torn.

torn between sleep, or blogging, or watching brainless tv, or “reading” that 754-page edition on american vogue that i found at the library last week. 754!

the book project? yes, a mere 124 pages, but it still lingers, the way a cartoon character leaves a dust cloud in the shape of itself after it’s skedaddled. the book lingers as the final, last-minute sunday midnight change to the final last-minute friday 5pm change. it lurks as the too big postscript files that refuse to be distilled on my seven-year-old computer that has to run select programs in classic mode. it taunts as the limit on the client’s bank transfer which prohibits the upfront payment being made to the printer which prevents the printer from telling me if the files i sent through last week are ok.

as it turns out, hmm, not really, which is why 6GB worth of raw postscript files are right now being burned onto DVDs for a second time lucky.

so let’s think back to happier times. like last friday, when i finally returned to adriano zumbo pastissier, and casually asked the counter boy (not adriano this time), “what flavours are the macarons today?”

rose. olive oil and vanilla. gianduja.

i don’t know that i could really have considered choosing just one, so in the end i got just one of each.

these are great macarons. they are hefty with moist and crumbly almond body — not like the weird, dessicated hollow shells i have encountered in other, lesser macarons — and their ganache fillings unusually soft (“runny” sounds bad, but really, it is so good). the rose one, gorgeous pink and all heady perfume, had a filling with a sort of evaporated milky flavour. it reminded me of bandung, that lurid indonesian beverage of rose syrup and milk, which i am quite partial to. i’m guessing it’s actually a white chocolate-based concoction.

the olive oil registered, not unpleasantly, on the roof of my mouth. it was an intriguing sensation: the ripe flavour without the oiliness, coupled with the fact that it was actually a sweet biscuit. i didn’t detect a lot of vanilla flavour in the filling, but the texture of it was sublime. i had been curious about this particular macaron since reading about robyn's pierre herme specimen, so now, curiousity sated and fond memories remain.

the gianduja… i think i’d really rather have a piece of actual velvety gianduja, studded with whole hazelnuts. but in macaron form, it was a classy hazelnutty biscuit with a not overly chocolatey finish.

and what business did i have, traipsing into patisseries on a friday afternoon?

friday morning, i had dropped the kid off to her very first day of playschool. i was kid-free! she’d been talking about going to school for some months (though i think the fact that she’d get to carry a backpack was the main attraction), and when we went for the open day a few weeks ago, and she saw that the kids in possum room were in the midst of a ballet class, she lunged at the door making little clawing motions (much like a small marsupial, no?) and said, “can i go in? and do ballet?”

thursday morning, when we attended a brief orientation session, and she discovered the sandpit in the back, she threw herself belly down in the sand, and swam around in it for a good while. she painted a picture in yellow and purple on the classroom easel. she went headfirst down the play yard slide.

so. friday morning, when i dropped her off, she got all quiet, and concentrated on the toy acquarium table while i made myself scarce. when i called to check on her at 11, she was busy with playdough. when i returned to pick her up at 4.30, after a day of grocery shopping and errands, she was busy making a plastic vegetable dinner at the wooden stove, and the afternoon’s face painting was now a half-butterfly smeared away from cheeks down. she was giddy with excitement and smiling. she can’t wait to go back again. phew.