Sindy's Graduation Project...just a bit of Fun!

 Sindy: Okay, let's see if I can do this in one take, I have to get these desserts packed up and to class for my final. 

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Aidan: Okay, Sindy, remember to smile, and look right into the camera, and I will keep moving to get different views as you speak.

Ready.....Action!

Sindy: Happy Valentine's Day to everyone.

I’m Sindy Odders, one of the assistant pastry chefs at the Hyatt Hotel at River North in Chicago. Today, I have prepared for you a selection of vegan and vegetarian Valentine desserts. 

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I have adapted these recipes to vegan and or vegetarian from historical and vintage cookbooks 

for my senior graduation project at the Culinary Institute.

Whether you choose to be vegan or vegetarian for health, personal, or religious issues, 

no one has to deprive themselves of fabulous desserts. 

I have prepared for you a selection of delicious cakes, tortes, tarts, pudding, 

and cookies for your Valentine's Day celebrations. 

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My personal favorite is the Strawberry torte in an almond pastry shell. The Peach Melba cakes are topped with a festive strawberry, and the Strawberry Layer Cakes have whipped coconut milk frostings and fresh strawberries.

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Desserts are the perfect food for entertaining or treating your family for Valentine's Day.

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We have a Chocolate Lady Finger Coconut Cake, a Raspberry Macadamia Nut Torte, a Carrot Cake with a Caramel Vegan Meringue topping. The most unusual recipe on the table is my frozen Vegan Avocado Gelatto Chocolate Cake Roll, topped again with strawberries.

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The favorites at here in my test kitchen are the chocolate, vanilla, or gingerbread heart cookies. 

I make these all year round for my housemates. They never last long.

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We can't forget tea, coffee, or a Lemon Curd Torte and Bon-bons with a Coconut Creme filling.

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The recipe for my Almond Strawberry Vegan tarts will be available on my Facebook page. This is 

 Sindy Odders-TheVeggieDessertQueen signing off from the HFIM test kitchen and have a 

fabulous Valentine's Day Celebration. 

Sindy, that was great, but I was drooling all over your table. Can I please have some of that cake.

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Aidan: "Who said this wasn't a high paying job! I should have your video ready by tomorrow on this sugar high.  Say, let me try the Avocado Gelatto rolly-thing, that looks delicious."

Sindy: Anything you want, you are a real doll for helping me. Now, I have to get everything to school for my final grade. Now, to begin working on my food van, but I really want to have a bakery shop some day! I have all my recipes, just need to get ready to go. 

(PS I'm not a vegan or a vegetarian cook, this is just what Sindy chose...? I've been assured all these recipe's may be possible, though. Much of the food is delicious erasers from Target, cookies are Sculpey clay/fabric paint/glitter, and plastic miniatures from assorted thrift store goody-bags.)

Sindy is a Katniss Barbie, Aidan is a 2004 are rescues from a thrift store. 

This story is originally from 2018, but was one of my favorites to put together. Enjoy.

I'll be sharing at these fine parties:

PLEASE do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission, but Pin away!

All the opinions and photographs on this blog are my own, unless otherwise stated. 

 I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions

 or products shown, or from where I shop. 

Thank you for your cooperation, Sandi Magle

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The Journey: I held my heart in my hands, then painted it on paper!

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You haven't heard from me much this month. I've spent the month cleaning, organizing and catching up in the doll room. I've also been taking multiple classes on painting in acrylics. 

Acrylics was my bane in college...expensive, working on 3 x 4' foot canvases on students' pennies. Every squeeze of a tube of paint, meant something I had to go without. Our teachers were hardly hands on...pretty much letting us pants-fly with little or no direction, but often with deep scarring criticism, disguised as teaching.

I had started with watercolors a few years back after my last knee failure and eventual replacement. I painted during Covid...explored online classes, experimented  for fun and with no limitations or criticism. I thank you all for the encouragement. 

Acrylic Classes online are great! I was truly encouraged with the color mixing and limited palettes used. The emphasis on value or darks and lights.  I really wanted to paint without black, but concentrate on the wide values of colors dark to light...really a reverse way of thinking from watercolor where you work light to

 dark.

A series of photos altered to show the palette and values in the shades of color.

Changing the photo to black and white, shows the gray scales...Where the darkest shades of a color should be.

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My version...I did this twice, once on canvas and another on gessoed watercolor paper.

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 Here you can see the stay wet palette, which keeps your paints fresh and usable...pretty much no waste this way.

