Indira The Sweet

this week’s doings July 26, 2008

Life is fun. How great is it to be able to say that and mean it. Not every minute is perfection, but that is what keeps us going. We can get ourselves through those low times because hopefully we carry in our head the feeling of the better times. And right now for me, I am having a good time. Again, not ever minute, but if I step back and look at the last few months, in so many more ways my life is better than just a few years ago.

In 2004 I decided to eventually ditch my photography job and move on to the culinary world. I was not sure how I was going to do it, but figured I had to take a leap in order to make a change.

Now in 2008, I am working very hard at establishing a catering business and have re-interpreted the photo business to better suit my new life. Nicely enough, it is working. For a LONG time I was so sure that having a concrete plan and a secure job was the best way for me, but not having that for the last few years has made a difference in all sorts of good ways. Am I more scared about what lies ahead? Yes but I am also more excited. In some ways it feels good to have literally brushed away the cobwebs in my head ( read change my everyday routine, wake up, go to the gym, go to work, eat dinner, watch tv… go to bed) and created a life that changes weekly. I have to admit after 37 years, I am a creature of habit and routines do give me some comfort, so I am looking to reign in the crazy a little and get a slightly better idea of the bigger picture at least for the next few months.

So this past week, I created a tasting for a lovely couple living in Long Island City who care getting married in mid September and are looking to create a sweets table.

Chocolate ganche tart with raspberries, ginger cream plum tart, blueberry and peach pie, and assorted chocolate mini cupcakes.

Today I created a cake for 5 different people who are celebrating milestone birthdays in 2008. My friend Meg Scibona ordered it for her family. I am crossing my fingers it makes it safely in the car upstate.

Transporting cakes in these hot summer days is always a bit scary.

I say, congrats to those who have had the courage to make real change in their lives and I can only support and encourage those who are trying to make that first leap. It is down right scary, but we have to remember that, we are stronger than we sometimes believe and we will make it WORK!

I hope all that are reading this are able to enjoy this time. It is summer, the weather forces us to slow down a little, so take advantage. Walk down a street you don’t normally do, take a different train home, look into peoples faces, look at the landscaping around the city (YES there is some amazing greenery!), take note of where you are, watch how people interact and try to be nicer to the next person. Love those you care about. Life is good.

Summer work… July 17, 2008

So we are knee deep into summer finally and I have been incredibly neglectful of my blog. I have been writing entries in my head for weeks, but alotta good that does the blog! You gotta get in front of the computer Indira and WRITE the thoughts, observations, etc down!!!

So let me see how I can condense the last 2 months….

I don’t think I will keep it all in chronological order, that hurts my brain too much.

The biggest news of the last 2 months is Jelsen and Bahareh’s wedding on June 26th. As some might recall, they came to me looking for an awesome wedding cake and a Viennese table in early May. The wedding cake was inspired by a picture from a European magazine they brought to me and then asked for the personal touch of the golden lego pieces as their topper. My dear friend Anne Heap of Pink Cake Box, made the cake in her beautiful shop, and I created a table full of sweets. Coconut -sweet potato tarts, lemon curd tarts, chocolate macaroons sandwiched between a dark chocolate ganache, (the bane of my existence for 3 weeks!!!!!!), mini carrot cupcakes with cream cheese icing, assorted cookies, and croquembouche puffs filled with vanilla pastry cream.

Unfortunately I was so involved in prepping, baking, and packaging all the sweets I did not take many pictures. Lesson learned!!!!!!!! I did manage to take a few in the beginning of the baking madness that was Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday morning…

As I mentioned earlier, this was just a VERY small sampling of what I made. I am kicking myself right now, that I didn’t force myself to take more pictures. It was just a lot to do and I was getting overwhelmed and the clock was ticking. I am only human and I had reached my limit. So I will have to stop kicking myself and just be glad that I have these at least. The picture of the bride and groom and the wedding cake are courtesy of Stephanie Land, a good friend and photographer of the happy couple.

