Procrastinating / Random Baking

I actually haven't done as badly as I thought I would - I expected the working from home and thesis related frustration to bring on a lot more baking than this! But it helps that it's January (aka universal diet month), and so my efforts would have been poorly received. Therapeutic for me, but not for anyone else. So instead I have limited myself to only 3 things since Christmas, and all were baked for company-related purposes: lavender shortbread (the recipe's here - you should try it!), zucchini loaf (my long standing go-to recipe when I want to bake something not too sweet but still treat-ish), and something new! Orange cardamom madeleines! (I haven't changed anything from the incomparable Martha Stewart's recipes, so I've just linked to them here rather than type them out).

The first time I had madeleines was also the first time I had a lavender baked good, and both are now serious baking addictions for me. Anyway, my first madeleine was from the Duchess Bakeshop in Edmonton - an amazing bakery that my friends and I waited in line to get into the first week it opened (a European bakery opening in the land of coffee and donuts is worth waiting in line for!) and then proceeded to linger at our table long enough to try new items as they were brought out. That was a wholly unhealthy but fantastically pleasant day :)

I've since started making my own madeleines, and I've found that they're fairly versatile and really easy. I usually make them with lavender, and I think they're still my favourite, but I've also made lavender-lemon and rose water versions, both of which turned out quite nicely. I came across this Martha Stewart recipe though, and was excited to try the cardamom-orange combination. The orange glaze gives the madeleienes a really nice finish, making them more of a dessert than a biscuit/tea cake, but I think, actually, they'd be just as nice without the glaze and with the orange zest (not the juice - just the zest) mixed directly into the batter. Also, I had some trouble at the beginning finding a proper madeleine tin, but I did end up finding one at Lakeland. Since buying mine though, I've noticed them in fairly random places, like the hardware store in Mumbles. Go figure.

Just out of the oven...

Without orange glaze

With orange glaze

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! This holiday season has flown past - almost to the point where it never quite felt like Christmas, despite my mother's best efforts to replicate Santa's workshop in our living room...

The past few months have been so busy that I haven't had much time to properly keep up with most people. So just in case you weren't one of the lucky few forced listened to me moan about how stressed I was, here's a brief (moan-free!) review of the past few months. 

I've finally finished all the lab work for my PhD! I had funding for three years, and that funding finished at the end of December, so from the end of October until just before Christmas I've been scrambling to make sure I have enough data for a decent thesis. I think I've been successful, but we'll see how decent the thesis is soon enough! Either way, I've finished everything I can do in Swansea, and I'm feeling pretty good about it all. 

Unfortunately, no more funding means I had to move out of my lovely little place in Mumbles, and say goodbye (for now!) to some amazing friends. We did manage to get in a few weekend visits before I left though, filled with brunches, Thanksgiving dinners, and some great walks along the Gower. Still, it's never easy saying goodbye, even when you've known it's coming. The nice thing about academia, and academia friends, is that you stand a very good chance of seeing them again at conferences or meetings (and the mandatory tourist time tacked on to the end of said conferences and meetings!), so goodbyes are mostly temporary.

So now I'm home, having come back to my parents place for Christmas, and I'll be here for all of January, holed up in their basement with many pots of tea, analysing my data and thesisizing like a madwoman. It's been a year since I've been back, so coming home and seeing everyone has been amazing. Christmas-busy, but amazing!

The only difficult part of coming home is answering the question 'what's next?'. Partly because I feel like there's still so much to do with the PhD (this thesis isn't going to write itself!), and partly because I've never been one to have a solid plan, I find this question ridiculously difficult. But I do have a fairly nomadic six month plan - ready for it?!

I promised myself I'd take the week between Christmas and New Year's off, but now I'm back to work, organising my next random life event - Portugal! I got some funding a few months ago to do some work in Portugal for 3 months, so I'll be living there from February 1 until April 30, doing some labwork related to my PhD and continuing to write up my thesis. I can't wait! I visited Portugal last February and while it was a bit nerve-wracking (it was my first time visiting a country where English wasn't always the first language), I found the country and the culture really interesting, so I can't wait to go back. I'm going to get some Portuguese language CDs from the library and try to learn a little bit before I go so I can at least attempt a broken conversation with the locals. Wish me luck - languages are not my strength!

After Portugal there's a family trip to Norway in May that I'm beyond excited about, and then a conference in Iceland I'm attending at the end of May. And then I'm back in Swansea to defend my thesis in June. If all goes well I should be back in Canada (for good?) sometime in July. And that's when the plan ends...

It all sounds crazy, especially for a girl who never cared too much while growing up about leaving North America, but I think traveling abroad has been the best thing I've ever done. It can be frustrating and tiring sometimes, but in the best ways. And you meet so many amazing people and see so many great things that it makes all the challenges worth it. 

Anyway, that's all for now. I expect now that I'm thesisizing I'll blog a bit more in an effort to procrastinate, and I have some great recipes from Christmas/New Years that must be shared, but for now I'll just say that I hope your Christmas was wonderful and Happy 2013!