Macarons and my crazy world

My ex-colleague T used to tease me that I looked pissed when I was busy working.
"No, it is just my face! I am definitely not unhappy even though I am not smiling. I am just FOCUS!"
"oh, ok." to which he sheepishly replied and walked away. Not before stealing a cookie from my cookie truck.

When there's a long list of things to get done by the end of the service, or when I was far behind the tickets that never stopped coming in, the last ounce of energy was saved to propel myself to work faster.

Smiling was not anywhere near the bottom of my priorities. However, when the task involved making macarons, no one could do anything to remove the silly grin on my face.

Making macarons never fails to cheer me up. Well, when they turn out well, that is. My heart was broken so many times when the shells had no feet or crack. And my head almost exploded troubleshooting what went wrong.

Since I moved back to Atlanta, a few batches of macarons have been made. In the beginning, the recipe worked for me. And then 2 weeks ago, when I started using almond flour from a different source, things started to go downhill. The macaron shells wont dry even after resting for an hour, there was no distinct feet after baking at the same conditions as previous batches. 3 failed batches later, I was still in the rut.

Looking at these successful batches now made my heart a little sad. Will I ever get it right again?

Welcome to my pastry world. I spend a lot of time pondering about things like how protein coagulates in the oven using different meringue making methods and the effect of almond particle size on macaron shells. Good thing that OCT is a scientist, so he doesn't think his wife is crazy.

And speaking of crazy, I landed a job on the spot yesterday. The pastry chef told the HR manager that he liked me. Apparently because I was crazy, so I would fit perfectly in his team. I thought I usually conceal my craziness pretty well during interviews. Anyway.

What are you crazy about?