A Gorgeous Delight for Christmas Parties  The Pavlova

The Christmas season is the welcoming call for parties and well… parties. The coming out of the sun means we pick up the phone and call our mates and family, invite them over, and enjoy the heat together. We prepare our barbecue grill, grill a freshly carved out steak, and pour some Australian barbecue sauce to get the party going. 

But what’s a party without dessert? One does not simply throw a party that does not have dessert on the menu. When talking about summers and desserts, and Australia, there is only one name that springs to mind. Pavlova. It’s elegant yet simple, brilliant yet modest, and on top of it all… it tastes like something straight from heaven. Thank goodness for whoever came up with the idea of a meringue base, topped with fresh cream and fruit. 

Getting back to topic though, the pavlova is not the most difficult to make either. It’s a dessert that does not need the day to be a special occasion. The fact that we don’t always want to boast a towering cake baked with some of the most delightful ingredients in the world is what makes pavlova special. These crispy-on-the-outside, tender-and-chewy-on-the-inside meringue spectacles are the perfect recipe when you really need to bring the house down.

An Australian delight that is named after the Russian ballet dancer, Anna Pavlova for reasons unknown. While we don’t know about you, but we for one would have loved to have something this good named after us.

There are quite a few stories attached to the pavlova, but the one that seems most logical is the one that says its meringue base somewhat resembles a ballet tutu. 

Now that we know all about the pavlova, how about we tell you how we make this delicacy from Australia in the most Australian way at the Love Boomers. It’s more than just sugar, spice, and everything nice… it is a step further than that. 

What we need is four egg whites, 200 grams of golden castor sugar, lets start by whipping the egg white until they look like sea foam. Gently add the golden castor sugar gradually mixing well in between each addition. Beat until it looks thick and glossy, and continue until you could see yourself in it. Add one teaspoon of cornflour with one teaspoon of lemon juice and whisk very gently in the mix.

We then bake it in the shape you desire. After baking it for around 15 to 20 minutes, on about 140 celsius, personally I like to leave it in the oven with the heat off and the door slightly open overnight to get a great crunch on the outside. If you just want to pull it out and cool thats perfectly fine too.

Then comes the best part, the finishing touches with the topping. You can top it with absolutely anything you like. We generally use and recommend blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries. Finally, dust with icing sugar on top of your fruit and fall in love with desserts all over again.

As this one is for Christmas I make two identical wreaths and sandwich them together top with sugar coated blueberries then add a giant bow.  

Enjoy Tracey x

It Is The Small Things

So it is close to the end of another year and the start of a new.  For some of us it is a time to look to a brighter future, improving on previous efforts.  I always thought business was like baking a cake with all those special ingredients to make it rise. I now believe a business is like having a relationship it always teeters on what you put in and sometimes you do not always get what you expect.  Like love you do not give to receive and a business is really the same but somehow it works.

People ask the secret and I actually think it is love.  The same as love gives you that I could do anything it applies to business, if you love what you do it grows as you do.
2012 has been a tremendous learning curving losing the second store, like losing a loved one it hurts.  Questioning yourself on what you did wrong, how could you do it better. Always something better comes along and you realise it was all meant for a reason. So for me the second site is not lost just hidden at the moment ready to come shining through all the fog.
This year all of us have lost loved ones and dreams but it is no reason to give up.   It is all about the little things that make business great.  Appreciation for a job well done, a smiling customer saying your great, these little things pick you up and make the day and the years so much better.  It makes you want to strive for more.  The same as when the person you love declares their love and does all the little things to make you feel important.  So for 2013, I  am going to look at my working world as the biggest romance I have ever had.

Tx

Integrity

It has been a very busy few months with business progressing and lots of changes happening all around me.  I am being to wonder if I am making the right choices and surrounding myself with the right people.  In life relationships with people seem always the hardest.  Do we all really want honesty and directness?  Do people all have an angle, I am beginning to wonder?  My rose tinted glasses of the world are starting to get tainted with the lack of integrity and honesty of people.  Everybody says look after number one, why is it that some of us including me struggle with that.  I am beginning to think is there genuine people out there. Am I just choosing the wrong company.  As I blare out "Stand Up" by Jessie J her lyrics give me hope in the world, maybe it is all about me and the choices I make and how I bounce back with the good, the bad, the rough and the smooth of life.  Apparently it is supposed to build character, and lead you to where your are headed and where you are supposed to be.  
"If you surround yourself with negative people
You'll never feel settled in or become an equal, no
They'll suppress you of your spirit and rinse you dry of smiles
So reach deep and release your inner child"
Regardless of the knocks in life and there has been a few, I am happy that I can still feel moved by people, and inspired by others.  Big enough to say I am sorry with all my heart and recognise I am not perfect and make mistakes.  I have realised though I don't ever want to be so hard that I don't feel the knocks of life to learn when things are great and you meet people that are genuine you can see the difference and know the world is not that bad and the special people will always be genuine and true .

