the cake lady is back!

well, after many months of staying too far away from my computer, i am going to try to get back into this blog.  to bring you all up to date on the happenings around the tobeck house, here is a quick recap on life:

Starting December 15th, I began working as the pastry chef at Pizzeria da Lupo in Boulder, CO.  Getting into this position, I was excited about the opportunity to learn how to open a new restaurant and to get back into a kitchen.  The first week was a whirlwind of training and learning and well to put it bluntly chaos.  Three days into the adventure we started with our soft openings of just family and friends.  People seemed to enjoy the food and the atmosphere and we got some great feedback.  As far as pastry was concerned, besides a slight mishap with the 60 quart mixer, everything was great.  The desserts were fabulous and fun to make.  I was very happy to be where I was, though I was already sensing a mounting tension between owner and chef.

Our official opening was December 18th, which went beautifully for a grand opening.  The crowd was good, the food was good, and it seemed like things might actually work.  We took the next day off to finish some construction projects around the kitchen.

When I returned Monday morning, our chef told me that he had decided he wasn't going to continue to work with us.  My heart immediately sank because this is a crushing blow for a new restaurant.  When the owner approached me a while later, I was shocked and delighted when he asked me to take over!  It's an amazing opportunity for anyone to be offered a kitchen, but the fact that I was offered one just 3 months out of culinary school, was quite an accomplishment.

Since then, I have basically worked constantly, but it has really been worth it.  I've learned a great deal about how the food industry really works and how "fun" it can be to manage a staff.  Overall it has been an amazing experience and one that I hope can continue to provide amazing opportunities for my culinary career.  Plus it is really fun to be featured in the food section of the Denver Post!

The other big goal of the past several months is getting my sweet husband back home.  After a lot of number crunching and praying, he officially has a ticket and will be home in just under a month.  I am so ready for him to be here to live this amazing life with me again.  His plans are to finish school and find a National Guard unit out here in Colorado.

We are hoping to get to IL for a few days in April, so hopefully we can see all of you soon!

Though I make no promises, hopefully I can make blogging a more common occurrence in my daily schedule.  Talk to you all soon.

life in the year 2010

 I think the best place to begin is at

the beginning, so back to December

30, 2009 we go. In an effort to escape a

boring IL break, I embarked on an epic

Ashlea-Erin road-trip to Vermont for

some skiing. 3 days into our skiing

adventure and we actually got to go

skiing! Sadly on our third trip down

the mountain, I had an unfortunate

incident with a patch of ice and a very

small child which resulted in an in-depth

tour of the ski patrol hut and the

local emergency room. Driving from

VT to IL with a busted knee in a

snowstorm is quite the adventure, but

it led to amazing things.

Not being able to move far from the

couch for several months led to a great

deal of internet browsing and research.

As most of you know, I’ve wanted to go

to culinary school for most of my life.

I am sure you all are also aware of my

love for the mountains. Well, one

evening while I was sitting with my leg

propped up on a bunch of pillows after

one of MANY physical therapy sessions,

I was researching culinary schools and

the brilliance of Google, kicked up an

ad for a school in Boulder, CO.

So after some very serious phone

conversations with Bryan, we decided

that I would head to Boulder in May to

attend the Pastry Arts program at

Culinary School of the Rockies.

The first step in this plan involved me

needing a functioning knee. While

Bryan was home on leave in April, I had

my first knee surgery to clear the scar

tissue around my injury, with plans to

reconstruct the torn ligaments upon

returning from school in September.

After a month of physical therapy, Erin

and I loaded my car to the brim and

headed west to CO. I had made

arrangements to rent a room from a

couple who lived close to Boulder so

that I could attend classes and hopefully

find a summer job.

On June 3rd, I began my pastry

classes and immediately fell in love with

the whole world of pastry. Not only

are cakes fun, but everything else you

can make with flour, sugar, and butter is

as well. And of course in my downtime,

I was able to enjoy the beautiful

Rocky Mountains in all of their summer

glory.

I got to spend two weeks with Mom

and Ron while they were out on

vacation, which was very fun. We even

got to spend a day hiking in

Breckenridge with the Sowa crew. And

found out that my knee can handle 26

miles of biking in one day! We had a

fantastic visit and I can’t wait until they

come back next summer.