This wedding was my first real big job as “Indira the Sweet”, so I was trying to be as diligent and detail oriented as I have been training myself to be! Some of the prep work was fun and some painful. Fun was ordering new kitchen items like mini tart tins and mini cupcake pans, painful was having to keep buying expensive almond flour to perfect the elusive french macaroon. The chocolate ones proved to be easier than the plain ones. I had to have made about 6-7 batches of the plain variety with very little success. They were turning out flat and not at all round. It was incredibly frustrating. I finally had to give up and just fill in the order with ALL chocolate. I hated not being able to figure it out in time for the wedding, but I had warned Bahareh that I had not attempted these difficult pastries since my days in culinary school way back in 2005!! Sometimes, you have to know when to say “UNCLE” and figure out a new path. Painful, but not deadly. I got everything done in a fairly timely fashion.

I made lists every other day changing one thing or another. It might seem silly, but it really helps to get lists out of your head and on to paper where you can REALLY see how things look. All the lists I made helped keep me stay organized and on schedule. I learned a WHOLE lot on this job, but it paid off in the end. I got a lovely email from the bride herself and then more raves when I saw both Jelsen and Bahareh on July 4th, for one of two BBQ I attended. All the hard work and planning was WELL worth the stress and I look forward to my next…

mini cupcakes are just sooo cute. March 30, 2008

Whenever a cake is baked there is usually a little or a lot of batter left over. I had just a little red velvet left over so I baked off these little gems. I happily gave them to Eric, my friend who helped me deliver the monkey birthday cake to Brooklyn.

To fondant or not….

Here is the first version of the cake I made for a little girls first birthday. The final version had a smaller bow and more flowers. This bow just would not fit in the box!

When the birthday girls’ mom and I talked about me doing this cake last weekend, I suggested covering the cake with fondant ( a sugar dough that covers a lot of cakes you see at weddings and on TV! ) It creates a really smooth canvas for decorating but tastes very sweet. When trying to describes the taste, one might be reminded of marshmallows. Personally I like the way it can look, but I am not crazy about the taste. But a lot of cake designers like to use it. So thinking this is what she would probably want, I suggested it. Over the next few conversations we had about the cake, she out right told me she didn’t really like fondant, to which I replied. “oh, you can just eat around it, some people just peel it off.” For some reason I was not hearing her and still was insisting on using the fondant.

Then on Friday morning while preparing to cover the cake with a baby pink colored fondant, a light bulb went off in my head. She doesn’t like fondant, you don’t like fondant, why are you covering the cake?? I think a cake can look very elegant sans fondant, and I hoped she would too. So I made the decision to just use the fondant for accent decoration, and I am pretty happy with the results. I have to admit I learned a lot about cake decoration working with Anne at, Pink Cake Box, but what I need to remember is that I was making and decorating cakes before I went to culinary school and met Anne, to the delight of my friends and family. Fondant can elevate the design of a cake, but is not always necessary to make a beautiful and sophisticated cake. It is nice to be able to come to these revelations by myself sometimes, as opposed to having someone else point them out to me! -(Thank you Tanya!)

Happy Birthday Dylan! And thank you Meg, for your Birthday party brought Dylan’s mom and I together and created the possibility for this cake opportunity!

not much to say, but… March 26, 2008

Well I actually have a lot to say but little time. I promised myself I would post AT LEAST once a week. I think I missed last week.

Last week I got the opportunity to go back to The French Culinary Institute with my friends Anne and Gretchen. We all met at FCI’s Classic Pastry Arts class in 2004. Last Wednesday FCI had an Open House for prospective students and asked Anne back to do a cake decorating demonstration. I should explain that Anne has her own cake business. She is an amazing cake designer, you will be dazzled and amazed when you go visit the website for her shop, Pink Cake Box.

Here we are at Anne’s shop in Denville NJ.

