Detour to Freed's

On the return from the trip to Las Vegas, I popped into Freed's Bakery.  Through some lucky connections, I was able to have a tour of the facilities, and it was truly mind boggling to see the size of production here!

Freed's is a Las Vegas institution, making cakes for many of the big hotels and weddings and with a line out of the door for their famous cookies.

It seemed that in years past there was a small bakery owned by the Freid family on every corner, but in recent times, they have decided to consolidate to one large operation.

Any bakery tour starts with a good look at what is on offer, and the case is just a beauty to behold!

We bought some of the yummy cookies to savor on our long drive back home, and they were wonderful, I especially remember the pecan shortbread and the magic bars!

We started by looking at the consultation suite, where up to 6 couples could discuss their wedding cakes at any one time.  Amazing! 

The tour continued to an entirely separate area where cakes are 'built', torted, filling added and a crumb coat of icing added.

It was good to see all the fresh ingredients in the fridge, so many bakeries these days rely on shelf stable fake ingredients these days.

We took a look at where the decorators sit, the bakery has 7 talented artists who finish the cakes off with their amazing designs. 

We also took a look at the giant rotating convection oven, which just boggles the mind!

The giant hobart mixers all in a line were stunning, it took a moment for me to realize that they were more than twice the size of even the largest mixer I've ever used, and they dwarfed the teeny little hobart mixers that I normally use to make the mousse filling at my internship!

For me it was a window into another world.  My dream was that I made cakes for people, which I do now, I dont have aspirations past maybe having my own small kitchen and studio with small fridges that hold beautiful custom cakes that I have created for people, but we'll see what the future holds...

So if you're passing through Henderson on your way back to San Diego, pick up some cookies here to make your journey that much sweeter.

Freeds Bakery 9815 S. Eastern Ave Las Vegas, Nevada 89183 Bakery Hours: Monday - Saturday 8:00am -8:00pm PST Sunday 9:00am-6:00pm

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Viva Bike Vegas!

Wow!  What an adventure!  Im afraid its not all about food today, unless you like hearing about gatorade, energy bars, bananas, oranges and miller lite, which is most of what I ended up eating yesterday! My courageous bike team completed what was my 10th program with Team in Training, and my 9th century bike ride to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

This was by far the hardest bike program, the 'Viva Bike Vegas' was a really gruelling 103 miles and between 4500 and 5100 ft of climbing, the toughest part being a relentless 30 mile slog up into the Red Rock Canyon preserve.  Whilst it was beautiful, it was painful continually climbing for that distance.

The true highlight of the day was riding down the Las Vegas strip, which was closed to traffic, and having a 5am cheering crew made up of drunks, and various random people who were still up from the night before!

I was so happy to have finished the ride, but I'm also proud of my team-mates, one of which had only ridden a beach cruiser many years ago and was around my mothers age!

I'm pictured here at the finish with my wonderful mentor, Will, who taught me about the 'goldilocks' method of trying to find a rider who is a similar pace to you and then hanging on to dear life on their wheel so they block the wind for you!

The hill climbing around San Diego paid off, and we continued our tradition of even the fastest riders going back out to near the finish line and riding in together, which was especially gracious when they finished several hours before and were dying for a shower and clean clothes!

I normally sneer at Outback Steakhouse, but the post ride meal provided as part of the registration was a true step up from most organized bike ride, a plate of perfectly seared mahi-mahi, delicious rice and cesar salad was most welcome to recharge my batteries, along with a cold beer!

I think this ride might be one I only try once, the fun start on the strip, the beautiful climb through red rocks, the fun bike path in the middle were great, but the relentless burning heat, and the rather boring middle section through uninspiring neighborhoods was quite tough.

Oh and I should mention the skull on our helmets.  Every week, the coaches awarded a team member a purple skull for their bravery the previous week.  They wanted to honor everyone on the team for being a warrior so we all had them!  It drew quite a lot of attention on the course, with a bloke nicknaming me 'skully' for half of the ride!

On 'not working' ....

I thought I should check in and discuss how the last two months have been since I gave up my job.  I think its pretty obvious that I havent had much time for blogging!!  I'm hoping to share a little more of what I've been up to, but first I'll just chat about how life seems to be. 

The first week or two back from my trip I really struggled with the stress, and all the stuff I was juggling, but I managed to figure it out a bit and its getting better.  I realized that booking kitchen times was stressing me out, so I made the decision to book regular time slots every week and just hope I would have cakes to work on.  It turns out 'if you book it they will come'!  I get quite a lot of last minute orders, and I'm definitely not resting on my laurels!

I also dropped a dreadful class that was making me miserable.  That helps too.  I figured out that since I was working for free, my internship could be on my terms, and that has been such a wonderful experience.  Cake is a wonderful bakery, and they make truly spectacular looking and tasting cakes.  I've been in awe of the wonderful creations, and I've learned so much.

I've also been working on my Etsy shop.  I dont get a ton of business, although I wouldnt be able to cope if I did, here are some hamsters for a birthday party that I made! 

I entered the carlsbad art splash cake competition, I didnt have time for an elaborate cake, but I did want to create a colorful and large piece to fill out the table with colorful work.  The americans probably didnt get this little play on words, but the theme is 'rock around the beach' so I created some sticks of rock around a beach scene.  I was hoping to finish a beach theme with a chap on a deck chair with a knotted hanky snoozing under a newspaper, but that fell by the wayside at 10pm when I had to get up at 5am to deliver the 350 cupcakes I had made the previous day!