We also planned to put our house on

the market so that we had plenty of

options when I was finished and Bryan

came home from Afghanistan. And boy

was that a fun adventure. I will never

again attempt to sell a house in one

state while living in another. Not a

single moment of that was anything but

stressful. However, we got very lucky

and found a buyer and after lots of

craziness with the closing, sold the

house.

As we needed to move our stuff out

of the house and didn’t have anywhere

new to live, Bryan and I decided to take

a leap and make Colorado our new

home. So after class one Saturday in

July, I got on a plane and flew back to

Champaign to pack up the house and

bring our things to our new condo in

CO.

Again Erin joined in the adventure

and we made our way across Illinois,

Missouri, Kansas and eastern Colorado

in a 24-foot moving truck, expertly

packed by my troop of packing

aficionados (i.e. the family). In less than

24-hours, we had unpacked the whole

truck, with the help of some carefully

selected Craig’s list movers and I was

ready to go.

About 6 weeks after moving in to our

new place, Bryan was able to come

home on leave again and for the first

time see our new home. We had a

wonderful time during our week in

Colorado, though graduation

preparations and a very large wildfire

kept us from being able to enjoy the

mountains in all their glory. But, Bryan

really enjoyed our new place and we

had lots of adventures preparing the

decorations and some of the food for

my graduation from pastry school.

On September 11, I worked

extremely hard to get all of the

preparations complete so that my class

of 13 could graduate and become

Pastry Chefs! The ceremony was a lot

of fun and it was great to be able to

share such a great moment with Bryan,

who after a whole summer of not being

here, was extremely popular with

everyone from school. They had a great

time poking fun at me because I could

finally prove his existence.

The morning after graduation, we

packed up the car and headed east to

spend time with all of our family and

friends in IL, as well as my final knee

surgery. Bryan was able to spend three

weeks at home, so we tried to fit in as

much visiting and fun as possible before

I was stuck on the couch again.

Luckily this surgery didn’t keep me

down too long and within a few days, I

was able to crutch around quite handily.

It was so much fun to be home and

enjoying the company of all we know

and love, that the time went by very,

very quickly and soon it came time for

Bryan to leave again. Saying good-bye is

never fun, but having to do it with a

wheelchair at O’Hare adds a whole

new dimension.

After Bryan returned to Afghanistan, I

stayed in IL for another 6 weeks to

continue physical therapy and spend

time with all of you lovely people.

After celebrating Thanksgiving a couple

of weeks early, I drove the very long 16

hours back to Colorado to begin the

job search. Though Kansas was no

more fun than it was the last 4 times, it

was great to be at home.

Two weeks of job searching led to

several interviews; some of which were

fun, some of which were not. In the

end, I chose to take a pastry chef

position at the new Pizzeria da Lupo in

Boulder. I will be in charge of making

the pizza dough, the fresh mozzarella,

and all of the desserts. It should be a

very fun job and I am really looking

forward to getting into it.

In the coming year we should get

Bryan home and get to start working

towards his school and career goals.

Overall, it has been a truly blessed year

for us Tobecks and we are looking

forward to beginning a new one.

Love,

Ashlea and Bryan

scars and such

or Erin and Ashlea's Series of Ill-Fated Events, part 1.

Almost a year ago, Erin and I decided that we were boyless and bored and wanted to take a trip somewhere. She was in the middle of a semester at grad school and I was still working with Miss Amrei so we decided to wait until Christmas break. I'd never been to upstate New York or Vermont, but Erin said it was lovely in the summer and she really wanted to see it in the winter. Wahoo, trip decided and planned! We had several weeks to get excited about it and I was really ready to be somewhere with mountains and skiing again. Road trips with Erin are always fantastic and a road trip to the home Ben and Jerry's was a great thing to look forward too.

We decided to leave the day after Christmas around lunchtime so that Erin could have breakfast with her momma on her birthday. The plan was to pick up a rental car in Champaign, you know something with 4 wheel drive for snowy mountains, drive up to Niagara Falls for the night and then head down into Vermont for a few days before spending New Years Eve in New York City. It was a fabulous set-up for a wonderful road trip.

