Tuesday baking.

It is always a time for baking and exploration of new fields of taste and flavors. While S is busy with the ingredients and the actual process of patisserie,  I am running up and down the stairs, on my way to the local supermarket to buy a few missing elements.
Haha baking is a 4 hands-on project and while preparing the next step in the recipe, there is an exercise in between. I like that. And as long as the sun shines these last days over good old Westminster, London we're just gorgeous delighted and in a terribly well mood. I can do those stairs easily and run around the few blocks between the local super market at Great Portland Street and another corner shop at Euston Road.

Instead of the buttermilk - impossible to find today - we decide to go for butter instead. The shredded apple with a pinch of cinnamon and the maple syrup frosting make these fancy Tuesday cupcakes a celebration of flavor. We're both thrilled with our new kitchen-aid. This makes our tiny Westminster kitchen better equiped. Look at this, there they are smiling on a glaze plate, topped with the hand of the master. Blossoming under tulip's freshness. 

Pauw's project: Ikea Dining Table, the 'bronze' chair is from Anthropology. The little pink and yellow can* was a farewell gift when we left Cassis, Provence, France in the summer of 2005 to move to Lausanne, Switzerland. The pink tulips remind me of Amsterdam.

*I use the can for different purposes. Might serve as a water jar too while having a seated dinner.

Macaroon a delight

    Vanilla macarons, recipe from the Cordon Bleu patisserie baking book. 

    

10 GRADE

Graduation day, the second graduation this time of the year.

At home we celebrate with a beautiful bake from one sister to another, made with grace by my allergy girl.
The piping is as always outstanding; patience and love for baking.
Way to go! Two sisters; one freshly graduated from her International school in London and off on a gap year now. The second sister finishing her 10 grade at the same international school and signed up for the two, very last international baccalaureate years; 11 and 12 grade. In international school know as the IBDP years. My youngest finishing her 8 grade and unlike the importanty of this year in the girls' prior Rabat American school; marking the end of Middle school, in international schools 8 grade is the third year of MYP ( Middle Year Program).

London seems a strong fit to us as a family and the three girls are doing amazingly well after our first two years in the city of Westminster.

Exhausted and satisfied.
I can't believe we' re actually winding down our second year this week.

Knowledge and Ignorance

Knowledge and Ignorance

The day has hardly begun and I have to run to the campus. Allergy alarm! Tsunami of sneezes ..... "Please bring me more medication , I am not feeling well, I am actually sneezing constantly and I get so exhausted and with my silly allergies I am upsetting the class and playing with the concentration skills of the other students, o mammy please bring it along....please please hurry up now mammy! I need more pills so badly I am feeling so sleepy suddenly and my face and body tonic are not getting any better."
Yes yes I'am on my way, quickly dressing and up you go, medication in one hand, keys and glasses. So lucky we're so close to both campuses. That at least has saved us already many times, literally in December when we made it straight into the UCLH (University College London Hospital). Since that really dramatic panic day late December 2014 with my daughter ending in the emergency room. Since that day I feel, her body has ever since been in a state of recovering; getting over that severe reaction.

Her anaphylactic shock did wake us up. Her allergies have been,  for the last 17 years, always just around the corner. Unpredictable, incomprehensible... the struggle with knowledge and ignorance within and outside the field of expertise.
Her young body is alarmingly awake rather than comfortably sleepy and this is all so comprehensible and understandable. She fights the allergies with all her strengths and between exams, the final baccalaureate coming up in May .... I am afraid she needs all her spare breath. 

I am running to her campus and promise I'll make a call so she comes down when I arrive at the building. All I see is her face and I'm certainly not happy with the face I am looking at. She looks as if she's struggling with another bad allergy. Unfortunetely with the pollen season in full size; blossoming trees plus daily temperature change... 'global warming'...  we all seem more and vulnerable to seasonal allergies. I mean with my sweetheart I never know what is the actual trigger for a reaction. Regular examination and medical diagnose showed and as the gained knowledge tells us: she's definitely deadly allergic for certain groups of food and she suffers from pollen too. No way she can tackle these reactions easily.
It gets only more complicated as we believe we're all suffering from allergies. That's where it becomes a burden for the serious and diagnosed patient.
My daughter is the very first who will come up with positive comments and tell you that her allergies are nothing to complain about, no way that 'you get down' because 'that's life' and she adds 'well we all struggle with something, isn't that what life is all about Mom'....
I kind of consider her as my hero while she comments in this way on her actual not well being and I feel like ... 'Yeah yeah yeah..... agree..'
And then she continues her story . 'Mom and there's this: those people who simply don't get it! And that's why we will sit and write and share and tell some of the best allergy adventures we came through, it might be in the stars, and it might be your simple bad luck to be deadly allergic, people should listen and try to get the message that there is nothing to joke about, allergies, the deadly ones are too serious to mess around with '. She's right can't agree more with my daughter, and this is in a nutshell the full picture of her and mine experiences. She summarizes the story of her life with her deadly allergies and the average total nonsense attitude from the world around her.
An attitude that has everything to do with a lack of knowledge and a big deal of ignorance.

PS: latest medical updates about my allergy girl: she's still and ever deadly allergic for peanuts and nuts, and both are so severe that cross examination is not advisable: next consultation on short term notice not necessary, as allergy doesn't seem to be cured.
Walking around with epi pen is! Keeping her mind straight 7/7 is too.

 PS:  We Eat cake:  Homemade, safe and beautiful.