Happy New Year! Holiday baking update: the anti-procrastination baking worked really well. Having baked all kinds of things before the holidays, I was both able to give all kinds of decorated cookies to loved ones and I was better prepared to bake "on the fly" during the holidays when the cookies had long run out (unexpected benefit). It turns out that loads of techniques that you use in one kind of recipe transfer to improvisational baking, where you try to make the best of the ingredients you have on hand. My best "on the fly" baking experience was a Victoria spongecake in someone else's kitchen; the centre didn't quite bake for long enough and therefore collapsed a little when the cake was cooling but apart from that it was a success. I took almost 3 weeks away from Toronto for the break, and it was exactly what I needed after a December of frenzied writing. That's not to say that there wasn't a lot to do - paperwork, emails, planning and so on. A
A lively look at work-life balance