The pursuit of perfection, design, and magic.
Whew. I made it! The first macaron order is packaged and ready for pick-up.
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work –Aristotle
Now, did everything in this first drop go perfectly? HECK NO. Some of the cookies had slight cracks when packaged. Will that take away from their flavor? Nope. Did it bruise my ego a bit? Absolutely. They looked and felt perfect coming out of the oven. They continued to look and feel perfect after filling/maturing. Then, boom, a little stress crack here and there. Deflated.
This is an area in which I struggle: I always strive for perfection. Even when starting something new. My therapist and I chatted about this a couple of weeks ago when I was thinking through my next career steps. She told me a story where she was learning a musical piece in college and was frustrated when she couldn't perform a specific run perfectly. Her teacher looked at her and said "Who do you think you are? You've only been playing this for a couple of weeks." It sounds harsh, but the message is a good one: perfection requires patience, time, and talent, not talent alone. When I came across this quote, it made sense: the pleasure in making macarons for me lies in devising new and delicious flavors, learning from other makers and my own mistakes (hello hollows!), refining my technique, and persisting until, finally, I have batches that are full, fluffy, and ready for delicious filling.
If I really wanted perfection, I wouldn't attempt macarons. There are so many things that can go wrong with these temperamental cookies, so the fact that I successfully produced not one, not five, but 9 dozen filled sandwiches is really an accomplishment.
The (Other) Good Stuff
In addition to making delicious macaron, creating the amalgam brand and packaging materials this week was just as fun. As I mention in my first blog post, I love design. When I sat down to create the package inserts, hours flew by as I arranged, re-arranged, and finally landed on cohesive and beautiful materials:
The Magic
The magic is that I made it! I did it. People ordered cookies. I made a decision almost one week ago to start selling these and I pulled together a brand, packaging materials, a website/blog, got out orders, started my spreadsheets/organizational systems, MOSTLY nailed my bakes, and 1000% nailed my flavors.
Looking forward to this upcoming week's drop! I hope you'll continue to follow along and maybe order some for yourself.
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