Mariee

The weather in San Jose has been scorching hot lately. I am not complaining really, in fact, I LOVE it! I began to open the window in my room when I sleep at night. My next door neighbor whom we share a fence with, has jasmine plant spreading along our side of the fence facing directly into my room and I love the smell. I just love this time of the year.

A Remake of Ambroisie

This is the latest cake I made. I decided to post this first instead of the previous ones because I had the pictures ready to go for this post.

So I was in my team's staff meeting a few weeks ago, and all of a sudden, I was wondering about my teammates birthday. To me, birthday is important and I would feel bad if someone had a birthday I didn't know about. The least I could do is to congratulate them. Well, after asking around, we all found out that there are 3 May's babies within less than a week from each other, it was my boss' and two of my teammates'. So I decided to make them a cake.

Passion Fruit and Raspberry Tart

Life has settled down to a routine lately since I came back. The bf has been overseas for more than a month, and I am not sure when he is coming back. So I've been using the extra time to bake and make desserts quite a bit. I miss traveling and wish I can do more of that this year, especially now that I still have a valid US entry visa for about 9 months left. Summer is here (or almost) and everyone seems to be in a traveling mode, and so do I. My next trip will be during memorial day weekend down to Louisiana to visit the bf's family and hopefully it won't get canceled last minute due to work (which has happened a lot before)

I Am Back

I looked at the date of my last post, it was December 1st, 2012. Five months. It has been that long.

I went to China for 4 month starting early December and I was back early April on business assignment. I was originally scheduled for two months but one thing lead to another and I was there for four months. I wouldn't say that it was all nice and smooth trip, in fact it was quite challenging due to not being able to speak the language (despite my appearance and being Chinese myself). I had culture shock and homesick for the first month I was there, but fortunately, everything seemed easier after.

Tarte aux Fruits Rouges

Fall is here and even though I kept going on and on about how I love Summer, something is also magical about the beauty of Fall season. The leaves are turning from green to yellow or bright red, it is amazing. The weather has turn cold earlier in California this year and we also have a lot of rain, all this makes me long for a cozy couch in front of fireplace with a slice of brownie and a cup of milk (someday...
I just came back from a week trip in Louisiana, to visit M's family. It was quite a relaxing week, that I almost felt unproductive, but it was nice and enjoyable. We definitely got plenty of sleep for sure! I experienced an interesting Thanksgiving tradition in South. Apparently, it is very common to have the Thanksgiving feast in between lunch and dinner, we had ours at 3pm and football game is on all day long. Here in California, I am so used to having a feast during dinner time, so it was interesting to see something different.

A Pool Party for Joan's Birthday and A Strawberry Pistachio Mascarpone Mousse Cake

Wow, I completely missed the month of October and I've never missed a month before! How bad :(. Not that I did that on purpose but so many things have been going on.

There were so many birthdays, lots of cooking (everyday cooking), and other stuff, it is amazing how little time left you have after. In fact, we went to San Diego this past weekend just to getaway from everything and to celebrate M's birthday. Nothing fancy, in fact, we both got sick the day of our departure. He's holding up quite well, but I feel bad for sleeping all the 7-hour driving! San Diego was raining too, quite hard and COLD! It was definitely a getaway full of sleeping (about 11 hours average, we needed the rest) and eating. I can safely say that all 3 days were spent eating and eating and only tacos (plus cheese quesadillas). M

Passionfruit Posset with Mango and Passionfruit Sorbet

Hmm.... nothing really interesting is happening lately. If you must now, I moved cube to a different building and environment, lots of birthday celebrations happening and coming (mean more cakes to make), work is not as crazy as it's used to, I guess everything is going pretty well.

Some downsides are that more of my friends are leaving the country to pursue their dreams somewhere else. More friends will be leaving in a few months, it is bittersweet really. I am sad that they are leaving but more importantly, it has been a real blessing to have known them. The other downside to life lately is that the bf is literally working day and night (dawn really) 7 days a week, leaving me feeling like a single woman sometimes, so I guess keeping busy with cakes helps too. Another thing I could do to distract myself is playing Wii!!! Mario Kart to be exact. I started playing Wii for the first time about a week ago and I'm loving it! A bit too late I know, but hey, as long as I'm having fun I think it is quite alright....