Josey Gregg CAS Blogs

Another one of the French Pastries I completed during my A-term was the French macaron. I’ll admit it, I’m a little intimidated by macarons. I have attempted making them twice before (once with the Italian method and once with the French) and neither time were they successful. I ended up with cracked shells and overspread macarons and it just ended up being a whole mess. Today I used the French method (obviously, since it was a French baking A-term) and was very determined to succeed. I began by whipping my egg whites and vanilla, making sure they formed stiff peaks before adding my food coloring and then combining it with an almond flour and powdered sugar mixture. This combination step is called macronage and requires lots of precision. Overmixing it will release too much air from the batter and cause flat and cracked macarons, while undermixing will cause lumpy and hollow macarons. Honestly, they are a lot like goldilocks. They need just the right amount of mixing, just the right am...

 On Sunday, I competed in my second in person sprint triathon. This one took place outside of Fayettville, Arkansas, which is conveniently about an hour away from where I'm staying for the summer. On the day of the race I was extremely nervous, like I always am, but also excited because I was ready for the feeling of accomplishment I knew I would have once I had finished. Although I was excited the race, there were several added challenges that I had not had in my previous race. The first one was the fact that this was the Arkansas state championship meet, meaning the fastest high schoolers from Arkansas would be racing. This meant the competition would likely be tougher. The second challenge was the hills. In Houston there are virtually no hills, so when I come to a new place completely unprepared it makes it extremely difficult. The race had an open water swim, then a bike through the hills, then a run that also had a big hill you had to complete on each of the two loops. While I...