I’m a social media maven

I’m changing my job title to Social Media Maven.

Why? Because we’re Amélie’s, and that’s how we roll. My first task using this new title was to participate in the SMB Social Media Makeover Forum. (You may recall my ramblings about the shock and aweof participating in an event of this nature alongside giant, big ‘ole companies like Chiquita Banana and such.)

TIAA-CREF’s Sam Sova et moi

The morning of May 8th I woke up bright and early- well, not bright. It was 5 o’clock in the morning- and made the hour long trek from Cardinal Ridge Farm in Richfield to the new Mint Museum in uptown Charlotte. After chugging a double latte from our uptown location just two blocks down, I met up with my fellow panelists, Megan Whiteside from Hendrick Motorsports and Sam Sova from TIAA-CREF. They were generally awesome and right about my age. We chatted for a bit as the big auditorium began to fill up. It’s really a good thing that I have all of those years of performing under my belt because had I been an on-stage newbie, I might have passed out. Fortunately for me, I am a microphone and camera ham. I love being in the spotlight about as much as I love my cats. That’s a lot. Eventually we took our places and after a slightly awkward introduction on my part and two failed microphones, things began to flow smoothly. Even though I was a panelist, advising Olde Meck Brewery, I learned a ton.  If you didn’t make it to see this social media maven in person, check out the takeaways here.

Hendrick Motorsports’ Megan Whiteside gives some killer advice while Sam… copies my notes?

Interview with Listen Interactive about the SMB Social Media Makeover Forum

Interview with Listen Interactive about the SMB Social Media Makeover Forum

Check it out y’all!

Wait, what?!

So there is a big marketing event coming up focusing on social media. They are holding a panel discussion in which successful companies will advise small companies on their social media presence and such. The list includes giants like Duke Energy, UPS, Wells Fargo and Chiquita Banana. Oh yeah… and Amelie’s. 

Really?! But… but… we’re a small little bakery. Ok, so our social media presence is anything but small (can you say ranked #1 for check-ins on Foursquare for the whole city? 20,000 Facebook fans?) but still, if someone had told me that I’d be sitting on a panel next to the big minds behind those big brands I would have fallen over with laughter. 

That’s right, I will be sitting on the panel. Why? Well, because I am in charge of all things social media (which basically means I tweet, Facebook and blog all day long… it’s a tough job but someone has to do it.) So as a result, I finally get to use my lovely and unusual head shots from that cover story I did way back when. But I also had to write myself a bio. Ok, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. But when your fellow panelists all have MBAs and PhDs and you don’t have much of an education to speak of (I’m an eternal student!) it feels like an awfully big task. So my solution was to do it Amelie’s style! Here is the bio I will be using, taken from snippets of various magazine articles and news broadcasts:

“As an echo boomer, Lexi St. Laurent understands the ins and outs of her generation’s unique online culture. Armed with a love of food, a keen intuition and a BlackBerry, she has led her family business to social media fame by encouraging meaningful conversation and real interaction. With an active following of nearly twenty thousand fans on Facebook by her side, Lexi has helped to establish Amelie’s French Bakery as one of the most followed, tweeted and “checked into” restaurants in Charlotte.”

See y’all on the flip side! 

Tonight I shall make cheese…

…and I plan to document the process.

There are some super exciting things happening these days involving goats, chickens and alpacas. As such, I am committed to learning as much as possible about how to go about using the products from each animal. I’m pretty much good with the chickens- crack the egg, stir, season, yum, but all I can make from goats milk so far is butter. Alpacas? No. I don’t know how to spin their wool into a useable string. That is next on the list. Tonight I will be making cheese- fresh mozzarella from goats milk which I intend to purchase somewhere. Not sure where yet. I have already acquired the rennet and will shortly purchase the citric acid (or lemons) that I need as well as some cheesecloth and a dairy thermometer. You’d think I’d already have one seeing as we have a bakery. Oh well.

In my previous posts, I’ve mentioned that I frequently make my own butter. Several of you have asked for a video showing said process, which I will be shooting tonight, along with a video of my cheese making antics.

Stay tuned!

Bienmesabe…tastes good to me!

So today’s culinary challenge is bienmesabe. Bienmesabe is a (surprise!) traditional Venezuelan cake with Spanish origins. There are several variations, with the original being based on almond cream and pistachios…I think. The Venezuelan version is made with coconut. It consists of two layers of sponge cake filled with a coconut cream and simple syrup and topped with meringue. It’s supposedly a relatively complicated recipe. We shall see. Here is the recipe I will follow, compliments of www.cookingalong.com

Sponge Cake:

• 6 eggs, separated
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• pinch salt
• 1 cup milk
• 50 gr (about 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted, cooled and mixed with the milk

Coconut Cream

• 6 egg yolks
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 liter coconut milk (2 1/2 400ml cans)

Simple Syrup

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon rum (optional)

Topping

• 6 egg whites
• pinch salt
• 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• cinnamon powder or toasted coconut to finish

First we make the sponge cake. Turn the oven at 350. Butter and flour a 9x13x2 rectangular pan. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks, then add the sugar little by little and the yolks one by one.  In a separate bowl mix the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the flour mixture to the eggs mixture with a wooden spoon folding delicately so the eggs wont lose the air. Add the butter and milk mixture. Be careful not to over mix. Add to the pan and bake for 40-50 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let it cool.