December 26, 2009- The reservations were made, the luggage was packed, the maps were printed, the diet coke was in the cooler. All I needed was an Erin and a rental car. Erin arrived shortly after noon and we went straight to the airport to pick up our 4 wheel drive jeep that I had reserved weeks before. And Ill-Fated event #1, as it was the day after Christmas in Champaign, IL, the lady who ran the car rental desk decided to go home early. I had called to see what their hours were and they told me 8-3, so I thought 12:30 would be ok. Nope, not so much! Stupid rental car lady!

So plan B, Chicago wasn't too far out of our way and they have rental car counters that never close. So a little more money spent to park a car in Chicago, but other than that no serious harm done. And we're off!

On the way to the airport, I called the car rental people and asked how to go about renting a car when we were driving to the airport. The lady who answered the phone said that I could just drive in and pick up a car. 'Wow, that sounds easy. This is going to be a great trip.'

As we got to Chicago, the weather started to get a little grey and rainy, but we were determined to have a good trip, no matter what. We got to the airport without any problems, picked out an awesome jeep to drive for the week and who doesn't love driving a new car?, and headed to the nearby hotel where we had paid to park my car for the week. By the time we left the airport the roads were covered in a light dusting of snow that was pretty, but didn't increase my confidence in Chicago driver's any.

And Ill-fated event #2: The roads at the airport were pretty snowy and hard to see. When I asked the guy at the rental counter he said to pull out of the parking lot and turn left to get where we needed to be. So we did. I drove my car and Erin followed in the rental car. About a 1/2 mile from the hotel, the little light that says you have a low tire came on in my car. Boo, boo, boo. But we weren't taking my car, so it could sit with a low tire for a few days and get some air when we got back. However, when I got out of my car, the tire wasn't low, it was completely flat and had a huge hole in it. And worse yet, the rental car did too! A quick phone call to the airport let us know that sadly the tire spikes at the airport were malfunctioning and poking large holes in tires even though you weren't going the wrong way. ARRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!

An hour and a half later, the AAA guy shows up to change the tires. He was very friendly and we were very glad to have him around because changing a tire in cold, snowy, sleet doesn't sound very appealing. It is now however 7 pm and we haven't even left Chicago yet. Plans of getting to Niagara Falls by bedtime are very quickly falling apart and the weather just keeps getting worse. Awesome trip so far.

Being our typical selves, Erin and I embraced the adventure and decided that we would just drive through the night to get to Niagara and take a nap when we got there. Getting out of Chicago was a nightmare, but about halfway across Indiana, the snow stopped and roads got nicer. Cruising along in the dark can actually be really fun and we had a lot of fun laughing about the mis-adventurous start to our trip.

And Niagara Falls is absolutely beautiful at 4 am. The mist from the falls freezes on everything and there is a glorious, though slightly slippery, coating of glittery, shimmery frost on everything. It was very pretty and after being in the car for that many hours, walking around in the cold air was magnificent. Plus there are no crowds that early. So much for plans, but yay for vacation. Also in true Erin and Ashlea fashion, we decided that there was no point in paying for a hotel room when it was already 6 am and we would have to check out in a few hours anyway. We would just take a nap in the car and then sleep when we got to Vermont.

So we slept in the Days Inn parking lot and cleaned up in the Burger King bathroom. A little black eyeliner goes a long way in making you look cute even though you are exhausted and not clean. We went out to Old Fort Niagara before we got back on the road and it was so pretty. The water was cold and grey, but the beach was still pretty and even the leaves piled on the ground still looked beautiful. Plus it's pretty cool to look across the water and see Canada on the other side. By the time we were ready to leave town, it had started snowing again, but it was only noon and we had plenty of sunshine left.

The drive through upstate New York into Vermont is amazingly pretty and even without much sleep didn't seem horribly long. We arrived at our hotel around 10pm and went straight to bed so we could get up in the morning and go out to the ski resort. Because we were exhausted and cold, Erin decided to put her contacts in a cup of water by the sink rather than going back out to the car to find contact solution and a case.