T x

 “The only source of knowledge is experience” Albert Einstein

It's a very special time of year, everybody is talking about the Olympic Games. It is funny how something so special can begin to unite people and the world.  There is what feels to me like star dust in the air, that little bubble of excitement.  For me it was the usual day at work until I met both Jose' Carlos Herrera Vargas and Gabriel E German all the way from Mexico to participate in the Olympics.  Jose' a 200 metre runner and Gabriel his coach. Without their knowledge they managed to rekindle an admiration for what a positive mental attitude can do.
As most sporting people they travelled here on their own steam to represent their country.  It was amazing and enlightening to meet two very special people who in the few moments I spent with them shared their generosity for life and what a positive attitude can achieve.  It is only a few changes in your own language that makes the difference. Jose' attitude is they are running against me, not the other way around.  Jose' and Gabriel work hard as a team and proves that the right team can inspire and motivate to achieve. They both are as important to one another as air is to breathe.
This gave me time to reflect on my own schedule and mental attitude and on reflection I on the other hand who feels defeated when I feel like I have not won or achieved in business, get mad with myself.
They taught me to realise that as long as you have worked hard and done your ultimate best towards your goal, no matter the outcome your still a winner.  
I wish them both the best on the 7th of August, and thank them very much for giving me the inspiration to work hard and follow my dreams.  All is possible with the right mental attitude and for that I will be eternally grateful.
Gracias por su tiempo y fue un honor cumplir ambos, Mago Thrillers todos ronda.
T x

Communication seems to be the key trend of my last few weeks, what really is the amazing secret that we all get so badly wrong.  I question myself did I really hear the right thing, did I say the right thing in the right way and more importantly did they understand me and me them. Awaiting for that vital piece of communication that strings the next steps a head in your plan, the dangling, and waiting, waiting and more waiting when eventually you move to the next important stage in your plan.  Why hang around.  Then eventually it comes back around and starts all over again.   
I admire those people that get it right, actually it is hard to think of a list of the top ten business's or people that have. It's the million dollar question?  It is seriously like a mind field and when you get it wrong how life gets tipped upside down and inside out.  Is it because we are all so busy we really do not live in the moment and take in what someone else is saying?  Have we all become so wrapped up in our own lives that we cut out the people that are most important, without even knowing we are doing it?  Are we all that busy, I have had to stop myself this week and realise I am doing it and it is really annoying.  So I have decided to remember to breath and actually feel and see the person in front of me.   I am so busy making the plans and working out the next step for the future, I have begun to stop living in the moment and enjoying the little intricacies of daily life that make it all worth doing.
So much of my day to day life is based on a yes or a no, and no truer words have been written like...
The magic moment is that in which a yes or no may change the whole of our existence....
(paulo coelho)
It dramatically changes, everything in my day to day world.   How to have the ability to have people say yes would be fantastic but would it really?  I am not so sure. 
For now I have decided that maybe sometimes silence is the best policy, because then you are actually listening. I will work on my responses to what I have been communicated as another long term project.


Tx

I am beginning to wonder is life a race? and when is enough enough?
Why is it when everything you have been working so hard on to achieve suddenly have a bump bigger than what you were prepared for. The ups and downs in life are plenty and we are all aware of them and somehow expect them.  
Why is it when you go through these ups and downs on the downs you seem to regroup within and start to analyse every aspect of your life.  Is it just a women thing.
Currently I feel like I am 12 again, at the pool awaiting for the start gun to go off, except I could not dive off the block and had to go from the side of the pool.  To make matters worse the bathing suit my mum had bought me went translucent on impact of water.  Not great when your 12, the heckling and little comments and you think it couldn't get any worse.
Now at the tender age of 42 I begin to wonder have I let my life become too translucent and is the race of life for achievement all in my head.
Some people namely your friends and family think your successful and have achieved the impossible while others still think it isn't enough. Can they see straight through me.
Reflecting on it all is it us that set the bar so high, is there something wrong with wanting more and why do we do it?  When the falls can be so hard. 
The disappointment of not getting the location, the finance and all the bits that join it together makes it feel like a race and is there a finishing line when you will be happy with it all.
As they say one door closes and one door opens, so that's what keeps me going that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, eventually it will all come together. Timing is everything like in a race.  
I have to remember it's only the beginning of my race and it can be short or long whatever I make it after all it is my race and nobody else's.


T x

It's funny how during periods of your life music seems to pick up your tone of mood, maybe coincidence I do not know. During the end of 2011 it was Kelly Clarkson now as I unpack my bag from a holiday that never happened Emeli Sande' seems to try and soothe me or put everything you want to say into the right words. "where I sleep" has such beautiful words

"river" makes me think and is their people out there with so much depth. "clown" says it all right now with words like cleared the way for my crash landing. No truer words to be said at the moment.

I am luckier than most and I suppose thats what keeps you going, so many other people have harder times and you need to look at the positives. Thats what I keep telling myself. I suppose we are all self involved if the truth be known.

I did wonder though when I was experiencing my situation how many men or women are waiting at the church and their partner does not arrive. It made me even sadder but somethings are not meant to be understood just forgiven.


I am grateful for my friends and family who have helped pick me up when it all seems a mess with business or personal. One day I will find my home.


T x