{"id":193,"date":"2012-12-07T18:19:47","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T17:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/?page_id=193"},"modified":"2016-02-24T19:33:51","modified_gmt":"2016-02-24T18:33:51","slug":"about-me","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/about-me","title":{"rendered":"About me"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi, my name is Rob, I’m Italian<\/strong>, I’m in my early 30s and I live in Cannes, France<\/strong>, since February 2011.
\nAfter my business studies<\/strong>, I worked a few years in Italy, then accepted a position as product manager in a big IT company in the French Riviera, where I discovered my passion for pastry<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The passion grew quickly so much that I decided to study on my own<\/strong> and in July 2013 I finally got a French dipl\u00f4me de p\u00e2tissier (CAP)!<\/strong> \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Why pastry?<\/strong>
\nIt all started with macarons.<\/p>\n

\"Macarons\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These small French pastries that come in hundreds of flavours and colours<\/strong>, halfway between a meringue and a biscuit, changed my life.
\nI had noticed that every single pastry shop or boulangerie here was selling them<\/strong>. I had never seen them before in Italy nor anywhere else, so I was reluctant: “They are just coloured meringues, what’s the big deal?”, I used to say.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t have been more wrong.<\/em> As soon as I tasted them, I started to love them<\/strong>. Crunchy on the outside and stunningly soft on the inside<\/strong>, they soon became a favourite of mine.<\/p>\n

But all good things come at a price. And for macarons it was about 1,50\u20ac per piece! \ud83d\ude00 A price that prevented me from eating as many macarons as I wanted<\/strong>, and I simply could not accept this fact! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

That is why I decided to take a pastry course<\/strong> for amateurs in Cannes at Lenotre<\/strong>, one the best pastry shops in France, so that I could learn how to make macarons by myself at a lower cost!
\nI had never done pastry before<\/strong> (except for some muffins with a powder mix in a box), but I loved the experience<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Rob<\/a><\/p>\n

The chef taught us at once the most important thing of all<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Pastry is chemistry. Everything must be weighed carefully and recipes must be followed step by step. If ingredients are added in a certain order and at a specific temperature, there is always a reason.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That was like a revelation to me: if all I need to do is weigh and follow a recipe, pff, I can do that, and well too!<\/p>\n

Actually, macarons are not the easiest thing to make<\/strong>, but I was so impressed with my beginner’s results that I felt encouraged and wanted to learn more about pastry.<\/p>\n

My “studies”<\/h3>\n

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried recipes taken from the Internet<\/strong> or from cheap pastry books for grannies: they just don’t work. <\/strong>They are too approximative and never explain the underlying why.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I felt I needed something different with a more structured and methodical approach<\/strong>. That is why I bought on Amazon “On baking”<\/strong><\/a>, which is a massive textbook used in American pastry schools.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The book is amazing: it explains everything step by step<\/strong>, from the origin of flour to the assembly and decoration of big wedding cakes.<\/p>\n

Every week I try to “experiment”<\/strong> a new recipe\/technique and I share the result with friends or colleagues at work (letting the others get fat is my own way to avoid getting fat).<\/p>\n

Why this blog?<\/h3>\n

I opened this blog to keep track of my progress<\/strong> from complete beginner to World Champion (I’m definitely not there yet, but it’s better to set the bar high!). \ud83d\ude42
\nThe road to pastry is long<\/strong>, but it’s paved with good intentions! What counts is to enjoy the journey, and I certainly am! \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

I will try to share on this blog everything I learn<\/strong>, recipes and tips, so that anyone can benefit and maybe become passionate of pastry like me! Enjoy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi, my name is Rob, I’m Italian, I’m in my early 30s and I live in Cannes, France, since February 2011. After my business studies, I worked a few years in Italy, then accepted a position as product manager in a big IT company in the French Riviera, where I discovered my passion for pastry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-193","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}