Special Quarantine Edition: Final Post!

Well RCL/CAS/whatever this class is, it has been a good time. It is absolutely crazy that this is our last passion blog post, and even more insane that we only have 23 days until our last day of “school”! I have been going more and more crazy by the day, but what can I do except bake more! I know, I know, you must be shocked at this point. This time around I decided to go for something a little more challenging, and it ended up being the hardest thing I have ever baked.

You see, the bakery where I work has the most delicious danishes I have ever tasted, so I thought to myself, ‘How hard can it be?’. Turns out it can be very difficult. I used a recipe from the King Arthur Flour website (https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/danish-pastry-recipe) because I figure a flour company would have the most basic recipe. What I completely failed to remember is that danishes require puff pastry, and the one other time I tried to make puff pastry was for elephant ears and it was an absolute disaster. See what makes homemade puff pastry so difficult is the fact that you have to flat, fold, and roll the dough around a sheet of butter over and over in order to get flaky layers. The problem with that is the fact that butter melts very easily, and if you are not careful, you will just have a giant mess of oily dough. I will admit that I did not succeed as well as I had hoped in this attempt, but the danishes were quite yummy, even if they were not the texture I wanted them to be.Another social isolation coping method that I have been using may not be the best for my mood, but it helps me look ahead to when this is all over. I have been making a list of things I want to do this summer once all of this ends! Yes, I might get a little down while making this list and realizing all of the things that I am unable to do at the moment, but it helps me realize and be thankful for how amazing my life is on a regular basis when there is not a global pandemic. On the top of my list (and probably many others’ lists) is going to the beach. Every summer, my family goes to Ocean City, MD for the Fourth, and it is quite possibly my favorite time of year.

I have also been making a list of restaurants and coffee shops in my area that I have not had the chance to visit yet. But I have also been making a list of my favorite restaurants to visit with my friends, and at the top of that is a place called “Silver Diner” that serves the most delicious shakes and burgers and has the classic chrome and red leather diner look.

I definitely encourage everyone to look ahead to what we will get to enjoy once this is all over rather than focus on the situation we are in now. But no matter what you choose to do, thank you guys so much for reading my blogs this past semester (or this past year). Happy eating!