The last few weeks I’ve been working insane hours. Some very important stuff is happening at work, and there is a lot of potential for some huge things to happen, and I’m right in the middle of it. It’s very exciting. Ten or twelve hour days most days. There was a bit of a party at work today and I promised to bring a dessert. Last night I got back from work at about 11 pm and started the fudge.
There were three batches; one after another. The first batch was regular chocolate with walnuts. After that I did mint and chocolate. The third was white chocolate with walnuts. I put them in the fridge overnight to harden and went to bed.
In the morning I got up early to cut it up and realized I had made a mistake. The fudge was fine; tasty in fact. But fudge is wont to stick to the pan, and I had forgotten to line the pan with wax paper or saran wrap. It didn’t affect the fudge at all, but it did mean I had to spend a lot longer extracting it from the pan, cutting it up first and pulling each piece out of the pan. Oh well. Next time I’ll remember and it’ll go faster.
I got a lot of mileage out of the fudge, too. I had made a lot for a reason. First was the party. Then it ended up in the kitchen for everyone to enjoy. I brought some to one of my weekly meetings. I also made up special plates for some of the admins who have helped me lately. I had to arrange some pretty crazy travel in the next couple weeks (From Pasco to Boston on United Airlines, Boston to Florida on Northwest airlines, then Florida back to Pasco on Delta. The Boston to Florida part was a close call and there was only one flight that would have gotten me from one meeting to the next on time, and I managed to get the flight). Our travel people were great, and they’ve always been great, so I promised them some fudge. Today I delivered, and they loved it. I also brought it around to some of my coworkers and project managers. It’s amazing how much giving people sweets gets you on their good side, and it comes back in great ways when you need a favor. More importantly, though, it’s just nice to see people enjoy the things I make.