Another scene from a class with Jed Dorsey, photo was drastically altered to increase the contrasts and values of color.

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 selections 4 colors plus white.

This is the comp screen photo altered.    

   

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I really worked this scene quickly and with a bit of abandon...using large brushes on gessoed watercolor paper---loved this working large and inexpensively. 

12x18 watercolor paper gessoed.

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Well, I thought this isn't going to be so bad...learning lots, feeling confident, not wasting, experimenting with colors, values, compositions. Having FUN!

Burying myself in the idea of working/painting.

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Another class for radiant color mixing....

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Cadmium red medium, Magenta, Pthalo Green and Ultramarine blue, Lemon yellow and Cadmium yellow medium. I didn't plan on using them all, and really didn't. But mixing on the palette is a great way to see what you can do.

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Another Altered photo for another class....I increased the values and deepened the colors... I wanted to work on an intense sun source.

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My version: a bit too much fiddling and going to smaller brushes, colors overly intense, I may revisit this study again and take it down a few notches.

photo altered from DIana Shyne's.

The final class an altered photo of Arizona by Diana Shyne....I heightened the colors and deepened the darks...thought this would be a fun and loose experience.

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Watercolor pencils sketch on gessoed watercolor paper. So many planes of light and darks in this subject. I thought I would get a handle on this...also using 12x18 version of a square photo...so added I more mountains, and stretched out the foreground.

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Here's a closeup of the sketch. Feeling confident I got this.

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Another mixing study....Hmmm, not going to get that blue like the screen...but.

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Really planning on using these brushes only.

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After an hour or more...this is where this painting is at. Darks all blocked out, I'll have to come back in for another day.

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Palette when done, I circled the colors I had used...Magenta, Ultramarine blue, Lemon Yellow, White and Pthalo green. The rest are still wet leftovers from the other paintings.

NOW the next day, Today! 

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I have no photo I worked from, basically painted as the instructor was painting, Michelle Gibbs. Lovely English lady---great in speaking with color...I just puttered on...

relaxed, intent, and mindless, maybe that was the issue, mindless. I didn't even have music on.

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New Color Study, a new Pthalo Blue, Quinacridone Magenta, Cadmium Yellow Med and white. I used a lid cover as a palette, since these were NEW colors and I wanted to see what the difference might be with no chance of mixing with other colors.

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Definitely working looser...patterns of light and darks...did not glance at the reference photo (I didn't even have it on screen, was following the blocking of the instructor and then took off on my own.) 

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There are some bits of this painting I really love...even this 'floating' island of trees ...LOL.

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Okay, I quit and decided to clean both palettes and spread the paint on a blank page for collage or a future abstract project. Waste not, want not. Sometimes I hate being a child of Great Depression survivors.

I used a palette knife to scoop up the unused blobs of paint, then a brush to spread it a bit with water..working very quickly. I quickly filled a 12x18 page of watercolor paper with large triangular blocks of colors. I had watered down the blue/teals with white and yellow...the last to go on was some skipping reds applied with a palette knife.

Cadmium red med, basic red, and magenta mixed together and I scraped and spread them, scratching here and there and the mixture landed on top of everything else. 

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I had taped the corners to the table top. I opened the black with thoughts of trees in the woods with a shadows in the snow, maybe a red sun throwing some rose light. Yea, that's what it was.

Black is so heavy and dark and I hadn't used it at all the whole month of classes.  I worked with a huge scruffy brush, and soon my fingers were in the paint, then a palette knife scraped, cut, sliced. I pulled out more red, and added a huge blob of white to counteract that black.  The white smeared then grayed, stirring into the blacks.

I was out of breath, my heart raced, sick to my stomach....I stared at the tabletop.

Scientists and Neurologists say we act 95% of the time out of our subconscious self. Basically whatever your old or immediate experiences are, your habits, and/or your routines; they are the historical guides into your unconscious thought processes and how you deal with your life.

I stuck the brushes and knife into a glass of water  and walked away.

I had painted "Blood in the Snow"...

S Magle

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No, my world isn't just full of insipid landscapes and happy colors.

But, after a whole month of hiding in them, it really hadn't helped.

Apparently this was my subconscious telling me to deal with reality.

Today, January 29, 2026, my journey...

I held my heart in my hands,

then scraped it on paper!

Thanks so much for visiting,

 I will post at the following Link Parties, I hope you visit them.

 Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission. 

OldNewGreenRedo, is an ad-free blog.  

I do not endorse or receive any $$ for any products I may use. I enjoy showing how I use products, 

but I do not receive any $$ from anywhere I shop.

