanilla Custard Sauce

Chocolate Mousse

Creme Brulee

Lemon Curd

Panna Cotta

Flan

Fresh Fruit Bavarian

I was teamed with Eric and gave him first choice for 4 items. He picked Chocolate Mousse,

Creme Brulee, Lemon Curd and the Bavarian.

I thought things were going well as I was making my flan. It seemed pretty simple. I made pastry cream and then realized it was awfully thick and lumpy looking although I did everything according to the instructions (and I have made this before!) The creme anglaise looked fine, however I saw some signs of curdling around the edges of the pan so that should have clued me in on the fact that it was overdone but I have never made this before so I wasn't sure. I now know what overdone creme angliase looks like though. My panna cotta looked pretty good but when it was tasted it was definitely a little too "tight", meaning too much gelatin. Working with sheet gelatin is a little tricky so this will take some practice to get right. The pastry cream turned into a too thick, lumpy mass by tasting time. Surprisingly, the flan was very good but the sauce I attempted to create was not so good--brown sugar, syrup, nuts got very hard and sticky.
Eric's mousse was good, the Bavarian cream OK, the creme brulee a little soft, and he did not get the lemon curd done. Although most of what we made turned out either mediocre to bad it was a good demonstration of the frustrating dynamic of failing to make something due to the situation. I could go into my kitchen right now and make very good pastry cream with a recipe from the textbook but I'm not juggling 3 or 4 other dishes using different equipment and around a lot of distractions. The factors at school that make cooking ordinary dishes hard are being timed, unfamiliar equipment, and unfamiliar ingredients. Also, making something for the first time is always a gamble. The pastry cream at school used flour but I prefer using cornstarch for smoothness. I would have also reduced the amount of flour but I didn't know it at the time.
Now do I want to go home and practice making something with these ingredients?:
1 quart half and half
1 vanilla bean, split
12 egg yolks
10 oz sugar
Whisk eggs yolks and sugar together in a mixing bowl. Temper the egg mixture with 1/3 of the hot cream, return entire mixture to saucepan. Cook over medium high heat, stirring constantly until thick enough to coat back of a spoon. Do NOT allow the sauce to boil. As soon as it thickens, remove it form the heat, strain it and put in a clean bowl. Chill over an ice bath.
(This is the recipe for Creme Anglaise)
I have a 5 year physical for my job coming up this fall so after culinary school for a year I'm afraid to see what the cholesterol level is going to be!

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Pastry Pro 1: Week 6: Laminated Doughs

Chef Loy

The thing I love about culinary school is learning new things and then seeing the finished
product. Other than cakes, which I bake for my family and friends, and holiday cookies, the occasional dinner rolls, quick breads, and cookies, I have stayed away from baking due to time constraints and the constant worry about weight gain. After working all day I hardly have time to make dinner let alone bake something. And then of course, the fact that it doesn't take too many pieces of any baked good to add on the pounds. I typically buy a loaf of multi-grain bread from Artisan Baking Company and enjoy a slice each morning. I would love to go to a bakery and stock up on danish pastries and croissants but then I would be in big trouble when I go for my annual physical (which is coming up soon!) One of the students in my class mentioned that her cholesterol level is up 70 points since starting pastry class. I'll soon find out the damage report on myself. I still treasure the learning process and even if I don't make laminated dough too often at least I'll know how if the occasion ever comes up and I am now capable of making a beautiful and tasty croissant I think a treat of homemade croissants at Christmas would be wonderful. And, if you've ever looked at a Williams-Sonoma catalog they sell frozen croissants for a small fortune ($39.95 for 15) and they come frozen and you have to bake them yourself!

Lamination refers to the process of layering the dough and fat. When baked, the butter worked into the layers of dough gives off moisture, and the steam causes the thin layers of dough to puff and rise. There is no substitute for butter here--can't use olive oil or reduce the amount of butter or it won't be the same thing. Folding is the most critical factor--the layers must be even and consistent. The process of folding is not all that complicated but requires repeating at least 3 times with resting and cooling periods in between. The whole whole process takes hours from start to finish but the finished product is out of this world. Much better than what they call "croissants" at most stores and even bakeries. I usually skip them because I've had so many bad croissants over the years. I do love a really good chocolate croissant though, so maybe I'll try making that eventually. Some good tips we learned--brush off excess flour between turns, keeep the dough covered during the resting and folding periods, and don't roll it too thin.

Last week we started our croissant/danish and puff pastry doughs by encasing the butter in the dough. We froze the dough for both puff pastry and croissants with the intention of doing the folds in tonight's class and then baking off a small piece of dough and saving the rest for a class later on when we would make finished products with our doughs. Chef Loy gave a very detailed and interesting lecture on lamination and then threw out a lot of French terms which I hope I can remember. Bouchees, vol-au-vents and feuilletees are some of the different types of puff pastries. We went to our stations and started by working on a new type of dough, blitz puff pastry. Now this is something very useful. It's a short cut to the much more time consuming real puff pastry and is made somewhat like a biscuit dough. We cut in the butter, some salted water and the made a shaggy dough, rolled it out, folded it, chilled it and folded it 4 more times, chilling it in between. This was not hard at all and resulted in a very flaky and puff like product. On the other hand, the puff dough from the freeze did not perform. Our puff samples were pathetic, flat and ugly. The croissant dough, however, made lovely croissants, largely due to the yeast in that dough. Since we were supposed to use the frozen dough later on I know I'm going to have to make my own at home, which is good because then I'll have to practice.

Croissants

We were able to use the blitz dough to make anything we wanted. I was attracted to the palmiers and wanted to make some. Later I realized that I used to buy very large palmiers at the bakery for my mother but they were called elephant ears. She loved those things and it made me sad when I thought about how tickled she'd be to have a homemade palmier from me. If fact, all the things we're doing in the lamination classes are things my mother dearly loved. In Japan she grew up eating French bakery goods--the cream puff, eclairs, croissants and such and always spoke fondly of them, but she was not a pastry maker and we never lived near any French bakeries so I didn't appreciate her good taste. I wish she could be here today when I practice making more palmiers. I miss her so much but her love of cooking, gardening, and making things for people will live on in me. Thanks Mom.

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