Anne and I met the morning of our first class in the Starbucks across the street from the school. Then we both befriended Gretchen during class. After we graduated in August of ‘05 we all went in different directions. Anne had been working on her cake business thru school, and continued with that as well as taking a job as the Pastry Chef at Il Cappricio, Gretchen went to work in the school’s restaurant kitchen as the Pastry Chef for L’Ecole, (Gretchen is now the Sous Pastry Chef at Craftsteak!) and I went off and tried my hand as an assistant to the Pastry Chef for Bouley Bakery. (Ech!That is a WHOLE other story for another day!) We all stayed in touch and tried to see each other as much as we could while navigating between our new busy jobs and the fact that we live in New Jersey, Long Island and Manhattan! In late March Anne called me to see how I was liking the bakery business. For many reasons, I was more than ready to quit before she called! The short story is… I went to work with Anne in Morristown NJ, in her mom’s kitchen where Pink Cake Box was born. I am very proud to have been a part of that beginning growth of her “baby”. I worked with her until this past September, when I decided I wanted to do more than cakes, but mostly I just could not do that commute anymore!

So last Wednesday I offered my help if she needed it for the demo at FCI. She gratefully accepted my offer and here we are with a half decorated cake! I really admire what she has done and how far the business has grown in such a short amount of time. It was fun to be working side by side again.

This week I am knee deep in red velvet cake. Tomorrow I start a 1st birthday cake for Dylan, with a cute monkey and other fun sugar decorations. I hope she likes it! Pictures will be posted by Friday night or Sat. I hope! I know there was more I wanted to say, but this will have to do.

Spring is really here, I promise. March 20, 2008

Spring might be here on the calendar, but I think we have yet to believe it is really just around the corner. Although I am counting down to the day when I can shed my bulky winter layers of clothing I beg my fellow New Yorkers to CHILL OUT!

There seems to be something in the air. I think they call it…. hostility. In the past week I have witnessed and unfortunately been on the receiving end of really hostile behavior. I must have inhaled a little of this hostility that is floating in this still chilly NY air because I stupidly found myself arguing over a parking spot. I realized I was not arguing with this idiot because I wanted the space, it was the way he approached me. With his back half to me, cell phone in one hand plastered to his ear and dog leash in the other hand, he stepped out almost in front of my car and waved me off. I said “excuse me?” He said “nah, nah, I am holding this spot.” I said next, “Where is your car??” Again, with the “nah, I am HOLDING this spot. I want it. It is mine” I just went off! I couldn’t understand how he could be such an ass. How the hell do you hold a parking spot with your body and a dog? I tried to explain that I just needed it for 5 minutes to run into the store in front of the spot. Some guy had just pulled out and I was hopping to hop on the end his minutes. This idiot just kept turning his back yaking away on his cell phone. Some nice guy pulled up next to me on the other side of the two way street and asked me if everything was alright. I thanked him, but I was really just seeing red. WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THIS GUY??

Finally sanity prevailed and I drove off, cursing loudly in my car. But it took me a good hour to really let it go. All I have left to say about that is… he sux, and I hope he… oh forget it he ain’t worth the bad karma.

Then while I sat in my car double parked waiting for the street sweeper to drive by, I heard another fight break out between a motorist and a bicyclist. Really nasty words, were exchanged. And it just continued the rest of the week. Then just the other day some guy literally walked up to me and shoved me with his body. This totally surprised me folks! I pride myself in being a very aware New Yorker. I am always weeding out the crazies as I walk down the street at any given moment. Figures that at that unusual moment when I was really spacing out, one of “them” got me. It was really scary for a moment because as he came closer I was staring him in the face and saw the crazy in his eyes. He was really tall, unkempt and waving his arms around. Um, how did I notice him sooner you might ask. I don’t rightly know! And it was a really quick moment in time, but it really did happen in slow motion, and unfortunately I was unable to get out his path before he shoved me. Thankfully, that was all he felt he needed to do because he just kept walking in the opposite direction.

So I implore you all, relax, warmer temps will soon be here and hopefully we will feel a little better when we are less constricted by our heavy winter coats.

Happy spring my friends!!!