A whole night without sleep makes you pretty tired and hotel beds are comfy, so we slept quite a bit later than intended the next morning, which meant no hotel breakfast. But we needed to run a couple of errands before we went to snowboarding school anyway so no big deal. Vermont is a state that is trying desperately to remain unbusy and city-fied, which is quite refreshing when you've been running around like a crazy person for months on end. It was great to see all the small businesses and friendly people. Plus Vermont houses are phenomenal. The drive to the ski resort was so pretty and a coating of snow and ice makes the world seem magical. Neither of us had ever snow boarded before so we were planning to take a class and then play on the mountain for the afternoon. There's nothing better than having a grown-up excuse to go play in the snow and we were ready for a new adventure. If only we had known what was in store!

Stay tuned for scars and such part II, it's a great story!

culinary creations

For those of you who wanted this recipe from my facebook last night!

Make a recipe card

back to reality

hello again blogging world!  sorry for my long absence, but my boy was home and he is definitely more important than a blog.  

we had a really fun month while he was here, though it was exceptionally crazy.  here is a quick recap of everything that has happened since my last post.  september 3rd and 4th, i did my finals.  both the written and the practical went fabulously.  the practical was very similar to the midterm except that we could make anything we wanted with our mystery ingredients.  i made a poached pear trifle with blackberry chocolate sauce for mine.  it was truly tasty and chef amy even said that she liked my cake recipe better than the one we had used for class.  i missed one question on the written exam because i didn't pay enough attention to the wording.  i put the wrong answer in the wrong blank, but i still got 100%.  overall, i was very satisfied with the outcome.

bryan flew in to denver on the 6th of september and we spent the rest of the week hanging out at our new house, exploring the area a little more, and shopping for my graduation present.  i got an FN 57 pistol, which is not exactly a typical pastry school graduation gift, but i thought it was fantastic.  the weekend got totally sucked up with graduation preparations.  we held a banquet at school for graduation and it required a lot more work than it probably should have.  i spent a lot of time at school doing decorations and stuff while also helping get all of our food prepped and ready.  in the end everything looked fantastic and i had a great time.  plus i graduated with honors!  i am a little sad to be done with pastry school, but really excited about what the future has in store for me.

the day after graduation, bryan and i hit the road to come back to illinois and spend time with family.  we spent the week with his mom in hoopeston and were able to see several people that we had been missing.  it was so nice to get to visit with everyone and just spend some time relaxing with my hubby.  we both were in need of a serious break.

a week after we got home, i had my knee surgery.  it went very well and i am recovering quite nicely.  hopefully i will get released to walk without crutches soon and get some therapy started.  i am very ready to get moving again.  

we took bryan back to the airport on monday and he is now back at his base.  it was a lot harder for him to leave this time, but hopefully he will get to come home for good soon.  the plan is for me to do my therapy and then head back to colorado to start searching for a job.  i can't wait to get started working and enjoying my new skills.  plus once i get settled in a job and have an income again, bryan can come home yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

that's all for now, but plenty more to come in the next few days, including pictures from graduation, etc.  

have a great day!

the joys of being an army wife

hi all,

for those of you still looking for that perfect someone, might i suggest you stay far away from the fantastical ideal of a man in uniform.  don't get me wrong, i love my husband more than i can express in words.  however, being a military wife is pretty much the suckiest thing in the world.  getting past living only and being deprived of physical contact for months or years at a time, you are the one stuck at home dealing with every little problem that rears its ugly head.  

take this past week for example.  customer service experience number one:  in order to close on the sale of a property, you need a piece of paper from the mortgage company stating the amount of money that you owe on the mortgage.  this seems like a very simple thing, call mortgage company; request payoff statement; bank sends payoff statement.  however, when you are an army wife with a military mortgage, your name can't be on the mortgage papers so your husband has to verify that you are an authorized user on the account.  great, unless your mortgage gets sold to a new company and they don't recognize the form that the previous company used so you are screwed once again.  

before bryan left last year, we attempted to solve this problem by executing a power of attorney so that i could handle these issues and not have to have him for everything.  however, the 'lovely' people at bank of america (quotations signify immense amounts of sarcasm) couldn't seem to get the POA that i faxed them 10 times attached to the right accounts.  so instead of just calling and asking for a simple piece of paper you have to have the following conversation (after waiting on hold for 30 minutes to talk to a live human of course):

"thank you for calling bank of america today, how can i help you?"