While the cake cools prepare the cream filling. Mix the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl until pale and thick. Heat the coconut milk until almost boiling point (be careful not to let it boil over!). Carefully mix the egg mixture with the hot milk little by little. Once all the milk is mixed into the eggs return the cream to the pan and cook in a medium heat stirring constantly until it thickens for about 5 minutes. Set it aside covered to cool down.

Prepare the simple syrup. Heat the water and sugar until all sugar is dissolved. Off the heat add the rum and let it cool.

Cut the sponge cake in half lengthwise, so you have two layers of cake. To assemble divide the cream in three parts. Place the first layer of cream in your serving plate (it’s usually served in a rectangular glass plate) add a layer of cake and top with simple syrup enough to cover (this will keep the cake moist and flavorful). Add another layer of cream and another of cake. Finish with simple syrup and cream. Cover and set aside in the refrigerator. When ready to serve prepare the meringue topping.

Meringue topping. Start beating the egg whites, when they start to form bubbles add the salt and cream of tartar (this will stabilize them). Beat until soft peaks then start to add the sugar little by little until glossy and stiff peaks form, being careful not to over beat the meringue. Preheat the broiler. Top the Bienmesabe with the meringue and broil it a few seconds or 1 minute until the meringue is golden brown.

Meh

Its been a very distracting week. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time. This is the last week of the semester for me, and amid final presentations, and incredible amount of last minute assignments, the bakery decides to throw us all off balance. In one single day, the power shuts off and our facebook page disappears. That wouldn’t be so bad except that we’re a 24 hour bakery… we couldn’t bake! Secondly, our facebook page had nearly 14,000 fans. That’s more than the Charlotte Observer. We don’t advertise, but instead we rely on our facebook page to communicate with our fans. It was devastating!

Well, I’d better get to doing homework. Please forgive my absence! I’ll be back next week with wonderful tales of planned mountain trips, a visit from my Dad and the continued planning of my long awaited trip to Venezuela! Thank you, 300 people who somehow read my blog almost every day! I love ya!

**Update** Our facebook page is back up again, with most of the fans restored. Yay!

That’s not me

There was this fashion show. I spent two weeks preparing for it. I bought a dress, shoes, jewelry, a fake tan, a hair cut, and everything else. I tried really hard to be “that person.”  You know, the one who is always very put together: perfect makeup, hair, nails manicured, and always fashionable. I tried really hard, and I even thought I had pulled it off. I was completely red carpet ready. This event was advertised as high-end, a who’s who kind of thing. There would be a red carpet, photographers, wine and champagne abounding. But I’m not that person, and today I feel foolish for even bothering. I feel foolish for letting my expectations get the best of me, and I am resolved to only be who I really am. I can be fashionable and put together, but not in an obsessive kind of way. Yes, I will leave the house without makeup (only when I’m not in Venezuela though.) I will bite my nails and not really care too much that they are not perfectly polished. I will even go a few weeks without waxing my eyebrows. But I love good food, wine, and yes, even fashion. I can appreciate those things without being a slave to them, because I also love the mountains, and the crisp air in October. I can still smell apples from the orchard near the house I grew up in, even though I am hundreds of miles away. I love foreign countries, especially if I can live there illegally for some time, and then live there legally too. I love that Venezuela isn’t perfect, but the women, my friends, think they are.

I arrived to the fashion show with high expectations, only to find out it had been horribly over sold, and a building with a capacity of 600 was filled with 1300 people, most of them wearing skimpy clothes that didn’t even begin to resemble anything truly fashionable in the least. I felt out-of-place because I wore something with color – a beautiful Halston Heritage 1 shoulder caftan dress. I sat at the front row VIP table with the who’s who of the event, but I couldn’t breathe because I felt like a sardine. I took my red carpet photo, but sweaty from the stress of catering the event and trying to fit in.

In the end, I realized I can fit into that scene if I want to… but do I want to?

I’m back, but not really

I realize that in order to expect people to actually read your blog, it’s probably best to actually write in it. Hmm… I still haven’t learned that lesson! I refuse, I repeat, I refuse to have this blog disappear, even if it does take me months to feel like writing again.

Ok, enough of that. It’s the first week of April and the weather is bipolar. Last week it was stormy and 39 and today it’s sunny and it’s expected to reach 70. The trees are green again and there are flowers everywhere. I am currently sitting on my computer at our uptown bakery waiting for someone…anyone…to come in and buy some pastries. Weekends are slow but I expect that this will become my normal writing time.

Just as I wrote that about 20 people came in, all wanting lattes. Which is great actually because we’re normally so slow on the weekends. It must be the change in weather that is bringing everyone out today.

My last post was back in September of last year (oh the shame!) and it was about my chronic travel bug. Well, it’s still there. The only difference is that then, I wanted desperately to leave the country. Now, all I want is to travel to the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina, in my own state. I’ve fallen head over heels in love with them. I go there any chance I get, which is pretty often since I live only an hour and a half from the hub of the mountains, the wonderful city of Asheville.

In other news, Carlos is still taking his medical licensing tests. To kill time, he is volunteering at a great little clinic about halfway between Charlotte and Asheville. The bonus? It’s a free clinic which serves a lot of migrant workers and low income agricultural workers which gives him the opportunity to use both  English and Spanish. He made the most amazing comment to me last week, and it gave me a quick glimpse of what the future might hold. He said “I just want to get my license so I can volunteer every day at that clinic.”

That’s how he is. Healthcare is a right, not a luxury, and he would give anything to spend his days practicing at a place like that. I saw us living in that area, maybe with a little cabin, perhaps opening an Amelie’s in Asheville. It’s a great thought for sure.