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It’s happening. I am Devil Wears Prada Meryl Streep-ing it in my new office, sitting at my new fancy desk (aka a plastic folding table from Costco) with my new amazing iMac. Big thank you to my stepdad for helping me upgrade from my old Macbook, which had a battery that would only hold a charge for an hour. Marco and I needed a change of pace in the house and we moved Marco’s desk into the guestroom temporarily. I no longer need to forgo my ironing corner to make myself an office space. In fact, ChowNow plans to reopen its office in August so his home office will become the Marcella Cooking Stuff headquarters permanently. Let me tell you, it feels good to have a designated workspace! I was ecstatic to move my planner, scribble scrabble notes, and junk off of the living room coffee table. Box lights, selfie sticks, and all the miscellaneous tools I have accumulated over the last year finally have a home. With my freshly cut hydrangeas and Diptyque candle burning it is easy to forget I am sitting at a plastic folding table. Micro luxuries baby!
In social media news this week, the head of Instagram Adam Mosseri announced that they are no longer a photo-sharing app. Their focus is shifting to helping creators monetize (finally), video (mainly short form), shopping, and messaging. Photo creators are quaking at the thought of Instagram being a knock-off of ticktock because learning a new skill is hard. I resisted making videos because it was too time-consuming. Still is time-consuming. A few thoughts came to mind when reading everyone’s public complaints this week. First, people rejecting change sounds like (and most are) old stubborn adults set in their ways. All the “young influencers” are fine with it. More importantly, who is going to develop the new “photo sharing” app?! There is clearly a demand for it. Instagram has been on the decline for some time now. I don’t know what’s next but individuals creating their own platforms to share content and monetizing from it is for sure coming.
One of my favorite things about the Midwest is all the fruit picking available. Monday we spent an hour in a blueberry field and went home with five pounds of ripe fruit. I made a galette with the blueberries and some nectarines that were on their last day. This galette was perfect in every way. The shape was beautiful, the gluten-free crust held together perfectly, and there was no leaking. Right after I pulled it out of the oven, while it was still burbling, I took the six steps from the stove to my stool by the window to take a video of the burble and dropped it. I dropped it HARD. I basically threw it at the floor. The towel I used to hold the pan was slightly wet and I could feel the burning heat coming to my fingers. I was so focused on that and not looking ahead when I smacked the corner of the sheet pan into the fridge handle. They collided so hard it went flying and there was no chance of recovering the galette. I screamed for a minute straight and then scraped it off of the floor. We still ate it.
On Wednesday I attempted a second galette. I reduced the H2O in the dough because the first one was a little too wet. It was dry and crumbly and I knew it would fail before I filled it. It immediately had a leak which only got worse with baking. Another fail but we ate this one too.
Thursday was my final attempt for redemption. Everything looked promising and I filmed the process for a Reel to post on Instagram. Halfway into baking, a crack opened and it started to leak. I have accepted galette defeat this week.
The cracks and leaking can be from many things. Not enough H20, butter being too soft, not chilling my dough long enough…lack of gluten! I do these things for Marco but man do I dislike GF baking. I have a few days to myself this week and I’ll redeem myself by baking with TONS of gluten.
Stuff to Read
Is It Ever Okay...to Sip a Vaccinated Friend’s Drink Just to Try It?
Tyra Banks Opened a ‘Smize’ Cream Shop in Santa Monica Last Week (lol)
Recipe Inspo
Listen To This
I recently discovered Alex Delany’s massive collection of curated playlists on Spotify. These are not new, I just finally got around to listening to them and haven’t turned them off. Check them out if you need to switch up what you are listening to.
Places I ate
Nowhere…again. But I’m cooking up some fun stuff that will be coming your way soon.
Thing Everybody Needs
We have discussed how essential a bench scraper is before. If I could only keep 5 items from my kitchen it would be on that list for sure. Here is another use for your bench scraper: scooping galette of the floor.
Animal Cuteness
I polled my followers on which cat they would take home. Lola won by and landslide.
Here’s to better baking days ahead. Whenever you feel discouraged, remember we all have leaky galettes sometimes.
See you next week, M.