Getting our Groove Back, or at least trying to

First of May, May Day in Paris and much of the rest of the world, was a time of readjustment, realignment and resettlement day for the two of us here in Providence.

I returned to work -- or rather spent a couple of hours seeing what had transpired since I left nearly a month before. Everything seemed the same and yet so much had changed. My work, my job as it were, has evolved into creating a central image library for the university. Incredibly challenging to be sure but terribly fun at the same time.

I had begun this process half time before I left for Paris and now am charged with pursuing the project full time. From 110k images I pared it down (removing duplicates etc.) to less than 67k images; but with the new multi-campus photo shoots now complete that has added another 9k of images alone to the library. And then there are all the alumni photographs. . .

The Creative Services Group said goodbye to Nick V., a student intern that has worked for CSG off and on for the past year and more (that I know of). Nick's off to conquer the world of marketing and believe me, he'll probably do just that. A nice young man with a great work ethic. So a few of us tromped over to Olga's for coffee and to say au revoir. (photo below, l-r: Nick, Dan, Melinda, Scott, Scott, Steve, Greg and Andrea)

Susie, too, found herself plunging into an old and yet very new groove at Gracie's.

In fact, one of the first things she did upon returning was to create the incredibly popular tarte de jour. What, pray tell, is such a thing? Glad you asked. Here's a recent lineup:

Lime ginger with coconut cream
Strawberry vanilla cream
Raspberry almond
Apricot cherry almond
Brownie chunk milk chocolate
Raspberry lemon buttermilk
Blackberry raspberry streusel
Freeform chocolate dipped strawberry cream profiterole*
Lime curd blueberry

The list will, I'm told, go on and on and on. . .

Another dessert she has come up with lately, very popular at Gracie's and a particular favorite of mine is this scrumptious layered creation of hazelnut cake, cassis couli, mango puree, Bavarian cream:

Do we miss Paris? Every day. Are we going back. As soon as possible. More of Paris, LCB and French travel in another entry.

In the meantime we're trying to find a groove here, knowing all the while we left it on the rue General Renault, in the Jardin des Plantes, scattered among the stones of Pere Lachaise. The ghosts of Paris continue to haunt us.

We like it that way.

Wish you were there, I know we do.

Steve

*OK this one is out of this world: she dips little profiteroles in chocolate, places three of them on a short crust base and surrounds everything with strawberry cream.