Handcrafted Happiness: The Beginning of Salt Lake

Well, it was a pretty rough start, involving a 14 hour drive from San Jose over two days, a dust storm in Nevada, a major car accident in Tahoe, the stomach flu on my second day of work, and a very stressful week and a half trying to find a place to live. But! Now, I've got a place to live (and a super cute one at that!), an awesome chair to sit and knit in in the afternoons, a wonderful 4:30 a.m. bike ride to work past a very lit up capitol building and huge temple, and work is great now. So, here are some picture from my new little life here. Definitely a change of pace from California, but a nice change. It's good to be back where there isn't any traffic, where people are incredibly friendly (seriously, Salt Lake is the nicest place on Earth - I already have a little friend at the donut shop I get my coffee from at 4:30 in the morning), and where I can see mountains when I'm out for a ride.

My awesome kitchen floor.

My chair! And afghan from Mom.

Scarves hanging by the front door. Can't wait for a Salt Lake fall.

Scenes from my new favorite bike ride along the Jordan River.

A Morning Bun from Tulie. Every day after work I go to the big city park down the street for a bit, and on Sundays, I let myself get a treat.

These pictures aren't the greatest, because I took them really fast after I got the case finished, but each morning I do the tarts, and this morning when I got to work there was not a single one left over from yesterday, so all this is my handiwork :)

These are essentially ganache tarts. On the left, it is the Dulcey Tart, which is a new semi-white chocolate from Vahlrona.

On the left, a Plum Frangipane Tart. So, so yummy. And on the right is the Clafoutis, which is cherry halves baked in a nice simple custard. We changed the look of both of these a few days ago, and they've been selling out every day since.

Individual Key Lime Pies and Cheesecakes.

Almond Croissant.

From the left: Sticky Buns, Bouchons, Cupcakes (which are really nice because they have a good amount of frosting on them -- not too much), Sugar Cookies (my FAVORITE thing there), CHocolate Vanilla Sandwich Cookies, and Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies.