Where I've Been

Well hi there.

Remember me? I hope so. Either way, I remember you and it feels good to be back. If I know you like I think I do, you are tapping your finger right now with that look in your eye which says, "Sooo. Kaitlin. Where you been, huh?" Ok my friends. We'll start with that.

Where have I been all this time? When I left you last there was blueberry jam on the stove and I was on my way to Maine. Well I made it there, and man oh man oh lobster and sea spray... It was a glorious time. At a campsite by the ocean Russ and I feasted on beer and oysters, more blueberries and smores every night. I ate my first live lobster, carrying it home on my lap squeemishly as it wriggled in a brown paper bag. I also ate my second live lobster and a number of lobster rolls, dressed in butter and piled between toasted white bread.

Back in New York, fall crept in and I turned another year older, celebrating my birthday with the annual tradition of an oversized breakfast at Clinton Street Baking Company: huge biscuits, a pile of eggs, thick sliced country ham and hot chocolate barely contained in a bowl of a mug.

Fall leaves and chilly winds accompanied a unique weekend trip which took me from city to farm. As a participant in Flying Pigs Farm's new program Farm Camp for Food Professionals, I gathered eggs, stomped around with heritage pigs, went maple sugar crazy at a sugar shack with syrup piled high on windowsills, sipped farm fresh, creamy milk and slaughtered a chicken. Yes. That's right. I killed a chicken.

One farm fresh-roasted chicken, a first coating of snow on city streets, 20 pounds of turkey, an ambitious pot of mashed potatoes, pie, latkes, Christmas cookies, a spice rubbed roast and two glasses of New Year's champagne later, I find myself catching up with you now in 2010.

Lately, I've been occupied with a project I'm really excited to share. It has always been a dream of mine to start a business of specialty cakes and well gosh darn it, I'm giving it a try. With a few projects under my belt I'm putting my whisk to work. Here's a peek at my most recent project, a 60th anniversary cake for a lovely Brooklyn couple, recently having renewed their vows over lemon curd and sweet vanilla bean cream frosting:

When I say I'm putting my whisk to work, what I really mean is that I've turned our apartment into a veritable workshop covered in sugar petals, cake forms, sketches, website plans, paper flowers, piping bags, cake scraps, and lots of hope.

I have a feeling this year is going to be great. Full of cake, stories and heaps of other grand things. I have a lot in store for your neglected bellies too. Paging through Julia Child's autobiography I plan to journey through a "boeuf bourginon" while we are in the height of stew weather. I have an enormous new flame colored dutch oven which is crying for a leg of lamb, red wine, figs and a dinner party. I have an oversized crate of eggs from my dear friends farm and an upcoming birthday for a certain cheesecake hungry friend we fed last year around this time.

So, I'm back. Thanks for missing me and hold on, because I'm feeling like if we plan the recipe just right, this year is going to be one heck of a feast.