Get out of the way and pass the bowl of croissants.

Blueberry Crumb Muffins by Heather

I am going to encourage my artists. I have a baker in the house. A very good 12 year old baker. Just like her skiing skills (that happened around age 7), her baking skills have surpassed mine. Her latest interest is croissants. This is the 4th time we have made croissants over the last few years. This time the effort was 99% by Heather. My only contribution was to attempt to strain the chalazae out of the beaten eggs. I had to do this about 3 times because I was too impatient and dumped the lot into the bowl twice trying to get it strain faster. What is chalazae? Those stringy bits in the egg that suspend the yolk in the centre of the egg. The book she used strains and weighs the eggs for the recipes.

The Bouchon Bakery, co-written by Thomas Keller, is the one that Heather borrowed from of the library. Thomas Keller is the chef and proprietor of the French Laundry restaurant, the Bouchon bakery and others. I have the French Laundry Cookbook. It was a gift. It is beautiful. It lives right now on a basement bookshelf. He strains everything; sometimes twice. Maybe I could give it another chance. I love cooking, but I like simpler things. Some things I like are also fast. I’ve made 5 minute a day bread, no-knead bread, a hurry-up-chocolate cake, and occasionally 5 minute chocolate cake in a mug. Actually, I don’t bake much lately. I’ve been replaced by my young baker. It occurred to me that before I make any uncharitable speculation as to where some baker has a bouchon lodged, I consider that I attend a yoga class that I love, where we have been known to be asked to mind our upper-inner-corner of our knees. This chef is stupendously talented and has lovingly shared what he does in his books. I love this page about working clean.

Heather knows my preferences and predicted I would not like this 6 page recipe (including photos) for croissants. If this busy young gymnast wants to spend her only free day making croissants, then I’m going to get out of her way and try to strain eggs for her if she asks me again. I noticed she strained her own eggs last time she needed some.

Here they are…

I think I have something in common with my son, who of course drives me nuts when he does things at lightning speed. He too, can work very carefully on the things he cares about. Take a look at some of his projects. Both are works in progress.

These bowls are roughed out and drying. Many are made from wood from trees that were damaged and cut down after our September snowstorm.
This is a leg for a walking robot, based a design by Theo Jansen, who is a kinetic sculptor.
Makes me want to step it up a notch from cutting a sweater in half.
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