Hunt Successful

So after many twists and turns in plot development, I finally have a new roommate. My old roommate-to-be had to drop out due to very understandable financial reasons.

But I got a new one! She's a student at the school. Let's just call her Roomie. So far, so good.

Last month I spent a few days looking at places. I hate apartment hunting. It's annoying and frustrating. One place seems great until you realize it's location and that it doesn't have central air. Another actually is great but darned if we could afford it. Well, we could, but I like eating and having the thermostat set above 50 degrees F.

However, we found a place. It's not ideal, but the location is good. It's about a ten minute walk from a blue line train station, which will drop us off right near our school. The apartment itself is airy with lots of light. It's the the top floor of a three floor walk up. The building itself feels very secure and there's laundry on site in the basement. I'll put up a few pictures.

Downsides, because there are a few, include almost no counter space in the kitchen, very little storage space, no dishwasher, and no garbage disposal. However, I've lived without a dishwasher before, it's not that troublesome. And at home we don't even use our garbage disposal. Storage space can be created by the use of hooks and shelves. Counter space can be created with a table and maybe a butcher's block storage stand like piece of furniture. I hope.

It could be a lot, lot worse. Like, bugs and no central air and no laundry in the building ( I know me and baking, I'm going to need that washing machine like the Doctor needs a companion).

Picture time! Photos were taken from the listing. Not mine, I didn't shoot them. They just show the common areas a lot better than my photos did.

One half of the living area. It's about 12x24 total.

See? No cabinet space or counter space to speak of. Going to have to get creative.

You can see most of the living area from this photo. Nice big windows, nice and bright.

Bathroom! I'm so happy to actually have a cupboard under the sink. Unheard of in most apartments.

If you turned around from the first photo this is what you would see.

Until next time. <3 R.

Let's Begin: An Intro and some Pretty Pictures

Hello all (or anyone who's found this post),

My last name starts with Rad, I'm an aspiring pastry chef (recently accepted into a baking and pastry school in a large city), who works as a cake decorator. One job is cake decorating, dessert creation, and maybe, sometimes, bread making. It's at a local, upscale grocery store. It's pretty cool.

For now I am disinclined to divulge names of others and specific places to protect the innocent.

And let me say this: I love what I do. I have not enjoyed anything before like I do my current jobs. There's a level of creativity required, but also a level of perfectionism. Things must be exact and beautiful. There's a degree of science as well as a degree of art required in baking and pastry. Anyone in the field can tell you this.

With this blog I hope to showcase my decorating skills, my baking experiments, and the geeky things I found that I must share (no promises that the last item will be related to baking or pastry at all).

So, to start, here are photos of a birthday cake I made and decorated for my friend for her last birthday. She was born on Halloween and is a nearly ravenous fan of the Joker and slightly less so of Jack Skellington, so I combined them into one cake. Also, there are some gingerbread cookies I decorated for funsies.

Cake and cookie designs are mine. I created them, and I took the photos (hence the large watermarks). Please do not copy or share without asking permission first (it'll probably be granted, I just want to know).

Thanks so much for reading!

 Skeletons and skulls, oh my!

 The whole cake. One side was devoted to Jack Skellington, the other Heath Ledger's Joker. Covered in fondant, painted on using food coloring, and bordered with grey royal icing.

 The face was drawn by hand, by me. No tracing.

 This was fun (and stressful). There was no actual Nightmare Before... font I could reference, so I used the DVD box and did my best to come up with what would be the font. 

Again, no tracing. Painted on by hand.