"yes, i'd like to request a payoff statement for both of my mortgage accounts please"

"of course, ma'am.   i would be happy to help you with that.  can i get the account numbers please?"

"sure.  i need statements for accounts ...... and ........."

"and can i get your name please?"

"yes. it is ashlea tobeck"

"i'm sorry ma'am, but i don't show you listed on this account"

"well that is because your bank doesn't recognize the authorized user form from our previous mortgage holder and since my husband is currently over seas, he hasn't been able to fill out a new one.  i've faxed a copy of our power of attorney multiple times, but it doesn't seem to have done any good."

"well, i'm very sorry, but i can't do anything more unless the primary account holder calls to aut"

"i understand.  does that mean that you will be staying about 5 hours late to accept his call from afghanistan? your normal american business hours are fantastic for those of us lucky enough to be on american soil right now, however, they do little good for soldiers who aren't.  is there any other way to make this work."

"yes.  if you fax a copy of your power of attorney to the following number, we will be able to talk with you."

"i see.  i believe that is the same number that i have faxed the power of attorney to on several previous occasions.  is there another number that i could try?"

"that is the fax number for the department that handles power of attorneys and authorized user requests.  they will be able to process the information."

"really now.  well i guess i will go drive to fed ex office and waste another $10 fruitlessly faxing this document yet again.  thank you for you time"

"is there anything else i can help you with today?"

"so you can't do what i really need you to do, but if i asked you would do something else for me?   so if i call and ask for the balance of the account, you will tell me that you can't give it to me because i'm not an authorized user.  however,  i can THEN ask for the payoff statement and that will work?  don't mind my sarcasm, i'm just trying to figure out the system here."

"i'm sorry that i couldn't be of more help.  please call back when you have faxed the power of attorney."  

"actually there is one more thing you could do for me.  can i get the direct line to the office where i am faxing this power of attorney.  maybe if i call them while i am sending the fax, they can assure me that it has arrived in the proper place.  at least then i will know the name of the disorganized person who keeps losing things on their desk."

"ma'am there isn't a phone number for that office.  procedure requires that you fax the POA and we will attach it to the file when it arrives.  please enjoy the rest of your day!"

I HATE CUSTOMER SERVICE.  nothing should be this difficult.  i have however in the past couple weeks of extensive research determined several key phrases that aid in getting what you need from a customer service representative.

1) could i please talk with your supervisor's supervisor please?

2) i'm sorry that it is inconvenient for you that my husband is currently fighting for your personal freedom.  i guarantee it is more inconvenient on my end.  (this of course only works if the company that you are calling doesn't outsource their customer service department to bangalor.  they don't care much about american freedom sadly)

3) what was your full name again?  i want to make sure that i spell it correctly in the letter that i'm writing to your boss.

4)  can you give me the name of the head of your legal department, i'd hate for the lawsuit i'm sending to get lost?

5) sadly, as comforting as it is to you personally, expletives tend to get you transferred to the people who have had power point crisis management training who try to talk you down like you are going to plant a bomb in their office or something.  yes it would be very therapeutic to rid the world of excess annoyance, but i'm not a psycho killer, i just want to pay you, however, if you don't want your money, i'll gladly hold on to it.

ok, rant over.  or at least the part that you have to read.  it should be enough for you to get a glimpse of what the past 7 days have been like.  closing is done and house is sold, so hopefully i can get my hubby home for a bit and see if we can't make things easier for a while.