Out of the oven and back into the dark… March 10, 2008

This week finds me back in the darkroom. Before I decided to make dough making dough, ( i can be really stupidly corny, please excuse!), I worked at a photo lab for close to if not more than 12 years. It WAS called Exhibition Prints Inc.(EPI) It was a great lab and I started working there in its’ infancy. I was there to watch it grow from a lab with 1 1/2 part time printers into a lab that was able to employ 4-6 full time printers. I was a printer for a LONG time and then became the manager and for the last few years there, I ran the whole show. It was a wonderful communal environment. I say I ran the show because in the end I was responsible, but I had great support from my other managers and print staff. It was definitely a fun place to work. We all knew how to work hard within tight deadlines, but we all understood the IMPORTANCE of laughter as well. It brought together a really interesting group of (mostly) women who I really miss. I miss them, not because I don’t work at the lab anymore, but because the lab had to close in 2007 (as has been the fate of many photo labs recently). Now there is no meeting place for all of us anymore. I had already moved on to my new pastry career but I was comforted knowing that I could always go back to my friends at EPI. Now Jessica, Beth, Ana, Dimitri, Kristina, Dale, Jen, Becky, Parsley, and Kelly are spread out around the city and the country, and it is hard to keep up with them all.

When pastry doesn’t pay my bills, I have to take other work, as I have mentioned before. Last month it was an office job in New Brunswick New Jersey, this week it’s back to the darkroom in my beloved NYC. I am printing for a client I met during the early days of EPI and she has happily kept me busy printing a few days every month for Conde Nast Traveller magazine. It felt so nice to be in the darkroom again. I use My Own Color Lab, and I am always bumping into either former clients or printers from EPI. It’s almost like going back home. Today I was lucky enough to run into photographers Katie and Joe. It was great to see them both.

I used to live a very secure life. Every week promised a paycheck. Since September, not so much. It gets a bit tight, but in the end I always seem to make ends meet. In other words, my bills get paid, and I am not starving. Cheers to making it work! I hope all my other former EPI- ers are doing the same if not better!

thanks are ALWAYS welcome! March 7, 2008

“Hi Indira.

Well, everything went as planned, and your cake was a great success. Only problem was, we were still eating cake Saturday, Sunday and Monday cause there was so MUCH of it!

Another complaint, I think our guests all thought your pastry & decorating were more impressive than our anniversary, so just watch it.

Anyway, I think you’re gonna have more customers before long.”

It is always nice to get “complaints” like this!

 

busy baking and data entry…. March 3, 2008

For the month of February I took a temp job out in New Brunswick New Jersey. Those who know me will chuckle, because I left my other job for a few reasons, and one the biggest ones was I was tired of commuting to NJ! Well sometimes baking cannot pay all the bills, so I have to take some odd jobs. I took this specific one because I was able to work for the company my cousin, (Eden), has been working for, for close to 10 years, Dittman Incentive Marketing.

An office is noooooooooo place for me, but it a “means to an end”. And during my month of working there I have met some really fun people. It has been funny meeting everyone because for years I have heard their names attached to the work stories Eden has told me and now I can match faces and first hand experiences to their names.

So where ever I work, unless it is specific to pastry, I am usually motivated to bake for my fellow employees. It just makes me happy and makes it a little easier to get my head around working in an office environment, if I can come home and bake up something tasty I know people will appreciate.

Last Friday was supposed to be my last day so I baked off some mini cupcakes from the left over cake batter from Peter and Peggy’s anniversary cake, and iced them with caramel buttercream and gilded the lily by topping them with a drizzle of caramel.

Well they “roped” me in for another 2 days this week, (actually I volunteered to work the extra 2 days, but they were happy to accept!), so I was compelled to whip up a batch of a classic, chocolate chip cookies to really say goodbye tomorrow. It is always best to leave people on a sweet note, so they remember you as such.

baking a little anniversary cake February 28, 2008

My dear friend Ethan sent his half brother, (Peter) and his wife, (Peggy) to me to create a 24th (!!) anniversary cake.  Technically it is only their 6th anniversary because it falls on leap year day!  The cake is chocolate cake with alternating fillings of chocolate and caramel buttercream. The design was inspired by Peter’s gift to Peggy. He hand painted a vase yellow with pink dogwood blossoms. I hope they all enjoyed the cake and the vase equally!