Tuesday, March 8, 2011

a note



Dearest blog readers,

I'm still here!  I'm still alive!  This blog has been suffering from a dearth of desserts (sadly!), and I wanted to just thank you all for your continued patience as well as ask for it a little longer.

So what have I been up to that's so important that I haven't been in the kitchen, dreaming up new ways to use butter, sugar, and chocolate?  My dissertation proposal! which is due this week.  As in Friday.  as in *yikes*!  So in my free waking moments, when I'm not teaching or preparing to teach or doing other departmental obligations, I have my head stuck in piles of books and printed pdfs and pages after pages of my own handwritten scrawl to try to make sense of the universe (okay, or a weeeeeee small tiny portion of it) and distill my understanding of it (or lack thereof, to be completely honest) into a single Word document for my committee's appraisal.  In all fairness, part of me has really been enjoying this time for intellectual focus, how I can just think and concentrate on solving one problem twenty-four hours a day (yes, I'll even wake myself up in the middle of the night, my brain buzzing from the ideas).  But, I don't think I'm the type of person who can keep up this pace forever and ever.

It also hasn't been the case that I've been completely out of the kitchen these past few weeks.  We've had a slew of visitors in the department last week and a big dinner at one of our professors' houses one night for them.  I couldn't let go of the tradition of bringing dessert for that event (it's an annual thing--this is what I made last year), so I managed to jump in the kitchen quickly and whip something up.  That's when I learned that it is possible to make a big batch of mini cupcakes in less than an hour and a half!  I love having recipes in my back pocket that I can just pull out and tweak and combine at will for things just like this, and what I ended up doing were these dark chocolate cupcakes with lemon mascarpone frosting--adding about one and a half tablespoons of instant coffee in the cupcake batter--and then I drizzled them on top with salted butter caramel (use this recipe for caramel brandy hard sauce, but omit the brandy and add 1/2 tspn of coarse salt to the butter).

Anyways, trust me when I say that I'm looking forward to jumping back in the kitchen and getting back behind the camera after I send off my first draft of this dissertation proposal.  I've been keeping a stack of post-it notes on which I've scribbled all of the food ideas and projects that I want to do, and I can't wait to start tackling them.  In the meantime, thank you so much for sticking around and, for those of you on Twitter, your friendly and positive chatter there that keeps me going.

❤,
Stephanie

19 comments:

  1. Best of luck with the proposal, Stephanie!

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  2. oh your blog is so inspiring on so many levels. balancing school AND still upkeeping an awesome blog with beautiful pictures! you can do it! i'm right there with ya on the school thing

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  3. I'm happy that you're almost done, but even happier to hear that you've found a way to enjoy the project!

    Good luck!

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  4. Good luck with everything Stephanie! I'll be thinking of you this Friday. You'll have to celebrate when it's done, you deserve it after all the hard work.

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  5. Good luck with the proposal! I myself have a final term paper due this Friday...but I needed a break from writing and thinking to read your blog, hehe :)

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  6. hang in there sugar. I'm sure you'll smash it
    love

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  7. Good luck with your dissertation! Looking forward to seeing more of your pics when you've got that off your plate. :)

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  8. Good luck Steph! Wishing you all the very best! You rock!

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  9. You have been missed, but we totally understand!
    Good luck - you'll do awesome!

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  10. Good luck!! I know you'll do awesome!
    Looking forward to your upcoming posts!!

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  11. Good luck! Sounds stressful...I'm sure you'd rather be making lovely and yummy things if you could.

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  12. Good luck!!!!
    In bocca al lupo!!!

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  13. I have been there.. do not ask me how I got through my dissertation, because I don't think I could quite explain it, in fact ... i'm in awe that I graduated..

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  14. hi stephanie! fantastic blog!! could you tell me where the pink flatware in this photo is from? i am IN LOVE with it! thank you!

    -natalie

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  15. @Natalie: thanks! it's actually wood flatware, from anthropologie.

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  16. @Natalie: thanks! it's actually wood flatware, from anthropologie.

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  17. oh your blog is so inspiring on so many levels. balancing school AND still upkeeping an awesome blog with beautiful pictures! you can do it! i'm right there with ya on the school thing

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  18. Good luck!!!!
    In bocca al lupo!!!

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  19. Good luck with everything Stephanie! I'll be thinking of you this Friday. You'll have to celebrate when it's done, you deserve it after all the hard work.

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I love hearing from you and reading your comments! Thanks so much for stopping by the blog. Happy feasting!