6 more days!

to the moon and back

while erin was here a couple weeks ago, she decided to set up an interview with a hospital out in montrose.  montrose is a smaller town out in western CO that looks truly beautiful in pictures and why not go for a big change when you are starting out in a new career.  so we did a bit of planning, got in the car and headed west.

while researching the town of montrose, we learned that it has around 19,000 people and offers a decent amount of shopping, eating, entertainment type places and has several hotels.  all in all not a bad place to be.  we found a really great hotel deal in cedaredge, which is about 30 miles from montrose and packed our bags.  as we were already going west, we decided to stop in vail on the way and do some hiking, sight-seeing type stuff since erin hadn't even been to vail in the summer.

vail was amazing.  it was a little cloudy and overcast, which also meant that it was cooler than the past few days had been.  we found a great little place to eat in vail village and took a nice walk through the shops and stuff before we rode the gondola up the mountain.  back in 2006 when we were here for spring break, we skied for a day at vail and both of us remember how steep it was in the winter so we weren't sure whether we were going to hike or just ride the gondola and walk around at the top of the mountain.

we ended up deciding to hike back down, which was a very pretty trail, but vail is just as steep in the summer as it is in the winter.  by the time we made it to the bottom my knee was quite angry.  it was a really pretty walk through several aspen groves and lots of pretty mountain meadows.  the flowers out in the mountains are so pretty.

we managed to beat the rain in vail by about 5 minutes and spent the next couple of hours on the road in the pouring rain.  driving through the mountains in a storm is actually truly beautiful, though the big trucks on the interstate get a little scary in the rain. 

going west in CO means getting off of the interstate and heading south a bit as well as west.  the drive is magnificent.  the rocks start to get this amazing red hue and the silvery aspen leaves are always pretty.  we were quite excited by the view and enjoyed the adventure of everything new around each corner.  neither of us had ever been this direction in CO, so it was very neat to do something new and different.  check out how pretty this drive was.

this is just west and a little south of central colorado.  a little farther west from this beautiful place, is the MOON.  they didn't really fake the moon landing, they just didn't tell everyone that the moon was in colorado.  western colorado is a foreign land unlike anything that i have every seen before.  the mountains start to flatten out and become mesas and everything else looks sort of desert like, but different at the same time.  i have never seen anything more interesting and yet terrifying at the same time.  by the time we got close to where we were going, it was quite dark and everything was terribly frightening.  we drove for miles without seeing any sign of life and then we would come across a small town called hotchkiss.  it was so alien that erin and i were actually contemplating turning around and going back the way we came.  however, we kept telling ourselves that it would get better when we got to cedaredge because they had more than one hotel meaning it was a decent sized town with at least a fast food establishment.  we were WRONG.  cedaredge is a tiny town that is home to a single restaurant, the blue sky saloon, whose kitchen sadly closes at 9pm.  it was well after 10 when we got to cedaredge so we had to do some serious searching for food.  the guy at the front desk of the hotel even admitted that the road we took was terrifying.  we ended up finding pretty good chinese food in delta for dinner that night, but it was hard to be excited about where we were, though we were unbelievably slap happy.  the situation got terribly funny the longer we were in it.  by the time we tried to sleep, we couldn't help but laugh at everything.  i don't think either of us actually slept that night.

the next morning we got up and cedaredge was a bit less scary by daylight.  the mesas are actually quite pretty, though not as pretty as the mountains and the sun made everything seem a little less desolate and terrifying.  the drive to montrose was still a little scary and the edge of montrose itself was even worse.  the road we took into montrose led us into a tiny, mountain town that had some small businesses, but none that looked in anyway successful or decent.  after i dropped erin off at the hospital, i decided to go investigate.  in the end montrose is not at all a bad town.  it has a decent business community and even has a walmart and a chilis.  if only the hospital had a budget enough to pay erin enough to make it worth moving across the country. 

these are the pictures of western CO.

now if that doesn't look like the moon, then i don't know what does :)

on the way back east, i took erin up to mt. evans and we stopped in idaho springs for pizza at beau joes.  it was overall a good trip, though montrose and the surrounding areas are quite scary.  this is the progression of the view of mountains as you drive from western to eastern CO. 

and on the way back from the moon, you get to the highest paved road in north america.  mt. evans is a really beautiful place and the sheer elevation is beyond comprehension.  the road to the top is not well paved and it takes some really interesting twists and turns making it not for the faint of heart.  here are the pictures of the journey.

and as you can tell, we survived our trip to the moon and back.  it was a rather interesting adventure and i am quite glad that erin and i were together for the journey.