Opening a Window

Welcome to my new travel and pastry blog! As those of you who know me, understand that there are a few things that scream my name and bring passion into my life: travel, family and food. When I decided to create a blog I felt that this was the perfect avenue to show my love for all three! Whisked Away will feature weekly an exciting destination, ways to explore it and a culinary recipe from that area. I can’t wait for you and I to share new delicious destinations!

When God closes a door, he opens a window- Malachia 3:10.

"How did I get to this place?" I ask myself daily. I used to wake up bright and early, send kids off to school and leave to open my bakery. I would whisk away new culinary delights for customers and fill my bakery cases with dainty little morsels. Baking was,and I guess you can say, still is my passion. I have always loved pastries. I think my love for them started when I was a child. I grew up a military brat and we were contsantly moving new places. Things were always changing but the one constant in life was Sunday brunch at the Marriott. As a kid, I remember the dessert table brimming with tiny little pieces of perfection. Creme Brûlée, glistening with golden sugar that would make that glorious cracking sound when you would push your spoon into it. Cream puffs overflowing with vanilla pastry cream. This was as close to heaven as I thought you could get. When people say comfort food, they often visualize steaming plates of mashed potatoes and meatloaf. I instead thing of pillowy cinnamon rolls oozing with gooey cream cheese frosting. Pastries are my comfort.

The summer of 2016 brought upon a lot of changes in my life. My oldest son had just graduated and was leaving to the east coast to attend Seton Hall for college. In addition, my husband was gearing up for a year deployment to Iraq. Once again things were changing and my way of dealing with it was to head to my bakery and bake my heart out. There my worries of what would I do without two of my men in my life would dissapear. There I would escape thoughts of “will they be safe?” and “what will Lance and Bella do without them?” Baking was my therapy.

Then I was thrown a curveball. June 2, 2016 I was sitting at a stoplight and was hit from behind. This was the morning where my career changed. The accident left me with 7 herniated disks and a prolapsed bladder. I no longer had the ability to decorate cakes because of the nerve dammage in my hands. I had 3 surgeries to fix the issues but with recovery time and my husband and son gone it was impossible to keep the bakery open. In January of 2017 I closed the doors to my bakery.

I had no idea what I was going to do. My bakery was my passion and without it I felt lost. I started to investigate what else I could fill this hole. That’s when I heard about the Travel Academy at Travel & Transport. It is a 6 month class that teaches you how to become a travel agent. Could this be my next career? As a family, we believe in the gift of experiences. Every Christmas we give our kids a trip to somewhere new. We love traveling and learning about how others in the world live. As a family, we have been blessed with the opportunity to visit new and exciting destinations. With this belief, it was only natural to think that I needed to research changing my career path to that of travel. Almost four years later, and I thank my lucky stars for that fateful day. It opened a new window to a new passion in travel.

I started this blog as a way to fuel my passion for both travel and food and think it's a great way to meld the two. I can’t wait to share new destinations and tasty recipes with you!

Together, let’s get Whisked Away!