Something that is a major struggle is the fact that I am 'working' for most of the weekend, so come Monday morning I'm exhausted, and ready for a break, and I do actually deserve one, since most people have been relaxing all weekend and are going back to work, and I've been working. 

I'm not sure if there will be whole days off much, but I do need to take some time for myself otherwise I'll just get burnt out.  That is something I'm still figuring out!

If you work for yourself, do you have any tips about this?

Fruit and Veg Carving-first class

I was so happy to finally make it back to classes at Grossmont College. I thought I'd share some of my experiences.

This is from the first carving class.   I figured that this would be useful for general dexterity, and may give me cake decorating ideas too.  It was a lot of fun, although it can be very frustrating, as Chef Joe is very skilled and makes the whole thing look super easy! 
Here he is cutting a chrysanthemum out of a turnip.

We were then taught a simple technique of cutting small flowers out of carrots.  I found this infuriating, hopefully I'll get the hang of it with some practice.  I can tell we'll be eating a lot of carrots this week!

 Chef then showed us a technique with a potato where you carve a straight line, then a diagonal to meet it, resulting in a striped pattern.  This looks to be one of the techniques which will be very important.

 Thankfully I found this technique a little easier than the carrot one, here's my potato!

 Chef then showed off a bit with some more ornate carving of a melon.

 The flowers were all combined together to form a bouquet.

 Here is the chef's handiwork

And our team's work.  I thought it came out very nicely, and it was lucky for me that this was a team project, so my pathetic looking carrots were hidden amongst some much prettier ones!

Aussie Rules?

I'm writing this on my penultimate day of 'employment' as I start to clean up my bench, hand over my notebooks and start to get ready for my new life.

As I previously mentioned, I'm flying off to Australia to do a class in Sydney and then spend some time with my brother, sister-in-law and niece.  So things are pretty crazy!

If anyone has any ideas about stuff I should be doing in Sydney and Melbourne then please give me a shout out!

I'll be back, hopefully a little rested, having learned a topsy turvy cake, and having made a very important 3 year old's birthday cake!

Meanwhile, my thoughts go to the future.  Its pretty terrifying not knowing exactly what I'll be doing in 3 weeks time.  My college schedule is far from settled, so I cant make any definite plans.   This is very unusual and pretty scary for me, but I try to buoy myself with the messages and words of friends and strangers.   Everyone has been so supportive, and believing in me, I have to believe in myself.  Working for myself is going to be really strange, I can already tell I need to cut myself a little slack, but also learn from my mistakes!

I'm also thinking about this blog, and maybe hoping to invest a little more time in discussing opinions, and maybe not just food.  I'll probably move the cake stuff to another blog, where its all rainbows and happiness, and I can be a bit more gritty and honest here.  I had a little banter with the wonderful @beasofbloomsbury on twitter, I admire her so much for being so honest and up front and I'd like to see more of that here.  Check back and see if I actually have the balls to do it!

Oh and isnt this an awesome sign!  I saw it on UCSD campus on a little bike ride recently and had to stop and snap a picture!!

Dollar a dish

I just wanted to share a great program that will be going on for the month of August, many of our favorite restaurants in San Diego will be participating.  All you need to do is eat there, choose the participating dish, and a dollar will be donated to this fantastic program!  I'm salivating as I go down the list, there are some really delicious offerings!

The Food 4 Kids Backpack Program at the San Diego Food Bank provides weekend food to elementary school children who receive free school meals during the week, but are going hungry over the weekends when school meals are unavailable. Some of these children are returning to school on Monday having eaten little or nothing since Friday lunch. The program currently serves 800 children in 22 schools. With the continued support of the community we will serve 1050 children in 26 schools in the 2011-2012 school year.

 http://www.sandiegofoodbank.org/programs/food4kids/
Here are the restaurants participating!  Click on the link above for a more detailed descriptions of the dishes involved.
Chop Sooey choptruck
Devilicious
Corner Cupcakes
FlippinPizzaCA
Food Farm
Mangia Mangia
Ms. Patty Melt
Two for the Road
Blueprint Café
Burlap
Cowboy Star
Croce's Restaurant and Bar
Cucina Urbana
Flavor Del Mar
Flippin Pizza
Kensington Grill
NINE-TEN
Prep Kitchen
Rimel's
Ritual Tavern
Searsucker
Sprinkles
Terra
The Red Door
Wellington
Whisk n'Ladle

Zenbu

Opera Cafe

I just thought I'd do a little experiment and try that new fangled instagram for my iPhone.  You see I had this lovely lunch, and we brought back some delicious macarons, and I wanted to share my little snaps and my thoughts.

I had a ratatouille crepe with salad, and it was a little on the greasy side, but still delicious.  My companions both chose sandwiches which they had with Parmesan truffle fries, an extremely generous portion which was gobbled down with gusto!

We took some desserts and macarons back to the office but they didn't last long!  A dulce de leche opera slice was consumed before even checking email, and we all tried the macarons, which I thought were very good.   I found them to have a pleasing chew and not to be tooth-achingly sweet.  I managed to save my mini chocolate desserts until 3, but they were quickly eaten too.  Just a wonderful selection.

I'd say get yourself down there asap.  Get there a little early to get a nice seat before the lunch crowd shows up or try a Friday evening.  I cant imagine anything lovelier than a nice glass of pinot and some beautiful dessert to start my weekend off just perfectly!

Opera is in the Sorrento Valley area of San Diego