the young professional

SURPRISE. (Part of) the reason I’ve been so disengaged from bloggage lately was that in addition to finishing up classes for the semester, I was also… interviewing for a big girl job! Amy is leaving (sob sob sob) but for an awesome reason (MBA!) and thus vacating the full time position (we actually technically held the same job apparently, which made the whole promotion process less complicated, but hers was full time and mine was part time).

Anyway, following a frankly slightly peculiar series of events (a “talk” which was actually apparently a “pre-interview” and then an “informal interview” and also a chance to “assess [my] personality”—my response to that? “Uh oh!”. And then after that the “official interview” which was with two people who aren’t my supervisors… Weird), I was offered the job.

A big girl job! Full time! BENEFITS! Holy cow guys, I have DENTAL. I also have possibly income to leave the nest (the entire college graduating classes of 2008-2011 are all hating me for this, I’m sure).

To celebrate, my awesome boyfriend gave me several awesome things.

This:

These:

(As a huge West Side Story Geek, the fact that I have the option to check off “someday”, “somehow” and “somewhere” makes me ecstatic)

 

And these (already gone :D)

My last part-time week I actually should’ve had Friday off, but went in for a birthday celebration for two of my coworkers and man, all I can say is that it’s fitting that these people work for  a place with “Food” in its title.

I mean really.

Hordes eating, along with David’s life altering mac and cheese (you may remember it from our inter-office competition).

For me, though, the highlight of the eats (and a wonderfully educating experience) was watching Beysith make authentic Venezuelan arepas.

You begin with mixing water into masa harina. Bottled water is not necessary; we just don’t have a sink in our entire building except for in the bathrooms, which is just kind of gross. So she used a bottle.

 

She mixed until it looked right for her (thinner than I thought it would be), and stirred it sort of by using her hand as a spatula; going around the perimeter.

At that point she grabbed kind of baseball-sized handfuls of the dough…

And made them into absolutely PERFECT flying saucers.

She dipped her hands in water to do that; then dipped her hands in oil to give them a sheer outer coating

At which point they went onto a hot griddle to cook til golden on both sides.

   

Then she split them and put on queso, crema….

… y frijoles! Wonderful homemade black beans.

To. Die. For.

My contribution to the festivities was in the dessert department: a chocolate peanut butter pie.

Choco layer, a slightly weird variation on my aunt Dena’s fudge pie (I was trying to use up semisweet chocolate and it calls for unsweetened; it was my own fault).

 

And on top, peanut butter custard, made from Bird’s custard powder with some peanut butter mixed in.

People seemed to like it but it paled in comparison to Adrienne’s STUNNING raspberry truffle cake.

Layer upon layer of chocolate cake, chocolate ganache, raspberry puree; and absolutely delectable raspberry buttercream icing.

It was a sweet (get it, get it?!) way to celebrate some great colleagues, and a kickoff to some serious excitement in my life! Hope to post more soon.