Sweet Southern Spring

My second year of seminary is officially over! I am so excited. This semester was very fun, but seminary can be exhausting. I learned so much and when the end of May rolled around, I was glad to finish out strong. In addition to normal life, Kyle and I had such a fun spring doing things around Kentucky! We had an incredibly long winter, so when spring arrived in mid-April, we were stoked. Kyle and I saved up our Christmas money and decided to go on a weekend getaway for his birthday in the Smokies. We went to stay at a B&B, Blue Mountain Mist, in Sieverville, TN. It was so beautiful! We enjoyed roaming around Cade's Cove, shopping and eating some delicious food. Our B&B was also very sweet. The family that owns it is a Christian family so they led us in prayer before breakfast and prayed over us as we traveled. They also made late night desserts and sweet tea for us! We enjoyed cake, cobbler and tea on the patio each evening. All in all, it was great to travel and see Tennessee and Smoky Mountain National Park.

The weekend after our Tennessee trip was Holy Week and we went on a Good Friday retreat with our Church out at Aldersgate Camp, a couple hours away from Wilmore. We had a wonderful time of reflection and fellowship. We also enjoyed hiking up to a cave. We wandered through the cave for a short while until we ran into cave crickets that looked like spiders! There were also bats! It was a fun experience and the weather was perfect.

In late April, I enjoyed going to Keeneland with my friend, Jenny. We dressed up and watched 10 horse races. We didn't do any betting, but we enjoyed the atmosphere. Going to the races is the one experience that made me feel like a authentic Kentuckian! People were all dressed up -- hats included and the horses were beautiful. Going to Keeneland was a blast. It's beautiful. Most would agree it's more beautiful than Churchill Downs. Also, during Derby Weekend we attended a small Derby get together and Kyle made a famous Kentucky Derby Pie. It was delicious -- so delicious that I took the leftovers with us to church because I could have eaten the rest by myself.

Another fun activity we did at the end of April was attend the Highbridge Film Festival at Asbury University. Random fact: Asbury University has one of the best film schools in the nation. Their students go to the Olympics to film every couple of years! How neat. Also, many of their alums have been involved in producing various well-known films. They have movie posters in their Media Communications building, all representative of films that alumni have been a part of in some way or another. Secretariat is one film that AU alums helped produce and film (imagine that) :). So, because they have such a great film program, every year they host a film festival where students show off their work in short films/animations. All the students dress up and attend, along with community members. Going to the festival was incredibly fun, partly because I was amazed at how awesome their films were! They were fantastic -- such great quality. I don't even know how to run a video camera, so to see students put together films that are equivalent to Disney "shorts" is pretty incredible. Plus the evening was complete with an after party and free Chick-fil-a. I mean really, they had me at "film festival" but free "Chick-fil-a" stole my heart.

Outside of Wilmore, in a small town called Nonesuch, there is a fancy Antique store called "Irish Acres." In the bottom of the store is a spiffy lunch restaurant called "The Glitz." All of the food is made in house, fresh, everyday. The experience includes a homemade "Spritzer," an appetizer, entree, and dessert. The menu contains two/three different options for each course and changes every couple of weeks. Kyle and I went with our sweet Kansas friends, Aaron and Rene. The atmosphere and the menu were fantastic. I had stuffed new potatoes for my appetizer, chicken salad on a croissant with spinach/strawberry and almond salad (the strawberry dressing was to die for), and the "Nonesuch Kiss" for dessert -- chocolate/coffee type ice cream with cream, a cherry, and hot fudge all on top of a meringue. Delicious! Also, our awesome waitress let us try the carrot/ginger soup. Again, a home run. I'm so glad Aaron and Rene took us to this fun place.  We had a great day with them.

We had such a great Spring at Asbury and really enjoyed a little bit of what Kentucky has to offer! The only sad part is Jenny left to move back to Mississippi. I was excited for her, but sad to see her go. We ate breakfast at a Coffee Pub that we had been wanting to go to. It was so cute. And that's a wrap for the Spring.

Baking Sunday: French Macarons filled with Raspberry and White Chocolate Ganache

Jenny and I decided to make French Macarons this past Baking Sunday. Macarons are notorious for being tricky and complex. We had a real adventure! Jenny studied abroad in France while she was in college so she found legitimate recipes (one for the meringue shell and one for the ganache) online because you can't make macarons the American way! No butter allowed. Our first batch of meringues turned out okay, but they were sticky and we couldn't figure out if they had baked long enough. The second time around proved a whole lot more successful. We lightly greased the pan, which was actually really helpful and I turned the oven down to 300F instead of 275F as the recipe called.

In addition to being tricky in general, macarons require you to pay attention to detail. We used the food processor to make our own almond meal and Jenny strained it through a mesh sieve twice. It's important for the almond meal to be very fine. I also learned that when you're making the sugar syrup, you cannot stir it or touch it with a spoon once it has boiled. Stirring it allows oxygen in, and in turn makes the mixture solidify. I was in charge of the sugar syrup and did that! Oh jeez. I learned a baking lesson the hard way and had to re-make the sugar syrup. I told Jenny when we were baking that macarons wouldn't be fun to make alone! I think our total baking time (we made two batches) ended up being 3 1/2 hours or so. But the little jewels were well worth the effort and it was a lot of fun. Our second batch wasn't too shabby! Plus, the raspberry/white chocolate ganache is to die for. And now we can say that we've made macarons. Ladies and gents, our baking has ascended to a new skill level and that's a good thing, too, because the semester is almost over and Jenny is going home! What am I going to do without her? I told her we will have to have Skype Baking Sundays. Otherwise, I'm trying not to think about her going back to Mississippi :(.

I know it seems silly, but Baking Sunday has been one of best ways that I've experienced God! It's been so fun to anticipate fellowship each week and create. Baking Sunday often reaches farther than Sunday, too. It enabled me to make a GREAT friend (Jenny), have some really fun and meaningful conversations along the way, and to share our baking goodies with others in the Asbury community. My bosses at work benefit the most ;). Baking Sunday has truly been nurturing for my soul. What a wonderful sabbath activity it has been. 

Besides what I listed above, I have no extra critiques about the macarons. I am just going to leave you with links to the original recipes that we used. They worked out pretty well for us. Enjoy!

 - Recipe for the meringues here
 - Recipe for the raspberry ganache here

Bon appétit my fellow Sunday bakers!