However, the link to my BarberryLane Etsy shop

on the right hand side if you choose to visit for a

Antiques, Craft Supplies, Vintage, Dolls, Mini's, and more. I will be opening an Ebay shop in the New Year. Stay tuned...

  

Thank you for your cooperation, 

Sandi 

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My WORD for 2026.

My WORD for 2026. 

I know quite a few bloggers, well and 'normal' people who don't lay their lives out on pages online, who pick a word to concentrate on for the coming year. 

Since I have never make resolutions or for that matter given up anything up for Lent, I've always thought such 'business' is really no one-elses' 'BusYness' and shouldn't need to be shared.

After this year I am definitely angst-ing for some actual ENDURANCE. 

I think there might be a few others out there 'Up to their eyeballs' in wishing for Endurance.

Yes, Endurance... a loaded historical word for sure.

WWII Phillipines, Borneo or New Guinea?? Dad couldn't remember.

Defintion: AI overview- Endurance is the ability to withstand hardship, stress, or fatique and continue a difficult activity or situation over a long period essentially meaning the power to last or keep going despite challenges.

Challenges, enduring personal challenges yes, but THIS?

Now, since I'm not a runner, distance walker, or even exerciser, I'm simply a doer. I DO my own chores: cut grass, trim bushes, garden, shop for groceries, plant, paint, scrape, shovel, reuse, recycle, shop in thrift stores, run a little business and more, etc. When you do all those things you don't need to exercise. \

I even clean my own house, do my own windows (inside anyway)-we popped for exterior washers this year for the first time, because of ladders. And, this year we are going to paint the inside of our home.

So I don't really have to worry about physical endurance, I just take on everything carefully.

So endurance for or from what: Yep, what we don't talk about in blogging world. Enduring the big fricking Elephant disrupting the planet. Yes, our country disrupting ourselves and the entire planet.

And, I'm not talking about global warming...crap maybe I should, it's going to be in the 70-80's this week for half the country---and it's January?????Yes, global warming IS REAL. Endure it!

How about our current Global Standing...? 

Lokken Denmark pre-1920.

    My Norwegian and Danish relatives are laughing at us, daily. They certainly have been given enough material every single day. 

How about the source? It's our dysfunctional Democracy...? If we can still call this a Democracy?

And the victims, what about all our marginalized citizens scrambling to figure out how they are going to afford health care, food, and housing? 

Never in my almost 79 years have I ever lived in a country totally falling apart...and no one doing nothing to stop it. 

My gosh, I lived through the Vietnam war protests of the 60's..., the oil crunches in the 70's, later with inflation twice, three or more times the cost of living. 

(My hubby was a teacher with 29 credits toward his Masters's and our kids were eligible for free lunches in 1977-1978.) Talk about enduring...but never was it as stressful as it is today.

Talk about enduring...but never was it as stressful as it is today.

We all have heard, "This too shall pass"... I just don't think I will live long enough for the current damage to really pass or resolve itself.

Princely Youth and Dervish, by Riza Abbasi; Isfahan, Iran, Safavid period.

The 'Shall pass' phrase has historical origins in medieval Persian Sufi Poetry. 

Also as a recurring theme in Jewish folklore, and the stories of King Solomon. Even, Second Corinthians  4:17-18 Paul rumbles on about this too shall pass...promising the suffering-- everlasting life, if they endure. 

Even Abraham Lincoln used 'it shall pass' in a lengthy speech when he lost an early political race.

Personally, since I 'm such a history nut, such phrases, teachings, as well as scriptures were designed to convince those on the bottom of the 'food chains'...that their was hope for their pitiful futures. Giving them 'blessings' and even 'more promises' that to endure their misery long enough they would either survive or die and be better off then.

So here we are, collectively enduring? Normally I like to do things with a modicum of Grace...but enduring with one's teeth clenched shut is really the worst, and kinda gives you a miserable outlook on life, also not too good for one's health or State of Mind. 

Not only that, everyday there is a NEW 

SOMETHING to ENDURE. 

So teeth clamped shut, hissing, choking on it, ...I will try and practice ENDURANCE!

We could all hope it ENDS sooner than later.

Maybe my second word should be 

HOPE!

Thanks for visiting, all conversation and comments are welcomed. If we don't solve this together soon where will we be...?

I will post at the following Link Parties, I hope you visit them.

Thanks so much for visiting,

  

 Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission. 

Thank you for your cooperation, 

Sandi 

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