Strawberry Tart

Life has been so busy lately. It has always been but I just feel exhausted everytime I come home from work. Those many late nights at work completely consume all my energy and by the time I got home, my brain feels like it stops working.

But on the other hand, Spring has finally decided to peek a little. Weather in California has always been nice, but I just couldn't wait for what feels like a really long winter to pass. Flowers are showing everywhere, the warm sun, squirrels playing in the trees, birds chirping, words just can't describe how beautiful it is. I can't help but smiling everytime I go out of the house, or walking from the office building to the parking lot, I can smell the flowers through the air. It's still a little cold to let my windows open at night when I'm sleeping, but I always do on late spring to early summer. I just want to suck all the fragrance of the crisp air, combined with fresh spring flower smell, and keep it somewhere so that I can smell it when they're gone. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way :(.

A few days ago (two days to be exact), I saw a big box full of what seems like to be a very juicy, big, very bright and fragrant strawberries sitting on the dinner table. Apparently my brother has just bought it from a fruit stall on the street. My brain automatically started working hard thinking what can I turn those precious strawberries into. Then I remember that I had two mini tart shells, already baked, leftover from the lemon meringue tart I made a week or two before. I also got a little vanilla bean pastry cream in the freezer, and heavy cream in the fridge that has been waiting to be used for a while now. What could be more perfect than strawberry tart to welcome the long-awaited spring?

I was so determined to make it that I decided to wake up earlier in the morning and make it before leaving for work. All the ingredients were all ready to use, and all I needed to do was to whip the cream and fold it in the pastry cream, then fill, and arrange the strawberries on top. A quick brush of clear glaze and chopped pistachio give a nice touching finish to the tart. It's very simple but yet elegant, with a clean taste to it, definitely my kind of dessert :)

My friend Tony, just bought a brand new Nikon D90 SLR camera, and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to put the camera into the test. The pictures shown here are from his camera and his "practice" at our cafeteria at work. I like the photos a lot, much better compared to my tiny Canon pocket camera ; ;. Now, I have a lot of money saving to do to get my hands on one of those SLR cameras :(. But in the meantime, I know where to go to for my pictures :). Thanks Tony!